Reflections and Tips on Group-Relating & Open-Relating

It is challenging enough for most people to even have moderate success in a traditional couple relationship. It is sad and shameful how little education and how much misinformation we get about even starting a decent relationship with ourselves, let alone another person.

There are many forms and variations of couple relating and all fine and beautiful. They can be monogamous and closed or polyamorous and open. They can be anything in between with all kinds of agreements and boundaries of varying degree and limitless possibilities.

I feel almost all humans today are programed, conditioned, and entrenched in many beliefs including the dyadic couple dynamic. It has not necessarily always been the default setting of human relationship, yet today it certainly seems to be.

Group relating is very different. Like couple relating, it can also be closed or open.

Just to clarify, this is not about having shallow sexual relations with a lot of people. I am talking about deep, intimate, sustainable and satisfying relationships of 3–7-or possibly more-individuals sharing love and life. Together co-creating a solid foundation for family and conscious manifestation.

I have supported many couples, both friends and clients, with exploring or transitioning into open-relating. And, I have seen a majority of them default back into the closed couple relationship with the same partner or a new one.

It takes willingness, skill, emotional mastery, patience, and courage to even attempt forays in this arena, let alone have any success.

I witness more people everyday waking up to their soul calling them to live in a different relational paradigm. I see them dreaming, intellectualizing, and making their best attempts only to watch them stopped by the wall of their own conditioning or shadow aspects.

The competitive/instinctual animal nature, often in collusion with our alpha ego, overrides the conscious willingness of our heart and soul that attempts anything other than the program of couple-relating. Even the most aware or mindful people I know, consciously and unconsciously sabotage any departure from this norm. An attempt to live outside of coupledom is often feared, shamed and attacked. If group-relating is not halted by the subconscious or unconscious aspects of ourselves, then it is unconsciously or consciously thwarted by our partners, friends and families, as well as the human collective in general.

Here are some key things to consider when navigating significant and intimate group relationship:

Find your authentic desire and genuine willingness.

Continue to cultivate deepening awareness.

Expand loving presence.

Employ ruthless shadow stalking.

Open yourself and your relating to the loving group gaze with friends and allies that have accomplished sufficient emotional mastery, have awareness of toxic shame, and embody enough loving presence.

Deeply bonded and intimate relationships often trigger unresolved control and abandonment issues. When these issues arise, feelings kick in and the emotional body starts to spin like a hurricane that can overwhelm conscious awareness and presence. When our consciousness is overwhelmed, we most often either attack those we are relating with or we run away and hide.

We then punish others for the feelings we are experiencing through actions of verbal and/or physical abuse or else we distance ourselves and withdraw, otherwise known as “take away”.

This is the time to support the wild animal within to release the fear and control that has us traumatizing and attacking ourselves and those we love around us. Once we do that, conscious awareness and presence can return and it is then possible to do nothing and burn in Love.

To burn in Love is to witness and dissolve the reactive fear and control that would sabotage and destroy our loving relationships. Whatever form our relationships take, can we hold the point of Love?