Love is All You Need! We are social beings. We are born into relationship, relationship is where we are wounded, and relationships are ultimately where we find healing. There is no getting around relationship! Internal work on ourselves is essential, but we never will know if all that good work "took" until it's confirmed in the context of relationship. Once there was yogi who spend years and years meditating in a mountain cave. One day he decided to go down into the nearest town to be among other people and gauge his Spiritual progress. Later that day he was walking through a bazaar when someone bumped into him. Without thinking he rudely retorted, "Hey watch where you're going." At that moment he knew that despite all of his meditating, he still had much work to do to curb his reactive awareness. This of course is an analogy for all of us in relationship. No matter how together we think we are, the moment we get into an intimate relationship, all bets are off. This is in keeping with our "Make your yoga your life and your life your yoga," maxim. Yoga Bhajan called relationship the highest yoga. He also called marriage "...the carriage to Infinity" When we get our buttons pressed may we learn to light up instead of implode! Old Brain vs. New (Aquarian Brain) There is a shifty eyed lizard living at the base of our skull. It's called our old brain. It gives orders to our First Chakra. The First Chakra, being all about survival, is hyper-vigilant for any sign of a threat. In fact, it magnifies threats just to make sure we get the message. It's M.O. is overkill. Our old brain doesn't live by clocks and calendars. Every past pain is still happening in its cloistered world. In relationship our unconscious brain's agenda is isolation as well as the recreation of the initial conditions for old hurts in the attempt to generate a different outcome. This is not to place blame on our parents: even the most wonderful, loving parents in the world can't respond perfectly to all the needs of us "insatiable beings (Freud)!" The Old Brain / First Chakra is the domain of all of those pesky traits that generate a dysfunctional dynamic in relationship: jealousy, rage, the need to control, and the unwillingness to let our partner be who they truly are. The polarity to these traits come under the aegis of our neo-cortex or New Brain (our Aquarian Brain). The New Brain is what makes humans human. It relates to social graces and the evolutionary trend towards group consciousness (one large tribe). It also gives us sensitivity to the web of life and our place in the Universe. Our New Brain knows how to talk to our Old Brain in a way that "soothes the savage beast." Our New Brain inspires us to be our best self. Many couples have a hard time staying together because after the initial honeymoon period, each begins to feel that they've had to give up too much to be who the other person needs them to be. An inevitable backlash occurs. Hell hath no fury like our Old Brain feeling boxed in. Understanding this basic fact about the nature of our unconscious can help us understand why we sometimes have feelings in our relationship that seem alarmingly out of proportion to the events that triggered them. When our partners seem insensitive or unavailable, a red warning light starts flashing deep in our brain. The old brain, like the first chakra, is entirely self-referential. The path to wholeness entails moving from self-referential to referencing the Self! This is the province of our New Brain. The New Brain understands that the other person is us. It helps us learn to not take things personally but Universally! Carl Jung said that, "The birth of consciousness can not occur without experiencing pain." The drama of our life is trying to turn wounds into blessings. Just as a raindrop can't come into being without a particle to form around, the unfolding of essence can't happen unless we are willing to be a little vulnerable and turn past pain into Infinite gain. How to keep our Old Brain from raining on our parade and bring our New Brain online? We recommend our Journey thru the Chakras DVD, our Kundalini Yoga Transformer DVD, and of course our Meditation DVD. Triple Kriya, which entails doing Sat Kriya, the Sa Ta Na Ma Meditation and So Darshan Chakra Kriya is an amazing practice to cultivate the inner tools to thrive in relationship. Ten Characteristics of a Conscious Relationship The Kundalini Yoga path to relationship success is all about the willingness to honor being together with someone as a sacred path. Relationship is not a static state between two static people. It's a psyche and soul journey that begins in the joy of new love, winds through a maze of tough lessons, and culminates in the creation of an intimate, ecstatic, lifelong union. It's a journey of discovery to liberate the hidden parts of ourselves and honor shared Destiny. Conscious relationship is a venue in which we can satisfy our unmet childhood needs in positive ways and express our deep soul. The Kundalini Yoga way is to ask ourselves this question whenever we enter into a relationship with someone: "Am I going to create karma with this person or Dharma?" Karma perpetuates suffering. Dharma represents a legacy of healing and grace. When two people encourage each other to live their best self, by example, then the world and all the generations of follow benefit. A relationship's saving grace is in expressing compassion and validating our partner's essence. When a couple combines their uniqueness they create something greater than either can create alone. By giving up something we gain a great deal more. This is relationship alchemy. On the Path to wholeness in relationship: 1. Spend some time each day on things of the Spirit (if possible, a spirtual practice is ideal) with the understanding that the healing of childhood wounds is a deep metaphor for the journey from self to Self. 2. We learn to see our partner not as someone there to save us, but as a partner on our healing path. 3 We don't expect our partner to magically intuit our needs. We take responsibility for communicating our needs and desires to our partner. 4. We do our best to give our partner the love they never received. 5. We create an atmosphere in which each can be true to themselves and grow. 6. We do things for each other in the spirit of joy rather than obligation. 7. We work together to cultivate truth, Spirit, and beauty and continue the work on ourselves to develop our strengths and gifts. 8. We remember to have fun together. 9. We embrace the timeless truth that a successful relationship requires commitment, discipline, and the courage to grow and change. 10. We commit to commitment and cultivate an ecstatic overview.