You may have heard of notions such as “conscious living” or “conscious love.” Both involve bringing greater awareness and consciousness to our lives and relationships. In this post, I will explore how a better understanding of attraction, personality types, as well as strategies for “conscious loving,” can pave the way to heightened compatibility and more conscious love relationships.
Unconscious Attraction
I have previously explained why many individuals, especially those who are relatively young in their type development, are attracted to and commonly pair with opposite personality types. When pairing with our opposite, we can experience a sense of wholeness (even if temporary) because our partner seems to provide what we lack in ourselves. In fact, what some people call “true love” may, in reality, be little more than an emotional indulgence of their ego/inferior function. An INFP, for example, may be drawn a TJ type who skillfully displays Extraverted Thinking (Te), the function which is largely unconscious and undeveloped in the INFP.
When relationships are founded primarily on unconscious attraction or inaccurate conceptions, any number of problems may ensue. Of greatest concern may be the fact that unconscious forces of attraction may lead to the pairing of two individuals who are largely incompatible when operating consciously. One might question, for instance, the true compatibility of ESTPs and INFJs or ESFPs and INTJs. Can an ESTP truly understand, value, and appreciate an INFJ’s inner world? While these types may have something the other unconsciously desires, they may share little in common with regard to their more conscious personality functions. In cases of typological incompatibility, it can be difficult for partners to love each other more consciously because the relationship was built on a weak or false foundation.
Conscious vs. Unconscious Love
In their insightful and highly recommended book, Conscious Loving: The Journey to Co-Commitment: A Way to be Together Without Giving Up Yourself, Gay and Kathlyn Hendricks describe how trust issues, self-esteem issues, long-repressed feelings, or sexual issues are bound to arise in every relationship. And when they do, one has essentially two choices.
One option, which leads to “co-dependence,” is to ignore, downplay, or avoid these issues. Couples who chose this option may use one or more of the following coping strategies: withdrawal, projection (see this post), overindulgence in food, drugs, or alcohol, or forging an unconscious agreement that neither party will change.
The second option, according to the authors, is to “inquire into the source of those issues, take full responsibility for them, and tell the full truth about them to your partner.” Doing so leads to “co-commitment” or “conscious love.”
Conscious love involves loving a person with full awareness of who they are. Rather than choosing a partner to supply what we unconsciously lack, conscious love requires us to take responsibility for our own personal wholeness. This includes developing a greater awareness of ways we seek to gratify our ego/inferior function, both in and outside of our relationships.
According to the Hendricks, conscious love entails six “co-commitments”:
1. “I commit myself to being close and to clearing up anything in the way of my ability to do so.”
2. “I commit myself to my own complete development as an individual.”
3. “I commit myself to revealing myself fully in my relationships.”
4. “I commit myself to the full empowerment of people around me.” (i.e., not enabling my partner or catering to his/her ego).
5. “I commit to acting from the awareness that I am 100% the source of my reality.”
6. “I commit to having a good time in my close relationships.”
In my view, it is much easier to love a person consciously if we choose and value them for what they consciously offer. Typologically speaking, this means pairing with an individual whose type is compatible with our top two functions (i.e., our most conscious and highly valued functions). In short, typological compatibility can serve as a great foundation for conscious love.
Related Posts
Childish vs. Mature Love & Relationships
Unconditional Love: Pros, Cons & Personality Type
Notes
1. The inferior function/ego may not only play a role in orchestrating upfront attraction, but in maintaining a situation of ongoing co-dependence. Habits of unhealthy dependence, bolstered by ego fears and desires, can make it extremely difficult for partners to find the courage to address relational problems.
