If agency is learning not to disappear yourself, relationship is asking:
Now I’m here, how do I remain with what is?
We can practise this with ourselves every day, simply by noticing our reactions.
But it feels so much bigger when we begin to do this with other people.
Or is it?
If we pare the concept back to its bare essence, perhaps it is simply asking:
What would love do?
I spent many decades disappearing myself, but I only recently witnessed the physical process of it happening in real time.
I was teaching my girls, and they picked up on my tension. The act of teaching English brings many old wounds to the surface for me, and when they reacted, I felt the exact moment I lost myself.
I felt it in my throat, chest and solar plexus.
It was like the probe disengaging from the mothership.
Everything slid away, leaving me submerged in a frozen place of deep sadness.
And then my brain kicked in.
The full force of my feelings began bubbling up: disappointment, frustration, disengagement, heart-closed negativity, that feeling of waiting to explode.
I couldn’t continue, so I walked away.
Instead of saying the things I knew I didn’t really want to say, I made a hasty retreat.
And perhaps this is where relationship begins. With ourselves.
With being connected enough to ourselves, grounded enough in ourselves, that we can show up differently in connection with other people.
It isn’t about never being triggered.
It is about what happens when we are.
A very useful question might be:
What would I do here if I didn’t have to manage how I am being perceived?
When we practise the art of simply being, we can begin to let go of the versions of ourselves built around separation, shame and guilt.
And perhaps this is how we learn to love without disappearing.
The more we can loosen our grip on fear and our defences, the more available we become to love, kindness and empathy.
From this place, we can engage with others more authentically and more deeply.
Not by abandoning ourselves in order to stay connected.
But by remaining present to ourselves while staying in relationship with another.
Self-trust, and perhaps a deeper trust in life itself, become the keys to meeting the triggers and challenges that arise in all of our relationships.