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The sexy, wonderful moderator of this tribe brought me the 4 Agreements last week, when I think I hit bottom inside myself. I've been in a vicious downward cycle for a while, and I couldn't seem to stop.
I took three nights to myself to read The Four Agreements, and it was like my eyes were opened again for the first time in a LONG time. And since then, I have had baby steps of success. It's so new, that I celebrate those small successes inside myself - when I refrain from commenting until a better time, when I speak the truth and KNOW it is my truth, when I don't let myself take something personally, when I ask for clarification instead of making assumptions.
But I have a lot of work to do. And my parasite of fear has a lot of triggers tied with poly. My boyfriend and I are in an open relationship - but my fear and insecurity really limit that openness. I keep working on not taking his desires for other people personally, and I want to experience compersion and be so secure and happy with myself that I am as happy for his play with other people as he is for mine. But I'm not there yet. And so I have limits. And we have agreements, and a lot of those are things like "don't do this with this person..."
We will always have negotiations and agreements. That's the nature of an open relationship. You have to communicate and agree. But, I'm feeling like my limitations on my boyfriend come from fear, and so by allowing them to rule in the form of an agreement, I am feeding the parasite. I don't know if I am doing my best on this. I tried to remove all the limits for a brief time, and I was able to accept what happened during that time... but I don't feel ready for that to be the case again. I don't know if I'll ever find a place of no limits.
But I try to stop feeding the fear. I try to really find what is true inside me, and do my best. And I keep trying to push myself beyond the fear - into the heaven I want for myself. But it's hard when it feels like our poly negotiations all come from my fear, so every time I ask for a limit, I am feeding the fear. But if I don't ask for the limit, when I feel like I need it, then I experience a lot of bad juju.
So, how do I make poly agreements and negotiations, without feeding my fear?
I took three nights to myself to read The Four Agreements, and it was like my eyes were opened again for the first time in a LONG time. And since then, I have had baby steps of success. It's so new, that I celebrate those small successes inside myself - when I refrain from commenting until a better time, when I speak the truth and KNOW it is my truth, when I don't let myself take something personally, when I ask for clarification instead of making assumptions.
But I have a lot of work to do. And my parasite of fear has a lot of triggers tied with poly. My boyfriend and I are in an open relationship - but my fear and insecurity really limit that openness. I keep working on not taking his desires for other people personally, and I want to experience compersion and be so secure and happy with myself that I am as happy for his play with other people as he is for mine. But I'm not there yet. And so I have limits. And we have agreements, and a lot of those are things like "don't do this with this person..."
We will always have negotiations and agreements. That's the nature of an open relationship. You have to communicate and agree. But, I'm feeling like my limitations on my boyfriend come from fear, and so by allowing them to rule in the form of an agreement, I am feeding the parasite. I don't know if I am doing my best on this. I tried to remove all the limits for a brief time, and I was able to accept what happened during that time... but I don't feel ready for that to be the case again. I don't know if I'll ever find a place of no limits.
But I try to stop feeding the fear. I try to really find what is true inside me, and do my best. And I keep trying to push myself beyond the fear - into the heaven I want for myself. But it's hard when it feels like our poly negotiations all come from my fear, so every time I ask for a limit, I am feeding the fear. But if I don't ask for the limit, when I feel like I need it, then I experience a lot of bad juju.
So, how do I make poly agreements and negotiations, without feeding my fear?
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Re: 4 Agreements and Poly
Thu, July 27, 2006 - 10:38 AMoooh, check out The Mastery of Love, don Miguel's second book. This will definately speak to the poly in you. there's a story called "the magical kitchen" about unlimited love, he also really speaks to jealousy, posessiveness and self worth.
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Unsu...
Re: 4 Agreements and Poly
Thu, July 27, 2006 - 10:44 AMAhhh. One more to the reading list. :-) I'm going through the workbook and just started The Voice of Knowledge. HeatherLyn recommended The Mastery of Love, as well. Thank you. I think I need some more reading time set aside. :-) -
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Re: 4 Agreements and Poly
Thu, July 27, 2006 - 10:49 AMit's a pretty easy read. once you're done with all those, there's beyond fear. then off to teotihuacan! it's a slippery slope to heaven.
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Re: 4 Agreements and Poly
Thu, July 27, 2006 - 12:01 PMI get the impression that you're really not comfortable with the whole idea of poly. If so, then THAT is your truth, and the fear and the assumptions that arise and prevent you from standing in your truth, acting from your integrity, are exactly what you need to address, not the opposite way around.
I've been down this wormhole myself and I found that what I do when I am uncomfortable standing in my truth is find ways to justify the behavior I am not comfortable with to myself. I've learned to recognize that obsessive search for comfort to be an indicator that something is way out of alignment. And that anxiety I feel when faced with such a circumstance is, indeed, and indicator that I am going against my heart.
Standing in your truth will help you navigate the nasty shadowlands of your mind that will put forth such questions as:
If I don't do this, will he stay with me?
If I don't do this, does that mean I am prude, scared, unadventurous?
If he is not completely attracted to me does that mean I am not _________ enough?
Am I being judgemental? -
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Re: 4 Agreements and Poly
Thu, July 27, 2006 - 12:06 PMYes. I think Migel's subsequent books are even better
than Four Agreements. "Love" is especially significant for
anybody in a relationship with anybody in any context.
How does that include? :-)
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Re: 4 Agreements and Poly
Fri, July 28, 2006 - 2:30 AMRight on, Scout. Don't force yourself into a position that you know you're not comfortable with, regardless of the current "poly" fashion. You alone know what's right for you. Don't cheat yourself or your partner (or future partners) by not acknowledging this. -
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Re: 4 Agreements and Poly
Fri, July 28, 2006 - 4:05 AMSome further food for thought:
trippers.tribe.net/thread/e...a6519830d
I'm not really sure where I stand on this issue at the moment. I just know that my negative experiences with "poly" people who exploited others at every whim is currently trumping my striving toward the second agreement. -
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Re: 4 Agreements and Poly
Fri, July 28, 2006 - 6:16 AMDon't Take Anything Personally
Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you wonÃt be the victim of needless suffering.
I think we're on a slippery slope. Regardless of your personal of integrity, another person's total lack of integrity may compromise your health (AIDS and all the other STDs out there, for example). You're not immune in this instance, and in a poly arrangement, you may never met the person lacking integrity for yourself.
Now, if you stand in your truth, you can step away from the situation as your integrity dictates without judgement and indeed, their actions won't affect you. We can trust that others will stand within their own truth, but that doesn't mean we have to plunge ourselves into self destruction, effectively putting our lives in their hands.
You can have all the heart to heart conversations you want, but do you REALLY want to find out what's on the other side of that nagging feeling of dis-ease? -
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Unsu...
Re: 4 Agreements and Poly
Fri, July 28, 2006 - 9:43 AMThank you for your comments about poly, but I have made the decision for myself that I want to be poly and I know that I can be poly. Just because there are things to work out within myself, does not mean that I am being untrue to myself. I did a lot of soul searching, considered my life without my partner, and determined that I would still want to be poly. So I know that is my choice for me, and not for anyone else. My truth. :-)
Thank you for your concerns, and I think perhaps my post sounds like I am unsure about poly - not because of that, but because I am not always sure about the steps I need to take to get to the place I want to be. But I just keep doing my best. -
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Re: 4 Agreements and Poly
Fri, July 28, 2006 - 10:05 AMHey Elliotte, I definitely got the impression that you are sure about your poly choices and just wanting to work through it without feeding the fear.
It's a challenging road for sure with hardly any roll models. I have yet to be in a poly relationship where boundaries aren't made out of some degree of fear. Every time, I tell myself that I SHOULD be able to get past it and that i'm feeding fear... basically everything you mentioned in your first post. What i'm coming to realize is that I'm not THERE yet. Most of us aren't actually THERE yet. We have a lot of wounding and domestication that is still based in the dream of fear.
I'm thinking that the best way to work through this is to let ourselves make those boundaries with the awareness that there is fear. There is no sense in pouring salt into old wounds. We need to take baby steps. A boxer doesn't just decide that they're going to box one day and then jump into the ring with a heavy weight champion. They work up to it. They get in shape, they spar, they fight in the levels that they're capable of fighting. We're called warriors because we are at war. The war is with our "parasite" as don miguel calls it. Or our mind and all the chatter and rules and judgements and victim stories. The war is for our own attention. It takes time.
Don Miguel's books are deceivingly simple. In some ways it is as simple as don't take anything personally. But something else that he stresses in his teachings is that this work takes huge amount of energy. Energy we have lost and need to regain. First step, the mastery of awareness. Noticing all of the ways we take things personally and make assumptions, etc. Then onto transformation (pulling back our energy from all of the old agreements) and Intent (or love) aligning that energy with spirit. But the awareness is an endless job. Once you take the red pill, there's no turning back. How lucky for us! -
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Unsu...
Re: 4 Agreements and Poly
Fri, July 28, 2006 - 10:16 AMThanks Stormaldo. Since reading the book, I have really felt a change in the way I communicate. I am much more aware of where my need for agreements and boundaries comes from. And when I discuss them with my partner, I tell him the truth when I tell him that I want such and such, but I'm "not there yet." And "this" is where I am right now, this is why, and this is what I am doing to work on that. But I am asking for this agreement, because of this....
We have had MUCH better communication since I started doing that. And every little baby step of success I have adds to my confidence and my feeling of power. And the more power and confidence I have, the more I can move forward. So I'm giving myself the gift of time and patience (I am NOT a patient person) and I can see the destination, but I know that I have to be sure on every step if I really want to get where I want to be. And I am VERY lucky that my partner sees this too. When I explain, when I tell him I know I have this and this fear... and this agreement helps me contain it while I work on controlling it and then eliminating it - he feels MUCH better at seeing my progress and is really understanding.
And when we made a small agreement for him to call me one night, and he didn't, I was able to refrain from commenting at 3 a.m. when he came home (which, in the past, I would not have done) and waited until a better time. And then I was able to tell him that I was sad that he didn't call, and told him my reasons for the request for a call in the first place- and he really understood them and agreed to work more on that.
So - it's getting better. One baby step at a time. And I know there will be steps back. But it's really empowering to feel like I have a tool to STOP that step back from turning into a backslide and a downward spiral. I can stop myself and start over, doing my best from that minute on. practice practice practice -
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Re: 4 Agreements and Poly
Fri, July 28, 2006 - 10:26 AMWow! It's funny that we're even calling these "baby steps". Most people don't even have the awareness to get to the truth of the moment and take responsibility they way you seem to be doing! Give yourself some credit!
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Re: 4 Agreements and Poly
Fri, July 28, 2006 - 10:55 AM"And every little baby step of success I have adds to my confidence and my feeling of power."
That's interesting you say this.... Don Miguel teaches us that we DO become more powerful with every positive step towards change we take.... every tiny "negative" agreement we break with ourselves/our parasite, and replace with a positive agreement, we get BACK that bit of personal power that we had tied up in the negative agreement.
I'm glad you are feeling it! It's a really positive feedback loop to start in on, and it just starts cascading faster after a while! -
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This is the maximum depth. Additional responses will not be threaded.Unsu...
Re: 4 Agreements and Poly
Fri, July 28, 2006 - 11:25 AMYou're going to hear my thanks for a LOOOOONG time for helping me with this, HeatherLyn. You are a WONDERFUL friend, and I feel blessed to know you. AND the fact I get to kiss ya - that's double bonus!!! :-) -
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Re: 4 Agreements and Poly
Fri, July 28, 2006 - 12:53 PMI tell the story of the magical kitchen to as many people that are willing to listen. I've been a lurker on this tribe for a while and have enjoyed reading many of the post as they are guiding me towards a full practice of the four agreements. Honestly though, I read "Love" before any other DMR books. I literally fell into a bookcase and when I was grabbing for balance I pulled a bunch of books on to the ground. Sounds cord-doggy, but yeah :) I totally believe my spirit guides wanted me to discover a more confident and vibrant self that day.
How does this pertain to the current thread? Well I was in a deep dark hole of jealousy at that point with my significant other. I was so conflicted because nothing in him had changed, but I suddenly found myself questioning him everyday on who he spoke with, who's that on the phone, who did you work with today.... it was eating me alive.
I took off for four months and went to work at a resort with no TV (best decision of my life!) and became totally emersed in my work and mySELF. I read the Mastery of Love 3 times last summer. And I'm so in love... not only with the person I've become but with the vision of the person I am becoming every day.
My partner and I have sinced left our poisonous environment of the past and are still enjoying each other's company, only now we can appreciate each other as individuals, life forces with meaning. We're best friends now and that's something we never had before becoming lovers. -
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Unsu...
Re: 4 Agreements and Poly
Fri, July 28, 2006 - 12:58 PMYay! That's an inspiring story. Thank you for sharing. I'm glad that you have made positive changes for youself, and you are happy. :-) Taking that time for yourself was a wonderful gift. I don't feel I need to get away for four months, but with my super busy schedule - three nights was a BIG deal. I cancelled a lot of things, and took MY time. It was great. I hope you keep posting about your journey. And I am really looking forward to reading the Love book.
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