Unconscious Entanglements are relationships where we fall into role-based patterns. They are attempts to find safe, comfortable choices that will not unexpectedly rock the boat or challenge us. The more we have similar expectations, the more we believe we should be together. Having no personal boundaries, we fantasize about unconscious merging (falling in love). What we are ignoring is the duality in our body identity. While we believe that appearance is everything, we rarely pay attention to taking care of ourselves energetically. A lot of us fall into self-destructive patterns or addictions because we have not been able to unify our Sensations and Feelings. This makes us addicted to individuals who have our parental patterns. We seek the comfort of individuals who seem familiar, i.e. they have similar Compatibility Factors of our parents.

The more we follow our Instinctive patterns, the more they lead us to engaging only better versions of our parents. In this reality, the pain of our past is temporarily submerged in the hope that our partners will be better than our parents.

Unfortunately, this approach tends to re-establish and re-emphasize old denials and wounding patterns. It reinforces our need to compare and contrast our partner with our parents and inadvertently limits us to unconscious ways of operating. For example, we may have a certain picture in our minds of the type of person we believe we can introduce to our parents. The reality of this unconscious programming is our Objectification, which hides our judgment and the expectations we have about the potential partner; things do not work out as planned. Of course, we can outgrow this pattern by taking greater personal responsibility. By leaving Objectification behind we can learn how to bond with similar-quality partners.

What we are avoiding is making tough choices. We look for partners with whom we share instinctive chemistry, not realizing this is a form of biological programming to guarantee procreation. The more we fall into these automatic ‘falling-in-love’ experiences, the less choice we have about who would make a good partner. We keep seeking a modified, improved version of our parents hoping that they will heal and be with us in a way our parents could not. Since we are young, we stick to surface level perceptions because they seem to be the most reliable indicators of interest. This means Pretenses, BodyTypes, Mental Body Expression, Birth Order sequence, and Personality characteristics (Attitude, Goal, and Modes) become our main ways of differentiating ourselves from others. We do not realize that Excitement indicates that we are engaging our parental pattern. The more we deny the deeper indicators that all is not well, the more we end up Objectifying ourselves and our partner as a ‘hot couple,’ ignoring the deeper issues.

On a personal level, when I was a young child, I kept hearing the song, “The Girl From Ipanema” which was about infatuation with a girl who never saw the person singing the song. She would walk towards the bay, swaying in a Samba-like way, entrancing everyone who saw her. The message I received was to adore how a person looked and stay in the childlike fantasy that something magical would happen, believing they would fall in love with me. What I realized was that my longing was for a girl who used her feminine mystique, while making the assumption she could have anyone she wanted, but who would not really pay attention to me (or the options around her). This enchantment, combined with the conflicted excitement of the person singing the song, almost guaranteed that this connection would never happen. In my own life, I was infatuated with women I never pursued. This is the agony of infatuation, combined with Excitement, which paralyzes us. At the time, it appeared to me that Excitement was an impossible desire or longing that made Love both unavailable and hopelessly unattainable. One of the reasons for this is that when we are attracted to individuals with a different imprinted pattern or type they are looking for, they never do see us. It taught me to assume that Love did not require any form of intentional engagement. This is a common hook, which traps us in the search for right appearances at the cost of discovering (or not) the true Beauty within a person. Now, I realize this song taught me about getting lost in outer beauty and learning to choose instead, real engagement, to validate my experience.

Being able to get attention by looking good is the most important aspect of these unconscious relationships. This does not keep us from feeling jealous or envious when others get the attention they want more easily than we do. We fixate on copying or imitating the self-confidence of others (to create the appearance of Creative Flow) because inwardly we are concerned about our options and choices. What we want to avoid is being judged as not appropriate, not cool or boring. The fear of making a mistake is eventually overcome by the fear of missing out on opportunities. As we grow older, we start questioning whether we have to be so isolated and protective of our prerogatives. This seeming randomness creates stress, where we feel driven to act. This impulse is part of our unconscious conditioning.

Excitement indicates a denial of Life expression. The linked article suggests that Sigmund Freud believed all Excitement is sexual. Higher Alignment believes Excitement is a compromised experience where Fear is placed over Desire. Practically speaking, this means that every Excitement experience indicates a desire for Safety that is being compromised by a fear of making the wrong choice. The more we are fixated on the pursuit of Excitement, the more unbalanced we are, making us more accessible to being manipulated. Advertisers use excitement to sell products, knowing that it is a fault line within our personality. The paradox is that we always believe we will get what we want, when in fact we do not. This is why individuals caught up in Excitement seek instant gratification yet are willing to wait if it is in service of building anticipation. On a practical level, when we experience Excitement, it indicates someone who conforms to our ‘type’ or, as we will soon come to understand, our parental pattern.

When we are on the unconscious, solitary Excitement path, our perspective is limited to outer appearances. The beauty of role-based relationships is the simplicity of either meeting the expectations of others or not. Relationships are successful at this level when we meet other’s expectations, and they fail when we do not. Since relationships at this level are things to be managed, we naturally prioritize our connections based on where we get the most positive feedback. We automatically avoid, or at least temporarily minimize, those relationships in which expectations are not being met. Role-based relationships are fixed connections, such as friends, romantic partners, parent/child, boss/subordinate, sibling or family relationships. Our relationship networks are based on familiarity, common interests and the ability to predict how others will respond.

Wanting a connection that feels good is the primary driver of friendships and romantic relationships on Level 1. When we see a potential partner, particularly a romantic partner, it is easy to be infatuated if they meet the external standards we have established for beauty or handsomeness. Everything becomes about ‘making the right move’ and we become preoccupied by the possible judgments they might have about us. This increases our Excitement and builds a sense of anticipation so that we make greater efforts to win them over. Many of us learn to play games so that we are not perceived as easily available or easy to get. As long as we are clear about our intention and are willing to take some risks to get their attention, we tend to do well engaging them as potential partners who will respond to our efforts. One reason for this is that most individuals, at this level, have a difficulty saying no to any potential interest. The way that most of us fail is that we do not follow through with our intentions.

We initially try to adjust to our partner, allowing them flexibility because we want to be able to trust them. When they do not live up to our expectations, we attribute this to their not knowing what they want, or not wanting us. It could easily be that they do not have a lot of social interaction skills and have not developed a capacity to engage us in a balanced way. While it is likely that they may have difficulty with certain boundaries, we are looking for someone who will accept us as we are. When others do not calibrate well to us, we give them a break. We think that if they appreciate us, they will adapt to us, which will reduce our need to adapt to them.

On the Instinctive level we are chemically wired to deal with particular experiences in a particular manner. Building healthy, happy habits is important if we want to be in more conscious relationships. Otherwise, we become triggered and fearful and mostly avoid change and confrontation. Or, when we do engage confrontation, it is unproductive. Key chemicals and hormones are released in different types of situations. Understanding the impact of these is the first step in being able to use them in a positive way. Mike Bundrant of PsychCentral.com has written an article “Five Ways To Boost Your Natural Happy Chemicals”. This small article can help us  recognize when we are being impacted by certain events so we can maintain our inner balance. Unfortunately, these chemicals reinforce certain positive (e.g. serotonin) and negative (e.g. cortisol) associations we make about others, amplifying the false idea that others are making things better for us when they may not be doing anything at all. This is particularly inappropriate when we start believing that others are making us feel or behave in a certain way.

How Lower Level Motives Limit Us

As the Motives diagram illustrates, there are four levels of Motives. We develop from the bottom up, growing from the Instinctive level to the Intellectual level to the Idealized level and, finally, to the Intuitive level. Until we understand where we naturally operate and how the Motives of others impact us, we have little success in working with people. At the Intuitive level, the Motives of Universal Dominion, Mutual Accomplishment and Conscious Participation are optimum ways of interacting. Unfortunately, in real life, we cannot begin with these Motives because few people operate at this level and they are not commonly understood nor embraced. Instead, we need to learn to uplift the Motives of others step-by-step in order to improve our connections. We recommend building up and affirming individuals at one level to eventually take a step into the next highest Motive, in that sequence. What Motives most reveal is how open people are to exploring mutual self-interests. At the bottom of the chart, individuals hide their own needs and try to maximize benefits to themselves at the cost of others. Moving up the chart, people are able to reveal more about their Desires and work with others to manifest them together. Knowing where we are in terms of Motives, and recognizing what is going on with our partners in terms of Motives, is critical in being able to predict the likely outcomes for any actions we take.

Developing an understanding and appreciation of Motives encourages us to grow and take full advantage of our opportunities. When we grow up with parents who operate in lower motives and do not trust higher ways of interacting with others, we naturally start at a lower level of Motive development. This means we do not believe that we can create better relationships. On the other hand, if we have conscious parents, we become exposed to higher Motives, which offers greater confidence to create what we want. We seek out partners who reflect similar or complementary factors (usually at the same level, but one person’s Motive will be feminine and the other will be masculine). This promotes greater role-playing about what we can do in the relationship without having to confront it on a conscious level. While we are attracted to those with similar Motives, we are not always congruent with how their Motives are expressed and where they go with them. This is particularly obvious when one partner wants to grow, but the other partner cannot. Many times, this lack of interest in Growth is the result of not wanting to fail trying to meet someone else’s expectations. Therefore, they end up isolating themselves from their partner’s initiative and then distance themselves from their partner eventually leading to the relationship failure they were trying to avoid.

Motives are about Intent and how we can pursue activities with different levels of consciousness and commitment. They show up as pleasurable experiences when others connect to us in the way we want and intend. Lower level Motives are always less effective than their higher counterparts. This means people who operate in higher motives get things done, whereas people with lower motives rarely do. At each increasing level of Motives, greater consciousness and complexity is required to meet others in a way that facilitates mutual outcomes. When someone cannot act, they talk about it. This is why, at Level 1, people always talk about their own motives or the motives of others without agreeing about what needs to be done. They can also get into arguments over who is in control, what is their real motivation, or assign perceived agendas to others that may not be true. Mostly, this is because they are projecting their own issues onto others and cannot see the irony in this.

We grow in our Motives by systematically choosing a Holon Arthur Koestler’s word used in his book The Ghost in the Machine) that indicates something that is simultaneously a whole and a part. Each element of a Holon is another step to greater embodiment of a particular skill. This word was further defined by Ken Wilber to suggest a set of skills that need to be built sequentially on each other to maximize their full embodiment. Motives are defined as a growing sequence that is either feminine, masculine or a combination of both. Higher Alignment Attractions and Skill are also Holon structures. Each has an Instinctive, Intellectual, Idealized and Intuitive component that facilitates growth and greater capacity. The complete ability is only manifest at the Intuitive Level, which combines all of the previous steps to create a larger whole.

Starting from the bottom, we need to manifest the dilemma and limitations of each lower Motive to begin to embody the next higher one. This process helps us develop our Intent so if something manifests it is actually the result of our Intention. The opposite of this is also true: if something does not manifest, we did not have a complete Intention. Most of the lower level Motives are colored by selfishness, which blinds us to how other things in the world could interact with our new manifestation. For example, Arrogance, on the masculine Holon, is an attempt to look smart without understanding the underlying structure of our claimed expertise. When we engage Personal Achievement (on the Intellectual Level) we naturally need to structure ourselves to deliver on our promises. This Motive of Personal Achievement is automatically limited if we do not understand how everything is constructed. Idealized Unity brings together our body and mind frameworks so we can passionately respond and organize ourselves in terms of a larger ideal. We will continue to operate on this Idealized Level until everything is interrelated and brought into alignment with what exists. Until this happens and we take ownership of this knowing, Mutual Accomplishment, which is the highest intuitive masculine expression, is not possible.

Most of the confusion in our relationships comes from trying to understand the Motives of others and figuring out if those ways of operating jive with us. Since we are usually upset when others do not take us into consideration and do something inappropriate, we naturally suspect their motives. Ironically, everything that they are doing could be, and probably is, considered normal behavior in their family of origin. Therefore, they may have either good motives or some variation of mixed motives that seem appropriate to them. One of the main reasons that Level 1 relationships break up is a misunderstanding around Motives. It is easy to believe that an individual is trying to set things up for their own benefit and is not honoring the relationship between the partners. This encourages us to become good at preemptively identifying the Motives of others.

Some indications that we are caught up in Unconscious Entanglements are the Motives we primarily use to connect to others. The Motives of Arrogance, Greed and Lust are ways we entrance others to play along with our games. With Arrogance, we entice others to believe our truth over their own. With Greed, we attempt to get what we want without alerting our partners that there may not be anything left for them. With Lust, we lose ourselves in sexual activity to the point of not having any connection with our partner. In each one of these Motives, we present the possibility that our Motive is good, leading them to think they will gain something from it, only to snatch that possibility away before they get anything. These Instinctive Motives are all selfish, but no one wants to call them that. We are even afraid to suggest that their Fears and Desires will not be met if a partner holds out on us, or discounts us. As a result, no one calls each other on why these Motives are good or bad for the relationship. Most of all, we have little or no trust in our partners, other than whatever momentary pleasure we can derive from them.

What is actually going on is that we think we have to acquire what we want from the relationship and treat the partner merely as a possession. It is an initial way to determine what we want and assert that we need it to get to where we want to go. At the Instinctive level of Relationship, we typically feel victimized by the people around us. This means just asserting the terms of engagement and establishing that we have an interest in how it turns out can be a major growth process. Of course, what we are ultimately learning not to do is to not be caught up in selfish frameworks, which limit our ability to contribute to others and to see the big picture. This level of Relationship also contains a tremendous amount of material selfishness. Everything becomes about what we are doing to care for our partner, which assumes that they cannot take care of themselves. This is selfish. It is about looking good, not being good. What we are ultimately learning to do is be free of our Fears and Desires so that we can start to show up with a partner and intellectually engage them for what they know and who they are.

We begin to move into the next stage as we move into Personal Dominion, Personal Achievement, or Self-Serving Activity. The big shift here is that we are investing in our capacity to engage others in a much more stable way. This encourages us to make investments in our partners, rather than hold ourselves back. It also allows us to talk about our needs and to entertain the possibility that our partner has needs that we may want to support. These Intellectual Motives are about taking charge of our life so that we can begin to establish a course of action that others can trust. Without this self-affirmed sense of direction, many partners will ultimately not trust us. The problem will still arise; does our partner want the same things we want?

Fear Limits Action

Taking action produces a sense that we are part of the world around us. Our actions affirm that we matter. By being caught up in activity, we feel that everything is running well when we can fulfill the roles and expectations of those around us. Even if others provide negative feedback, we are okay if we know what to do. The problem with our conditioning is that if doing more does not change anything, we become sleepwalkers. Repetitive action lulls us into passivity. When we are unconscious, conditioning is necessary to keep us responding to our environment, creating catch-22 situations. We are programmed to maintain safety and familiarity by repeating what was done in the past. When we become more conscious, these action-mandates (programming) distract us and cover up our Fears, thus helping us avoid them. In this way, our protection systems invalidate certain self-conscious perspectives that otherwise could help us grow. This keeps us from examining the appropriateness of our programming or changing the programming to reflect new circumstances.

When we are operating from conditioning, we take actions to avoid our Fears. As we evolve, we become more aware of our Fears and more sensitive to how others view or interpret our choices. We are particularly challenged when others assume that we have motives or an agenda that prevent them from getting what they want. What they do not understand is that we are in the process of recognizing our own, internal Fears and are unconsciously driven to prevent these Fears from occurring. The list of Fears below demonstrates that there is a hierarchy of Fears around our relationships. It begins with Not Being Wanted and culminates with Not Choosing Appropriate Sacrifice and Service. At any particular time we are focusing on two or three Fears that reflect the types of interactions we are having with others.

The seven Relationship Fears are

1. 1.   Not Being Wanted
2. 2.   Not Being Understood
3. 3.   Not Being Accepted
4. 4.   Not Being Needed More Than We Need Others
5. 5.   Not Being Valued For Our Contribution
6. 6.   Not Knowing How to Include Others Without Compromise
7. 7.   Not Choosing Appropriate Sacrifice and Service

These Fears reflect interpersonal issues where we get stuck and cannot move forward. When we do not confront these Fears, they dominate our unconscious behaviors. On the Instinctive Level, others have little impact on our perceived issues. Our priorities are simply what we believe we need to do. Everything is based on trying to live up to our expectations and others’ expectations of us. When we operate from fear we also automatically attract others with the same level of fear. This is the function of pheromones. On an Instinctive Level, relationships stimulate us to confront our Fears. This is why, when relationships get too tedious or demanding, we leave them. As soon as we are out of the relationship and feel free, we no longer have to confront our Fears in the same way. The effect of this is that we cannot talk about our Fears when we are in the relationship.

Fears are often associated with weakness, which is why we are afraid to discuss them. Some individuals use Fears to increase their awareness that there are different options. They often do this by separating their Fears from their nature. In this way they can experience a Fear, and yet play with positive ways to neutralize it. They emphasize that who they are (either the personality or the Creative Nature) is bigger than the Fear. This places the Fear at a disadvantage because our perceived safety is not necessarily at risk if we can quantify the Fear. By not empowering the Fear, even if there is a risk, we create a way to respond that does not compromise who we are. More than just being our selves, we learn to become more in each moment. Operating in this way, we can easily be identified by our degree of comfort in talking about and questioning our fears. Our point of view has changed when the examination of risk leads to Fear nullification.

When caught in our Fears, we frequently believe that it is the other person’s fault. We imagine that if they engaged us differently, we would not be reactive. This is projection. The problem is that some Fears are not easily avoided. The best way to handle this is to be thankful that people are creating reactions in us so we can learn to handle them. Since a reaction is an indication that we are not in balance, we need to learn how to maintain balance under all circumstances. Just because we do not like a particular thing, it should not provoke a reaction. It does so when we are imbalanced, thus opening ourselves to the attack. When we are inclusive of differences, we start to see the value of engaging them, therefore reducing reactions. The purpose of fears is to regain communication with our Physical Body and its perceptive framework (usually our five senses). Life experience is commonly discussed in terms of engaging and overcoming Fears. Any success we have in doing this becomes a badge of honor making us more confident in our current relationships.

Desires Reflect Our Fears

On the Instinctive Level, our unconscious Desires are often left unsaid, or unclaimed. It makes us uncomfortable to acknowledge desires if we accept that little or nothing can be done. For each Fear there is a corresponding but unacknowledged Desire. For example, the Desire of Attention fulfills the Fears of Not Being Wanted. When we are more conscious about our Fears, the Desires they represent become more apparent.

The seven Relationship Desires are: