Our interior worlds are filled with resources like resilience, courage, a capacity to be with discomfort, joy, generosity, and empathy. These qualities make up our interior wealth. In order to cultivate them and actualize our potential, we need to live in open exchange with others who know the value of and respect our resources. Such people are those who are also on a path of cultivating their resources. We are built to live in open exchange with such people. We do our own interior work as preparation, so we can come to the table to be in open exchange with others who match our level of work, and do the real work.
We ask the highest and best of ourselves in order to develop our resources; not going outside, or staying too far inside, of our range, but staying at that edge. If we can, we must, but if we can't, we don't. A dynamic tension exists between under-extension that occurs as laxity and overextension that occurs as tension; we look for this sweet spot in between where the feeling is one of charged effortlessness. Our activity becomes a series of micro-adjustments—slightly leaning in and then backing up—in order to remain in this spot, which is our sanctuary in consciousness. The more we secure our position here, the more activity comes through us rather than us doing the activity.
From here, we build an inner circle of people who are doing the same. We choose to surround ourselves with those who ask of themselves what we ask of ourselves; and then we ask no less, or more, of them. We cannot change people; we cannot make them do or be better. Yet, we have a choice over who we keep close to us. Key to Erotic awakening is the feedback loop that occurs between people—this mutual reciprocity is where we gain strength, power, clarity, and stability as human beings. We want the people who we engage with in this experience to contribute to our power as much as we contribute to our own, and to theirs. The beauty is that this process of co-creating of self regulates the identity.
We are learning to be transceivers: people with equal acumen in both sending and receiving. It is an art: to not be above or below, to not only give or receive, to not only serve or be served. In the place where one might get superior in the giving, one must also receive. In the place where one might grow slothful and dependent, one must practice agency. In order for the exchange to occur, there must be an internal balance. In the space of this balance, we are able to open, and an exchange between nervous systems can happen naturally without conscious direction.
We must use great care in choosing who we exchange with as we want people capable of handling our nervous systems, with as much care and skill as we would our own. We pay close attention to how others attend to their world. Do they take shortcuts where we do not? Do they hoard their resources or are they freely given? Are they insensitive to things we are sensitive to? Do they know how to get themselves back up when they fall?
But also, are they able to receive help when they truly need it? Are they gracious in reception? Can they share in the experience of joy? Can they admit what they don't know but be willing to learn? Do they exhibit loyalty and the capacity to remain in connection irrespective of conditions so they do not withdraw from our system and leave us unstable?
It is our responsibility to ensure there is a matched request. We neither ask more of them than we ask of ourselves nor ask more of ourselves than we ask of them. Not showing up and carrying our part robs the connection as well. When someone wants little for themselves, they want little for others and often have an air of entitlement, a subtle demand that because someone else has, they owe. The human instinct for helping those with less is distorted when we do work to cultivate resources where others do not.
What can pass as humility or generosity may in fact be arrogance in disguise. The idea that we are capable and another person is not may give our ego satisfaction, but it robs us of the exchange that would keep both systems healthy. There is nothing honorable about doing more than our part. It is not generous to do for others what they could do for them- selves. It renders them incapable and leaves us spending resources instead of exchanging them.
It is much easier to get into connection than it is to get out of it. Thus, we enter slowly and if the exchange is unequal, we exit quickly. If we do find this balance of exchange, something truly beautiful develops. The other person becomes our reason to be great in every way. We want to share our best because they are sharing theirs. We are willing to humbly receive what we need, and feel able to do so because we offer wherever we can.
We see this person growing and shining as a result of this connection and in turn have inspiration to grow and shine ourselves. When we are in this kind of connection, whatever the circumstance, the face we see reflecting back to us is one of love and care.
