Relationships & mutuality

This musing is not definitive nor exhaustive.
It is emergent in this moment, garnered from my own experiences of something that from young was always a point of focus for me.

In teenage years like many, it was my friendships...a source of solace and enjoyment different to familial relationships. The solid and comforting relationship with my mentor Olivia, and the odd teacher who saw me. At that stage I wasn't part of any particular group enjoying going from one to another, and playing basketball every chance I could.
It wasn't until I left high school, and after my overseas trips, I started to notice some imbalanced dynamics in my friendships. Nothing dramatic, yet enough to leave me dissatisfied and questioning whether this is how I wanted my relationships to be - where they came to me with their problems, and didn't hear from them in the good times. 
Best captured in the metaphor, when meeting with a friend, organising to meet half way after this. Noticing some friendships were very much about taking more than they gave. 
My overseas trips gave me new experiences, which made it so much easier to discern and decide, what I was no longer willing to uphold in my relationships. Getting better at being assertive, and expressing when i was upset by something.

Cultivating and fostering a deeper relationship with my own Self, has flipped it all on its head, and the attachments are no longer the same. There are many in my life I love, and enjoy spending time with, when the opportunities arise. There's more mutuality effortlessly, unfolding, for in not needing someone, there is so much enjoyment and appreciation for who they are. Any old dynamics, I simply cannot uphold. Old friends no longer reach out, and I do not either. The love always remains.

What I have always enjoyed, is increasing, genuine, intimate moments, with others, who one might call strangers, in the course of daily mundane tasks, such as a trip to the marketplace. I often experience a sense of awe at how real these moments are.....and love that I am available for them. 
A man walks into a lift, "a hard day ah".....yes, he responds....contact. It just so happens he is heading to the same office as me.
A shared laugh with the person making my coffee, and the clever naming of their tip jar :'Fear of Change, leave it here."

Not having relationships as a center of focus in the way I once did, I am noticing in a new way, how easily we project onto others, or invite them to take a responsibility for a behaviour that is unmanageable for ourselves. And then, when they inevitably don't meet out requirements consistently we feel a victim of circumstances, we initially created. Yet, we have forgotten that, for it was so long ago. 

I love my work, the realness of it and experience fulfillment in it. My historical relationships in my personal life, providing wisdom for my work, in equal measure with my studies. And doing the work I do, creates a container that makes it easier for me to have sturdy boundaries in my personal life, around what I am available ...for....the counsellor, psychotherapist is part of what I do, yet not all of who I am, so therefore I do not wish to play that role across all my life. 

I know there is an unfoldment within me at this time, that makes it hard to find the words just yet, as to what relationships will look like in the future. I know my relationship with my own Soul essence is the most vital one. Everything else, unfolds, and emerges from that....changing interests, desires, and way of being. I know what 'the old' looks and feels like, my curiosity with that is gone. Someone said to me in recent times, how they found a particular behaviour of someone interesting, and I responded, you and I have different ideas of interesting. I no longer find whatever it was.... interesting. 

Wishing you an enjoyable Sunday.