subject: How Well Is Your Relationship Working? - The Little Prince Series [print this page] How Well Is Your Relationship Working? - The Little Prince Series
Daily Insight from the Story ofThe Little Prince
How well do you do at relationships?
I have to confess that for most of my life I didn't do so well in romantic relationships. For years I had some pretty mixed up, crazy relationships, which for the most part were because I had no idea how relationshipsreally work.
It took me a long time and a great deal of emotional agony to learn that relationships don't work the way I imagined they shouldthe way perhaps many of us think they are supposed to work.
As we move into the eighth chapter of the story of the Little Prince, we are about to get a lesson in how romantic relationships work. Even if you aren't in a romantic relationship and don't wish to be, the teachings apply to how we connect with anyone in our life, whether part of our family, a friend, someone in our social world, or in our worklife.
The first thing we notice about how the Little Prince and the flower that becomes the love of his life relate is that their initial connection is a very surface connection in which the flower seeks to impress the prince with her great beauty, and he is indeed impressed.
Most relationships begin with some form of surface attraction, which isn't necessarily purely physical. We may be attracted to someone because they are sexy and turn us on, gorgeous to look at, fun to be around, a magnetic personality, extremely intelligent, powerful, or what we deem "successful."
Whatever the precise form attraction initially takes for us (and we are all different), this is only the first volley in what is destined, if we stick with it, to be a lengthy journey into the center ofour own being.
This may sound surprising, butlove isn't about the other person. It's aboutourselveswhich is the exact opposite of what almost everyone believes.
Neither is intimacy about the one we feel passion for and want to be intimate with.
"Into-me-see," you often hear people say, thinking they are being psychologically astute. What isn't generally understood is preciselywho the "me" who needs to be "seen into" actually is.
We think intimacy is for theother person to see intousto understand us, read our mind, know our heart. And of course for us to see into them, know their hopes and dreams.
We want someonewhether in a romantic relationship, a friendship, or at workto listen to us, hear us, take our wishes into consideration, include us. "If they just knew me," we tell ourselves.
The Little Prince has come to Earth on a quest for intimacy. His journey is all about learning to see intohimself.
While the initial attraction is that of a bee to a flower, in the presence of the flower we get to see a reflection of ourselves. We are invited to look at ourselves, examine ourselves, confront ourselves (usually we want to confront the other!) in ways we have never considered until now.
We begin with attraction, which generates admiration, even worship. This person becomes the central figure in our life. Like the Little Prince, who is just awestruck by this new flower on his planet, the person knocks us off our feet.
But before we are going to be able to truly love this person, which is aone-sided actsomething that we do unilaterally and unconditionally, regardless of whether the other reciprocateswe are going to have tofind our feet and learn all over again tostand tall.
I realize that what I'm saying is contrary to what just about everyone expects to happen when they "fall in love," as the Little Prince is doing with his flower. We are looking for heaven. But what we get first is hell: a trip to our own internal hell, which Eckhart Tolle calls our ego and its flip side the pain-body. We get exposed to all the ways we haven't yet grown up emotionally.
