One of the greatest joys and challenges of conscious, intimate relationships is that when we answer the call to love, we are invited to expand upon who we think we are, who we have been and what we feel and think we are capable of. We are invited by forces larger than ourselves to become a more complete, fuller, more loving human being. We are asked to participate in a process that is at once mysterious, exhilarating and terrifying.
When we answer this most compelling call, a part of us dives headlong into the fray, eager for the possibility of a deeper, more intimate connection than we have experienced before. Recent research indicates that during the early stages of being in love, our brains may secrete a powerful amphetamine-like neurotransmitter called phenylethylamine, bathing our central nervous system with an overdose of nature’s most potent love cocktail. We are filled with ecstasy and vision and all our circuits are brilliantly lit up. In this heavenly state we are capable of extraordinary acts of unselfish love and caring that occur almost effortlessly.
When we return to earth, however, we are left with our vision of who we can be and the reality of who we think we are. The call to love is always to go deeper and farther than before and if we choose to answer the call, we will inevitably be confronted with a series of choices. One choice is to make a conscious decision of how committed we are to the truth. Have you been committed to truth in your previous relationships? If not, what was the consequence of not committing to truth? And now that you are in a new relationship, are you going to make a conscious commitment for the fullest, deepest, most honest connection you can or are you going to settle for less than that? How far do you want to try to go together? We encourage couples to discuss this openly and consciously, rather than let it play out unconsciously and indirectly as it so often does.
Every time we act and speak from truth, we invite our partner to do the same. Our journey continues to expand and deepen. The equation is simple: Truth = Love = Deeper Connection = Expansion = Greater Opening to Spirit. But if commitment to truth brings such wonderful things to our lives, why is it so rare and so hard? Why are there so many lies, so many affairs, so much hurt and anger being acted out indirectly? Whenever we consider lying to ourselves or our partners, we generally do so to protect some part of ourselves which feels afraid or inadequate. We want to appear better than we are and a little white lie won’t hurt anyway, we tell ourselves. It’s not really a big deal. What they don’t know won’t hurt them. We believe it IS a big deal if you compromise and limit the vision of love that the two of you have been called to create. It IS a big deal if you damage the foundation of trust which underlies any successful partnership. It IS a big deal if you re-create patterns of secrets and hiding that you learned in your families of origin. It IS a big deal if you set a precedent of withholding or distorting the honest reality that you experience individually and together. Each time that we distort the truth, we constrict and limit our original call to love and restrict the depth of what we can become. We slip back into the cocoon of our limiting beliefs about ourselves and what we are capable of as human beings.