In drawing this card, you are invited to explore the nature of relationship and how your capacity to relate may be deepened.
If we look to Nature and the photograph associated with these chosen words, we are taken to an evening beside the huge lake Inari in Finland. It was a very still and quiet evening and the Northern Lights had just begun to show as I looked out towards a small island. It was remarkable moment symmetry. Nature as a way of reminding us of the symmetry of things and the vital role of reflection. As I captured this moment on film, I began to recall and reflect upon the nature of relationship – my relationships – and how in fact we learn how to relate to others. Such relating has a symmetry and reflexivity of its own. For what we judge and reject in ourselves, we are unable to be with and include in others. But what we accept in ourselves we can naturally relate to in others.
Notice that learning how to relate is what I call an ‘inside job’. If we slip into our automatic outwardly judging role – we not only reject the others view, but quite literally turn away from the chance to relate more deeply. In the symmetry we are exploring, what we reject in others, we are unable to accept in ourselves. Relationship then rests upon our ability not to automatically judge and reject but to instead to seek and accept. You might realise already that our temptation is to judge – for the certainty of being right offers confidence and safety. However, if we are to learn how to relate more deeply then, we are invited to resist the temptation to judge in order foster relationship.
Consider what is most important to you – being right or relating more deeply? This does not have to binary – there may be critical times when we need to offer a judgement or instruction, but equally are we able to continue to cultivate how we relate to others, opening the chance for a deeper understanding of someone else by resisting our temptation to judge?
The quality of empathy vital to relationships, comes from a willingness to recognise what others speak in ourselves. For this to occur we are invited to continually learn who we are in our wholeness. Such learning goes way beyond who we automatically think we are. We instead, reflect inwardly to discover more of who we really are. If you think about it, life is a continual journey of expanding self-awareness, whereby we continually discover and learn more about ourselves. And what we discover in ourselves and so, can be with and accept, we naturally relate to in others.
Our capacity to relate is something that we cultivate through our lives – it’s not something that we simply ‘turn on’ when we think we need it – our ability to relate links directly to the extent of our self-awareness. Acceptance of ourselves and who we really are, translates to a capacity to relate to others more deeply. Notice that at the heart of relationship is a wonderous reflective symmetry that we are invited to acknowledge and cultivate.
Consider how you relate to others.
How might you deepen your relationships?
What would this require of you?
And what would the benefits be for yourself and others?
What step might you commit too today that would cultivate and how you can relate more consciously?
May you ever deepen your self-awareness the key to your capacity to relate to others.
May you discover that in self-acceptance resides our capacity to listen instead of judge and put this into daily practice.
May you model for others the power of relationship and remarkable experience of what it means to be fully ‘seen and heard’ by another.
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