Episode 23: Relationship Landscape

What a mysterious episode title :-) Episode 23 comes rolling out a red carpet for reflection on and around relationships. What are they? Who are we in them? What is our relationship landscape or garden? Listen in and join the reflective mood around relationships as a web of life. 

I’d love to hear from you. Reach out at irina@irinapashina.com, on LinkedIn, or visit irinapashina.com to learn more about my work as a coach, mentor, supervisor, facilitator, and speaker.

Thank you for joining me on this journey of reflection and connection. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Hello and welcome. Welcome to Begin Anywhere. My name is Irina Pashina. And I'm here to hold space. To hold space for all of us where we can begin anywhere. With less script and more presence. Thank you for joining me. Hello and welcome to episode 23 of Begin Anywhere. Today I'm beginning anywhere again, and I'm beginning with relationships. It's relationships that are such an inherent part of our lives and are a fertile ground for both challenges and joy, both fulfillment and frustration. And it seems like relationships are everywhere. I certainly have felt this way in the last few weeks. And somehow May tends to bring this energy for me and into my life of looking at my relationships, looking at how I am in them, how they are in my life, and what has shifted. How am I shifting? What has changed? And yeah, having become a relationship coach, and having been immersed into what relationships are all about in general has been a truly intriguing experience, and it helped me come to terms, to different terms, with how I felt about relationships with people earlier in my life. And it did create so many new perspectives and opened windows and doors and um roofs into seeing more of what relationships mean truly. Growth not in terms of performance or metrics or numbers, growth in terms of evolving, seeing more, becoming more of who we are, also in relationships, and it's all simple when I talk about it. It sounds so simple, and the reality of relationships is that it is complex. And the more I look deeper, the more I realize how relationships, every relationship is unique, and it's almost like a character. Yeah, the nature of every relationship is different. And if we tune into what it needs, what it's like, what it wants, what it's growing into, we can build a very different alignment and connection with each other or in relationship to something else. I've been noticing the topic of relationships and how it emerges almost in every single engagement I have with a client. And I'm noticing how it emerges for me in my life every single day, and the experiences range from extreme frustration to enormous joy and everything in between. I guess there is so much to be said and experienced in relationships. It's like an enormous playground if I look at the different types of relationships in my life, and I can see it as a landscape that's very diverse, and I can also see it as a children's playground with very different types of activities, and in my line of reflection in the last weeks, there has been some sadness coming up, about relationships that didn't continue the way I wanted them to, about relationships that came to an end, whatever end might mean, due to circumstances or other conditions and forces or events. And having gone through a significant transition myself in the last twelve months, I'm noticing that it completely shifted and changed how my relationship of use the metaphor of a garden, how it looks like is very different. And part of this changes haven't necessarily been wanted by me. So I'm staying with what is, what has been shifting, and realizing that a lot of us human beings being in relationships is about trusting their relationship and the process of relating and trusting that it leads us somewhere, and it doesn't mean that we don't have agency or we um we don't influence the relationship, it simply means that there is so much that's outside of our control, and perhaps that's one of the scary bits of relationships. We enter them, and then they have their own life, and there is another person or many people in a in um in a team, in a group, in an organization, and there are also many relationships we have with different people, friends, and peers, and colleagues, and family, and acquaintances, and so many different people, and yeah, I am staying with this awe, the awe of the human ability to relate and to evolve through relating with others, and I'm also staying with something that feels very true to me that it can be deeply challenging. It can be deeply challenging to be in a relationship. And I think I'm much more hopeful and trusting than I used to be. Not because I have an idealized concept of relationships and believe in miracles or in the beauty of friendship and and all of this exists, I'm not denying it. It's just that I'm hopeful because I have experienced relationships as knowing. I have experienced it in my life and in the lives of people close to me, and also my clients. I've experienced it in teamwork, so coaching teams and coaching individuals and relationships are always an invitation. An invitation into looking deeper, so in our own world, in our own relationship with ourselves. The more I reflect, the more I see how it's virtually impossible to not be in a relationship. At the least there is the relationship with oneself, and the bigger reflection points of who am I in a relationship? What's my impact? How is the relationship like? What is shifting? And I'm noticing how vulnerable and even raw it can feel when we notice shifts in relationships that we don't like, that may be hurtful. We noticed something coming to an end can be a natural process and can still, of course, be connected with emotions. I've been feeling all of this and how I have this need, I haven't honored fully to complete, to complete within myself and to grieve and to let some of the sadness that I had put aside throughout the years to let it come out. And along with some resentment and frustration, and perhaps with some joy that I didn't allow myself to feel, and maybe I don't fully allow myself to feel today. So there is a lot, it's rich, and I felt the urge to bring relationships into the focus of this episode 23. Somehow in a season that comes with nourishment, rain and sun and blossoming, at least in my part of the world, of reviving, and still, there is an there is always an end and a beginning, the end of the winter, the beginning of spring, the end of the colder part of the year, the beginning of the warmer part of the year. Just this is a parallel process to how relationships shift and change over time, and noticing for myself in myself, how I have the tendency sometimes to want to keep things the way they are. And I'm noticing now my hand and how I'm it's as if I'm holding something in my hand, and there is no holding, there is no holding that can make something stay the way it is, and just equally is there no pushing and pulling that would completely shift? Yeah, so many questions. I would like to complete, to finish, to put an end to this episode with a reflection, reflective question or inquiry about the landscape of your relationships. How is it for you? How does it look like? How does it feel like? How are you in this landscape? What is giving you joy? What is something that you're noticing about yourself that you may want to be different? Because relationships are and will always be part of life, and I think the more we can build awareness and the more we can see around them, into them, the richer our lives would be, and the more intention we could bring and connection. Thank you for listening. I look forward to speaking with you again next time, and wish you a good rest of your day, week, or month even. See you soon.