Intimacy is Natural When You See Each Other Fresh
Just finished the Mid-Year Reset and Refresh Workshop with Amy Johnson, Barb Patterson, Scott Kelly, and Angus. It is a wonderful example of how service and fun can co-exist. I feel very grateful to the participants and to my co-presenters for co-creating such a heart-opening and inspiring workshop.
It was so much fun sharing the understanding of the Principles by looking in the directions of work, health, relationships, and habits–and seeing that it is the same conversation no matter what the subject matter. Ultimately what is important in all areas is understanding that your experience is a reflection of thought in the moment. And because the source of thought is endless and infinite, there are infinite possibilities in each moment because each moment is created fresh and new.
In the area of relationship that Angus and I were exploring, it is so amazing to be able to see your partner with fresh eyes and not through the lens of memory. It is easy to fall into a habitual way of thinking about the people you are close to in your life–rather than seeing them in real-time as they are.
Intimacy is natural when we see each other fresh.
As with anything, this is easier to do when we start with ourselves.
As an exploration, I invite you to explore how who you are is not limited to the thoughts, memories, and beliefs you have about yourself.
Are you open to going beyond what you know about yourself into the unknown and seeing what emerges?
We all live with our preconceived notions about circumstances, people and ourselves. This past weekend, we looked in the direction of possibility and potential in every area of our lives. Not because we wanted to seek out more, but simply to experience the fun and the freedom of letting go of the labels we put on our bodies, our personalities, our loved ones, and our lives.
Who are you?
Who are you really?
Are you willing to look beyond every answer that comes up?
This is not an intellectual exercise. It is an opportunity to experientially feel what it is like to drop the labels you impose upon yourself.
This is what is present for me after the weekend. A feeling of expansion as I see that the Rohini I know and love and the Rohini I judge and despair over — are not fixed. Neither exists in a sustained way. Who I think I am in one moment does not predict who I will think I am in the next. Seeing the fluidity of concepts and experience loosens everything up.
You are not who you think you are. You are far greater than what your mind can conceive. Feel into that and open to the possibilities that emerge from there. Feel what effortlessly and spontaneously arises.
See how practical and ordinary this is. Just like the spontaneity of the body being breathed. What happens when you allow what emerges to fuel you rather than being driven by your thoughts about what should emerge and what you should be doing?
How does this impact your being open in the moment? How does it affect you being present with yourself and with another?
This is not a prescription or a recipe to follow. It is an invitation to look beyond what you know and open to the possibility that lives in what you don’t know and haven’t yet seen. See what the impact of this is on intimacy with yourself and with those you love.
Rohini Ross is passionate about helping people wake up to their full potential. She is a transformative coach, leadership consultant, a regular blogger for Thrive Global, and author of the short-read Marriage (The Soul-Centered Series Book 1) available on Amazon. You can get her free eBook Relationships here. Rohini has an international coaching and consulting practice based in Los Angeles helping individuals, couples, and professionals embrace all of who they are so they can experience greater levels of well-being, resiliency, and success. She is also the founder of The Soul-Centered Series: Psychology, Spirituality, and the Teachings of Sydney Banks. You can follow Rohini on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, and watch her Vlogs with her husband. To learn more about her work go to her website, rohiniross.com.
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Are you self-critical, hard on yourself, and constantly trying to “fix” whatever you think is wrong with you? Perhaps you have tried all kinds of different personal growth techniques and spiritual practices in the hope of solving all your problems. This cycle can be exhausting and never-ending, because there will always be something to improve about yourself, from that mindset. Sydney Banks’ teachings can help you to see how your humanness is normal and not something that needs fixing: as a spiritual person, you don’t need to change or eradicate your humanness! Seeing yourself as normal allows you to love and accept yourself exactly as you are—warts and all. Adopting this perspective naturally brings out the best in you and helps to find peace with your personality. Self-love and self-acceptance is your natural state, and any disconnection from your true nature is only temporary. What a relief!
In our culture, success is often associated with hard work and narrowly defined as material gain. However, authentic success, as shared by Sydney Banks, includes such intangibles as happiness, well-being, love, joy, compassion, and peace of mind that are innate in each one of us, along with outward goals and achievements. It honors the whole person in all walks of life, whether you are a professional, leader, executive, solopreneur, employee, mother, teacher or student. From this knowing and experience, you can access the infinite wellspring of love that is your essence, then share your gifts with the world from a place of fulfillment and meaning, through a profound understanding of the interaction between your psychological and spiritual natures. While conventional success can deplete you, authentic success only fills you up.
Your ability to enjoy life comes from being present in the moment rather than caught up in habitual, negative thoughts that take you out of the Now. Sydney Banks’ wisdom supports you in becoming aware of how you get seduced by your limited personal thinking and thus, create a painful reality of misunderstanding, fear and restriction. When you recognize how and why this happens, you can step free of the pattern. This understanding assists you to dismiss unhelpful thoughts and not take them seriously. Unlike traditional self-help or therapy, experiencing more psychological freedom and enjoyment does not rely on techniques. There are no magic bullets on the path of well-being. All you need to do is follow an internal compass that points to the truth of who you really are—beyond transient thoughts to your unchanging, formless essence.
Greater psychological freedom is the gift that keeps on giving. How grateful would you feel if you no longer had to listen to your negative, self-punishing and painful inner narrative, day in and day out? Understanding the role of thought and recognizing how it creates your feelings of insecurity and self-doubt is truly liberating! You will be better able to hear and heed your inner wisdom and become less driven by the noisy thoughts of fear and constriction. As an ongoing practice, this allows you to more fully experience your resilience and reach a greater sense of clarity about how you want to move forward in your life. As a result, you can live in a way that feels authentic and true in every area, including your career, family, home, creative expression, play, relationships and overall well-being.
When you no longer give authority to the fear-based thoughts in your consciousness, all you are left with is happiness. Through the teachings of Sydney Banks, you can see how your psychological functioning works, which makes you less compelled to follow those thoughts that do not serve you. Becoming more aware of the wholeness and integration of both your human and spiritual natures helps to ground you in the unchanging essence of who you are, and ride out the ups and downs of your emotional experience more gracefully. Accepting the normalcy of your humanness will naturally reduce your anxiety and fear and enhance your joy and happiness in each moment. By placing less pressure on yourself to feel a certain way or be hung up on self-improvement, you may find that low moods do not derail or debilitate you; instead, you will become much more attuned to your innate wellbeing and peace of mind and experience more happiness as a result.
One of the first areas people often experience profound transformation from the teachings of Sydney Banks is in their relationships, both personal and professional. While it often seems like another person’s irritation, anger, indifference, insensitivity, rudeness, etc., directly affects your experience, in reality your disturbance is a product of your own individual thinking. By making someone else responsible for how you feel, that person automatically becomes the cause of your suffering. Once you understand that you always have a place of well-being inside, independent of another’s behavior, it is easier to maintain equanimity through their changing moods and behaviors. Romantically, you may experience deeper love and intimacy with your partner, but the teachings benefit all relationships. This awareness supports more authentic connection and expression, while facilitating greater understanding, improved communication, reduced reactivity, more acceptance of self and others, and improved ability to work out differences and find common ground. Best of all, just one person shifting in a relationship is enough to transform it.
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