Relationship Dynamics: The Revolution in Personal Evolution

Introduction 

EVOLVE is a series of books about the discovery of the meaning of life and how we can thrive as responsible adults in a world of extreme change.

How do we go forward on this planet with seven billion people needing housing, work, and food to survive? How do we live in harmony with each other, with the earth, and with other plants and animals? We don’t—unless we all do our part to make human evolution a conscious affair, one in which each of us takes responsibility for living together in harmony and peace.

A world of harmony and peace is possible. As humans we have the awareness to make our world a utopia, but only if we step up to the challenge and EVOLVE. Without this, humans could easily regress into complete chaos, foraging and killing whatever stands in the way for food and survival, much as starving apes might. We are teetering on the brink of our civilization’s collapse, facing the possibility of a world in which survival of the fittest is all that matters. Accepting the diversity of expression of all human life—not just what is deemed acceptable to one class, race, or religion—will help us avoid this tragedy.

We like to take credit when life goes well, but when life does not go well, that’s something else altogether. We often take a victim stance. We want to get up and walk away, and often we believe we are being victimized by life. But the truth is, no matter what emotions life’s challenges invoke, we are personally responsible for our lives.

Who is a candidate for the EVOLVE program? Anyone who wants to follow a path to discover their fullest potential as a human being qualifies. EVOLVE is a tool anyone can use to recalibrate, reconnect, and retrain oneself to the true power of living.

This series presents the means for you to observe your own life objectively and see how your decisions relate to outcomes, your beliefs map to your behaviors, and your goals present as your successes. EVOLVE is a tool to see how taking back responsibility for your own life through increased personal awareness causes a shift, a shift so radical it could be considered a step forward in evolution of the human species.

If you are seeking to take back responsibility for living your life, responsibility that is often given away knowingly or taken unknowingly, then EVOLVE will bring back what you desire: a life experience where personal responsibility empowers you to effect positive change in your own life, in the lives of those around you, and in the world.

TRANSILIENCE

How many of us can honestly say we have not experienced at least one of the following:

Uncertainty about the direction of life

Feelings of being out of control

Relationships do not work for reasons we do not understand

Periods of depression, anxiety, or low self-esteem that are unexplainable

Unfulfilled dreams or goals

Being overly critical of yourself or others

Feeling alone or disconnected

Uncertainty regarding how to navigate change or loss

Having a desire to change your self or change the world, but not knowing how to begin.

If you were to seek advice for any of the above, you would likely be prescribed pills or told you need years of therapy or psychiatric care to find answers and get your life back on track. Such treatments can be helpful, but often there are issues we can solve on our own to get to the root of the problem. If we are given the tools and the information that increase our awareness of when we struggle or what presents as obstacles to our growth and forward momentum, we can be empowered to find solutions to our problems. The impact of living a modern life leaves us little time to figure out what is working and what is not working in our lives. The result is that we end up emotionally bankrupt, trying to stay on track, but not really knowing which direction to turn, or where things went wrong, or even what is not working for us. Without the proper personal tools, experience, and guidance, we can wander through life aimlessly without direction and purpose.

EVOLVE gives you revolutionary new tools and ideas to increase awareness that will, in turn, help you take back control for your happiness. You are offered the guidance, the means, and the experience to design your own personal evolution toward a life of joy and true fulfillment. EVOLVE presents a new way to engage with life by increasing awareness of all the facets of your life in which you can achieve personal change. Personal awareness leads to change, change based on the radical idea that you can take responsibility for your personal evolution. EVOLVE is not about evolution that is going to take millenniums to happen, but an evolutionary process that you as an individual can take responsibility for and be a part of now. The time has arrived for each of us to become personally responsible for our individual evolution, and collectively for the evolution of all humankind.

Our modern problems and chaos often result when we relinquish authority for our personal choices to others, allowing decisions to be made for us, decisions that are not always in our best interests. Over time we find decisions have gradually been made for us that all along we should have been making for ourselves.

EVOLVE is a new approach to living that not only serves our need to know how to navigate the various stages of our lives, but also shows us how to continually nurture ourselves and others through sustainable and regenerative living.

EVOLVE applies concepts related to permaculture—ideas such as observation, resilience and sustainability—not only to how we interact with the world around us, but also how we interact with ourselves, with each other, and within our communities to create regenerative systems capable of perpetual sustainability for generations to come. Every step taken toward implementing the concepts and processes presented in EVOLVE is not only a major step toward your own personal fulfillment, but also changes the lives of those around you, your community, and eventually the world.

The life-changing program offered by EVOLVE takes you back to the basics to restore that which belongs to you: PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY. Through personal responsibility, you can discover a new way of living in harmony with yourself and with the world around you, bringing with it the enjoyment and vitality of life and the peace of mind to know what you desire for yourself can be balanced with the needs of others.

Note to Reader:

The books in EVOLVE are not the result of any psychological trials or years of therapeutic experience. EVOLVE is the result of years of observing myself in my relationships with others, my successes, my failures all distilled into information that is now yours to receive. EVOLVE is what I aspire to, not where I am. I am merely human like you, aspiring to live by what I have observed, learned and written here. The first book is an honest expression of my journey into the harrowing domain of relationships, and the ensuing lessons garnered along the way. I became an observer of my own life who wanted to learn from my mistakes and successes that I write about and then share them here to help you. I do not have all of the answers, but like you, I am still seeking and learning what it means to grow up and become an Adult.

The writing is meant to be conversational in nature and as such is not academic so as to be accessible by a broader audience that will connect with its meaning.

This book and the related writings in EVOLVE will challenge your beliefs about how you approach and live your life. It has mine. For this reason, it can be uncomfortable at times if the information goes beyond beliefs that are outside of your comfort zone. If you experience prolonged periods of depression, anxiety, or are not able to feel comfortable with the material presented here, consider seeking the assistance of a qualified professional therapist, psychologist, or psychiatrist to assist you in this journey of personal evolution.

Why EVOLVE?

Like millions of other people, you live your life in a day-to-day routine, often supporting a system that increasingly denies the unique qualities and creative abilities that define you as an individual. Our struggle to survive in current capitalist systems leaves us little time to get to know ourselves, to know others, to know our true desires, and to understand the unique qualities that each of us brings to this world. Perhaps you are longing for something different, but you’re not sure how this box you find yourself in was created or, more importantly, how you get out.

You are not alone. Millions of Americans, like millions of others worldwide, are doing the same thing: living and working in systems that sustain corporations and world powers, all the while removing the freedom and autonomy of the individual. They, like you, are asking more important questions about life and living.

Activities are what seem to define happiness for most people today. We think we are happy when we are engaged in activities. Happiness, however, is beyond the activities and work we perform, much deeper, and even when we feel we are happy, we may also feel something is missing or not quite right. These states of not knowing are times when we can get the answers we need from EVOLVE by discovering where we are blocked, where we are stuck, or where we need help moving in a new direction.

You may have reached an age or stage in your life that many consider the stage of being adult or adulthood, but there is still a part of you seeking something more. Is there something more that will take you from being a supposed adult to becoming an actual Adult?

Yes, there is!

First, however, you may need help in figuring out how you got where you are. This book offers not only insights into the life you have created for yourself, but also how you can begin to contribute to a new world in which we are all valued and share in the abundance this planet offers. You want not only to survive, but also to thrive in this new world and to understand how your relationships can work beyond the chaos of complications, drama, and dysfunction.

You may want to feel more of a spiritual connection within yourself but have yet to find a religion or practice that suits your needs. Perhaps you want to discover a pace for living, one that provides time to know your true desires, or maybe you need help in discovering how money works and why it is needed. In the process, however, you may discover that what money cannot buy is exactly what you seek above all else.

EVOLVE is a system of writings and tools comprising all of the facets of your life and the discovery of how they work together. Three concepts define EVOLVE:

1. No one gave us a manual for how to become an Adult.

2. By learning the behaviors that define how we move from an adult to an Adult we can live more fulfilling lives.

3. Our evolution depends on our ability to figure out how we can thrive as individuals and envision a new world where everyone is free.

Any step taken through EVOLVE toward personal responsibility will have positive results on you and those around you. Over the long term of working with these writings and tools they have the cumulative effect of increasing your awareness, and awareness is the key to evolve! The tools offered in EVOLVE bring awareness to all areas of life that require your care and attention, and then provide the means to get you further in your journey toward happiness, health, and joy. In effect, you are being given the tools for taking personal responsibility for your personal evolution, and through this process you affect the evolution of human consciousness.

***

Books on self-help and spirituality are found everywhere as more and more people are seeking deeper meaning in their lives.  EVOLVE takes you right to the heart of figuring out what is needed, and then gives you the tools to get you there. No one can do the work for you, but you need the tools found here to give you awareness of the work required.

It all begins with an understanding of relationship—relationship to your self and relationship to others and the world around us. This first book in the EVOLVE series provides a comprehensive foundation for building awareness of every aspect of relationship, including the discovery of the ten elements of healthy relationships, how we develop intimacy, the expression of our sexuality, and how to care for and maintain sustainable relationships. Also included are how to create healthy boundaries in relationships, how to recognize and manage drama, the development of conflict resolution skills, and how we decide the best possible outcomes for relationships that no longer serve us.

CHAPTER ONE

Reclaiming Personal Responsibility

The natural order of the universe may be one of chaos, but humans have worked throughout history to bring order to the chaos so living might make some sense to us. Many of our attempts are aimed at making us feel we are more in control of our lives. Disorder and dysfunction arise when we do not have control or things do not go the way we planned, but this is all just the natural tendency of the ego to project expectations onto life, rather than the natural humility to live in harmony with life. Until we shift our awareness away from the ego, it will continually control us and, ultimately, destroy us.

There is a trend today to subjugate people through information that fails to inform with true knowledge or to teach us what we need to know. In essence, we are lulled into deep sleep and then work tirelessly to support the systems that have put us in that sleep state. Our goal is to awaken to truth and to our authentic selves by increasing our awareness that a life thus lived is possible. A shift in awareness is needed so each of us begins to take personal responsibility for our awakened consciousness.

One way to shift our focus away from ego-centered living is through self-observation. Self-observation is the process of observing our thoughts and emotions, and then observing any actions or behaviors resulting from those thoughts or emotions. The process of self-observation is what allows us to move to a new state of awareness and to make lasting changes in our behaviors and how we live. 

Before we get to any new state of awareness, we first have to take the necessary steps to set the stage for something new to occur. The magic happens when we open ourselves to new possibilities. What’s interesting about the stage we are setting here is we observe the drama gradually unfold, fold back on itself, and completely disappear.

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Self-observation begins now as you read the following scenario:

You are invited to a play, but what the play is about is not disclosed to you in the invitation. Your ticket is provided and only one request is made: you must watch this play from beginning to end without leaving. You agree to these conditions.

Now, imagine yourself walking into the theater. At first, the stage is dark, and then the curtains come up gradually, revealing a stage set ready for a scene played by actors who are now assuming their places and roles. As the curtains open and the story unfolds, the play is a series of scenes that each show a current point in time as an adult, and then a flashback to the point in time as a child or young adult who gave shape to what is being portrayed. As the play begins to unfold, it all starts to feel very familiar. At a certain point you realize this story includes all of the significant events in your own life—the painful events as well as the joyful ones. The complex cast of characters enacts all aspects of yourself: the hurts, the pains, the happiness, and the sadness. You observe how all your significant relationships came in and out of your life, as well as your repetitive patterns in relationships, both healthy and destructive. The flashbacks portray exactly where the seeds of all your beliefs and behaviors originated and took form, but to see it all presented objectively on this stage with you as the observer gives you more insight, insight into yourself and into your beliefs.

At first it feels strange, but these feelings grow to include confusion and shock as you watch your life being played out right in front of you with everyone in the theater watching. 

It all feels so uncomfortable that at several points you almost decide to break your agreement to watch it and are tempted to leave. But as you continue to watch, you see yourself start to shift from reacting to what is being presented to watching it more intensely with detachment and curiosity. You see yourself objectively with Detached Perspective as you watch all the characters from a distance play out your life, and you start to see how all your hopes, fears, and desires became your goals, successes, and failures.

As you continue to watch the story unfold with more objectivity and detachment, you start to become more engaged with the story, your story. As the story progresses, you can see how all of your choices and decisions, both bad and good, have led up to this point right now and have formed the you who walked into this theater. You see that it was all perfect, neither bad nor good.

Now you can see the motivations behind your actions, how they led you down certain paths, and even how you avoided responsibility for what was happening in your life. All along, all the lessons you needed to learn were presenting themselves, and for whatever reason at the time of presentation it had not been clear that a gift was being given. The only thing missing during the pivotal moments in your life was the ability to consciously and objectively observe what was really happening and how it might affect you and others. If you had had the awareness to make better decisions, then you would have made different decisions—and better choices.

You come to the current point in time of observing your life on stage and realize the life portrayed before you has arrived at the exact point where you walked into the theater. The play ends on stage, but your life will be different when you leave. In fact, it feels in some sense that your life is just beginning. You’ve seen your life up to this point portrayed on that stage, and now you want to actively engage in changing your life going forward. 

How do you make this lifetime the best performance you can? This is the question now living in you.

***

EVOLVE is about setting the stage for you to participate in the grandest theater production ever imagined: the theater of your life. And now you are conscious that you are the director of the play. In this new life, you know where the boundaries of the stage lie, how to set the stage with the scenes that support you, and which characters play key roles with you on that stage.

With more awareness of how you got to now, from this point you can see how to take full responsibility for how your life unfolds going forward. Personal responsibility is about making the effort to increase your awareness now so you can make better-informed decisions for living your life as you move forward. Now, you can take responsibility to write the script of your life: the central themes you want to play out; how the participants enter and exit; how the mood is set in each scene; and even how you choose to end this story of your life. EVOLVE will take you to the goal of personal responsibility and awareness. 

The EVOLVE Audit

Answer the questions on this list, and make a note of your yes answers.

• Have you ever wanted to say Grow Up to other adults?

• Does something seem off in your life?

• Do you experience periods of depression or sadness without understanding the cause?

• Do you ever find yourself feeling alone or lonely? 

• Do you believe other people have it better than you?

• Do you get pulled into other people’s drama?

• Do you wish for a better life for yourself?

• Do your personal relationships enrich your life experience? 

• Is there drama or dysfunction in your relationships?

• Do people respect your boundaries?

• Do you have a hard time respecting the boundaries of others?

• Do you desire to be a parent or want to be a better parent?

• Do you have difficult relationships with your family?

• Do other people not meet your expectations? 

• Are you single and would like to initiate a romantic relationship, but feel you don’t know how? 

• Do you find you are not able to sustain healthy relationships with others? 

• Do you give too much to others and often find yourself depleted?

• Do you fail to keep your commitments to others? 

• Do others fail to keep their commitments to you?

• Does the world feel overwhelming or chaotic?

• Do you have difficulty making decisions?

• Do you feel helpless or powerless to solve the problems of the world?

• Do you feel helpless or powerless to solve your own problems?

• Have you or someone you cared about experienced a life threatening illness? 

• Are you living paycheck to paycheck and don’t see a way to financial freedom?

• Do you want to be more spiritual, but you are not sure how to make that connection?

• Are you willing to raise your consciousness if it resulted in an evolution of human consciousness?

Many of the items on this list are symptoms of personal issues that manifest outwardly as unrest and discontent. It’s hard to find anyone who doesn’t answer yes to at least one or two of these questions. Some people find they have many more yes answers than not. Whatever your response, affirmative answers to more than one of these questions indicates you would benefit highly from EVOLVE, which has been proven to improve and help solve these issues and many others. 

EVOLVE is not a magic bullet. It is not designed to address every life circumstance you encounter. It is designed as a jump-start that gets your life back on track through the writings here and through self-observation, helping you to engage with life in more healthy ways. More importantly, it gives you the knowledge and awareness in certain areas of your life needing your attention to get them back on track to health and happiness. Once you have completed any book in EVOLVE, you will discover changes in your life that positively affect you and eventually those around you. EVOLVE can then be used to create an ongoing plan of well-being that can lead you to true happiness and peace. All it takes is a willingness to read these pages and an openness to new ideas that result in change: changes that improve your life. 

Becoming a Real Adult

There are five ways we interact with life: through our senses, through our thoughts, through our actions and behaviors, through our relationship with ourselves, and through our relationships with others. How we choose to engage with life in each of these five areas determines our peace and happiness. Our peace and happiness are determined by the level of awareness we