Patterns
I can see different types of patterns some of which are short-term and some long term. By my side some patterns are associated with our relationship and others who are from my experiences with past relationships with other partners.
My current relationship is very different from previous ones because of the fact that now we are three and we live as a family, and in this new situation I can also observe other patterns that I had never experienced before. A clear example is that every time Ohli and I spend time together without his mother, our relationship strengthens and grows in an upward spiral.
Below I'll talk about some patterns we can recognize in our relationship. We dedicated more attention to the negative aspects, as these are the ones we want to fix or improve.
My current relationship is very different from previous ones because of the fact that now we are three and we live as a family, and in this new situation I can also observe other patterns that I had never experienced before. A clear example is that every time Ohli and I spend time together without his mother, our relationship strengthens and grows in an upward spiral.
Below I'll talk about some patterns we can recognize in our relationship. We dedicated more attention to the negative aspects, as these are the ones we want to fix or improve.
Negative
We can detect conflicts and we are able to talk and find solutions to the things that we know that again and again don't work , but a lack of discipline leads to finally not changing the situation and we fall at the same point. Because of this sometimes it feels tense and obscure between us. In some cases there are things that affect us individually and we do not take the time to share it with the other, and this can become an extreme situation in which one of us breaks negatively. Luckily many times we talk on time and do not get to extremes. One of the good things we see in our relationship is that sooner or later we talk about things and we seek mutual understanding. This creates a wave pattern of rising and falling before and after speaking, and we especially feel down when we see that the pattern has not changed and we continue falling into the same mistakes. Lately we have been a little ambitious in our life projects, overloading ourselves with work and leaving no time and space to dedicate to us as individuals, couples or family. This leads to it being very difficult to get to reach our dreams or make future plans or things we would like to do, such as travel, visit other community projects, have free time, run courses, finish our diplomas... Recently we also lived very isolated in our land project, with a lack of a diversity of friends. We always want to be with other families to share experiences and to let Ohli have more friends, but we are always so busy that in the end this doesn't happen, so Ohli often feels bored and needs extra attention from us. |
During the three years that we have been together we have lived in three different continents, and now looking for stability we are living only between England and Spain. Every time we have changed house we have needed to give a great effort to adaptat to our new circumstances.
Positive
We keep trying to find the best way to be together and improve our relationship, we make time to do a conscious design on our lives as a couple or individual and wen this happen we feel going into a incremental personal energy.
I'm developing more empathy for Ohli and every time we understand better each other, this strongly influences to be better every day all three together.
We keep trying to find the best way to be together and improve our relationship, we make time to do a conscious design on our lives as a couple or individual and wen this happen we feel going into a incremental personal energy.
I'm developing more empathy for Ohli and every time we understand better each other, this strongly influences to be better every day all three together.
Principles
Each project life is different just like each person is and when the combination of two board that intensifies it still more. Here I show a small analysis about how we have used some of the Permaculture Principles in our relationship as a couple.
In many cases like ours to start a project required a big investment and is obtained a low yield because the situation is new and we have to find the best way to adapt creatively to each other and to the outcome of what it takes to be together.
This is not a personal sacrifice when one is fully in love and conflicts that may occur are not known, but eventually you have to develop some empathy and remodel some personal issues so that the love machine gear can continue beating, besides this is more complicate when it's a family and three members are finding new paths to integrate each other and have a life together. Since we met we have gone through three continents and innumerable countries spending a great quantity of personal resources, soon we saw clearer were our boundaries are and we started being more aware of where were the margins with which we could work to better save, catch and store our energies. |
Gradually we have better defined margins around our needs looking at minimizing leakage in energy and money, and slowly (and still) we are finding a better way to be more stable looking at the big pattern that is more convenient for us without get lost into details, increasingly minimize living costs and obtain more yield in long-term performances.
One of the good things we have together is that occasionally we take time to observe our situation and express our feelings, trying to accept the feedback to be aware were we have to applying self-regulation and interact on time to not find ourselves in situations where we can accumulate a large amount of stress and frustration because having a bad communication.
In the economy we have decided to work together as a family, it was best to distribute tasks in the most convenient manner and distribute the economic yields equally, because depending on the country where we were one of the two could be disadvantaged and not have the same resources to achieve personal aims. To save on expenses on basic needs like food we try to skip, grow our own food or make menus schedules with which we are more aware of the total expenditure of the week, and ways to recycle and produce no waste. On a personal level we had to accept that we are a couple that we do not like doing the same thing throughout the course of a year and although we seek stability it has to be rich in diversity, planning what we like to do with our way of life, that's why we're still finishing set between which countries we will live and which activities we can develop in each location. |