How have I matured relationally? This has been a long and often scary and painful journey for me. It has not been quick and easy. I am sharing with you some key individual steps that freed me to be able to mature from a relational infant and child into a relationally mature parent and elder. As I mature I better relate to everyone! Life makes so much more sense and I am so much more connected and joyful! This meditation is number 11 in a series.
Key number 11: I need to Stay Relational. I won’t mature if I withdraw into my world or shell and shut others out. This was key for me in that I was raised alone with very little contact with others. I was stuck in infant and child level relational maturity. It was way easier for me to do life the way I thought and wanted if you weren’t involved. I didn’t learn how to do life together.
However, my brain is wired for relational connection and reality. When something bad or frightening happens to me in my relationships, I need to be able to connect with the other person and understand what is going on in their mind and feelings. I will generally have to quiet myself so that I am calm and then be able to listen to what the other person is saying. I try to have mind-sight about the other person so that I can understand what they are experiencing and thinking. The more mature I am, (adult, parent, elder) the easier it is to do this. As an infant or child, when I am upset or afraid, I won’t even care about what the other person is thinking or feeling.
Fear, anger, and making you into the enemy, will all keep me from being relational. My relational circuits (RCs) will be off and I will withdraw into what I think is my safe world.
Jesus stays relational with everyone. If Jesus and I are not connected and doing life together, I am the one who has withdrawn.