Being Yourself and Being Uncompromising

What is the difference and how do you balance between being yourself and being uncompromising in a relationship and the reverse of this….being too compromising and no longer being yourself?

This is a good one because most people struggle with this issue in their relationship. Part of being in a relationship is that there are three entities in a relationship. There is the self, the other and then there is the we, the unit of the relationship. When you are single all you need to think about is yourself and other people like family and friends. In intimate partnership we need to nurture the we and the other as well as the self, so there is definitely an invitation to grow beyond selfishness, which is why relationships offer us so much in terms of how to open deeper than our egos, which are inherently selfish. 

This invitation to grow beyond egoic selfishness is one of the greatest gifts of relationship. So too is the invitation to come to know yourself deeper than the self we normally identify with: the heart of all spiritual work. There is also a place where we betray our own selves seemingly from a place of love but when we really look at it is from a place of fear.  Part of what helps make a relationship deep and profound is a very deep commitment to the truth. We all know at least in principle that ‘the truth will set you free’ but are we really wiling to trust and live that?  This is one of the key themes that I will work with; cultivating deep love of the truth…Not love of the truth for what it might give us, not in the hope that truth will fulfil our agenda, but learning to have a love affair with Truth Itself. There are many levels to this of course: 

1) learning to inquire into own experience so that we are actually being truthful to ourself – truthful with our relative human experience and also truthful to the essential ground underneath our ego experience. 

2) Learning to love speaking the truth to others (skulfilly and minus attack) and welcoming them to speak the truth to us, and

 3) really wanting to know the deepest truth of Being and of Love itself. Relationship conflicts essentially expose our own inner wounds, which cover our capacity to dwell in essential being, the radiant truth of our essence. So we can learn to utilize the fear of losing ourself and the conflicts that arise out of that as a gateway into exactly how and why we find it difficult to know the depth of our own being. 

When you work that deep commitment to the truth in relationship, this question over the line between bring true to your own soul and commitment to the relationship evaporates. Dedicate the relationship to Truth itself, and the rightful flow and form becomes apparent.