Those four qualities are:
- sincerity
- availability
- interest
- cooperativeness
I'm going to explain each of them, show how they work, together, and how they apply to relationships.
First, the explanations of each.
THE FOUR QUALITIES
Let's start with sincerity.
Sincerity
Sincerity is being true to your word and true to yourself. That means, not only keeping your word, but only giving your word if you feel right with yourself, doing so.
I understand that there are situations where you feel compelled to give your word, on something.
If you feel compelled, you can't be sincere about it.
Sincerity is not, "being really persuasive", or being really emotional about something.
Sincerity is a condition of alignment between thoughts, feelings, and actions -- without internal conflict, misgivings, or second-guessing. It's being true to yourself.
"To thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man."
~~ Shakespeare
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man."
~~ Shakespeare
Availability
Availability is being present -- not just in some psychological sense, but also physically present. It's being present to being seen, heard, and felt.
Again, I understand that there are situations where you feel compelled to make yourself available.
If you feel compelled to make yourself available, you're not whole-hearted about it -- and if you're not whole-hearted about it, you're not really available.
Being available is not merely being available in some nominal way, like, "Call me, any time."
Being available is an emotional and physical state. It's being capable of listening and being honest. Lying and deception are forms of unavailability. So are breaking ones word -- our first hint at how these qualities work, together.
"Wake up. Clean up. Grow up. Show up."
~~ Ken Wilber
~~ Ken Wilber
Interest
Interest is attraction to a situation, person, subject, or thing.
Interest may be feigned, but you know the difference. If it takes effort to "stay interested", you're not really interested.
Again, I understand that there are times when you are not really interested in something, but you force yourself to stay with it. Sometimes, necessity is a factor. Just don't confuse that with interest.
Being interested is a form of, "eros" -- being strangely attracted to something. It's unreasonable. If you're interested for "a reason", there's a should, in there, somewhere, rather than that you simply are interested.
Sometimes, you feel wrong being interested in something or someone. That's too bad, for you -- not because you're interested, but because you feel wrong, about it. Anyway, you're not really in a quandary. If you take into account all four of the qualities, in yourself and in the other, you can be pretty clear about the situation.
Sometimes, you need to dig a little deeper to sift out the should from the "I am."
At the end of this piece, I provide a power-tool for that kind of excavation -- a very powerful power tool.
"Are you interested?"
Cooperativeness
Cooperativeness is "co-" ("with"), "operativeness" ("doing-ness"). If you're doing something with someone, you two are cooperating. If you're on a date, with someone, you're cooperating, at least as far as having gotten together.
If, on the other hand, one of you is not really interested, not really available, or not really sincere -- it's a bad date or, "date over" -- or "marriage over".
Again, I understand that, at times, you have to cooperate under those conditions. Maybe your boss (or partner) has asked you to do something you're not really into, at that moment. You may go through the motions, out of necessity. Just don't confuse that with cooperativeness. It isn't that; it's, "compliance". "Thank you for your cooperation," is something generally said when you did something you didn't really want to do.
Cooperation is whole-hearted; otherwise, conflicting motivations creep in and spoil the experience.
"Ya gotta wanna."
How They Work Together
By now, you've already started to see that, but I want to be thorough and show you how, for a relationship of any kind to be successful, all four need to be on-line and working synergistically. The word for that is, "integrity" or "authenticity".
I'm going to present pairs of these four, all of them. You may take a moment with each pair and experience, "the light going on", as you suddenly feel them unite (integrate).
There are six '"aligned" pairings:
- sincerely available
- sincerely interested
- sincerely cooperative
- interested availability
- interested in cooperating
- available to cooperate
... and of course, the "truth standards"
- sincerely sincere
- interestedly interested
- cooperatively cooperative
- available to being available
Any resistance to these pairings reveals "where you're at" in relationships. It reveals your character, to yourself.
The Standard of Clarity: Non-Alignment in Relationship
Just to make sure you understand, at the level of feeling, I'm going to contrast each of the pairings with its opposite. (I did this with a couple of examples, earlier.)
- insincerely available (DISHONESTY) -- or --
sincerely unavailable (HONESTY) -- or --
insincerely unavailable (AVOIDANCE) - insincerely interested (DISHONESTY) -- or --
sincerely uninterested (HONESTY) -- or --
insincerely uninterested (HIDING FEELINGS) - insincerely cooperative (SABOTAGE) -- or --
sincerely uncooperative (ANTAGONISM) -- or --
insincerely uncooperative (SELF-SABOTAGE) - interested but unavailable (PRIOR COMMITMENT) -- or --
uninterested but available (NONCOMMITAL MEDIOCRITY) -- or --
uninterested unavailability (DISDAIN) - interested but uncooperative (RESERVE) -- or --
uninterested cooperation (OBLIGATION) -- or --
uninterested uncooperativeness (NEGLECT) - unavailable to cooperate (AVOIDANCE/HIDING) -- or --
available but uncooperative (CONTRARINESS) -- or --
unavailable and uncooperative (HONEST REFUSAL)
... and of course, the "standards of deception"
- insincerely sincere
- uninterestedly interested
- uncooperatively cooperative
- unavailable for being available
Applying All This to Relationships You've Been In
We meet in relationship in many areas and ways: work, love, sex, business. You can apply the pairings of the four qualities to any area of life and to any incident or situation.
Casual Relationships
A mix of the various aligned and unaligned combinations produces casual or superficial relationships. Consider Facebook "friends". Consider co-workers and people you encounter in business.
Consider any casual relationship. Look at it in terms of the pairings. Look at them in yourself and in the other. Look at words and look at actions; look at whether the actions are consistent with the words. Look at the activities you share. Revealing.
Close Relationships
Closeness occurs when all of the four qualities are active and integrated (all pairings are present). To the degree that the four qualities are present in their aligned form (first set of six), to that degree, we have closeness and it feels like closeness.
However, when we are close in one area (as in, say, having gone through a growth experience, a disaster or a big success, together), we may or may not actually be close in many areas. If feel close in one area, we may expect that closeness to apply to all areas of life, but what has developed is an untested, superficial trust factor that only potentially leads to deep friendship or intimacy.
Such relationships are "relatively" close and are only "relatively" revealing -- revealing of misalignments-in-relationship. The areas of misalignment are the sense of distance between individuals.
Intimate Relationships and Soulmates
Intimates and soulmates share alignment, not just in many areas, but in fundamental areas, in deep areas of self. We have an integrity that has stood the test of many circumstances.
Intimacy especially reveals our misalignments. The difference between "relative" closeness and intimacy is the willingness to grow and change under the influence of the other person -- and the willingness (and ability) to change, where misalignments exist.
One-Sidedness
Sometimes, the pairings of the four, in ourselves, and in others mismatch in different aspects of our lives, so that it seems that we feel differently about the relationship than they do.
When that happens, check for a mismatch between words and actions -- both in our self and in the other. There's a break.
Overriding and Imbalances
Sometimes, we override our feelings; sometimes, we are in denial.
The overriding of feelings and denial lead to imbalances that may occur in any area of life -- a break of integrity that can lead to a breakup.
What to Do, If . . .
Let's say you're invested in a relationship, and it's stuck. What can you do?
You've already started the first step: Wake up.
Wake up, in this case, means bring all of the pairings to the light of day -- that means, in yourself and in your perception of the other person. You can remember the ways in which things are stuck or broken.
The next step is, clean-up.
Ordinarily, the most people can do is "try". They may use affirmations, well-meaning efforts, communication, therapy, visualizations, etc.
From personal experience, you know these approaches are only "relatively" effective.
Allow me to offer a more powerful alternative: The Gold Key Release.
The Gold Key Release is a way to deprogram yourself from forever-limitations that keep you stuck. It's an internal process that uses ATTENTION, INTENTION, MEMORY, AND IMAGINATION in a single, unified process. Many stuck places can be freed in fifteen to twenty minutes. Others, especially deeply entrenched conditioning, take more -- but there are ways to deal even with those. The result is more spontaneous right action, more free creativity, in the area addressed. Things go better.
Rather than explain The Gold Key Release and all of its steps, here, I'm offering you all of it on this page. My advice: follow the instructions closely, and start with something juicy -- an incident or something that bothers you. Moderately difficult situations are easiest to put through The Gold Key Release because you already feel them, distinctly, while they are not so "crusty" that you need a large number of passes through the Release to get them to dissolve. That way, you get a successful experience, early on, and can recognize the value of The Gold Key Release for many areas of your life.
Click the key, read, and get started. Ya gotta wanna. It's your life.
Wake up. Clean up. Grow up. Show up.
Are you interested?
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