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RELATIONAL EVOLUTION

Do you know the most common struggle couples face today?


The conflict between the seemingly opposing needs of individuality and connection.


Wanting to stay connected to the person we love yet not wanting to give up our own individual growth.


We live in a culture that is increasingly focused on the freedom of choice and individuality, yet we haven’t updated our relational skills to fit this culture.


Most of us still relate the way our grandparents did, when connection and romantic relationships were needed to secure our family’s survival.


We literally needed our partner to survive back then and that's what's still impacting how we relate today, even though we are perfectly fine to survive without a romantic partner.


This leads to big challenges as soon as the honey moon is over and we're face with the reality of changing needs or circumstances.


So as the needs of the individuals in a relationship change, we’re left with two choices: suppress our own needs for the sake of keeping the relationship like previous generations did, or leave and hope for the next relationship to better fit our needs.


This is why divorce rates are skyrocketing and there is such a thing as serial monogamy, where you go from relationship to relationship, changing partners as soon as there’s the slightest challenge.


The thing is: we are relational beings, needing connection to live a fulfilling life.


So while we are focusing more and more on our own individual growth and development, we still try our best to meet this need for connection as well.


This works out in some cases where we're lucky to match perfectly in our individual needs or have enough relational skills to move through challenges, but in most cases it doesn't.


What we need is to upgrade our relational skills to enable us to navigate this conflict that breaks up most couples.


How can I stay true to myself and my needs while staying in loving connection to you?


What if there's a way to hold the tension of opposing needs in connection with each other until a solution for their coexistence emerges from within the connection?


As we are ever changing beings our needs will keep changing,  what if its possible for our relationships to evolve with these changes too?


This shift in how we relate is not only needed but inevitable, since this is where evolution so clearly is taking us right now.


And evolution is life looking for more life, love for more love and truth for more truth.


So we might as well listen.


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In service of this need for a new relational paradigm me and Rouven have started a series of conversations on this topic.


We will share the recordings on Idas podcast on Spotify: ”Somatic Relating” and Rouvens Youtube channel: ”Evolutionary integrity”, follow us there to stay tuned.


There you can also find the links to the recording of our first conversation, where we talked about our relational evolution so far and why there is a change needed now as we are facing this conflict of needs in our relationships.


At the end of this week we will record the next topics and we would love to hear from you in the comments: what would you love for us to address?


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Fertile ground

Deep within your inner ecosystem is a fertile ground.


No matter what you’ve been through and where you come from this soil is ripe and ready to nourish any seeds you plant in it.


As in nature the ground holds a life force within its cells that with the only purpose to support life to evolve.


Life is calling for more life.
Life is always looking for healing.
Life is moving towards what is life affirming.

There is a wisdom within your nervous system that is constantly looking for wholeness and completeness.


No matter what hurt you’ve experienced or created your nervous system is waiting for new experiences to alchemize all of that into healing.


As in nature this wisdom never stops evolving to find new ways to avoid pain and create fulfillment so that life can flow more freely through you.


Life is calling for more life.

Life is always looking for healing.

Life is moving towards what is life affirming.


If we let it.

If we get out of the way.

If we intentionally plant the seeds of safety and trust.


🌱


Are you curious to learn more and practice intentionally planting seeds of safety within the fertile ground of your nervous system?


Come join us for a deep dive into nervous system awareness, authentic relating and relational healing that starts 19/11 in Malmö.


Over six weeks time we meet three Sundays to practice together, each week a different theme will be sent out to you to reflect and meditate on as well as the possibility to join a support group between the meetings.


Learn more through events on my website .

Photo by Zita M Photography


🌱


 
 
 

Creating space between stimulus and response

“Between stimulus and response there is a space.
In that space is our power to choose our response.
In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”
/ Viktor E. Frankl

I love this quote, cause it speaks so much to the work that I do: helping clients and participants to create more space within themselves.


It is amazing to witness how, once there is more space around their instinctual responses, that enables them to take aligned action and not just go on autopilot and recreate old patterns.


I would add, however, that this is not something you can just decide you want and then you magically have it.


No, you'd need to very intentionally create spaciousness within your nervous system to be able to hold the tension between stimulus and response.

This is only possible through slowing down enough to find that small opening and then regulate your nervous system, until the small opening widens into enough space for a new choice to be made.


This is why the first thing that we do in our relational laboratories is slooooooooow everything down.


* This is where we can bring in the missing awareness to the subconscious patterns that run our lives.


* This is where we can regulate our nervous system to create enough of an inner sense of safety to stay connected to ourselves while meeting another.


* This is where we can start to take new steps towards how we actually want to relate, show up and connect to others.


* This is where we shift our patterns into new intentional experiences.


There’s still some spaces left in our beautiful venue in Malmö this coming weekend and we would love to have you there.


You choose the price that meets you where you’re at. Read more under upcoming events at my website.


Let´s slow down together and widen the space between stimulus and response until it expands into new possibilities, that will ripple out into all areas of you life.


Photo: Zi Ta / Zita M. Photography


 
 
 

© 2021 Ida Helmers

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