The role of ‘Right Relationship’ with the self, others and our planet.

  

Human beings are complex. We are shaped by our family of origin, social norms, communities, industries, governments, patriarchy and global capitalism Our habits, survival strategies, traumas, conditioned tendencies and defence systems are stored in our ‘somas’ and come forward under pressure.  Soma is the Greek word for wholeness - the living being, thinking, sensing, and feeling as an integrated oneness. We embody our economic, social and political landscape, which informs our behaviours consciously and unconsciously whether we like it or not.  Colonisation separated us from land and each other, we embody patterns that may not have ever happened in our lifetime through intergenerational trauma.

It feels like a lot. I am the first to acknowledge that. Accepting our complexity and accepting change is not easy, however an important step in acknowledging the social crisis we are in. How do we hold grief and hope? How can we stay in the overwhelm of it all, and not collapse under pressure? 

We tend to default to our mostly hidden survivial strategies while under pressure. People feel most under pressure when there is a perceived threat to our inherent needs of safety, belonging and dignity**. Trauma and oppression can often leave us disconnected from our longings and who we are at heart.  We can be living day to day in a state of functioning hyperarousal, and not be aware of it.  Trauma is stored in the body and revealed in relationship. 

 One way in which we default in connection is by leaving our own boundaries, commitments and needs behind to get around relationships with others. Another is being reactive and over-responsive since we cannot contain the energy and spill out.  Another response to connection is to numb and not relate to others.  We also can look for distance, hide and react to the overwhelming feelings in our bodies. We can also be overly agreeable and shrink in hierarchy.  Whatever we collect over the years, filters our view of the current moment and our ability to be present and hold complexity, contradiction and joy. The view of the current moment, the story, the perception, form of mind, in my experience can shift and change through inner work and a desire to heal systemically for all life. Personal and systemic transformation are inseparable. They co-serve and support each other in healing. 
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I have heard the expression ‘Being in Right Relationship’ over the last few years in several different contexts -spiritual, politised somatics, therapeutic and indigenous teachings. It has taken several years for me to make sense of and feel into. Firstly, it does not mean there is something we need to get ‘right’ or a destination we must reach, as it’s an impossible reach, there is never anything to get right.   
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All of us are constantly in relationship.  Relationship is core to everything. We relate to our parents, kids, friends, peers, peoples. Even when we’re alone, we’re in relationship to ourselves (mostly mind chatter), to other beings, to things, to nature to spirit, the cosmos, and depending on our level of awareness, those relationships can bring wonder or heighten disconnect from our real self. Practising right relationship is at heart aligning ourselves with ourselves, with others, and with the world in such a way that these relationships will both create and reflect belonging, connection and care.  Being in right relationship is also interdependence. We need interdependence. Interdependence with people, but also interdependence with plants, with animals, with the atmosphere, with people who we don't know, with water, with land, with spirit. This is in our DNA, we are nature.  We have over 400 billion years of evolutionary wisdom at our backs. This kind of wisdom is beyond what our cognitive minds can handle alone, it is a felt sense. We heal and transform through the soma, not in isolated body parts.

It is restoring a balance of reciprocity, to give and receive with all life and accepting of what is, so we can heal and transform.  An opportunity to come into right relationship is a change and action towards accountability on the part of the person, people or state systems that have or continue to harm. 

What do you need to keep cultivating right relationship? To be in a more and more natural state, be more and more accessible or to bring in your social change work with you? 

At a personal level, I believe cultivating right relationship is critical for mental health and wellbeing. I started by questioning what it means to feel safe in my own skin and reconnecting my core needs of safety, belonging and self-worth. I respectfully accepted my survival strategies were no longer serving me. This came through my relationships with my mentors, somatic work, cultivating presence and practice of mutual connection. I connected with my community and family in deeper ways. This was experienced through a felt reality over cognitive sense-making. I made space for joy and doing so remembered my connections to land and spirit. By Spirit I am referring to nature, the vastness of the cosmos, the unknown, the mystery.  Through this work, I began to remember belonging, to be present with self and others, make space to handle the good and the bad, see the world for where it is at and our social challenges; The impacts of a capitalist society. The impacts of colonisation. The impacts of climate changing.  The impacts of work over health, genocides and wars, system collapse. Staying in the complexity of it all, I believe we need to be as connected to ourselves, each other, the planet and spirit as much as we can stand.  I bring this thinking into the world via the intersection of Somatics, Design and Transformation. 

​"The concept of “right relationship” is central to many indigenous cultures and is a way of talking about living in a sustainable, loving way with all living beings. But what does “right relationship” mean, exactly, and how do we cultivate it?"   Jai Medina,  The Balanzu Way School of Shamnic Arts. 

My role as a facilitator, I know how important it is to self-regulate, to be present and open. I create conditions that can promote a well-intended container by equal distribution and awareness of the dominant culture, identities, and hierarchy.  Observe body language and non-verbals during collective interactions, to note who feels safe and who may not. I support generative conflict and holding of contradiction. I recognise my role is to hold space over being the expert. We are here to connect, to feel, to relate, not be right, an expert or to tick boxes of accomplishment. If I help shape a right relationship container, I am doing good. 

In community, I understand a successful and sustainable community relies on the co-creation of that community by many people, ideally with many different backgrounds, lived experiences, age, traditions, faiths, intimate relationships, neurodivergence and cultures. A dominant culture will not reflect the identity of the community. We also have forgotten many of our traditions in community. How do we deepen our connection to each other and land? How do we remember ancient traditions that enriched our connections to each other? How do we support each other in this busy and anxious world? 

In land and spirit, I am in deep reverence. Nature wants to be seen. I take care of my garden, my plants. I source where my water comes from. I take time to be in and with trees, life, birds. I join communities of change. I spend time understanding the land, indigenous spirits, rites of passage, traditions, cultures, the animate. Where does your water come from? What garden do you care for? 

My role as a designer, I question the perspectives of customer centricity, growth and visions of the future. Does the customer include marginalised communities and those customers who are not able to afford premiums or even those who are not buying, yet still impacted? What about the planet as a stakeholder? Our water, our oxygen? There are different dimensions to right relationship when we strip back customer centricity. 
 Exploring what it means to be in right relationship with ourselves, each other, the planet, the cosmos.
What does being in relationship mean to you and what you create?  

*I acknowledge my apprenticeship in this work, its vastness as a topic. I am researching indigenous ways of right relations and harmony with all life and ways to integrate to everyday life. If anyone else is, I would love to hear from you and build shared knowledge in this space. 

**Thanks to the Strozzi Institute, Embodient Institute, Braiding Sweetgrass Robin Wall Kimmerer

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