Living in a conscious relationship is healing and liberating. All the energy that was previously spent hiding the true self can now be harnessed to fulfill your dreams and to nurture and support yourself and your partner. This creates the deep sense of a safe home that each of us needs to live a long and happy life.

For many of us, this sense of a safe home is something we haven’t experienced even in childhood, but which we still expect and hope for in a lifelong relationship. Often believing that someone or something outside of us is to blame for the fact that we are still without it.

Honesty, respect, love

The core values of a conscious relationship are honesty, respect and love. These are what create a sacred space between two people. A space where both can be truly themselves, with all their dreams, quirks, fears and longings, because they have helped each other to open quietly to their true nature.

There are no power games in a conscious relationship. Or, if they do arise, they are quickly discovered and decisively dismissed. Conflict is neither avoided nor feared, but welcomed as a doorway to deeper understanding of self and each other.

With a partner’s love, the wounds of childhood or previous relationships can be healed, allowing us to become more whole, healed and increasingly authentic. A conscious relationship gives you the wings to live more courageously, more freely and more powerfully than you thought possible, because you have discovered your true dreams and strengths and moved through the inner obstacles.

We are the masters of our own lives and it is in our hands that we shape the relationships that matter most. Absent or unhappy parents influenced our lives in childhood, but as adults it is time to take responsibility – you are the full creator of your own reality. 

Starting from the inner reality always.

An inevitable prerequisite for a conscious relationship is an agreement that everyone is responsible for their own well-being and emotions first – I am responsible for what happens in me, and you are responsible for what happens in you.

The classic formula in conflict is to respond when a partner touches a painful place inside us with their actions or words. Then you want to immediately make it clear to the other person that they behaved badly and should change. But instead of blaming, it’s worth looking inside yourself: why is this action or word really hurting me? Are there alternative interpretations of my partner’s words and actions? Am I 100% sure that I’m choosing the correct one? Is there a fear, an unrepaired wound or a self-defeating belief inside me that I should address? Is there anything I should do or change to shift this reality if it disturbs me so deeply? Taking offence and getting angry are active actions – you do it to yourself, not your partner.

It is also important to perceive whether your partner’s action was unintentional or intentional. Most of the time, we hurt each other out of ignorance or in self-defence. When the wound in us is activated, it requires a great deal of maturity and strength to remain empathic. But it is possible. Each of us has the power and the strength to decide how we respond to external stimuli. The more consciously we observe our own reactions and painful places, the easier and quicker it is for us to recognise what is really going on inside us and to focus our attention on ourselves – the place that needs to be acknowledged and healed. From the inside we can then move to the external world and start making necessary changes there. The harsh reality is that noone is perfect and forgiveness is necessary component of any relationship. But at the same time we are fully responsible for our own well-being and taking action where and when it is needed. Whether it is internal and/or external action. 

A relationship develops when we are willing to work at it.

We need to let go of the belief that in the right relationship, everything comes easy. Yes, the chemistry between us and our shared interests and values are a great foundation, but to go far and deep together, sooner or later we need to consciously invest time and energy in the relationship.

Many of us are fascinated by the belief that if the partner is the one, everything will just work itself out, without effort. So we give up when the first bumps in the relationship appear. This pattern leads from one superficial relationship to another, where, after the honeymoon phase, there is only the sound of illusions being shattered, and it becomes clear that you cannot rely on each other to the end. In the end, only emptiness remains. Then they enter into a new relationship, hoping that this time things will work out.

This approach allows for a lifetime of partners and loves, and lessons to be learnt, but the real depths of the relationship and the sense of intimacy tend to remain elusive. If it’s a free and conscious choice for both parties, it’s a way of life. How far you are able to go in a relationship is directly related to how much work you are prepared to do – both with yourself and together. That’s why it’s a good idea to know each other’s attitudes from the start.

At the same time – it is fruitless to convince others to change, if they are not already motivated to address the issues that they are bringing to the shared table. But if you turn your focus and efforts towards yourself, working on the themes that are challenging you, a change for the better will be inevitable. The partner will have to start changing or addressing their complementary patterns or the relationship between you will change in other ways. Every relationship is a dynamic constellation where change in one part will inevitably lead to changes in the whole system.

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The starting point is to map out your values – what are the important reference points and principles for both of you? Knowing your core values is an essential step in getting to know your partner.

Each of you should start by looking honestly inside yourself, and then write down on paper the 5-7 core values that you have lived by and want to continue to live by.

It’s important to really take time for this – you can both spend a week living your daily lives and observing yourselves, your thinking and acting patterns. When you get hurt or mad at someone or something – what is the underlying value issue here? When you are missing something or dreaming of something to happen – what is the value underneath that you are craving to meet? What are the everyday living principles that you hold dear and what values do they represent? During this time it might be tempting to share your thoughts and insights, but I would encourage you to really keep them to yourself and surrender to your personal process. That helps to ensure that the result of this work is truly authentic and not influenced by one another. 

Do you have trouble defining your important values? 

One way is to come up and look at the seemingly opposing pairs of values (for example: freedom and security, spontaneity and responsibility, dignity and playfulness, family and self-fulfilment) and think about what they mean to you in your daily life and more generally. How do you relate to them? What would be the most important ones that you need to have present in your life to be fulfilled and happy? What are the values that feel important but that you could let slide from time to time. 

When both of you feel clear about your own values, it’s time to share and listen to each other. Give as many examples as you can, so that your partner can really get the idea of what you mean by each value and how it can be represented in your everyday life. Also, be sure to listen, judgment-free. This is not the time to take things personally – your partner is sharing about themselves and it has nothing to do with you. Being honest about your needs in this way with your partner is a vulnerable act and requires a great deal of respect and gentleness from the other. Be sure to give this grace to each other. 

Values don’t have equal significance – we have a few that are crucially important and then some that are important but which can be compromised to an extent or sometimes. When putting both of your value lists side by side, you can immediately see what values are in sync, values that are common or very similar. Also, you can clearly see values that are important to one partner but not important to another. And then the third and more tricky ground is the part where the values contradict each other – this is the area for potential conflict, where you need to reach some kind of compromise or agreement so that you both can respect and give space to each other. 

Knowing and respecting the core values of both ourselves and our partner will help us to navigate life’s bigger and smaller choices much better, and to consciously build a way of life that works for both of us. This means providing both ourselves and our partner with what we need to thrive, and understanding why our partner sometimes chooses differently from us.

For a happy relationship, therefore, partners do not need to be twins, but they do need to know what is most important to each other in life and try to live by that. Every day.

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