Being in Relationship During this Time

One of the greatest challenges clients are sharing with me this past week is how to be in relationship with their partners at home. Jokes abound regarding the relationship lasting through this pandemic, an inability to foster a new found spirit of communication, intimacy, reciprocity, emotional movement. The intensity and powerlessness of isolation is creating  challenges for each person to learn to befriend themselves in a new light, let alone the person they share their lives with. The trepidation of the unknown, the willingness or lack thereof to explore it safely and to hold space for another to do so can be overwhelming. Boundaries are shifting with each moment; physically, emotionally and spiritually. Understanding the human condition at this juncture in time is not something we can wholeheartedly do as the nature of the human condition is rapidly changing.
When we first enter into relationship, we are drawn by many factors , energetic conditioning being on the forefront inclusive of ancestral, emotional and spiritual patterning. How we approach that conditioning will be influenced by the collective as this time in our lives. Most of us in this lifetime have not experienced a collective upheaval in planetary consciousness like this before. This will change our DNA to such levels that even the cellular memories of our ancestors will forever be different. Collective trauma and the way we relate to it will have the opportunity for healing, both in this world, for those who have come before us and for those who will come after us. As I write this, my DNA is shifting as a response to this pandemic and how I looked at relationship yesterday is indeed different than how I am looking at it today. The same will be said for tomorrow. Our experience of love might change,  as will how we work within that paradigm, how we communicate within that paradigm, and  how we express ourselves. In these last few days people are truly concerned about being at home for such a long period of time with someone who all of a sudden feels like a stranger to them because of their reactions and responses to the pandemic and the fear. We are faced with surrender and compromise to such a degree that we fear the loss of an identity we have known since the time we came into this world. In doing so, we spiral into more fear, grief, anger, loss and a plethora of other emotions that propel us into questioning who we are and who the person is we have committed ourselves to.
In will be important to establish physical, emotional and spiritual ‘safe zones’ within your home, with time allotted to become better acquainted with who you are during this great time of collective fear, hope and transformation. The personal losses incurred during a shift like this can indeed be overwhelming and overpowering. How can you expect your partner to be clear of their relationship to what is happening when you aren’t clear within yourself? The understandable power struggle that is unfolding right now within yourselves can easily be projected onto your partners. The word I am hearing from clients is a feeling of being trapped in the relationship. Love is there, but the everyday interactions of being in relationship have become so challenged that some people don’t know where to turn. Circling back to various realities to respond to challenges might not work in the present. As much as we are all learning to respond to our reactions of physical isolation, we are all learning to respond to our relationship with emotional isolation, emotional exhaustion and having to hold space for others in our lives.
Please be patient with yourselves and with those you love and who love you. We have entered into uncharted territory where the heart and mind are concerned. I expect you to be different when this is ‘over’. I expect your relationships to be different. I expect endings and new beginnings. But we all have the choice to hold on tightly to these old patterns within  relationship or head into the abyss with some excitement of the newness to come.