#WisdomWednesdays: Getting Engaged With Life and Relationships
Remember all the fairytale love stories you consumed as a child? It's wonderful to fantasize about that happily-ever-after. However, as you may now know, the reality is very different from this picture-perfect vision of life. Relationships don't always work out as you imagine—it requires conscious and intentional effort. In the end, it comes down to understanding yourself and engaging with and discerning the relationships you want to build.
In today's You Are Radically Loved Session, Tessa Tovar and Rosie dive into chapter 9 of You are Radically Loved, You are Radically Engaged. We all have an idealized version of our relationships and life that often clashes with reality. Rosie and Tessa delve into the importance of discernment in navigating this experience. Then, they leave eye-opening questions to ponder about engaging with yourself and others.
If you want to know how to navigate and discern real relationships from fairy tales, then this episode is for you!
Here are three reasons why you should listen to the full episode:
Understand the different phases of relationships.
Learn why your idealized version of life differs from the experience of living it.
Discover the importance of taking time to get to know your significant other and engaging with yourself
Resources
The Devil's Dictionary by Steven Kotler
The Overstory by Richard Powers
American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins
Have a specific book or topic in mind? Email us at info@radicallyloved.com for suggestions.
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Episode Highlights
[03:17] The Devil's Dictionary
The Devil's Dictionary is a cyberpunk post-apocalyptic book with many twists and turns.
The book deals with various relevant topics we're dealing with in our current climate.
Sci-fi is a genre you either love or hate.
Steven Kotler has a compelling way of writing. The book has touches of various genres.
[05:16] The Overstory
Rosie and Tessa both haven’t read The Overstory yet. The book is a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel.
It is a story about people who learn how to see the world and are drawn up in its unfolding catastrophe.
Rosie got reminded of the book when she and Tessa first talked about backpacking.
Tessa relates the resistance in The Overstory with the plot of American Dirt.
Both The Overstory and American Dirt talk about things that happen in the world and nature every day.
[09:49] Connection with Nature
Tessa feels a communion with trees and the wilderness. Rosie feels the same way about the ocean.
After WWII, the Americans dumped all their equipment in the oceans of Guam.
Rosie's grandmother talks about plants being like people. We must respect, honor, and revere the land we live on.
Industrialized systems build industry thinking of how it will help humans, not the earth.
It's a superpower to be empathetic beings, observe, and do what we can to improve the planet.
[13:59] Chapter 9: You Are Radically Engaged
Radical truth is inquiring within and engaging with others.
Al relationships have their ups and downs.
Being in a relationship is one of the highest forms of spiritual practice.
Many people in relationships think about the ways they could be better. Meanwhile, those not in relationships think about what it would be like to be in one.
The mind always wants what seems better.
[14:47] Rosie: “Being in a relationship is among the highest forms of spiritual practice.” - Click Here To Tweet This
[15:16] Understanding Discernment
[15:57] Rosie: “The beginning of a relationship is really you just experiencing yourself. You can sense the love, but really, the experience of love is happening within you.” - Click Here To Tweet This
You experience excitement and joy when you’re first dating someone. These feelings eventually fade away once the cloud of newness dissipates.
The beginning of a relationship is you experiencing yourself.
It takes more than the initial attraction to see who the other person is. Then, you can consciously choose to engage with them or not.
Relationships go in phases that are not always exciting, which is where people fall into the trap of looking elsewhere and thinking their partner is not the right person.
People sometimes skip through relationships because they don't attempt to move through conflicts and grow together with their partners.
[17:27] Rosie: “We think when something's not going well, we use it as an opportunity to look elsewhere and see, ‘Oh, this is not the right person for me. I need to go looking for something else.’ And we often fall into that trap. And sometimes we make mistakes, and sometimes, we even ruin relationships.” - Click Here To Tweet This
[19:11] Our Ideal of Love
We often think that the grass is greener on the other side.
Do we have to have one central thread that brings us back together with our partner when we go through phases of growth or stagnation?
How do we know that one true love exists? Why do we always seek the ideal of wanting to be in a fictional fairy tale of love?
The ideal love you believe in is what will come true for you. However, not everyone understands that we're responsible for actualizing that ideal.
[23:12] Idealized Relationships vs. the Actual Experience
The ideal love exists but it will not be what you visualize in your mind.
Tune in to the full episode for Rosie's illustration of how the experience of your idealized version is always different!
There’s always an element of disappointment in living through your idealized version of things.
It’s about understanding and knowing yourself at a deeper level to understand the common denominator when you’re constantly getting disappointed.
[27:06] On Fairy Tale Ideals
The key is the ability to discern reality from the fairy tales and love stories we consumed since childhood.
Rosie and Tori are getting married on their 20th anniversary. Rosie has wanted a wedding and the complete wedding experience since she was a child.
The amazing wedding experience you envision is mainly for the people coming to the wedding.
Listen to the episode to hear some of the stories featured in the series Say Yes to the Dress!
[27:06] Getting to Know Your Significant Other
[33:41] Rosie: “Because sometimes, if you don't give yourself enough time to get to know your significant other, all you're experiencing is yourself.” - Click Here To Tweet This
It’s wonderful that women have the desire to have princess-like weddings. But Rosie is more concerned with her relationship being good than the wedding.
If she and Tori had gotten engaged and got married earlier, they would have been distracted by many things.
All you’re experiencing is yourself when you don’t give yourself time to get to know your significant other.
Having an idealized version of our lives can either serve as fuel for us to progress or hold us back from growing.
[33:51] Tessa: "It's one thing to say that. It's another thing to know it and embody it and live your life from that [idealized] place." - Click Here To Tweet This
[34:49] Foundation of Reality
It’s one thing to envision an idealized version of life; it’s another to embody and live life from that place.
The foundation of reality can sometimes feel a little negative for people.
It’s important to have stories that enable us to see the possibilities out there in the world.
[36:10] Questions to Ponder
What does the ideal look like in your life?
Are there moments in your life where you've created this ideal in your mind? How have you been able to navigate getting or not getting what you wanted?
How do you continue to apply discernment to what you're doing?
How are you co-creating with the universe? How can you create more balance in your life and a more authentic, grounded existence?
[36:58] Engaging with Yourself
Chapter 9 deals with what it means to engage with yourself versus engaging with others that are not serving you.
Engaging is a conscious and intentional practice; connection is simply a mental attitude.
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To feeling radically loved,
Rosie