Expedition Self

The 3rd Way of Being in Relationship with Life -- Negotiation!

A logical and seemingly effective way to stay in the dance with Life.

We basically negotiate with Life. We say things like, "If I'm a good person then I'll be rewarded with good things."

These agreements take all kinds of forms.
"If I follow the rules of driving then I won't get in an accident." "If I take care of my body then I won't get sick." "If I do the "right" thing then Life will make sure that I get what I want." "If I pay taxes, then I should have the things I want from the government."

There is a closer relationship to Life in this form of relating vs those that have to do with managing and avoiding. The limitation however, is that LIFE's side of the agreement process is a made up concept that we conclude. We are deciding that LIFE will give us something in return for our effort. LIFE never agreed to this.

As a result, it's like gambling. There will come a moment when LIFE doesn't keep the agreement. Inside of this moment, our sense of smallness kicks in. It can even sound like LIFE did something to us that wasn't fair, we didn't deserve or even now owes us.

It's a bit of an "I'll scratch your back, if you scratch mine." Except in the relationship realm, it's not possible for this to be met 100% of the time and so it sets up lots of opportunity to feel disappointment and frustration.

External events and circumstances - especially the ones which cause us difficulty or feelings of inadequacy - become more powerful in the face of our agreements.

This way of relating carries over into how we relate to others. We create both spoken and unspoken agreements about what we will and won't do in exchange for some desired reward/result. And when it doesn't come to pass, when we don't diligently stay in the conversation about what we're wanting and how they're responding, we often feel "victimized" and
"done wrong" by the other person.

Not realizing that the entire time, we were engaged in relationship from a place that could only produce some form of let down in the end.
The better we get at seeing this way of being in relationship, the more power we have to choose, to communicate about it, to ensure that the other involved - has a voice.

Think of the places where you engage LIFE in this type of relationship... can you list a few?

Laniakea, the intergalactic
supercluster that is home to our galaxy (and approximately 100,000 other nearby galaxies) has a similar network pattern to the billions of neurons in your brain...