If you want to solve your relationship problems and are seeking personal development, this article is for you! It will help you to discover the meaning behind life’s events and to understand the difficult situations in which we often find ourselves in.
We live in a world where we cannot avoid interacting with others. To do so successfully we need to learn how to live wisely: refining our senses, our behaviour, our thoughts and our feelings.
Have you ever wondered why you get along well with some people, while with others relationship problems are a constant challenge?
Sometimes, it seems that no matter how hard you try, friction with certain family members, colleagues, even friends is inescapable.
Relationship problems are ever-present in our lives. And if our way of thinking, feeling and acting depends on those around us, then we believe that things are fine when we are getting on well with those people. But this “getting on well” can be a form of psychological slavery. We can end up becoming like puppets, with our strings being pulled by other people’s moods and reactions. Sooner or later, this generates relationship problems.
The Gnostic teachings tell us that each person has murky areas in their mind and in their psyche that are characterised by egos that find ways to manipulate certain situations. For example, someone may visit their neighbour and speak ill of a mutual friend.
This brings up similar egos that are interested in this kind of conversation in the other person, and the two neighbours form a kind of ‘club’ between them, or when someone starts talking about politics, another person’s political “I’s” or egos, that like to give opinions about politics, will also appear and an argument ensues.
When a person becomes aware that such discussions cause needless ill-feeling and disharmony, they want to stop doing it. But if they don’t know how to go about changing their behaviour in an intelligent way, they end up with relationship problems as they antagonise the people around them, because the person no longer wants to do what their friends want to continue doing.
- How many times have you found yourself involved in this kind of situation? How did you feel afterwards?
- Have you ever stopped to think how many times you have judged or criticised the people around you?
- Do you feel that relationship problems are caused by the people around you?
These questions are important because they lead us to reflect. This is the only way to start becoming aware of how we actually live day by day. Our life is made up of pleasant and unpleasant situations, and within us exist many voices, many opinions, which contradict each other from moment to moment.
In life, everything recurs. Without a base, such as the Gnostic knowledge, difficult relationship problems can arise and we struggle to deal with them. Gnostic knowledge gives us a science that teaches us how to transform the phenomena of our lives. It gives us tools to analyse our experiences through meditation, psychology, and other disciplines, such as:
- Philosophy, which teaches us to reflect on the reason for things: Who are we? Where do we come from? Why are we born? What is our purpose in life?
- Art, from the Gnostic perspective, teaches us to live in harmony.
- True religion teaches us to rediscover the knowledge that has been lost, guiding us in a search for the lost values of living together in harmony and the work of the intimate liberation of the Being — knowledge that is directed towards our own Essence.
Living Together as a Psychological Mirror
The people close to us are not there by chance but as a result of psychological affinities. The people we live with — particularly those who ‘press our buttons’ — have egos or “related I’s” that show us our own defects.
Living with others provides us with a mirror where we can see ourselves psychologically. This is entirely favourable for psychological work in the dissolution of the ego or the “I”.
Psychological Affinity and Its Impact on Relationship Problems
Psychological affinity is a feeling of connection, understanding, being on the same wavelength — a law of attraction.
Just as there are different social levels – there are people who gravitate in churches, or in brothels, in the world of business, sports, politics, people from the countryside, etc. – there are also different moral levels.
What we are internally (kind or mean, generous or stingy, violent or calm, chaste or lustful) attracts the different circumstances of life, which may be pleasant or may generate relationship problems. This is why we can say that a lustful person always attracts scenes, dramas, and even tragedies of lewdness in which they become involved. A drunkard attracts other drunkards and is always found in pubs and clubs.
What does the usurer, the selfish person, attract? How many problems and misfortunes?At this moment in your life, what are you attracting into your environment?
Do you believe that the people around you are to blame for relationship problems?
Would you like to have the formula, the key to change your life?
The Home: The Psychological Gym for Resolving Relationship Problems
It is at home that our bad habits and defects come out most. Self-restraint disappears and a person lets themselves go: they shout, they are lazy, gluttonous, disorganised. And when we live with other people, those closest to us are our psychological mirrors, and relationship problems are more intense. This makes it the perfect place to work on ourselves!
- Have you heard about inner work?
- Have you heard about observation and self-observation?
Observation requires spatial concentration, directing our attention outwards. That attention might be passive, something we do automatically, like looking out the window to watch the birds in the garden, but even this is directed attention
Self-observation, on the other hand, is directing your attention inwards. With it, you can examine your thoughts, emotions, and the reaction of your body to external events. This practice is an important key to discovering what is really happening within you, at the same time as observing what is happening outside. With this tool, you achieve what is called inner work.What once were relationship problems become opportunities for inner growth. What once would have been a painful event, such as a disagreement with a loved one, becomes an ideal opportunity for discovering the different I’s that lurk in our mind.
What Is the Ego?
Also called the psychological “I”. It is a mass of passions, desires, fears, hatreds, selfishness, envy, pride, gluttony, laziness, anger, cravings, attachments, morbid sentimentalism. It also expresses itself in beliefs about family, race, nation, etc.
The “I” is multiple. The “I” is not individual. The “I” exists pluralised, continues pluralised, and returns pluralised. Just as water is made up of many drops, and a flame is made up of many particles of fire, so the “I” is made up of many I’s.
Each one has its own mind, its own ideas and its own criteria. What one I likes, another I dislikes. The multiplicity of the I can be seen clearly in our promises. The I that today swears eternal love to a woman is later replaced by another that has nothing to do with that commitment. It is the instability of the “I”s we carry within us that creates the problems we experience in living together. All human beings are imperfect; we all have these egos, and we all have the same defects.
The ego feeds on our energy and at the same time binds us to other people. When you hate someone who has harmed you, you remain tied to them, because you are constantly thinking about what they did to you, how to get them back, secretly wishing something bad would happen to them, etc. Self-observation helps us to see exactly what is happening in our inner world.
Beyond Tolerance
It seems that we live in a world where relationship problems are normal. Almost anything produces a negative emotion, such as anger, envy, jealousy, in us. We know we feel these emotions, but it is one thing to know that we feel them and quite another to observe how they manifest within us.
As the sense of self-observation develops within us, we can see that even the most insignificant thought or the most ridiculous feeling is created by the psychological “I”.
The work on oneself is a very serious process that requires us to study ourselves thoroughly in all levels of our mind, without justifying or condemning what we see there. When we eliminate any psychological defect, a bit of our consciousness is freed, and with it we gain psychological freedom, inner peace, harmony, and the ability to discover our own truth. This process brings us closer to understanding the purpose and mission for us being in this world.
By attaining psychological freedom, we develop the ability to discern and to choose our own path. As we learn to control our emotions, we cease to identify with those of others, experiencing an inexplicable peace and harmony.
Changing Your Life Is in Your Hands
We do not deny that it is difficult to begin this work. It is worth it though, because the rewards are immense. Achieving a sense of security within ourselves, knowing that we are honest with ourselves, with a peaceful mind and a sincere heart, is the result of an inner revolution that requires hard work.
- Do you dare to do it?
- Will you give yourself the opportunity for radical change?
- Does it seem scary?
On this path of self-knowledge, true peace comes when we understand that the key is not to change others, but to work on ourselves. As the saying goes: “When your neighbour’s house is fire, be sure to throw water on your own.”
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