Inherited or chosen relationships
Throughout our lives, we encounter various inherited and chosen relationships. Our relationship with our parents is inherited; it is something we are born into rather than something we choose. This relationship, especially with our mothers, is one of the closest we experience. In the broader sense, relationships surround our connections with family members, such as siblings. We form relationships with friends, as well as those between teachers and students. As we grow into adulthood, we also develop partnerships like those between husbands and wives.
Despite many relationships, many people struggle to answer the question: How healthy is their relationship? Are they content or dissatisfied?
Relationships can be a source of joy or pain, whether inherited or chosen. The key to a fulfilling relationship lies in two fundamental aspects: your understanding of the world and, more importantly, your understanding of yourself. The more you know and reflect on these understandings, the more control you have over the quality of your relationships.
How Relationships Become Bondage
When you have relationships with others, it means you’re sharing many things, and you share your love and joy. Relating is sharing until it does not become dependent on the other you are relating to. If you create a dependency, you are becoming dependent, and the other depends on you, then the relationship becomes a bondage. Dependence brings expectations, demands, and dominance you have experienced in your relationship. If you expect in exchange for your love and care for them, you will feel frustrated. If you desire to let another person in a relationship behave in a certain way, then it becomes a struggle. That’s where our relationship has fallen.
Good relationships choose freedom
Freedom is the cornerstone of a healthy relationship. It liberates both people from expectations and dominance, creating a space for mutual respect and understanding. So, giving freedom in your relationship makes your relationship less demanding. Freedom for others in the relationship without expectation, and there isn’t any room for dominance.
Once you have given each other the freedom to adjust to their own identity, you let them understand the relationship as an individual. The other person can see the world in your relationship with the freedom you provide. It will enhance another person’s individuality, break the dependency chain, and flourish love. You respect them while you are in a relationship. The expectation is gone; it will bring interdependence, letting freedom take hold, which is give and take in your relationship. It’s become a sharing, a pure communication of being connected with pure affection.
Understanding Yourself is the key to promising relationships
You have understood the other person; let them realise their individuality by giving them freedom, but that will only be temporary if you don’t know yourself. Knowing yourself means understanding your values, triggers, strengths, and the way you communicate. You must understand the people around you and try to fit into the world with them in the relationship. However, those expectations within a relationship, dependencies on others, desire to dominate, and freedom will surely lose grip if you miss knowing yourself.
Self-awareness is essential for a healthy relationship. You can better understand yourself by observing how your thoughts and emotions affect your interactions with others. Recognising your desires and expectations also benefits your relationships, allowing you to communicate your needs without imposing them on others. When you know yourself, you can better grasp others’ expectations, appreciate their perspectives, and find what works best for you and the person in a relationship. Always ensure your desires don’t come at the cost of another person’s happiness and freedom.
Dropping ego is a breakthrough for a healthy relationship
If you are in a relationship with another person, your ego is also part of that relationship, and the other person’s ego is also part of it. Conflicts, aggression, and dominance will continue to bang on your door regularly if the ego is there. You will try not to welcome them, but they keep knocking and disturbing you. So, to remove that situation and not welcome those uninvited guests, you must drop the ego.
Ego is your self-identity. It’s your image of yourself and your beliefs about your abilities and worth. You perceive some identity which isn’t yours. This perception, or ego, will influence your behaviour, your personality, your emotions and the way you think that arouses expectation, and then the cycle starts; expectation encourages desires, and your desires sway your feelings, and your emotions like anxiety and anger possess you and let you dominate in your relationship, and the first thing you do is to snatch the other person’s freedom in the relationship.
By clearly understanding how ego damages yourself and others in a relationship and releasing your perception, which is built on false identity, you will acknowledge and fill the gap of mistaken identification with a meaningful connection. You must understand the image you set for yourself; as soon as you drop that false image, you live in a healthy relationship—the relationship becomes a mirror reflection of freedom and joy for both individuals.