Episode Transcript
Welcome everyone to today's podcast. The name of this podcast is Spiritual Relationship. My name is Ken Hanuman and this is my wife Dr. Anne O'Hare. Hello. We're both medical professionals but also we are you can say spiritual seekers or we've been practicing meditation for many many years. Today's topic is harmony in relationship. And the principles we will use would be the law of karma, self care and non violence, non violence or do no harm. And then also we will follow that up with some examples and show how we use those principles. So I'm going to ask Anne to start off the conversation. Yeah, so when we were discussing what we were going to talk about with harmony and relationships, the first thought that came to me is that both of us came from prior marriages and obviously we had family life as well. And using these principles that Ken just mentioned, these spiritual principles, we actually were able to create. Transform the relationships completely. So for me, I'll start with my family, my, my, my mother, my father, my sister. So when I was growing up. You know on one hand everything's fine, right? But on the other hand, maybe if you make life choices or something Maybe your family is not totally behind you or maybe you There's been a rift or something like that. And there was some of that in the family and what I did was following the law of karma and self care self care was the main one with my family that I really Gave myself permission to give myself some distance from them for a while to find out what it was that I wanted or who I am or what I feel. I know that sounds kind of cliche, but for anyone out there who maybe grew up in an environment like I did where, and not just the environment, but the culture where your feelings weren't really important. It was more about. paying attention to other people's feelings or it was more about getting something done. So for me, I was well, grown adult with married with a child and had no idea how to take care of myself, no idea how to deal with my own feelings. And I was so super, super dependent on my parents still, and dependent on my mom and emotionally attached to different friends. And like, there was, you could, there was no harmony there because there's no harmony if you're not taking care of yourself. Because we were talking about that right if you're not happy and if you're not like authentically Content with your life. There's no harmony there. So I took a step back for a while Figured out, you know what it is that I want and I made some boundaries and then the other thing that I did was I started Giving more than I would normally, like whenever there was a need, I would like give more and Ken was very supportive with that because I didn't grow up with that mentality. So for instance, with my parents, if they needed to move, Ken was like, let's go help them. Like any opportunity to give, that's a way to try to help. Now don't do it. If you feel in your heart, like you really don't. But for me, it was just like, I needed to. Get out of the inertia of taking or or feeling hurt and actually do something Any time will you have that opportunity? That's a good I didn't talk about this before with you but this is a good point when you're trying to make a a relationship harmonious It's a good idea to take opportunities to do something In the relationship, especially unless it's really going to hurt you, then don't do it. But, so you want to add something to that? Yeah. And the way I define harmony in today's situation where relationships are filled with challenges, in any relationship, each, each one, Whoever involved should be able to get something good out of that. Because you cannot sacrifice self care or like if I really expect, I have a lot of expectation of somebody else, and they're not living up to it. And I feel justified in asking them to, do this or, you know, you're my father. You're supposed to be doing this. You're my, you're my brother. I lent you this. You should be able to pay, whatever. All kinds of thoughts come getting and it's all physical and it's transactional. But harmony for me is where I, I, let's say if I look at my sibling, I'm very happy with that relationship. If I look at my children now, if I look at my ex, You know, there is a feeling of satisfaction and there's still a feeling of care. So, in that way, I'm not filled with hate or blame or I'm not, I'm not mad at humanity or the world because nothing seems fair. I don't, you know. So that's how I define harmony. So, if You want to go into the first example? Yeah. So that was, that was one example was the family, my parents. And I had to, that was like the self care piece. Like I had to pull back, but then when I was ready to come back in, I had to be willing to do more than what I was doing before to kind of balance it out. Now I can say it's really balanced because I really, in those situations, I'm going to say you have to give. To get it to balance and I did. Okay. So that's one thing. One thing Ken always told me, Ken's like the karma King. Okay. So he said to me, even if it's not perfect, and you'll hear him say this too, even if it's not perfect, or even if the, there'll always be another opportunity. Yeah. If your intention is proper and good and, and you want that harmony and you're willing to do something for it, there will be another opportunity to make it right. So that was very helpful to me too because these things don't get fixed right away. They, it takes a little bit of time. So the second, example I have is my prior marriage to my son's dad. And the marriage was, we, we were getting divorced and it was fine. It was mutual. We tried and whatever, and we were getting divorced. And in, it seemed to me that it was me that was trying to remove myself from the situation because I wanted to be, take care of myself or whatever, but I wasn't interested in hurting him. Right. And I remember. With the money conversation and with, you know, I wouldn't, I gave him money at the end and I gave the rings back and I gave, so there was a feeling like, don't take the dignity or don't take the respect away from the other person Even if you disagree or you don't want to be with them be humble take it on yourself I don't need the ring. I mean he was surprised that I gave him back the rings and I said well, that's blood money In my opinion, that's blood money because I made a choice to get into this marriage And if i'm coming out, why am I going to then take something from you? That's not fair So the situation ended up fine, but after the split, there was still a lot of interactions that weren't good. So I had to make the next choice. So again, we said there were three principles, right? It was the laws of karma, self care and nonviolence. So I just said self care and nonviolence, right? When I got out and I didn't, you know, I gave the money and everything, but now I had to deal with the laws of karma. Because the situation was still not good. Like the interactions were still was fighting and everything and maybe there was still maybe he was who knows was Joey was kind of in the middle. My son was kind of in the middle and I decided that I needed to completely break contact with this person because I needed to stop the situation the way it was and I needed to break away. Now, thankfully, Joey was old enough that I could tell the, his dad, like, look, you got to talk to Joey directly. Like you now can talk to him. So I kind of took myself out of the equation. I didn't need to be right. I didn't need to make him wrong. I just needed to get out of the equation so that he can have the relationship with his son. That's the laws of karma. Folks, I want to say that's the laws of karma. I know that that's because I didn't feel comfortable having a direct relationship with that person. And you shouldn't feel like you have to or be forced to be in contact with anyone that you don't feel comfortable with. But having said that, with the aim of making it harmonious. You have to keep the aim that that person will be okay. You don't hate them. I want him to be okay. I want him to be, and actually one time he said to me, I forget if it was an email or something, he was grateful because of the way we set up the child support and whenever he was able to buy a condo. And so he ended up being okay. Yeah, and that was big And then also I was supporting his relationship with his son I wasn't allowing the the whatever the strife was whatever that was to to interfere or get in the way of him relating to his son, so To wrap that up. It's like the laws of karma, which is what I just shared and then of course Don't feel like you're forced but have the right attitude. Yeah, and also You're sensitive to how the child feels. Yes, of course. And he was, he was, he loved his father. He wants to be with him and we supported that completely. Of course, of course. And never ever try to have like any negative, talk about his father in a negative way. Now he's 17, so he himself is realizing a few things and he's grown up and that's what you like. The child is not trying to please you. We're not taking away Taking away his autonomy He's able to think for himself and make decisions and he doesn't he's not afraid to displease one or he's trying hard to please one parent when he's with this one and please No, you don't want a child to be because what we did what I did took that off the table Yeah, he got to have that direct relationship with his dad Yeah. So let's go on to the next example. So how did you, how did you incorporate these laws into your family and situation? One thing is, my children were a little bit, older and my thing was to maintain a relationship with them almost like on a daily basis or to have such contact that they never felt like. Like, they're distant or alone and they should know that you're available. Two is that even though for a little while the relationship with the ex was, there wasn't much communication, internally my thought was there was always a feeling of care and not wanting that person to be, to be alone, not to be like, to suffer. To suffer. To suffer. And I always, I also knew. You know, children are real, they're people, right? So, they would also have, feelings. So, you have to address that. And one way you address that by, I can remember like one time my son said, you know, mom is thinking of going to live in another place, and, and in another country, and, uh, you know, I would have to go take care, I don't know how she's going to get the money, whatever it is, and I said, and I said, Kenny, that's, don't take that on. I'm here and you will not be alone over that. When it comes to that, we will do this together. So don't think that you, because if he feels alone and he feels like he's getting overwhelmed, then he will feel the pain of that, of that divorce. But if he can still feel that there is, Some reasonable connection and support like family is still still present and And I know that so I call that karma. I call that So the way you can sense when your karma is right You have to be able to listen to other people. The other thing I find is a check your own train of thoughts Look to see what is my vision of the person? You Do you still have good feelings? Do you still have, a feeling that they should not suffer or whatever? You might not be able to help much physically, but never lose the intention or never, never go down to hate or, or blaming yourself. Because that will destroy you and that, it will come out in your relationship with your kids. It's interesting that we're talking about harmony. I mean, we're talking about the nuts and bolts of what we did and the situation. But now there is harmony in all those relationships. There is, yeah. And, and you want to talk a little bit about your siblings? He's got a bunch of brothers. Yeah, I have three brothers and we have a very good relationship. But, you know, being the eldest in the family and my parents, passing away, I had to take on, take on that role as, I would say, I'm both their elder brother and. Parent. And I have one sister, one sister passed. So, I try to play a role where I am there. You give support when needed. At the same time, I'm not taking, I'm not making decisions for them. I'm not trying to be dogmatic or, or so on. And so gradually, what happened is that there is a distance, there is a space Because they're all married and they all have their own family now. But it started even, the attention was there even before they were married. Because, you know, so as they went through life, I adjusted my relationship. And, and now I'm, I'm happy to see the growth and to see where things are. And I, what I'm sensitive to is, what is my feeling about them? And I feel good. And what is their feeling about me? And if there is something positive there, I feel like we, let me take care or nurture this relationship from here. So, I am not over burdening my mind with, Oh, I didn't do this, I should have done that. I'm sorry. No, I look back, there's nothing to be sorry for. So this is, that's one thing that, I like how things turn out. I'm not saying I went into this fully knowing what is right. But I guess the spiritual effort that I had, this feeling of do not cause harm. I have another quick example of this. We have a neighbor, we're in this new house and we have a neighbor and I met the neighbor and I, we kind of, I kind of set up the relationship right away. And I said, you know, we're going to be, if I need something or if you need something or we don't have to be with each other all the time, but we know. And I think that's kind of like the relationship you have with your brothers and I'm beginning more and more to have that relationship with my family. Like it's growing into that. Which it was a very far away from that before There was a lot of fear and stuff going on before but now it seems like it's healing. And so there could be healing and where we get to harmony means that everyone's there, everyone's taken care of everyone's happy. It really is possible. We just shared our experiences because each one of us is going to be different But I would say that these spiritual principles were definitely a guiding a guiding light So the way we will close this we'll say to have harmony do no harm Yeah, I love that. Yeah To yourself too, right? Okay, so we hope that that gave you something to work with and we'll see you next time. Yeah Okay. Thank you. Bye. Bye
