What is a Relationship Vision?

You probably already picked up on this, but I’m not talking about your eyesight today. With a Relationship Vision, I am referring to the future you are imagining, in particular the future of your relationship. A vision is quite simply the future we are moving towards. And a relationship vision is the future you are moving towards in your relationship.

In many areas of our lives we have consciously created visions. Often, people have a conscious vision for the future of their career. Perhaps when you first took an entry level job, you had a vision of where that job would take you. Or perhaps you have a vision currently of your next promotion, or where you want to be in 5 or 10 years.

Unfortunately, most people don’t have a consciously created vision for their romantic relationship.

Why is a Relationship Vision Important?

A Relationship Vision is important because it has a heavy influence on how we experience our own relationship. And because it’s operating mostly at the sub-conscious level, we may not even know this is what’s happening! Let me take you into a bit of brain science to explain this point.

As humans, we observe only a sliver of what is actually available in our environment to perceive. Our brains are filtering mechanisms, constantly bombarded with stimuli, filtering a majority of those stimuli out of our conscious awareness. The brain functions as a reducing valve, shutting out perceptions, memories, and thoughts that are not necessary for the survival and reproduction of the organism.

Let’s get a sense of this: Stop and imagine that in this moment you are aware of all of your senses simultaneously.

You are hearing every sound being made, feeling the air against your face, noticing the temperature of the room, smelling any scent, noticing how your clothes feel against your skin, how fast your heart is beating, paying attention to your breath flowing through your nostrils and into your chest, seeing clearly all of the items in your peripheral vision, feeling your tongue on the back of your teeth, and aware of the taste in your mouth.

All of these and many more possible sensations in this single moment would be overwhelming if they were all in our conscious mind at once! So, our brain does something very smart – it filters the amount of information our conscious mind receives.

How does it do this? Enter the Reticular Activator System! This part of our brain is the portal through which nearly all information enters the brain.

The Reticular Activator System (RAS) filters the incoming information and affects what you pay attention to, how aroused you are, and what is or is not going to get your conscious awareness.

So how does it know what to filter into conscious awareness and what to leave in the subconscious? It uses our visions and beliefs about the world!

For survival’s sake, your RAS responds to your name, anything that threatens your survival, and information that you need immediately. The rest of what it filters in or out is influenced by our vision and our beliefs.

Have you ever considered buying a particular car? If you have, then you’ve probably experienced the impact of the Reticular Activation System. By indicating to your RAS that this type of car, for example a Mini Cooper, is important to you, all of the sudden you will start to notice all of the Mini Coopers around you. This is no accident. Your RAS is now filtering Mini Coopers INTO your conscious awareness, where previously they were meaningless and thus filtered out.

Our vision and beliefs are so important. They influence what bits of reality we consciously become aware of.

And here’s the kicker: We always have a vision – whether we actively create it or not.

Our Relationship Vision, whether or not we consciously created it, gives signals to our subconscious mind about what is important information, what to notice and pay attention to, and what to inform our conscious mind about. If we didn’t have this vision to filter our awareness, we would go crazy from over stimulation.

Where our Relationship Visions Come From

So if we always have a vision – where do our visions that we haven’t consciously created come from?

They are inherited.

Until we actively create our vision, we will unconsciously pull from models that we have seen in our life time (like your parents’ relationship, movies, culture and media, etc.) – We may end up moving toward a vision we don’t actually want!

As you can see, it is a great idea to actively create a vision in all the important areas of your life, especially your romantic life.

If what you are interested in is an epic, life-long love, then you need to consciously create a vision for that.

There are simply too few models of long-term passionate love for you to leave it up to chance, hoping that you have inherited a sufficient vision. 

To actively create a Relationship Vision, ask yourself questions like:

• How do you want to feel in your relationship?

• How do you want to show up in your relationship?

• How do you want your partner to show up for you?

Here’s the bottom line: The unconscious vision you already have has gotten you the relationship you’re already in. If you want a relationship that goes beyond where you are – you need a new vision.