Relationship Dreams & Your Body’s Experience of Your Relationships

Let’s take a moment to cherish the relationships you already have, to slow down and see them more clearly. Take care to connect with your attachment system, like the soft loving creature that it is. What is secure attachment?

Secure attachment feels like:

  • I’m peaceful when we’re apart and I’m safe when we’re together.

  • I can rely on you and you can rely on me.

Distinguishing Physical Reality from Visionary Reality

Secure attachment comes from the lived experience of the relationship. Not the label or the future hopes, rather the experience your organism has in the relationship. One of the main challenges people experience is not distinguishing Physical Reality from Visionary Reality. These are 2 different things. 

Visionary Reality

Visionary Reality is the realm of relationship desires, romantic and sexual fantasies, dreams for “finding the one,” or “starting a family.” There are no promises about these dreams. Therefore the energy is very high and light. It is easy to become excited about possibilities in visionary reality. Often the first 6 to 24 months of a new relationship has a lot of joyous possibilities and a big visionary reality.

Physical Reality

Physical Reality is what you can see, taste, smell, and touch. It’s what a video camera or a friend could observe about your relationship. It includes:

  1. How long we have known each other

  2. How frequently we interact 

  3. How our bodies respond when we bring them together (Do we relax and melt? Are we tense and guarded?)

  4. The history of us successfully supporting each other in a mutual way (requesting, giving, and receiving support)

  5. The history of us repairing conflict and learning from it

All of these things happen in physical reality. They can be seen and measured by a witness. This is the physical reality of your relationship.

In physical reality 3 conditions exist:

  1. Things take energy: To show up for a juicy date or a repair, you must focus energy upon them. This includes how you focus your time, money, physical vitality, creativity, and attunement (with self & with others) to be present for connection.

  2. Things are always changing: People’s circumstances, health, and attention shift.

  3. Change is unpredictable: We do not always know what is going to happen. 

For example, in Physical Reality, we might act on a dream of having a partnership by writing a vision, sharing it with friends, going on many dates, exploring the first 6 months, noticing what is and is not aligned, going on more dates with more clarity, seeking support from a secure attachment coach, and so on.

You do not get a partnership by dreaming about having one. It takes focus and action, including action that may not be “exciting” or “inspiring” in the moment (like checking a dating app.) Small and mundane things count for a lot in the physical domain.

Both Visionary & Physical Reality are important. If we lose focus on our Visionary Reality we can settle or lose inspiration. We can forget the spirit of what’s calling us to a relationship. If we lose attention and clear focus on our Physical Reality we may not be truthful about what is and is not working for us. We are learning to see both Visionary & Physical Reality clearly.

What do you experience as you orient to this distinction between the Visionary & Physical Reality of your relationships?

Want to go deeper? We now have a self paced Sacred Learning Center where you can take a workshop on Relational Mapping! You can even become a member and have unlimited access to my best tools.

This post and body of work has been inspired by 2 core influences: support from Jessica Fern, author of PolySecure and 6 years of training at the Academy for Coaching Excellence. The distinction between visionary & physical reality is adapted with permission from Maria Nemeth.

Zahava Griss