Aloha Dear Ones,

Found myself wondering–did the last post seem a little harsh?  In asking us all to become more awake in our relationships, am I asking too much?

So many of us have gone through long periods of feeling defeated by relationship–by a relationship within which we feel emotional pain, by a relationship left by our partner, by our longing for relationship.  Many of us are in that place of experiencing some kind of despair around relationship, right now.

What more understandable source of despair could there be than our knowing something is missing from the way our heart connects with another’s?  Whatever our theology might be about our origins, whether we believe we are individual expressions of a single divine mystery, inexorably linked, or not–it’s clear we need each other.  Whatever the cosmic truth may be, on this earth, we need each other deeply.

We long for the real thing–for relationships wherein we are seen and accepted and appreciated for our true selves. We want to be known, to be valued for our gifts, to share our dreams and have them encouraged. Most of us want to experience this profound connection with a mate, to have a special bond with a life partner.  This desire is so deep, so natural, we think we know what the real thing, true love, must be like, look like, feel like. We have millennia of expectations built up about our relationships, and are programmed with ample fantasies to keep us on automatic pilot.

When our expectations are not met, what are we supposed to think? So many past associations pop up to fill our heads, it’s hard for us to know what we actually think, or feel. Our defenses quickly blame the other, blame circumstances, blame some story about our own limitations. There may be some truth in any or all of these–but there is a bigger truth.

The bigger truth, the saving grace, is about who we are, really.  If we are steeped in a cultural identity of a separate self, at the mercy of past conditioning (not only ours and our family’s, but of all our ancestors), how can we be free to even know our true selves, much less another? The path to personal freedom, and the path to true love, are the same. Begin to consider an identity, a self, that is not now, and has never been, separate from its source. Allow yourself to imagine being an essential part of a divine blueprint, becoming more awake to its true nature with each moment, a nature that is inter-related to all others, to its creator, to the sacred mystery, to God.

If we can begin to wake up to this larger identity, limitations of the past begin to drop away. We begin to see with fresh eyes, to hear with the ear of a grander heart. We listen, and hear a call to serve a higher, deeper power, a sacred evolutionary impulse, that animates all that exists. Hearing that call is the beginning of our journey on the path of true love, a love that is ever unfolding, a love that needs us to help it evolve to a vibrantly awake, holy consciousness shared by all humanity.

Our freedom to experience that greater love begins with a new awareness of our ability to choose. We can only be more responsible, to ourselves, in our relationships, if we believe that we are able to choose, to make different choices than the ones that have led to heartbreak and isolation. We can choose to begin walking this path of evolving love now, together.

I’ll continue to give you the resources that are the most powerfully revelatory and inspiring for me.  I’ve been blessed to study evolutionary spirituality with Craig Hamilton for the last two years.  Craig’s site, IntegralEnlightenment.com, gives many resources for beginning on the evolutionary path, along with opportunities for deeper study and ongoing practice with an online community.  Craig Hamilton was the Senior Editor of, “What Is Enlightenment? (WIE),” magazine, founded by Andrew Cohen.  WIE is now, EnlightenNext.org, an online magazine and evolutionary network.  In addition to publishing, “EnlightenNext,” Andrew Cohen has just written, “Evolutionary Enlightenment,” (available on Amazon), an essential primer on evolutionary spirituality.

An integral perspective on life, meaning, relationship, culture, spirituality, can be widely explored on IntegralLife.com, Ken Wilber’s, “online town square,” for integral/evolutionary thought and practice.  Ken Wilber’s book, “Integral Spirituality,” addresses the deep queries of seekers and intellectuals, alike.

I’m becoming acquainted with a new site, evolutionarycollective.com, with Patricia Albere, who hosts interviews with leaders in evolutionary thought. I’m studying a course on evolutionary relationship that Patricia has begun offering, and will happily share some of the insights with you.

If you feel drawn towards any of these resources, please do take the time to check them out. It’s almost impossible for us to get underneath our conditioning on our own–we need interaction with and feedback from others on the path of true love, the path of evolving relationship. Together, we can move forward from, “me,” to the possibility of, “We.”

Love and blessings,

Dr. Julianne

Aloha Dear Ones,

There are many things I want to share with you, many ways of exploring our evolving capacity for deeper, mutual relationship.  I also want to answer your practical questions about relationship issues most of us face.

A question came to me this week from someone who has read all my blog posts. They love my down-to-earth advice.  They specially enjoy my attempts to bring humor and hope to relationship, whether for singles looking, or for couples looking for something more together.  They are intrigued by the evolutionary perspective on relationship about which I’ve begun writing, but confessed to not feeling ready for it.  “I’m willing to take responsibility for myself, and I want to be a better partner.  The evolutionary stuff is very interesting, and I’d like to believe what I do makes a real difference in the world–but it kind of sounds like something for people who’ve got everyday problems handled.  How can you expect regular people to feel responsible to everybody?  Maybe down the road, I’ll be able to take that on.”

This is a valid question, and an honest response to the biggest picture world view I’ve ever encountered, evolutionary spirituality/ evolutionary relationship.  I get that being asked to consider the greatest good, in everything from how we love, how we do business, to which thoughts we think, is overwhelming.  Any sane human is humbled by the realization that, “God has no hands but ours.”

Yet, not only are we being called to realize our big picture responsibility, we are now actually being called to lean into the edge of our understanding of it.  We are called to act boldly on behalf of the greatest good, even as we question what it is, what our relationship is to it, and what our relationship is to each other.

Perhaps the best known teacher of evolutionary spirituality is Andrew Cohen, with whom my current teacher, Craig Hamilton (IntegralEnlightenment.com), studied.  Andrew’s new book, “Evolutionary Enlightenment,” is a wonderful explanation of the evolutionary perspective.  I highly recommend it to you.  Andrew also publishes an online magazine/ evolutionary network, EnlightenNext.org, in which he writes a, “Quote of the Week.”  The quote I just received in my email speaks beautifully to the question of just how much consciousness we are ready to take on.