Entering the Sacred Space of Co-creation

Have you ever wondered what goes on in the womb where miracles happen? It's nothing less than a miracle when a fertile egg attaches to a fertile sperm, and boom; suddenly a newborn human being is on the way. We know that the odds of that happening are a million to one.

Conception of connection in the womb space of co-creation is a miracle in kind; one in which there is an intermingling of essences that requires both people to be highly fertile and connectable. Both miracles occur in the sacred space of co-creation and are the outcome of a co-creative process. And both produce one-of-a-kind, special, and unique co-creations, born from two unique beings at a particular point in time.

Connection and relationships don't just happen. They're not random. They don't occur in a vacuum. They are co-created. As is the case with any art form or co-creative process, basic principles apply, and essential skills must be practiced and honed.

Oftentimes, some training is in order. The following principles and communication skills building are to be applied to the arts of connection, communication, and conversation. It's also important to have some understanding of the co-creative process itself so that you'll be able to engage more fully in the process.

1. For the miracle of connection to be possible, both people must have highly juicy or fertile essences. What is the secret to fertility or connect-ability?

In the Vesica Pisces image above, the Us space represents conception, where two juicy essences or Selves intermingle and conception occurs, while there is Me on one side and You on the other side, which represents two separate Selves, as if one was an egg and the other a sperm. They come together and boom—a miracle occurs, and an Us (or We) is born. Both Me and You must be highly fertile or have a high "connectivity quotient." The secret to keeping your essence juicy is being conscious and connected to your experience, having immediate access to it when engaged in the sacred process of co-creativity and in the womb of co-creation where each other's essences intermingle. The substance of the essence is the pure experience that makes for the deepest connection, but you must be dialed in and fully engaged in the process.

2. Entering the sacred space in a 'clean slate' state of mind.

Another key upon entering the womb space of co-creation is being in and maintaining a "clean slate" state of mind. It's about being in the moment and open to a naturally unfolding co-creative process without reacting or trying to push the conversation one way or another. It creates an ideal atmosphere for co-creativity to thrive, and your juicy essence gets juicier when you're able to share your experience as the conversation unfolds, making for a deeper connection.

Being in a "clean slate" state of mind, you're going to be listening better as well. You're better able to shift your attention from yourself onto the person you're with.

"Clean slate" also connotes "unconditional interest" in the naturally unfolding process, the excitement of not knowing what's going to happen until it happens, crossing that bridge when you get there. You're eager to engage and see what you can co-create together, maybe a miracle? Each and every exchange in the womb where it happens is a standalone; a whole new play is about to unfold.

A "clean slate" is when you're in the moment, able to put whatever is going on in your head aside, not running on empty, overly stressed, or in a bad mood, which can only improve your chances to make a miracle happen. It will also dramatically reduce the extent to which preconceived notions, inaccurate interpretations, and emotional baggage from previous or current relationships would poison the well.

3. Intimacy begins with rapport.

What is rapport? Rapport occurs when two people are entranced in conversation. They are listening attentively and responding spontaneously, without self-monitoring or anticipating what is going to happen next or trying to steer the conversation one way or another or trying to make a good impression. They are in a zone, immersed in a naturally unfolding process, untainted by the wish for a desired outcome. Rapport is a sign that you're both connecting and are working well together co-creatively.

There are three main components that characterize rapport: interest, honesty, and understanding. Usually, when there is rapport, there is a higher level of mutual interest, you're being honest and real, and you are understanding each other. The quality of rapport may be the most reliable marker of relationship and intimacy potential.

Usually, where there is rapport, you're on the cusp of intimacy. Rapport is a precursor to intimacy. Intimacy is the outgrowth of rapport.

Interest

There are two types of interest: unconditional and conditional. Unconditional interest is being in it for the adventure, untainted by any personal agenda or wish for a desired outcome. You are internally motivated. You are a creator who comes alive in the space of co-creation.

One research study showed that unconditional interest was one of three key factors determining how healthy, nourishing, or intimate a relationship turns out to be. "When there is unconditional interest, there is an openness to learning about one's partner's process without interrupting or personalizing it, even if it sounded distressing." (Legg)

Conditional interest, on the other hand, is personal. You're (personally) interested in getting to know each other, closer and more connected emotionally, and want to spend more time being together.

When both people are unconditionally interested in the process, it's more likely they will become personally interested in each other. When unconditionally interested, you'd naturally be taking an inside-outside approach to getting to know each other. When it's lacking, it's more likely that you'd be taking an outside-inside approach to getting to know each other, and that your interest would be appearance-based or skewed by perception.

Honesty

Honesty is sharing your experience, being willing to speak your truth, whatever you're thinking, feeling, needing, wanting, or what matters to you at any given moment. Honesty is being congruent — saying what you are feeling and feeling the words that come out of your mouth.

When two people are being honest and real with each other, when their outward behavior or communication matches their inner experience, they are building trust and credibility in the process. They're demonstrating reliability, dependability, and integrity. When honesty is not built into the foundation of the relationship, the cornerstone of trust will never get built into the relationship, which could render the relationship a house of cards. Lack of honesty also translates to lack of substance and depth. Your essence remains shrouded.

Being honest and real is also an invitation for the other person to be honest with you. Honesty and realness breed themselves while creating a safe atmosphere.

Understanding

The third element of rapport is understanding. Understanding is what connects us. It is the bridge between disconnection and connection. Along with our basic human need for love and relationship is a need for understanding. When our need for understanding gets met, we feel closer, more connected, and alive.

Understanding requires an ability to respond to another person's experience. It is the ability to empathize, to convey resonance, to relate to or identify with the other's shared experience. It sees "more than meets the eye."

Our ability to understand and be understood depends on how conscious and connected we are, as well as our existential condition—that we are all separate and uniquely different people and everyone experiences the same events differently.

Before intimacy there is rapport. Where there is rapport, there is a connection. It's the same as chemistry. There is an attunement on both verbal and non-verbal levels.

When asked whether there was rapport, Joe said, "Yes. Something was going on. Can't quite put my finger on it. It was effortless. We just flowed. We were interested, honest, and real with each other the whole time."

After Judy had expressed a desire for more intimacy, more fluidity, and less pressure, I had asked her what intimacy meant to her. I thought she captured the essence: "Intimacy is a carve out, a space for us to be together, focusing totally on each other in a relaxed way, being open and vulnerable with each other. And certainly, that can be a turn-on and lead to sex, but as an outgrowth of intimacy, not a replacement for intimacy."

4. How to Assess your Experience

Assessing your experience is the mindful tracking of your experience, noticing your thoughts and feelings for the purposes of determining the quality and depth of the connection and for deciding on the direction you want the relationship to go. If you're dating, you'd be deciding whether how you felt and how connected you were warrants getting together again.

How did you feel being together? How connected did you feel? Were you "feeling it" or "not feeling it?"

Assessing your experience is about what specifically you are getting a read on. I'm suggesting a checklist of what I consider to be the most reliable criteria: Interest, Honesty, and Understanding.


Interest: Unconditional and Personal

How open were you with each other? It's difficult to generate rapport with someone who isn't revealing or is depending on you to talk about yourself first.

How "clean" were your respective "slates?" How unconditionally interested were you and the other, engaged in the process with zero attachment to the outcome?

Were you depressed, tired, or preoccupied, unable to fully engage in the process? Did they appear depressed, tired, or preoccupied?

Were you (personally) interested? If so, how were you interested? What (specifically) interested you? Were you (sexually) attracted?

How interested was the Other in you? What specifically did the Other say or do to give you that impression? Was your attraction, or lack thereof, mutual?

You absolutely need to know whether you were attracted. When you're attracted, your interest might have more to do with excitement than anything about the other person or quality of connection, independent of the attraction.

How honest and real were you with each other? If you are not comfortable being open, honest, and real, chances are you won't be able to assess your experience very accurately, not when there is no reliable information to assess. If you were guarded, defended, shut down, not open, how are you going to be able to assess how you felt? You know the saying, "Garbage in. Garbage out."

Did you feel understood? If so, when, what, and in what way? How did that feel?

Did I understand the Other? If so, when, what, and in what way? How did that feel?

Understanding is the heart of the matter, but it has to consciously register, otherwise your exchange will turn out to be uneventful, unemotional, and not nourishing. When feeling understood and when you understand, everything is okay. You're alive and connected in deep personal and spiritual ways.

Were there any disconnects or misunderstandings? (Specify when, what, how, etc.).

How did you feel being together? How connected did you feel? Were you "feeling it" or "not feeling it?"

5. The most important relationship is with yourself.

Being conscious and connected is what makes rapport building, "unconditional interest," "clean slate" state of mind, sharing your experience, your essence, and the gift of your Self possible. When you have a relationship with your Self, your wellbeing and sense of self-worth are internally based and not riding on someone or something external, outside of your Self to validate your existence or worth. You won't measure yourself according to how the other person responds to you.

If you are out of touch with what you're thinking and feeling, you will not be able to bridge understanding or be heard, known, understood, or felt. Self-awareness extends to intuitive alertness, which I often refer to as discernment—the ability to pick up on subtleties and nuances and on non-verbal communication (attitude, tone of voice, body language, eye contact, demeanor) or warning signals of unsafety.

When you have a relationship with your Self, you have an internal guidance system that is up and running, that alerts you when in any kind of danger for you to heed with action.

How can you get to know me if I can't accurately represent myself? How can I get to know you if you can't accurately represent yourself? How can I be intimate with you when I'm not with myself? How could you be intimate with me when you're not intimate with yourself?

6. The Four Essential Skills:

* Self-awareness

* Self-disclosure

* Asking Questions

* Listening

Relating, connecting, intimacy, and conversation are art forms. Dating is an art form. What to do the first time you meet someone is an art form. As is the case with any art form or creative process, basic principles apply, and essential skills must be practiced and honed. Knowhow and proficiency are required, if not tremendously helpful, in your pursuit of deep connections and intimate relationships. Regardless of whether you are looking to meet new people to connect or you're in a later stage of an ever-deepening and growing intimate relationship, the same four essential skills are involved: Self-awareness, Self-disclosure, Asking Questions, Listening.

Self-Awareness

Self-awareness, consciousness, being conscious and connected, mindful practice—all go together and add up to unbridled power, unleashed creativity, your home, your center-point, your observation tower from where you can view the totality of your experience.

Self-awareness is what you need to assess your experience and how you decide on your next course of action, how to respond, what you do or say.

Self-awareness makes it possible for you to represent yourself congruently, authentically; become known, understood, seen, heard, loved, close, and connected; gives you direct access to your experience, that is, what you're thinking, feeling, or wanting. When your self-awareness is heightened, you're more fertile, juicier, more attractive and magnetic, easier to connect with.

When your self-awareness is limited or you are more unconscious than conscious, more disconnected than connected, chances are you won't learn, grow, or enjoy the process. You won't be able to accurately represent yourself, get your need to connect met, or carry on a conversation of any depth.

Self-disclosure

When you are self-aware, you can determine what and how much you want to share or disclose. Depending on how self-aware you are and how safe and comfortable you feel, you may want to speak freely, uncensored, or choose your words carefully, or not want to share at all.

Self-disclosure is how you get to know each other more deeply and intimately. Sometimes it may appear or sound like the Other is self-disclosing when they are more defensive than open. Usually, the more comfortable and willing you are to self-disclose, the more engaged in the process and likely to connect they will be.

If you don't feel safe enough within yourself to take emotional risks, i.e., of rejection or not being understood, step out of your comfort zone and get below the surface, ain't shit's going to happen. When you choose agreeability over truth and authenticity, you and the Other are not likely to get much of a flow going. Connectivity (fertility levels) will be down.

Listening

"Listen with the same passion with which you want to be heard." (Harriet Lerner)

The more self-aware you are, the better you will listen and the more the person you are listening to will feel seen, heard, understood, safe, accepted, and respected. Listening is paying attention to what the person is saying when they are sharing with you. You are not responding, dialoguing, or having to say anything; you are only listening.

Self-awareness allows you to assess your visceral response not only to what is said (explicit, verbal communication) but also to what is unsaid (implicit, nonverbal communication).

When you are truly listening, a nonverbal groundswell of felt energy and connection builds. Listening is active engagement in the process and connecting on a deep, personal level. Listening is loving. Listening is understanding.

Effective listening requires intuitive alertness, intention, focus, and discipline. The cleaner your "slate" is, the better you will listen. Unconscious defensiveness clutters the clean slate, which hampers your ability to listen, empathize, understand, and maintain intuitive alertness.



Asking Questions

Asking questions is too an art. Asking questions has become the lost child of the four essential skills that need to be practiced, so you get better at asking questions. Don't ever underestimate or overlook the potential game-changing power of (good) questions.

Good, thought-provoking questions move the needle toward deeper self-reflection, connection, and intimacy. You could ask questions that ignite a deep, personal conversation that enters uncharted territory, where surprising and profound discoveries are made and lead to greater connection and intimacy.

Asking questions can elicit spontaneity—a true, honest response. Spontaneity makes a conversation unique and special, impossible to repeat.

I'm enthralled when I come up with good questions to ask, as well as when another asks me deep, thought-provoking questions. I often come away feeling grateful, inspired, clearer, and more connected within myself. It feels like pulling the covers off a blind spot and shining a light where there was age-old darkness.

Asking questions is also a way to show genuine interest and caring. It tells the Other that you really want to know them more personally and connect on a deeper level. Usually, a great question warrants a great answer. The better question-asker you are, the better generator of rapport you'll become.

It doesn't matter what you've been through in your life, whatever your experience in relationships was or what role models you had, or if you're struggling with addiction, depression, or trauma—you can always still learn, change, and grow in the process of relating. Hope lies in the fact that self-work combined with knowhow and a level of proficiency ignites creativity and empowers the transformation of your relationships. You can do this, as long as you're so motivated.


Ongoing Relationship Training Groups

Relationship and Communication Skills Building

For those eager to learn how to make deeper connections create intimate relationships and become better communicators. Relating, connecting, intimacy, and conversation are co-creative processes. As is the case with any art, basic principles apply, and essential skills must be practiced and honed. Gain the knowhow and proficiency that makes you more conscious, connectable, and creative; and more confident – like when you know where you're going and how to get there. Open your eyes to the mystery and magic of connection.



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