The Power of Creating Conscious Containers - Week #12 of The Awakening Journey
It’s the second week of a new year and we are starting fresh here with our calendars and also in our awakening journey.
What we’ve talked about so far has been groundwork around awakening and present moment awareness and also, a sort of clearing out of what no longer serves.
You have done a great job of clearing the ground so that we can set a solid foundation for our metaphorical spiritual house! This foundation is critical for a solid, stable, and sustainable house.
But, before we lay the foundation, we want to set up the container to hold the concrete for the foundation.
What is a Container?
Think of a container as a metaphorical basket that holds the experiences of life. The reeds of the basket are agreements, values, goals, etc. When these reeds are woven together tightly, the basket holds the liquid (whatever happens in life) with integrity.
Containers are created consciously or unconsciously. You get to choose how to set up your container and your awareness of your choice determines your success in your endeavors.
Relationship Containers
Relationship containers start with the relationship with yourself. This includes any and all agreements that you make with yourself and there are many! Any values you hold, boundaries, or goals.
For example, some of the reeds might be to live a healthy life, stand up for what you believe in and achieve to the best of your ability.
Relationships with others - in addition to the above, the container with others could include dreams, expectations, and even how you resolve conflict. [The container is how you do something, what you create or recover from.]
Examples - In your relationship at work, you may have an agreement to split your workload with a colleague or split housework with a partner. With your kids, it’s that everyone carries their weight in taking care of our home.
A friend and I made an agreement years ago that regardless of where we are, we would have a clean container. So our commitment for some time was to take time cleaning up any misunderstandings, basically to practice generating conflict in order to have a clean space.
These examples above are just one reed in the basket of each of these relationships. But what I want you to know is: you have a whole basket in each of these relationships.
Are you aware of what exactly the “reeds” are made of and if your container is solid?
Other Types of Containers
Containers also hold meetings, conversations, projects, and almost any experience you have in life, including planning your day. In these kinds of containers, the reeds are sometimes a bit different - they are also agreements but can also be made up of goals, outcomes, intentions, etc.
In my creation of containers for meetings, before I create an agenda, I will spend time building the container. For example, I will whiteboard this list: Outcome, Goal, Intention, Stake, Intention for myself (who I am being in the meeting).
Sound complicated? Yeah, I had someone tell me that once. He also said he was going to spend 4 hours prepping for a meeting with a bunch of doctors & creating their meeting agenda.
Instead, we spent 15 minutes working on this whiteboard list above and the agenda magically came from the container we built in under 5 minutes. 20 minutes to prep for a meeting he had blocked for 4 hours. He was astounded.
This is the power of creating conscious containers.
Leaky Containers
Leaky containers are unsafe, unproductive, and unhealthy. When the container is not intentional or woven together loosely, water seeps out. I call this a leaky container. The integrity of the basket eventually falls apart.
If my container with my partner includes sharing the workload and I don’t pull my own weight, eventually this wears on the relationship, causes strain and has an impact long term.
If this happens with enough “reeds” in our relationship container, this relationship may not last.
How Do You Create Strong Containers?
Very simple. You bring intention to it. Awareness. A few minutes of discussing the container goes a long way toward getting everyone on the same wavelength.
Not only that, but it can clear up confusion in advance, create stronger bonds, and give clarity and energy in an extremely powerful way and invigorating way with others as well as with yourself!
In the weeks to come, we are going to be covering the reeds that make up the basket.
The more intentionally you weave the reeds, the tighter your container will be, the stronger the foundation and infrastructure of your spiritual house.
Your Practice For This Week:
Make a list of areas where you feel it’s important to have a strong container.
For example your relationship with your partner.Write down what your current agreements are:
For example, you may have the value of equality as one of the reeds of your container. Your original understanding may be that you share 50/50 of the load of both providing for the family financially and upkeep of the home, but what is actually happening is that this is imbalanced in one way or the other and you can feel yourself getting frustrated by this leaky container.
Ask yourself: What do I truly want the container to be?
For example clean, clear, creative, exciting, and fun, the way it used to be when you first started dating?
At the next opportunity, ask to have a 10-minute convo on containers:
Share with them how you want to build this container. What do you want it to feel and look like?
Ask the other person what they want/need.
Put it on a whiteboard so you have visual clarity & everyone is being heard
Talk about accountability - maybe revisit this once a month.
Next, we will talk about Empowerment, in the meanwhile remember the present moment is where your best life happens!
With love, presence and gratitude,
Darla