The four key relationships which define who you are.
Suppose you take a walk in the park. Are you focused on the natural colors and sounds of the trees in the breeze, the grass, and the birds?
Or are you seeing who else is in the park and smiling at the passers-by, or remembering the last time you had someone to walk with?
Or are you awed by the vault of the sky with its depth and wonder and the unity of the scene with you a small part of the complex system of existence?
Or are you noticing how your walking shoes fit perfectly this time while you are listening to your favorite songs through your earbuds and mobile device?
We hear so much about people of all ages seeking to “find themselves.”
Socrates urges his followers to “Know thyself.”
Shakespeare said, “To thine own self be true; thou canst not then be false to any man.”
We are urged daily to look inward for wisdom through mindfulness and being present to our environment and the people around us.
Finding ourselves is a lifelong journey. A mentor of mine has said that life is about discovering your own story.
But how do we do this? Is there a simple way to discover who were are really?
Or who we can become?
If we can get clear about where we are, then we can see how to get to who we want to be.
So I want to propose a shortcut that I have discovered through years of self reflection and counseling and coaching others to living the life they want.
This is different from may other processes or programs you may have heard of.
Previous programs have focused on the age old questions of what we are.
Are we a soul and a body?
A mind and body?
A soul, spirit, mind and body?
A highly evolved member of the animal kingdom who happened to become the dominant species for now?
A jumble of thoughts, emotions, hormones and nerves?
A being unique for our self-consciousness, or our sophisticated use of tools?
A sensory machine with responses to various stimuli?
The sum total of all the thoughts programmed into us by our parents and caregivers in our first seven years?
A bundle of desires which compel us to act the way we do?
A spirit trapped in a body trying to learn enough or be good enough to escape to a better place?
One of a population of seven billion people all interacting in highly predictable ways which have little ultimate meaning?
A unique form of life which is the epitome of creation, or of evolution?
My theory is different from all of these.
My proposal is that the best way to know ourselves is through our relationships, not through trying to define what we are.
I am convinced that at our core, each of us is a unique combination of exactly four key relationships.
As a starting point, I assume…
that we each have a physical body with a brain and a self-aware mind within that body,
and that we are dependent for our survival on the earth’s biosphere which has supported beings like us for the past several million years and will continue so for some time.
That being said, if we really want to know “Who am I” as a person, making thousands of little choices, consciously or unconsciously every day, it is most fruitful to look at these four relationships.
You might think I will talk about your mother, your father, siblings, teachers, or spiritual mentors.
But these are not the relationships I mean.
We all realize that these had huge influence, but as adults, we can make choices to follow their advice, or follow in their footsteps, or not.
So what guides us on our life path?
How do we show up as we do and why?
As a child I was fascinated with the power of words. I was a slow reader because I enjoyed understanding how the author used words to get her point across.
There were nouns, prepositions, adjectives, adverbs, and participles, sentence structure, connecting words and so on.
But all at once one day I woke up thinking, it’s the verbs. It’s the verbs which connect everything. The action is in the verbs.
And this is the foundation of my approach to defining who we are.
I am not a rock or an island as singer Paul Simon claimed in his sad self-protective lyric.
Isolated by myself, I am indeed just an amazing living organism with no particular purpose except to exist and then pass away.
It is my relationships that define me. It’s the action between me and everything else, the verbs in my life, which make me who I am and will be.
I believe there are four key relationships to consider. And what part you take in each and the priority you give to each, in combination, define exactly who your are…
And make you existentially unique.
The first key relationship is your relationship to Nature.
This includes the air, water and earth around you, the rays of the sun, moon and stars, all the living things which surround you, the soil, the microbes, the food you take in, the weather, warmth and cold, and your own impact and physical movement within these environments and around these things.
You make choices about this relationship every day.
Do you think of these things mainly as things you can make use of?
Or are they instead things you want to harmonize with?
Or do you feel a sense of responsibility towards them?
Or some combination of these?
Your take on your relationship with Nature is one of a kind.
The more aware you are of your relationship with these elements and forces of Nature, the better you will know yourself.
Does too much sugar give you a high?
Are summer breezes rejuvenating to you like nothing else?
Is swimming in a cool pond the last thing you would choose to do?
Do Lima beans make you gag?
These feelings and reactions create a web of responses which are uniquely yours.
Already you can know yourself better and appreciate your uniqueness just looking at this one cluster of relationships.
The second key relationship is also a huge cluster of interactions, verbs in the language of your life.
This is your relationship with people.
Here’s where your parents, siblings, children, grand-children, in-laws, and relatives come in, and all the other people in your childhood, your history, your work, and in your community now.
How do you relate to people, and to humanity as a whole?
Do strangers intimidate you or do you find them fascinating?
Do you respect or even worship your parents or grandparents, or do you focus on their weaknesses and mistakes, with you or in their lives?
Do you see humanity with hope or with dread for the future?
Do you take pleasure in serving others or would you prefer they serve you?
Do you tend to be a romantic, or practical and goal-oriented?
Do you draw others into your vision for action or look for others to motivate you to action?
Again your choices in the endless opportunities to relate to other humans define who you are in this dimension.
The third key relationship which helps you to find yourself, your uniqueness, your power, your future, is your relationship with the Divine Power.
You don’t have to be a believer, or religious in any way to have this relationship and be formed by it.
Those who deny the existence of God still have a relationship to the whatever they want to call the forces which control the things they can’t control.
This can be thought of as the Universe, the Laws of Physics, the First Intelligence, the Creator, the Prime Mover, or Jehovah, Lord, and Allah from the three modern monotheistic religions, or the primal forces recognized in Buddhism and Taoism, or Krishna and a host of other gods in polytheistic religions, or ancestors, or tribal deities, or spirits in rocks, plants, wind, animals, and more.
Big as our brains and philosophies are, we cannot expect to ever control all the relationships in our lives. Other forces are always at work.
Whatever you call the force that controls what you don’t control is your partner in this third relationship.
So our relationship with this overarching Power helps define how we think, speak and behave in our world.
Is our divine power a mechanistic one ruled by chance?
Is it conscious of our needs or oblivious to them?
Can we appeal to this power in our need and expect response?
Is it a judgmental, vengeful, punishing force?
Is it a benevolent, forgiving, loving force?
Is it governing a world of chaos, or a world of incalculable complexity, where the flap of a butterfly wing can cause a typhoon?
Does our awareness or respect shown towards this force make a difference in our lives and if so why?
Again all these responses to your relationship with the forces that you cannot control, or explain away, help define who you are.
Now for years I thought these three dimensions of activity, these three key relationships, were all you needed to be aware of…
All you needed to feel confident that you knew yourself and were growing in that useful knowledge as you increased your life experience.
But the more experience I gained coaching individuals and families to live happier and healthier lives, the more I came to realize that there was a fourth key relationship.
I didn’t want to admit it at first because for me your relationship with Nature, People, and the Power, outside ourselves, were all that really matters.
But if you want to truly know yourself, find yourself, I had to accept that you must examine your relationship with the man-made world.
This includes everything that we humans have made in this world, over the last two to three million years. But especially in the past 100,000 years.
It includes early tools like chopping stones and wooden knives, as well as bulldozers and highways.
It includes scissors and pens. And paper and writing.
It includes fans, and internal combustion engines. And toothbrushes and jeans.
Rubber wheels and plastic toys.
Wooden bowls and stainless steel frying pans.
Bridges and ear buds.
Governments, voting machines, and tax records.
Artists’ oil paints and pianos.
Medicines from coal tar and artificial food coloring.
Windmills and oil refineries.
Feedlots for food animals.
Taxes and jails.
Food processors.
Money.
Banks, stock markets.
Phones, Internet, 5G.
Workout machines.
Schools, books, DVDs, and streaming.
Handguns and weapons of mass destruction.
Houses, fiberglass insulation, bricks and concrete blocks, copper tubing.
Plastic clothing and packaging, lithium batteries.
Electron microscopes, CT scanners, gene splicing technologies.
Artificial sweeteners and chemical extraction techniques.
Mining and manufacturing tools to create all these things.
Ships, trains, cars, and trucks to transport it all.
How dependent are you on these?
How dependent do you want to be on them?
Are they without risk or do you need to think about their effects?
How much of your time is taken up managing man-made things?
Are man-made things affecting your physical and mental health and lifespan?
What forms of communication do you prefer, from spoken language and letters, to texting and emojis?
How much of your thoughts and actions relate to money, bills, debt, income, investments, taxes, and the financial needs across the economy?
Do you buy and eat “organic” foods and avoid chemical additives and ultra-processed foods or do you trust that government regulation is sufficiently protective of our well-being?
Your relationship with Technology, these man-made, non-living additions to our world do indeed help define you, along with the other three major relationships.
Now can you see how your four relationships define who you are?
How you respond in any given set of circumstances?
How you react to other people, what actions you take, and which ones you avoid?
How you choose to spend your day, or the next hour?
With you in the middle, a complete manifestation of the wonder of life, the four dimensions help define you as a unique, thinking, moving being whom others would like to get to know.
Because each is a relationship, you are as important to Nature, People, the Divine Power, and Technology as they are to you. These relationships are each a two-way street.
I hope now you can see that we are not isolated beings in a sea of odd, unpredictable things and events.
Instead we are part of a complex web of interrelated relationships.
Like a knit sweater in which we are each a thread, if we make a move, all the other threads adjust one way or another and the whole sweater may be affected.
We are not just creating a tapestry of our lives.
We are already part of a giant tapestry, and who we are is defined by where we are situated in that tapestry.
And where we choose to situate ourselves in that tapestry.
Now think of yourself at the center, with what you now know about these four great relationships of yours…
Helping you to find yourself and what place you want to have in the world for your greatest happiness and fulfillment.
In each area, you actually have free choice to change these relationships and become more of the person you want to be.
Are there things about your relationship with Nature that you would like to improve?
There are the obvious ones like your dietary routine or your physical activity.
But what about sniffing wildflowers?
Breathing deep by a waterfall?
Contemplating ocean waves?
Joining a wildlife or park conservation group?
What would you like to change in your relationship with People?
Listen better, be more assertive, smile more often, have more patience, make new friends?
Call more often, write thank you notes, go to more concerts?
What new ways of relating to the Divine Power appeal to you?
Would you like to join a church, a spiritual group, or a convocation of visionaries?
Might you want to attend an anonymous twelve-step group to end a tiresome dependency?
Do you want to stare into the sky more often to feel one with the Universe?
Might you read ancient texts of philosophy and religion in which minds like yours searched for answers to living a good life?
And what about your relationship to man-made Technology?
Would you like to spend less energy in the world of technology?
Or become more fluent and creative in that realm?
Walk and play more often? Or design playground gym sets?
Buy clothes and toys made by hand?
Become more accustomed to seasonal temperature changes so you can depend less on in home atmospheric conditioning?
Spend less time scrolling, or make it more interesting and meaningful?
Avoid defining yourself or judging others by income or outfit?
Join a public interest or watchdog group which opposes technology which doesn’t take into account the social, economic, cultural, and environmental, the human costs?
I find I get to know others better and quicker when I consider their choices in these four relationships.
And our conversations turn out to be much more meaningful.
Once you look at each of your four fundamental relationships, the verbs of your life, I urge you to consider the balance among these relationships.
Just as too many hours at work reduce the quality of life at home, an overemphasis and preoccupation with any one of these four relationships can make you feel out of balance, out of touch with your true self, and depressed or anxious about who you really are.
Today I believe that Technology is threatening to diminish the quality of the other three relationships.
And this I believe is a major cause of the rise in mental illness as well as the source of lesser symptoms of dissatisfaction and unease.
The man-made technological dimension is affecting our relationships with Nature at every level.
It is replacing food with chemicals and health with medical maintenance.
And it is threatening our very life support system by polluting the soil, air, water, and atmosphere.
It is changing our relationship with People by replacing time with friends and associates with social media and video conferencing.
And it is reducing our time and focus on family with extended schooling, long work hours and commutes, and ever-present invasions by unsolicited advice, advertisements, and entertaining distractions.
And what is Technology doing to our relationship to the Divine Power?
It seems to be forcing us to take sides in an absurd debate between…
On the one side, a mechanistic view that technology will solve all our problems, from declining personal health to growing worldwide inequalities,
And on the other side, a metaphysical view that we may be presently powerless to improve our circumstances and must instead accept, adjust or rebel.
I hope this new way of finding ourselves and appreciate our unique value as persons on this planet can help you to discover a deeper knowledge of your own personal character,
And a greater sense of your own innate power to direct the path of your life towards your health and happiness and the health and happiness of those around you.
