Written content - more on the Intimacy Circles

This Intimacy Circle Model comes from our dear Carole Dickson. The circles of spiritual family, friends, and acquaintances give language to describe both those who are closer in, vs. further out. There aren't hard and fast definitions. A spiritual acquaintance would be someone with whom when your paths cross, there's a delight present, a meaningful interaction, something that captures your interest or is attractive to your essence self even though you don't know them that well. But you can recognize a spark of yourself getting to just be YOURSELF in their presence. You are seen by them. With spiritual family, there's a bit more of a tie or connection. Perhaps these are people who are drawn closer in your orbit and are (or have the potential to be) a part of your life in more significant ways. But ultimately, you are asking questions to have these categories explained to YOUR heart. "What does it mean for someone to be in my spiritual family?" See what drops in, ask to be shown a passage in sacred scripture, do a card reading, pray for an insight then use Energy Checking to confirm/refine this understanding.

Also, the more we commune with our Beloved, the more fresh and ever-changing understandings we have to share with our inmost heart friends. Also, the more we can just be comfortable with OURSELVES to even be able to share in-home closeness with someone else. If we are not at home with ourselves we cannot experience that with someone else. The more at home we are with ourselves the deeper we can experience that AHHHHHH....with someone else. That at home-ness within ourselves comes from communing with our Beloved. From that communing we learn about ourselves. The Creator needs to describe us to ourselves. Otherwise, we're going off of so many wrong ideas about ourselves we've just picked up from the world.  

So if you get that someone is in the ego-driven circle, it just means there is some world "coloration" on that relationship. There is some effort going on by either you or them to hold a certain configuration. If that effort stops, the configuration is not sustainable. 

Love is the force that holds the atoms together. We want to see what LOVE is holding together. It is not US that holds things together. Here's a great question to ask Energy about a situation, or relationship: "Is LOVE holding the center of this together?" "Is LOVE wanting to arrange this differently?" Sometimes the arranging is something inside of you. Sometimes it is a different arrangement of people. 

The creative force is when something is thrown up in the air and it comes back down rearranged into something pleasing and inspired. This is what we are doing. We are saying, "Okay! Show me what arrangement LOVE is holding together! I want to be held by LOVE so I can rest into relationships and not waste my precious energy holding together something that I THINK I should keep together when it doesn't have to do with my forever story." We have the opportunity to live our forever story HERE while we are in bodies. Our forever story is our soul's story, the story we will live when we separate from our body. When we leave our body we no longer have free will to effort something that goes against our divine design or divine will. We want to use our free will to choose that which aligns with LOVEs design for us and our arrangement with others.  

Think of it like the difference between the relationship between magnets and a bunch of pens held together with a rubber band.  That rubber band may represent expectations for you to be something that you're not; ways you need to effort to keep someone close or ways they effort to keep you close. Just notice. To see the dynamic more clearly you can take something the person who tested in a further out circle would say or do and imagine your first circle inmost heart friend saying it. By doing this you can get a sense of how "off" this behavior is to our true self. SO often we've normalized behavior in our relationships that makes us blind to the true nature of the dynamic present.   

Now, LOVE surrounds every person and everything. No one is outside of this and every person has the free will to turn toward it. Baha'u'llah says, "Love Me that I may love thee. If thou lovest Me not, my love can in no wise reach thee."

This is about you seeing with your own eyes and not through the eyes of others. It is also more about you than it is about anyone else. You are getting the level of information that gives you clarity about YOU. 

Here’s the big breakthrough understanding about the intimacy circles. It’s mostly about YOU. Check to see what circle you are in with yourself when you are around a particular person. Who are you able to be yourself around? When we resonate with someone else on an essence level, we get to learn about another aspect of what it’s like to be at home with ourselves. The response we have to another person is a divine prompting that gives us valuable information about ourselves. When looked at it this way, it doesn’t matter if the person likes you back or makes time for you or becomes your bestie. Through whatever interaction you have with them you experience a part of the music that is inside of YOU. Now that you’ve heard it, you get to be with that aspect of yourself. Whatever delights your essence about someone else is inside of you. As you experience what it’s like to be at home within your divine design, these qualities that your essence pines for in others begin to show up in your own life because they emanate from you. As you become more and more at home with yourself, you experience others as an added sweetness to your life, but you are not dependent on them for your existence. You begin to settle into what makes sense to you all the way through and you live from that place. 

When you long for someone else, it’s helpful to know what Energy Circle your longing for someone else is coming from. Is your physical self longing for them (physical Energy System)? Your emotional self? Mental Energy System? What we really want to get curious about is what your Essence self is longing for. 

Now, if you notice an addiction to a belief that no one likes you, check to see if you’re angry at God. This may indicate a primal identity glitch to be healed through inner child work. 

The only reason it's important to know where someone else is in the intimacy circles is so you can know why a particular interaction with you is happening the way it is. We don’t gratuitously go around getting information about people. When it contributes to our understanding of ourselves and growth, Energy makes this information available to us. It’s important to know that there is a reason WHY no matter what you do, it isn’t working. Knowing what circle they’re in gives you a diagnostic read on the reality of the situation. When you are connected essence to essence, the relationship is equally replenishing. Notice which relationships take energy and which exist with no effort.

When I look back on my life 15 years ago, on one level I was doing interesting things and engaged with interesting people. From a world viewpoint, it was a rather impressive looking life. But the people I spent most of my time with were not my core spiritual intimates. I was/am a very helpful person. My divine design is to support other people's service. So I was supporting their service with no discernment if it was MY path. I felt deeply unseen and internalized this as a problem about ME. I was interested in things that just didn't even show up on the radar of people around me. This created a desperation inside of me to be seen and heard.  The more I have let go of these relationships the more I have been able to flourish in my own life and take up the things that are my divine assignment. There is nothing bad/wrong with those people, it's just that sometimes we were not to be as closely associated with certain people as we were made to think we should be though our socialization. And this doesn't necessarily mean dramatic moves. It just means shifting your attention to what and who IS your assignment. I learned I had different work to attend to and the people who LOVE has brought to me supports the flourishing of my divine assignment.