Why Connection Is Dependent On Resonant Values

I’ve long agreed and experienced that connection is dependent on resonant values and it’s a basic tenet of relationality in Edenity, but I realized I hadn’t ever considered why that was, so I decided to write it out as an exploration. Perspective was perhaps aided by writing this five miles above the ocean heading home in seat 21D (aisle seats are the most meta) and takes the record for the longest thing I’ve ever written with only my thumbs. The question was spurred by a difficult interaction I had two days prior where I felt the limits on non-resonant values in a relationship.

Values are what we use constantly to filter reality into good and bad. We like when other people agree with us on things, but there’s more to it than that. The more contextual frame is that we like it when people see reality the same way we do, because values are downstream of deep paradigmatic assumptions about reality.

I think of couples I know who don’t share values and paradigms as deeply as I personally would want. Does that mean such couples are less close? Less connected? The premise would say so, but why?

To the degree two people have differing values there are some predictable sequelae.

If you begin with Edenity’s premise that healthy relating is a function of negotiating needs rather than compromise, values system resonance is crucial. If those two people are seeing reality in different ways on fundamental levels, then conflict cannot be resolved by finding the more objective truth of the matter. Compromise is more often a necessary workaround when the fundamental assumptions about reality differ.

For example, let’s say you have a man who thinks the point of life is to have fun and a woman who instead wants to enlighten in the Zen tradition. There will predictably be times when they disagree about how to spend their time together. The man wants to have fun with his partner while the woman may value simple but rich sharing of stillness and being. The latter will less often be a first priority for the man so he will have to do it from an altruistic place which is by definition inauthentic. His motive is to maintain the relationship, keep his woman happy, give-to-receive, etc.

That inauthentic motive means he as a soul in such moments isn’t doing the relating, nor is hers because she’s accepting caretaking behavior. In content, they both get what they want perhaps, but in context, it’s a well-trained protector that is performing for love to some degree.

An authentic person doesn’t do what they don’t want to do just to make someone else happy. The issue is not what a couple does together per se, it’s a function of who they may have to inauthentically become with each other in order to connect. This is one way of describing codependence in action.

Now you might say, well maybe the man isn’t into meditation but he could occasionally sit with his lady and listen to her talk about Zen. Maybe he’s interested enough to be engaged and she’s fine with that. She doesn’t need him to have the exact same interests nor he with her.

That’s a reduction of context to content. We’re not talking about one person liking rocky road ice cream and the other strawberry, we are talking about the very manner in which they process reality.

When two people process reality in significantly different ways, they will either enter into irresolvable conflict or have to carefully avoid content that might trigger such conflict. They must put harmony over realness and shrink-to-fit with each other. This can easily be seen as putting “love first” but it is not. It is green’s false approximation of the principle as are all forms of yin-in-service.

When harmony is more important than truth in ways that are at the expense of addressing disagreements at the level of reality processing, the two people must energetically merge in order to be close. That is, each must dilute themselves enough so they can easily mix and exclude the aspect of themselves that won’t resonate, which is exactly what we did with our parents. That’s locked-in codependence, the hallmark of a child-consciousness relationship.

The teenage, locked-out codependence version is to accept the lack of real resonant intimacy with excess independence. Rather than need the other so much you become someone else for their love in locked-in codependence, you settle for a different kind of emotional safety that is a push away from intimacy itself. This also enables the protector, of course.

Resonant values allow for real negotiation of needs, which is on the opposite side of the spectrum from locked-in caretaking or locked-out hyper-independence. Remember that the protector may say they want intimacy but they want it on their terms and under their control. Real intimacy is chaotic, challenging, transmutational, and its design is to change you into a more ensouled version of yourself, not compromise your way into being harmonious. The harmony is supposed to come from deconstructing green and decluttering the relational space of projections so the pre-existing love between both parties can better breathe.