RELATIONSHIPS: How to and Always Challenge Each Other to Grow and Avoid Laziness and Stagnation – Let's Keep Things LivelySource: http://yourbrainonyou.com/modern-romance-personal-development-dilemma/By Drew Doggett

Does Unconditional Acceptance Equal Laziness When It Comes to Relationships? Is This The Modern Romance?

The personal development culture has brought us some good stuff, but it’s also handicapped some folks.

In this PD culture, when it comes to relationships, is there a point at which total contentment sets in, causing stagnation and boredom, because you and your partner stop challenging each other? Does total contentment even cause stagnation and boredom?

At which point is it important for you to keep on your toes? What drives you? And what drives you wild?

(Questions posed by Diana Joice.)

It’s important to keep on your toes at EVERY point.

My life is about constantly challenging myself. There’s no end, no completion to anything. And I choose to only be with someone who’s up to the task of constantly challenging herself… the only type of person I’d have “Modern Romance” interest in anyway…

I honestly don’t know if I’d get to a place of total contentment, stagnation and boredom with her.

I’ll never stop challenging myself, and if she’ll never stop challenging herself, then it seems like the chemistry on all three realms (physical, mental, soul) would have to be right for us to stay together. To me, matters of my heart, my mind, my energy, my radiance and worth, override any personal development movement, ever.

So, could it be our sex life that would cause stagnation? Could I possibly stop improving there?

I’ve studied Taoist love and sex techniques/beliefs, I’d study Kama Sutra, I’d study Tantra, I’d be open to learning and experimentation of all kinds when it comes to sex. There will never be boredom there. New skills, new poetry, growing intimacy and knowledge of each other, deeper appreciation of one another’s beauty…

(Not bragging here… just saying that studying and using Taoist techniques, ejaculation control, focus on ecstatic and poetic lovemaking, etc., has opened a lot of doors for me.)

I seek spiritual enlightenment. I want to love, to live my love, openly and vulnerably, every day. I want to give my gift as completely as I can.

Does that require a long-time intimate partner? Not so far. But, for me, it has involved a network of supporters… including lovers, friends, family, and people who didn’t even know they helped me.

Do I want a long-time intimate partner? Yes.

And so…

The likelihood of us becoming stagnant is very, very

low. IF it ever even came close to that level. What’s more likely than stagnation is each of us letting the other go like a butterfly, parting ways amicably and in understanding, as enlightened as possible about the other and ourselves.

… Not suffocating the butterfly when she lands on your hand; not clasping. But with an open hand, an inviting heart and delighted eye at ALL of her beauty, do I see her aloft on my ever-open hand. She’s free to go. Just as I should be from her.

This is the standard I set. For myself. For us.

We delight in each other. We love each other. We accept each other. Because we’re open to self improvement — because that’s our mission, our freedom, our foundation each, and that’s what we agreed upon when we entered the relationship (because as I said, I won’t be with anyone who isn’t) — we’re already inherently agreed that we’ll help one another grow.

When something comes up that we thought we’d unconditionally accepted or that bothers us, we can have rational, real, serious conversations, without attacking or defending… though that initial twinge of defense is our evolutionary self-preservation mechanisms kicking in. Breathe through it.

It may feel vulnerable to bring up something to the other person and we WILL feel a swell of heart, a tear in the eye, a want to close off.

No. Don’t do it. Instead, breathe. Deeply. Open your belly, your solar plexus. If you’re really about acceptance of the other, then communicate.

And if you can’t communicate, then maybe you’re with the wrong person.

I believe life is rebirth. Continually. Daily.

Every minute I strive to learn more.

And learning more, stretching and growing… is pain. Accept pain as a part of life. When there’s the absence of pain — when you stagnate and begin to atrophy — that’s when to be concerned.

NOTHING ENDS.

Yet, our brains have a survival mechanism that we can override through intention, that prevents us from feeling pain. Pain is not survival to our brains. To our brains,

pain is telling us there’s danger. So we become lazy, stagnant because that’s our brain telling to avoid things that hurt, and in this case, make us grow.

Personal development is growth, which is pain.

However, the intention to accept pain and discomfort (of growing/improving/doing the tasks we need to to move forward) overrides this ancient and clever device our brains use.

Every minute I strive to learn more…

That means I focus on giving more value to my readers and the people I serve. It means being a student every day, consistently, maybe in more than one subject.

It means starting the day with gratitude and a love for humanity in my belly and my heart.

It means hanging out with leaders and mentors… people who influence me to more skills, more empowering thoughts, bigger paychecks.

It means giving more.

It means thinking more clearly.

Any person who’s really striving to learn more will not stagnate, will not become lazy.

Same goes for relationships.

Creation didn’t happen in six days. Creation happens NOW. It’s the 21st century and God (we) (in everything) is (are) still creating.

The Universe moves.

Invention and technology expand. Human freedom expands. Prosperity expands. Nature expands, grows. Understanding and tolerance expands. Justice spreads.

And my heart, my wisdom, my connection to Supreme expands and deepens daily too.

Any human heart, wisdom, knowledge, connection to who s/he truly is, can deepen daily, millimeter by millimeter.

Then, how is stagnation even possible?

Unless it’s a mindset.

How is stagnation possible unless it’s a giving up. Unless it’s a settling.

Life breathes. Life begets life. Any person whose intention is directed toward this won’t have a problem.

Yet I think I see the problem and why the personal development movement was started. It’s because our minds — namely, our everyday, normal fantasies — betray the natural fact that has been around since the big bang: that we must move at the pace of nature… slowly, yet steadily, and — Important! — as consistently as the blood flows through your veins as you’re reading this.

Our minds think we can do more instantly than we really can. Really, improvement is miniscule. That’s Nature. It happens bit by bit.

Any big breakthrough we witness happens because of accumulated little things. And that’s one reason the PD movement came about… because we don’t see it that way… we (culturally) see it in technicolor, in fast sweeping realizations and two hour timetables.

But NOTHING ENDS. There will never be an end to your improvement. You (I, we) will never see an end to that which you seek. Nothing is ever complete.

The person who stagnates is the person who gives up; who doesn’t value him/herself enough to move to higher, more ethereal elements. That’s the person who settles.

Stagnation is settling. At least the way I’m talking about it.

I don’t see unconditional acceptance as capable of settling. Acceptance is the opposite of laziness.

Acceptance breaks down walls. It allows you to be present in the moment and accepting of the world so FROM THERE YOU CAN CREATE.

Acceptance is freeing. It empowers you to feel the seconds as they tick. Real time. Nature time.

I don’t believe in stagnation. Therefore, because it’s not in my thoughts, it won’t happen in my life.

“Your life is what your thoughts make it.” ~ Marcus Aurelius

Maybe “perceived stagnation” is a topic for another time, but anybody who lives in change and has faith/mindset like I’ve just painted will know that it’s just perception… you may feel like you’re stagnating, but you’ll propel forward if you’re keeping at it.

Comments? Questions? Leave a note below. Anything you want me to expound upon, just ask here, or message me.

Keepin’ on keepin’ on…

Drew Doggett

Photo credits:www.flickr.com/photos/notarivs/206652174