Published:
11/16/2010 05:06pm
Keep Your Love Growing: Huna principles for healthy relationships
Recently there have been two cases where people actually dialed 911 looking for a date or a husband (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4p5W5yuy_JE and http://www.newser.com/story/92116/drunk-woman-to-911-operator-find-me-a-husband.html). These extreme examples show very bad judgment, but they also point to the desperation and loneliness that many people live with.
Huna, the ancient Hawaiian discipline of energy, consciousness and healing, teaches principles that people can use to find a soul mate and keep their relationships healthy. The most important thing is that there needs to be a unity in relationship — a union without a disintegration of the things that made the two individuals before the relationship.
From a Huna perspective there are three aspects that exist within each relationship — the two separate individuals plus the relationship. In other words, the relationship in English terms almost forms its own entity. It is not one plus one equals two. It is the two individuals plus the relationship. Think of the relationship as a third aspect that needs as much caring for as the two.
It’s not a good thing for one partner to “lose themselves” in the relationship. The term “you complete me” has little to do with healthy union. Huna teaches that we are already complete before we enter into relationship, but also recognizes there is increased mana (energy) in a union.
Imbalance occurs when two people are so independent they haven’t joined together to form true unity in a relationship. I see this sometimes in couples who live together and split all their finances 50/50. Usually what you get in those relationships is one person says it works and the other says it doesn’t. The reason is the relationship has never fully formed.
Back in the 1980s my father, with the best of intentions, told me it was best to live together before marriage to get to know the other person. But a study years ago at the University of Hawaii found higher divorce rates among people who had cohabitated before marriage. It found that when couples live together and they are not formally committed by signing a paper, taking a vow, they remain as two separate individuals and the relationship never truly forms, never truly matures.
Within a relationship there are certain things, such as finances and physical space, that should be joined in order for the energy to flow together. A home becomes a physical manifestation of the relationship. It is not your space, or my space, but our space. Within the home, each person can maintain their own space.
Many people find it helpful to create a joint checking account, but keep separate accounts too. My wife still has a checking account which she has had since before we were married, but she hardly uses it. Almost everything we have has become shared.
We have been together for 10 years and married almost nine years. There are things I do on my own and things she does on her own and things we do together. When I do hula or drumming, she doesn’t do those things with me but she supports me in doing them. There are other things we always do together, such as going on vacation or going out for a date.
In my workshops, I ask people what is your first goal when starting a romantic relationship. People usually respond “go out on a date,” then “a second date” and eventually “seal the deal” or have sex. So I ask: “now you have had sex, let’s say the relationship is going great, what is next?” And they usually respond “Get married.”
What next? “Have a house.” “Have kids.” So you’ve got the house, got the kids, what then? About this time people start making a mistake and throwing out goals for their kids. Pretty soon, someone usually responds “retirement.”
So I ask “Your next goal is being 65? What about the 30 years in between?” We spend so much time in the beginning with huge goals for relationships. Then there is usually a huge drop off when it comes to what do we do next.
Every year, Soomi and I set a goal of what do we want ou
