This is something from my past that I found helpful in dealing with my relationships and people and even an N in my life.
Is my communication in this relationship for joining or separation?
By Gerald G. "Jerry" Jampolsky, M.D. and Diane V. Cirincione
When communicating with others, we rarely ask a most important, though simple, question : What is the purpose of this communication? Is it for joining or is it for separation and which do I want to achieve?
Is the purpose of everything I think, say and do in all of my relationships really aimed at joining with others? When each of us can answer this question with a definite yes, we will experience peace of mind beyond our fondest imaginations. When we decide to make joining our purpose in all our communications, we can begin to experience positive relationships regardless of the person we?re with because we have made a decision to extend ourselves in love.
Yet it is so easy to follow the ego, which tells us that the purpose of all communications is to create separation. Like the ego's puppets, we too often dump the anger we feel toward ourselves onto others. We ask provocative questions that put other people on the defensive. We become fault finders, endlessly judging other people?s thoughts and actions throughout the day.
The ego can be a very powerful influence in our lives. If we just blindly obey it, we live our lives in a fearful state, guarded, suspicious, and distrusting. We have become to quick to attack and defend our positions, no matter what they might be.
Sometimes, looking out at the world, we see a place where attacking seems to be the only way people are relating to each other, and separation seems to be the only goal. To the ego it seems like common sense that if you want to survive in such a world, you must attack and be ready to defend yourself every second of the day. Those are the times when the temptation to obey the ego is the strongest.
It is very important to note here, however, that having the goal of joining rather than separation does not mean we have to agree with the other person or give up our own beliefs. On the contrary, joining is not to be mistaken for ?peace at any price!? When we choose joining as the goal of our communications, we are choosing love as our means of expressing any and all of our thoughts. As we let go of our need to judge other people, or make them wrong, we automatically call upon our own loving energy, which provides us with the most positive and effective expression of our ideas possible. The results are so often highly effective, in every way because we have not wasted our personal resources on games of attack and defense, which do not lead to constructive communication.
At our center for Attitudinal healing we begin and end all our meetings by holding hands, closing our eyes, and reminding ourselves that our single goal is peace of mind and that our purpose in being with each other is to experience joining.
For a long time we encouraged the board of directors to start their meetings the same way, but it was felt that since many of the people on the board were businessmen and women, they would be uncomfortable doing this. Then. About two years ago, a decision was made to start and end all board meetings that way. Since then, there has been less friction and much more peace in our meetings and, in addition, we find that much more is accomplished.
To be joined in hearts and minds, to feel spiritually at one with each other, is the very opposite of what the ego desires for us. We each have a spiritual essence that sees us as joined with the spiritual essence of all others. To attack or hurt another person would be like hurting ourselves. The truth is that we are already joined in spirit. The separation we feel is only an illusion created by our attacking thoughts, supported by the belief that we must always defend ourselves.
We would like to suggest that for the remainder of this day your might ask yourself the following questions in each of your communications: What is the purpose of this communication? What is it for? Is my goal to join with others, or is my goal to create separation, making the other person wrong and myself right?
When you choose joining as your goal, you will be choosing happiness, and you will be choosing to bring peace into all of your relationships.
