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So if We are on the Receiving End of Negative Relating, Why Don’t We Let Go?

Wed, 09/19/2012 - 12:45
Submitted by Lawrence Lanoff

I was thinking about communication in relationships this week. Communication, sexual, verbal, non-verbal, touch, emotional, energetic, and otherwise, all either a) add to our experience of well-being b) have no noticeable effect one way or another, or c) diminish our sense of well-being.

A friend of mine draws a hard line when it comes to relationships. He believes that if there is a person generating “bad energy” or negative effect in the relationship, the sooner it is cut out, the better. Negativity and bad attitude in relationships is poisonous to both parties. Ultimately there really is no way to recover from this kind of relating, and once it’s established as the way of relating, it’s very difficult, if not impossible to change.

We all know people like this: given the infinite options of interpretation of their experience, they choose the negative interpretation. In general, this sucks energy from life and relating. My friend believes that downer people, having developed few other skills of relating to others, other than framing life negatively, can take us down with them.

So if we are on the receiving end of negative relating, why don’t we let go? Sometimes it’s because we believe in scarcity – that there is nobody else out there. Other times we believe in the “karmic lessons” of the relationship. Other times we operate under the misguided notion that love will conquer all –including negative relating. These are all interesting myths, but irrelevant to the reality that we are using cute stories to tolerate intolerable experiences and behaviors from others.

The bottom line is that there are 7 billion people in this magical world we live in. The only thing preventing us from moving to the next step is believing that there is no next step.

If we are alive, there is always a next step. Sometimes, the next step is the only step we need to take to discover the step after that, and so on. What’s your next step?

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Tantric Master. Creator of Tantra-X Training, President of Pleasure
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