By Annie Kaszina
Glenna Trout is an international authority on face reading. Asher eyes read my face at a Face Mapping workshop recently, sheintroduced me to the Three Rings of Relationships.
Briefly, all of our relationships fall somewhere within thesethree concentric rings. As she spoke of the Second Ring Glennaplaced a hand supportively on my shoulder.
I pass what she said on to you in the hope that it will be asenlightening for you as it was for me. The language and anyshortcomings are mine.
The Third Ring
This is the outermost ring and it comprises the people with whomyou have, quite literally, a nodding acquaintance. Yourinteraction with them may be pleasant enough. It comes about notby design, but simply because your paths cross.
The Second Ring
These people you meet and become familiar with in specificcircumstance. You tend to become close quite quickly; you mayshare affinities that matter a lot at the time. Theserelationships are more closely connected to where you are inyour life at the time than they are to who you truly are.
Second Ring relationships include the kind of ‘instant’friendships you strike up on holiday, workplace friendships, aswell as the ‘new mothers together’ bond. They tend not tosurvive the specific circumstance in which they grew up for toolong.
Glenna points out how easy it is to confuse Second Ring romanceswith First Ring love. There will be a common interest orexperience that throws two people together so that, at thestart, they share something quite powerful. Rather than definingthe nature of the bond, they are swayed by its force intobelieving in its quality and its durability.
Two people who throw themselves into a Second Ring romance maywell share a common hurt or problem, so that each has an unusualdegree of awareness of what the other is feeling – and a sensethat the other is equally aware of what they are feeling. Itwould be quick and easy to say that this intimate knowledge ofthe other person’s feeling is indicative of a high level ofmutual understanding and empathy, but it would be wrong.
Although it may look initially like understanding and it mayfeel like empathy, it is something quite different. What hashappened is that two people have come together both looking forthe same thing. Their assumption is that, since the other knowswhat they have been through and what they want so intimately,the other will be able to heal them and make them whole. He willsatisfy their previously unmet needs.
In short, the other person is there to do for them what theycannot do for themselves.
With time, both come to realise that rather than mutual healingthere will be an increasingly urgent battle to get their ownneeds met, because neither has the necessary resources to stillthe other’s old pain. The abusive partner will find some releasein masking his needs by shifting blame onto the other, who willbe labelled ‘too needy and dependent’.
Their needs brought them together and their needs will drivethem apart but only after they have undergone profounddisillusionment and suffering together.
Second Ring romances typify the adage: “marry in haste andrelent at leisure”. We let the wrong person through too manyboundaries, too fast, without finding out the things we reallyneeded to know about them.
The First Ring
The First Ring is the domain of truly loving, nurturingrelationships with a partner, close friends and family. It isthe circle of congruence: people’s actions are consistent withtheir words.
Unlike a Second Ring romance, in which one partner may protestundying love, but will, increasingly, treat the other withcontempt and hostility, a First Ring partner has the personalresources to care for and treat the other as well as they treatthemselves.
First Ring people are not saints, but they are mature,functional human beings who are not always clamouring to gettheir needs met first.
There would be a lot more to say about First Ring relationships,but our focus, here, is on The Second Ring because that is thering over which we should have the greatest control, but oftendo not. It is also the ring where a great deal of emotionaldamage occurs, that we can learn to prevent.
(C) Annie Kaszina 2005 Joyful Coaching
For more information about Glenna Trout go towww.Facingfacts.info
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