Agreements can be a tricky thing. What happens with most people is that agreements at some area are assumed. Assuming an agreement is a slippery slope, and what we look at within any innate system, any living system is that there’s agreement more than by assumption. It’s by a cohesive working together, and in the case of human beings it’s either spoken or written. Agreements set up the framework for a relationship.
An agreement is not necessarily a contract, in terms of written in black and white, etched in stone, never to be changed or to be changed only at one’s peril. An agreement is a more fluid thing. An agreement is something that is subject to change.
Jackie, my wife and I got married some 46 years ago, and we made an agreement with each other that we will be together as long as love shall last. We have overcome many tricky spots in our relationship to a large degree because we’ve had an agreement that is referencing a higher value.
No matter how much we’ve been irritated with each other at various points in time we come back to that point, well, do we love each other. We don’t necessarily agree with each other and buy into each other’s beliefs totally. Many of our behaviours are different and there’s beauty and power in this. That’s all part of a relationship that works.
When you think of a human body, there’s all sorts of different organs in the body. These organs have different vibrations about them, and different cells, so the cells differentiate, and they all hang out together, and yet there’s an interdependence and agreement between all cells and all organs, and tissues, that respect and interact with all the rest of the body as well, even though they’re very, very different.
We may ask WHY as a couple, a team or a business are we doing what we’re doing? What is our common cause? What is our central purpose? That’s the reason for us to get together. What is the why?. What’s the reason for us to create this synergy of two people coming together as one, to create something, or to go somewhere, or to do something.
What is the direction we’re taking here, and let’s define it. Let’s say, okay we’ve come together, we have an agreement to work together, to be together, and we want to create a certain thing. We want to go in a certain direction.
So, the question then obviously becomes WHAT are we doing? Within a relationship, I think it’s important to have the definition of what we’re doing. What are our roles, and our responsibilities? What are the things, and the actions, and the things that we’re going to do within this relationship so that the lines of demarcation are quite clear? And go back to that example of the body. It has a very different demarcation to a bowel, to a toenail, to a liver cell, brain cell. We have very different functions within this one body. So, within nature, within the innate wisdom of life, we have a definition of what we’re doing, and there’s a control over what we do. There’s a control over a heart muscle and it’s function, and tongue muscle, and it’s function, and biceps muscle and it’s function. Very, very different style of cells all working together, and there’s a different level of function for the good of the whole that comes from each of those organs, or each of those tissues.
In relationships there are naturally roles. This is what you’re going to DO. This is what I’m going to do. This is what we’ll do together. This is what we’ll have other people do. It becomes quite a prescriptive thing, and policies and procedures in a business context. Lines of demarcation … We see many relationships fall apart because he thinks he should do this, and she thinks that she should do that, and neither knows what the other really thinks at any point in time, because it keeps changing.
The next question is “how are we going to go about doing it”? What’s our organisational structure when it rolls out into productivity? How are we going to be productive, how are we going to make this life together, how are we going to make this widget together, how are we going to make a winning team together?” Whatever the cause, which is being established now, this is where the rubber meets the road. If you’re familiar with the in8model the why is the Quadrant 1 part, and then the what is the Quadrant 2 part, and now we’re talking about the Quadrant 3 part, which is the HOW.
The how is the application. It’s how do we craft this? It’s about minutia, it’s about the small details, it’s about the every day necessities. Within a relationship it’s the little things that count. Its’ the little day-to-day activities, a little touch here, and a little nice kind word here, a little honest heart-to-heart connection there, and a little reprimand here or there, or an expression of anger or angst here and there. But done in a stylish way. Done in a way which is supportive and nurturing to self, and to others.
These are the rules of the game within a relationship. It’s like, “How do we do our productivity as a couple, as a team, as a work group, and allow ourselves to be productive and still without common sense of purpose adhering to the roles that we’ve established for ourselves.
It then kicks us into how can we reinvent ourselves, which is the Quadrant 4 part. Within a relationship, there’s all these possibilities that come up. And possibilities are constantly on our horizon, and giving us an opportunity to express ourselves at new levels. What actions are we going to take? We all serve to those possibilities. How are we going to allow ourselves the space to tear things down, and put them together in a new way?
Because relationships have within it a sort of a use by date. It’s like the cells of our body are always being born, and then dying. The body doesn’t heal, it regenerates. There’s constantly new cells coming in, and there’s an organisation to that. There’s an organisation to the old cells drying, and the new cells coming in, and if the situation is changed, then the new cells that come in will be different. In other words, when we’re getting good exercise, the new cells that come in are more robust. When we have good nerve supply, the new cells that come in are more robust. When we have pure thoughts, and positive thoughts, the new cells are more robust. In fact, the whole genetic structure is more robust.
That all allows for the new cells to be more available to these possibilities that then present themselves, and that is the key to expanding relationship. It’s like doing new stuff, breaking down old habits that used to work, but maybe don’t work as well now, or maybe don’t work at all now, and going to a new level.
That’s the challenge here within relationships, how can we keep shifting our agreements? How can we move our agreements to a new level that are now different to the previous agreements? Over our time of marriage, Jackie and I together have had many different agreements that have come and gone. That then opens up new possibilities. That is the youthing process. That is a process of growth. The other option within an agreement is that it gets stayed and all used up. Resentment sets in. We get cranky. We start to shrink, and we argue for our limitations. We get smaller and less effective, and that’s a dying process.
So, we have a choice within agreements. Agreements can be ever increasing, and ever refreshing. Or, they can be decaying and dying. So the question on this one is what are your actions relative to your agreements? Where are your agreements in need of a re-assessment? Where are you not in agreement with someone. Or, maybe there are assumed agreements going on. Maybe you have some past or present disagreements, fights or even irksome irritations that you are holding on to.
So, ask yourself, what are the changes that you are going to make in this area? How are you going to re-engineer your agreements, and maybe even exit your agreements. This is always a possibility. An agreement is something that’s set in jelly. This is what we have agreed to currently but the environment will impinge on us at some point in time and we may choose to exercise another agreement at that stage.
Allow yourself this beautiful innate style of organic growth and development and connection with others. I know that you’ll find it’s a very freeing state. It’s a state that allows you to work at a whole different level with others, because it drops the angst. It brings out all the expectations and so agreements then can be put in a way that is productive for all. So, have fun with this.
Look after your agreements and be brilliant.
Mark Postles
