2024-01-21 15:07:17
•
Today
•
reading time 5 minutes
•
93 views
•
save
This society as we know it now seems to be a dead end based on a neoliberal and scientific materialist narrative.
Last week my wife and I celebrated 23 years of marriage, which is quite a long time when compared to the couples around us. The majority of marriages that divorced in 2022 lasted 5 to 10 years. This brought me to the question of what the recipe is for a healthy and lasting relationship. When I look at my own connection with my partner, we met each other later in life, and I mean in our early and mid-30s. We had both already had relationships that had ended. And we had both been working on ourselves for quite some time, which had created a form of self-awareness. Our own, autonomous center and anchor point within ourselves from the experience of love for ourselves.
This self-awareness and love for myself ensured that I did not need the other person and in this case her love to fill my inner hole, which is an inevitable but often unconscious fact of the lack or shortage from our youth. Exceptions. From this self-awareness, I was touched when I met her, I was touched by her individuality, the person she was and still is. The mutual infatuation and later growing love found its basis in our individuality. So not from filling each other’s emptiness and the symbiosis that can then arise. I knew this from a previous relationship, where I tried to keep the other person in balance based on my savior pattern. An old, familiar pattern from my youth.
I am reminded of Kahlil Gibran’s famous text about marriage; love one another, but do not make love a bond. Rather, let them be a billowing sea between the shores of your souls. Fill one another’s cup, but do not drink from the same cup. Do not share your bread, but do not eat from the same piece. Sing and dance together and be happy, but be each alone, as the strings of a lute stand alone, though the same music vibrates through them.
It is important to dwell a little longer on the term self-awareness, what it is and what it is not. I call self-consciousness that part in every person that is connected to the essence, the spiritual part of life. I start from the philosophical idealism that reality consists of a spiritual and a material part, the formal world. This is in contrast to materialism, which assumes that total reality is material, which is also the starting point of our regular science.
My idealistic starting point can provoke strong reactions from people who adhere to materialism, because they think that I am using straw men in my reasoning. Their criticism always boils down to the same thing, that idealism cannot be proven from materialistic instruments based on external senses, and is therefore nonsense. The self-awareness I mean is like a seed that is potentially present in every person and may or may not grow depending on the environment. Just like plants, self-awareness needs nourishment, which can be books, contact with people who also have this self-awareness, such as teachers or other adults, but also one’s own inner experiences.
We can create the fertile environment ourselves to allow this plant of self-awareness to become a sturdy tree. This is a process of trial and error and facing our own patterns that hide the pain from our youth. For me, this self-awareness goes further than what we usually call self-consciousness, which is linked to our thinking and the image we have of ourselves based on our personality. This is often a rock-solid image that we defend tooth and nail against the outside world. There is little room for growth and change here, contrary to what I understand by self-consciousness, which is connected to our essence.
For me, this self-awareness is the recipe for my lasting relationship, in which we support each other’s individual growth. And with this individual growth, love and compassion for each other also grows. If we trigger each other, we are able to quickly see from this self-awareness that the other person can be the trigger, but not the cause, of intense emotions that often have their origins in our own youth and the lack of love and support. when. This trigger brings this up and by taking responsibility for this based on this self-awareness, this pain from the past can be healed from within. Not through the love of the other. The other is a loving witness. Know that a healthy relationship is not perfect and is not free of triggers because the other person is so loving. My experience is that my compassion for my wife has grown and that is mutual, but this love does not fill each other’s void. In this way, this love based on the presence of self-awareness forms a fertile ground for the development of our children, but also for the work we do as self-employed people in healthcare from our joint practice Mens&Groei.
It makes it clear to me how important this self-awareness is, in relationships, but I think also in our society. In my opinion, this self-awareness is the key to achieving a healthy, sustainable society, with respect for people and nature. This society as we know it now seems to be a dead end based on a neoliberal and scientific materialist narrative. We still look for solutions outside ourselves and spend a huge amount of money on this, for example in the technology we developed, AI. Instead of focusing inward, where that self-awareness is present. From this self-awareness we develop our own individuality that is not isolated, but rather connected to the other, to his environment. From one’s own common sense, from one’s own moral point of view. Autonomous, not imposed from outside. For me, this self-awareness is the condition for achieving a healthy balance and the neoliberal economy with our sacred belief in the free market no longer becomes an end, but a means. And that also applies to the technology.
I am writing this article because I am genuinely concerned about these times and the chaos and confusion we are in and I want to contribute to the whole based on my experience as a human being and a social worker. In this article I give shape to my line of thinking, indicating that self-awareness, as it has its roots in our essence, in our spiritual part, could be the key in the transition to a healthy and sustainable society, as well as in relationships. the case is. I am not saying that everyone needs to achieve this form of self-awareness, but I do think that we at least need leaders with self-awareness. So that they can help and support us in the transition that is underway.
The great thing is that I meet more and more people, especially young people, who have a form of self-awareness, which allows them to use their own common sense and moral position. Do not simply go along with the current narrative, which in my view is on the verge of collapse. They are looking for their own way, apart from the old system and for me they are a sign of a hopeful future with a healthy and sustainable society.
#relationship #society #healthy #sustainable #Joop