Embracing life’s radiance
- Frantisek Strouhal
- Jan 26
- 2 min read
Updated: Mar 26
Our quality of life and relationships are constrained by our limited self-perceptions. Overcoming these narrow ideas requires a dedicated effort. Unlocking our full potential depends on how we nurture growth and eliminate obstacles.
The heavy baggage of conditioned reaction patterns clouds our awareness, distorts feelings, and restricts our capacity to be open to life and love. Defensive postures, originally created to shield from pain, now weigh us down, hindering us from embracing life’s radiance.
Beneath all the layers of conditioning lies the inherent essence of the human heart - a vigilant presence, a receptiveness to truth. Our natural sensitivity and longing for connection with Reality serve as the foundation of wisdom, which can blossom within each individual.
Intimate relationships have the power to unveil our ingrained patterns and limitations, pushing us to confront our deepest fears and vulnerabilities. When our loved ones mirror back our neurotic tendencies, it forces us to acknowledge and address them. This heightened awareness creates a fertile ground for personal growth and transformation. Embracing this process of self-discovery opens up new possibilities for renewal and change in our journey forward.
The Way of Being
Sincere inner commitment focuses on our willingness to express whatever is happening in us when we engage in a relationship. This is essential both for you and for the one you are connecting with. If you are not in the moment, there is not much to answer to. And love only matures in life by our capacity to answer. Being authentic in a relationship offers the other one the ability to transcend their limitations. It opens the door for the other person to unveil themselves.
If you keep quiet, then I can unwittingly keep carrying out any prejudice or inadequacies I am involved in with you. Yet when you voice your pain, resentment, or trouble, then I have an opportunity to break my habitual reactions in the patterns of our relationship. The significant element that is likely to influence whether I will respond to you has to do with love, the one thing that can overcome the apathy of past behaviour. Love is the only key that can crush the paralysis of immature patterns.
We can ride along the meandering trail wrapped in some pattern that was choking to you. But until you are shaken by some unforeseen bump on the trail as we rush by, to say, “I can’t continue like this anymore,” I cannot say, “I don’t need to feel like this either.” Until you express yourself, I can’t have the opportunity to ask, “What can we change to resolve all this?”
Usually, we waste years expecting the other to notice our suffering, becoming increasingly irritated and embittered the longer they don’t. Unfortunately, this is a sign of limitation: to be unable to understand what is evident.
How can love be carried out if we are afraid to share our hurts and fears with one another?
By Frantisek Strouhal and Chantal Robert,
The Way of Being, from Inspirations: Art Embracing Awareness 2
Cover Image © Magicbowls
Embracing Life's Radiance
"How can love be carried out if we are afraid to share our hurts and fears with one another?"
I couldn't find the words 'authentic' or 'authenticity' anywhere in this piece of truth and wisdom encouraging honest communication within personal relationships.
Yet Frantisek & Chantal have used the word 'authentic' several times, elsewhere, in other essays.
It's from reading 'Embracing Life's Radiance' that I think I now understand what they really mean by this word. With this understanding, I'm also thinking that 'authenticity' becomes very important to sustaining healthy, intimate, personal relationships.