How do the stories told about us affect who we are? Time and again I’ve observed the power of stories in interactions. The way we treat others affirms or destroys the beauty of who they are. If the negative story starts early on and becomes concrete in their mind, change can be grueling. But with the help of people who care about them, they enter an ecosystem where their best self is being supported and encouraged. -If someone is treated poorly time and again they will begin to feel poorly about themselves. -If someone has never been deeply listened to by another person, they will become closed off and untrusting. -If someone is expected to fail it is likely that they will. -If someone is dominated and abused then they may become a dominating abuser. -If someone is seen as deviant on a fundamental level, what is their motivation to change? How are your expectations of another person affecting them? Are your words building them up and evoking the best that is within them? Are your words tearing them down and lowering their self-esteem? The fundamental need of every person is LOVE. When someone feels unseen, unheard, unloved and unlovable a monster is created. How do we help others thrive? #1 Ask yourself, “am I the right person to talk to them?” Sometimes it isn’t your place. Maybe your role with them is too solidified and your words will fall on deaf ears. Maybe they aren’t safe for you to speak with. Maybe you haven’t dealt with your anger yet. Be self-aware. #2 Prepare -Before you go to speak to this person sit down and write up all the positive qualities you see in them, the ones you want to see more of. Discover your reason for speaking with them. What is the goal? Do you want to be better friends? Are you excited to see them grow in a specific area of their life? Get really specific and intimate with the goal. Spending time in thoughtful reflection about the person will infuse you with a glow of support when you speak to them. They will see it. #3 Start with the positives and package the negatives strategically. -No one wants to be approached with a full force beat down. Chances are, if you’re dealing with a difficult person it will be tempting to tell them off. -Tell your story, not theirs or anyone else’s involved. -List off all the beautiful qualities in them. Even if you only see tiny glimpses of virtue, exaggerate those qualities. If you can see those things, no matter how small, there is a possibility for massive growth given the right support and encouragement. -When the negatives come into play make sure they aren’t packaged as an attack. Explain how their actions affect you and them. -Give them a compelling future. Talk about the positives of who you see them becoming. Explain how the negatives are holding them back from their greatness. -End with more encouragements and love. -Open the conversation up for discussion. Get ready to listen without judgement. -Once they self-reflect and respond with openness have them commit to a change. Make it as concrete as possible. #4 Evaluate your role. -How are your actions keeping this person stuck in a role? Are you expecting them to fail or are you treating them as if they are already the best version of themselves. -Brainstorm new ways to interact. When someone is trying to change but the people around them don’t grow and change with them it can be very difficult. -Be their ally, not their enemy. Form a foundation of trust, intimacy and listening. -Ask them how you can be helpful in their growth. #5 Remember that change doesn’t happen overnight. -Consistency and patience for the process are required by all parties. -NEURAL PATHWAYS: Your brain is being shaped, molded and changed by your experiences everyday. This is neural plasticity. Think of Neural Pathways in your brain like hiking trails through the woods. The more a path is used the larger and more cleared out it becomes. The less a path is used the smaller and more overgrown it gets. Whenever you focus on something you are creating a strong Neural Pathway. Whenever you stop giving attention to something the Neural Pathway weakens. So in order to make desired changes or challenge our projections in relationship we need to consciously devote energy to the thoughts and actions we want. Habits are tough to change, but as we focus on expanding a more beneficial neural pathway each and every day we will find that change can and will happen over time. For a while, the neural pathways that have been developed around the negative habit will be strong. As we challenge this it will weaken and we will form a strong neural pathway that speaks our truth. #6 Give them a fresh start. Focus on treating them like the person you know they are and want to be. Change the ecosystem. Call Out Culture and Social Media
We are living in an interesting time relationally. Our core desires remain: to be loved and to be seen. Social media gives us the illusion of these needs being met. It gives us the illusion of being known. It is a straw man. NOTHING can replace a real life relationship. Humans are living, breathing, magical beings. When we interact with one another we exchange energy, support, inspiration and physical comfort. On top of social media’s relational facade we have an overwhelming “call out culture.” All of the tactics I mentioned above fly out the window on social media. I, myself, have been called out for insane, unnecessary things. I have been called out while posting about someone beautiful and meaningful. People will find the SMALLEST thing to bring attention to and then package it as an attack. How does this create a more peaceful and loving ecosystem around us? I believe call outs should always start privately, if possible, and follow the steps above. If that fails, we may change our tactic to something more public if there is damage or hurt being brought by this person. But remember. Hurt people HURT people. Alway approach someone in love. Without that key ingredient you’ll most likely be met with defensiveness. When approaching a stranger online. If you have something you want to say to a stranger online start out by NEVER ASSUMING you know what they meant by something. I have been called out by someone on my social media for posting a video of foraging herbs where I didn’t “thank the plants” more obviously in my video. It began with the statement, “Wow, maybe spend a few moments talking to the plant, thanking it, asking it’s permission before harvesting…?” She went on to make some valid points…but those were lost after how she started the comment. Whenever you approach someone with a “Wow…” You’re basically communicating that that person is shockingly inept in some way. It says, “are you kidding me…are you an idiot?” The person receiving the comment will fill in the blank and be less responsive to having a conversation. If the person’s desire is to change the way we harvest and how we harvest then they need to start with how they go about the conversation. People don’t respond well to being aggressively called out by a stranger. I have also been called out for “foraging too much”. One of my wedding installation photos had a comment that said, “Wow, do you really have to take so much?” The assumption was that I was over-harvesting. I responded, “These are actually all invasive species here in Oregon.” Use Curiosity instead of Assumptions ALWAYS use curiosity over assuming you know what the person was trying to communicate. In the situations I mentioned above they could have said, “I’d love to hear about your process when harvesting? How do you go about it? What are your rituals?” The conversation is opened up with questions. That gives me a chance to share what I do with them. After we’ve developed some trust with one another after a few kind back and forth messages (privately) I am more receptive to hearing their thoughts on harvesting. These examples are TAME compared to the other types of comments I’ve seen out there. But if my social media, which is heavily focused on beauty and sewing goodness into the world, can be attacked then we have an issue in how we communicate. You have to SEE the other person. You have to KNOW where they are coming from and utilize that in your interactions with them. Most people aren’t malicious. And if they are, then they are heavily wounded themselves. Always search for the best in people and utilize that.
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Marriage, to me, is a spiritual journey. It carves at the edges of our soul, scraping and probing the deepest parts, at times, without mercy. Love and romance are cultivated and maintained, not effortless. Some moments are grotesque and sad, others are drug-like highs filled with admiration. We journey back to our childhood in marriage. We revisit old wounds, the ways in which we were loved and the ways in which we were neglected. We try and braid our beliefs together like wriggling snakes, wily and untamed. Patience becomes of utmost importance and our limits are stretched again and again.
We see things in our partner that we tried to escape and yet we chose it for ourselves. Why? It is in this spiritual journey of marriage where we learn how to grow. My wounds become the teachers. They are required for me to heal and my partner to grow. When he re-opens them, unintentionally, and I lash out, it is in that intense moment that we both realize the weight of things. We realize that I need to heal and he needs to grow. And together we dance through these moments, in fear, frustration and anger. We rip things wide open in order to sew them up for good. We must be aware of the wounds if we are going to heal. We must be aware of our partners wounds if we are going to rise to the occasion of helping them heal, by our growing. Marriage is a challenge to selfishness. The more selfish the individual, the more corrupt the marriage. We find that the more we give to one another, the more we are filled up. I give to him, he gives to me, instead of looking out for our own interests we focus on each others and care for one another. It’s about making sure our negative thoughts about our partner don’t outweigh the positive. Some of us are more prone to being critical of others, which I have lived in the past. This is not a beautiful lifestyle. It hurts to feel that way all the time. It hurts you and it hurts those around you. In marriage, criticalness can destroy the relationship through tiny pinpricks of degradation. It’s like a rock turned into sand by the ocean, it might take a long time to fall apart but the journey itself lacks in luster. Why wouldn’t we attempt to have the most epic beautiful relationship we could muster? Why wouldn’t we dive into life partnership as a way to grow and thrive? Is it hard? Yes. Is it daily effort? Yes. Is it badass? Yes. The things that require the most work yield the most epic results. Speaking from 9 years of experience, I have traveled through the wounds of my childhood with Johnny. I have being re-hurt and re-wounded, but because he is honest, true and constantly in pursuit of that which is best, we have both journeyed through it into a new territory. One that contains an exceptional amount of understanding for one another. It is because of these things that we find ourselves with an obsession for growth and facilitating that for others. It is because of these things that we are considering writing a book/s. There are thousands of marriage and relationship books out there. But how many are written by young couples in pursuit of the epic? How many evoke healing from the get go instead of waiting till things build up. How many remind us that the decision to marry is a decision to step onto a land mine that may destroy us. But as the phoenix rises from the ashes or the fireweed grows after a wildfire to heal the land, so can the reckless, messy, epic, life changing, badass relationship between two humans that surpasses any relationship on earth. We need to start seeing our partnerships like this, instead of the “ball and chain”. No one wants to be imprisoned. Marriage should set you free. And not the you that you’ve created for society, but the you that you diminished and hid from view. The one that screams out freedom and dances with no shame. Your partner is going to hurt you but they can also be the one to set you free. WHY MONOGAMOUS MARRIAGE? Zombies are known for their robotic movements and lack of warmth and presence. They wander aimlessly in the night only concerned with getting what they need, a supple neck. They suck the life out of others and give nothing back. This is what has happened to a large majority of marriages. How do I know? Well, if the divorce rate doesn’t confirm it for you then just look around. You could use many arguments against the construct of marriage. One of them is that we were not biologically wired for it. In the Paleolithic era there was no ownership of women and no demands on sexual exclusivity. Women contributed a lot to the group and were inventors. Once the Neolithic era commence and farming/agriculture/land ownership were the new normal women began having more children in order to work the fields. “As women spent more time pregnant and caring for their children, then they had less time for farming activities, and so by default men took over many of their tasks. Women no longer contributed as much to the economic structure of the household, and consequently their rights and status were lessened.” (http://web.clark.edu/afisher/HIST251/prehistory%202.pdf) “As culture evolved, the patriarchal society grew increasingly misogynistic. Ancient Greece played a large role in the increase of patriarchal practices. A primary democracy can be seen in ancient Greece called the polis. This gave men somewhat equal rights; compared to the aristocracy they had known before. As men gained equal rights, women lost many of theirs. The family had before been a biological unit, but now took the form of a political and economic unit. Wives and mothers became obligatory, and women who did not follow the traditional functions faced legal consequences. Women were the legal wards of either her father or husband and had no rights of their own; they could not inherit property. A woman during this time did not even have custody over her children as they belonged to her husband. Additionally, if a woman committed adultery, they would either be banished or executed where men, who would occasionally suffer penalties, had many legal sexual outlets. There were highly trained courtesans and male and female prostitutes (Radek). As men were able to find sexual freedom with these outlets, most women could not leave their homes without permission from a father or husband.” (http://www.colorado.edu/wrc/2015/02/13/history-patriarchy) As horrible as these glimpses into the past are, we have to remember that things change over time. Just because Marriage has a dark history and some of our ancestors didn’t practice it or practiced it in a different way, doesn’t mean monogamous marriage, here and now, has to be like marriage in the past. I’d like to argue that marriage can be an incredible life choice, if we know what we’re getting into. I’d like to think our society has progressed emotionally, but I know this is not true for everyone. We’re now dealing with the repercussions of being raised in nuclear families where we are disconnected from nature, skill building/sharing and are commonly emotionally wounded by our caretakers. We go off into the world alone, wounded and begin wounding others out of our pain. This may not make sense yet, but I see marriage as an opportunity to not only heal from those wounds, but also learn to thrive as an emotionally intelligent human being! The Zombie Marriage is real, and maybe it stems from the lackluster/oppressive marriages of our ancestors or the unrealistic portrayal of romance in modern media. Either way, it doesn’t look good. You now have two wounded people coming together in the hope that the other person will save them, make them happy and romance them till the end of time. But they go about it in all the wrong ways. They allow their fears to lead them, their coping mechanisms to destroy and their obligations in life to crush them. They don’t have the tools to create an emotionally conscious marriage. I remember as a child, analyzing married adults. I noticed that the men tended to be emotionally unavailable to their wives, distracted by TV, their 9-5 job and the after work beers. I remember women shuttling their children from soccer practice to piano lessons and playdates- they washed the dishes, folded the clothes, helped the kids with homework and met up with their girlfriends every once in awhile for wine or coffee. I rarely saw a crossover between husband and wife. I rarely saw any romance or date nights unless it was a special occasion like their anniversary once a year. They didn’t seem to be moving as one. Most married couples looked more like roommates to me. They seemed annoyed with one another, ignored each other, fought constantly and stayed together for the kids. This was my viewpoint as a child. And it scared me. I didn’t want it. I’d rather be single for the rest of my life then be stuck in a Zombie Marriage, reliving the mundane, lackluster, discord every single day, I thought. I wanted marriage to be epic. I wanted to explore what it would take to create that with someone. I wanted to know what life-partnership looked like apart from child-rearing. I wanted to believe in it. So where do you start? Johnny and I are looking to connect with more couples and provide more support while gathering information for our book. If you are interested in being a part of these meet ups and are in the Portland, OR area please let us know! Women everywhere desire to be sought after. Not only their physical bodies, but their deepest soul. Many will seek the physical attraction and stop short of diving deep. Some of us believe we know our partner, our mate, and so we stop seeking them. But the truth is, we never stop opening and growing, marriage is a lifelong seeking of another's soul through all of lives various stages. It looks different every year, sometimes every day.
Women, and I think men as well, but specifically women, desire a mate that will walk through the desert of her inner workings, watering the dying plants along the way and seeking the wild spring that is hidden across desolate landscapes. I believe that men are fulfilled by this seeking because in the end, they fulfill their lover. They fulfill their lover in such a deep way that it evokes something powerful within. It’s the power that we ought to be wielding. It is the power to get at the core of another human being instead of dancing around the center but never quite hitting it. People will ask how? They will use all sorts of excuses about how their partner is difficult, ambiguous and volatile. The difficult, ambiguous and volatile partner is not getting their needs met. Something deep within them is crying out and they don’t know how to communicate it. The other partner must be a seeker. They must seek the truth in the other person. They must ask, seek, listen, ask, seek, listen. This creates safety, and safety allows growth. It’s also helpful to know that women have two natures, the one they showcase to the world and the wild woman in their soul. Women are seeking a mate that can match their wild soul within. They desire a mate that will see both of their natures, be able to name them and know them intimately. One part of a woman lives in the daylight. She is pragmatic, practical and cultured. One part of a woman lives in the world not easily seen. She is the wild woman. There are many times that this part of us surfaces in the daylight. She always leaves the feeling of inspiration and an opening, or challenge to the status quo. She is a powerful force within us. This duel nature in woman can be incredibly confusing to men, and women, themselves, for that matter. The two natures of women must be in communication. There is much strength in knowing how to wield and understand each part. There is immense power in bringing the two together as one. This is what the other partner must seek; to know and nourish the dual nature of their woman. Men also have a dual nature. The wilderman is one who wishes to learn. He is delighted by learning and seeking. When a man acts naive and refuses to allow that growth he becomes stagnant and therefore his partner feels unloved because he is not seeking out their wild soul. “It is an act of deepest love to allow oneself to be stirred by the wildish soul of another.” -Women Who Run with the Wolves The reason we don’t experience this deep love is because we are afraid. We are afraid of losing something, exposing too much, so we put up protective walls. The man who is a match for the wild woman is the one who keeps returning in order to understand, a man of endurance, a man who is curious about his lover, a man who allows his partner to amaze, inspire and shock him. When we enter into union with another we are also willing to touch the not-so-beautiful parts of another and ourselves. “To love pleasure takes little. To love truly takes a hero, who can manage his own fear.” “They contemplate what they fear, and paradoxically, respond with both conviction and wonder.” -WWRWTW People who “run away” or “hide” in a relationship aren’t actually running from the other person. They are running from the pressures of a relationship. This has been called “fear of commitment or intimacy” in our culture. But it’s much deeper than that. It is the fear of diving into the ugly with another person. Marriage is different than dating because it threatens to dislodge the skeletons at the bottom of our lake. As we watch the corpse floating to the surface it’s almost too much to bear. We are misled to think that relationships are romantic always. Even when our parents say, “marriage is work” we don’t believe them. I’ve watch a lot of older couples in my life struggle through that “work” and because of religion or comfort, they remain in dead relationships. The skeletons are floating to the surface but the revelations that come from unearthing aren’t being heard. They are falling on deaf and unwilling ears. After the romantic stage of a relationship there is an opportunity to show courage by letting the skeletons rise to the surface and even forming a relationship with them. We emerge from the romantic fantasy that precedes deep love. I can say from experience that the shallow romantic love at the beginning of a relationship or in a movie scene is NOTHING compared to the relationship that develops as we allow ourselves to go through all the stages together. That love is exponentially different. People try to get there with little work. They want to see the view point at the top of the mountain but give up at the first or second rest stop. They may be able to see a small view from this place, but they have no idea what kind of epic revelations live at the top. The hike is what we must do. This is how we build sustainable love that can withstand hardships and fulfill our wild souls. This relates to and extrapolates on our last post about listening to the need behind the criticism.
For this post I wanted to talk about how building intimacy and friendship are the keys to conflict resolution. The reason conflict can be so difficult and destroy partnerships is because one or both of the people have become disengaged. You should be playing on the same team...but what do teams do? THEY PRACTICE. Practice includes: Building an Emotional Bank Account -Having a 5:1 Ratio of Positive to Negative interactions: John Gottman coined this idea. Unfortunately for us, negative interactions can have a powerful effect on us, much more than positive. The key is to overload the relationship with positive interactions so that when the negatives come along it's not out of balance and the relationship is kept stable. Fostering the positives can look like the following: -Responding to Bids: Learning to see the other person's actions as bids for love, attention, affection, to be heard...and then responding to them instead of ignoring them or getting angry. -Looking beyond the Criticism or Judgement and finding the need: Our last post talks all about this idea. -Listening to your partners Negative Emotions; Allowing your partner to vent and express their negative emotions while listening and comforting. -Expressing Gratitude: It's easy to get tunnel vision or "grass is greener" syndrome. Expressing Gratitude for what you have instead of Resentment for what's missing. -Taking Obvious Pleasure in Your Partners Happiness: Supporting and enabling the other to pursue what makes them come alive, what makes them happy, and expressing the joy that brings you. -Having Fun Together: This might be obvious, but creating new memories and fun adventures with one another is very bonding. -Using Upward Conversational Statements Instead of Downward: This is an interesting one. When you're in conversation with your partner and you want to add something to what they said it's better to use the upward language of, "Yeah, and..." instead of the downward language of, "Yeah, but..." These are just a few ideas to get you thinking about how you're insulating your relationship. When the cold winds come through will the insulation be able to withstand it? These ideas need to be implemented daily in order for trust, intimacy and friendship to build. Then, when conflict comes, you look at the other person as your teammate, the one you've been practicing with everyday, the person whom you love and adore, the person that has shared intimacy and emotion with you. You must be in tune with your partner everyday and tackle conflicts together, not trying to solve them, but expressing the needs, desires and hopes behind them. When conflict comes... Take a deep breath. Look for the need. Take a break if your fight or flight responses are on the tongue. Come back. Listen. Use "yeah, and..." statements. Express your needs. Listen. Remember this is your teammate, your partner. They aren't out to get you. They just might need something. They just might be triggered by something. Your patience and listening ear means everything to them. Remind them that you care, especially in the midst of conflict. Remind them that you want to hear their need. Remind them that you are committed to the process. When all is said and done, do something enjoyable together. Reconnect. Other people don't cause our feelings.
Our feelings are an embodied response that speaks of a deep need not being met. Many times, when couples are in conflict, they try and come up with strategies to fix the problem. But if the strategy doesn't meet both of the partners needs then it is no good. We have to learn how our body experiences feelings. And then we have to learn how to communicate those needs to our partner during conflict. When one partner throws out a judgement they are actually wanting a need met. If we switch our focus from the judgement to the underlying need then the conflict disappears and now we're tackling it as a team. The partner being "attacked" needs to dig under the judgements and anger to find out what the present need is...in this moment. We need to get curious about our partner. The interesting thing is...we often express our deep needs in an opposite way. So if your partner says, "you never do the dishes." they might really have a need for appreciation. Or if your partner says, "don't touch me." they might really have a need for affection or closeness. Sometimes we will tell our partner exactly what we need, but sometimes we mask it in a judgement, an attack or anger. These needs are "forbidden needs". They are the needs that have been deemed as forbidden throughout our life and so we have a hard time communicating them. This is why they end up coming out as an opposite judgement and create conflict. In relationship we continue to act as if these needs are forbidden even though we truly desire to meet them. MOVING FROM CONFLICT TO CONNECTION: -We have to enter conflict without labeling what the other person is doing as "right or wrong". -Instead, we're searching for the hidden needs with curiosity, kindness and non-judgement. -We're open to discovering our own needs as well as the others instead of continuing to be in attack mode. We are committed to working together to discover the hidden needs. -It should be our joy to meet the others needs. So this is an incredible opportunity for both partners to give and receive. Many times the need is what the other person desperately wants to give. -This creates safety and goes beyond "solving the problem". -This beneficial cycle is reinforced when one partner checks in with themselves, finds the hidden feelings and shares them. -The other person can respond with love and understanding and now feels safe to explore their own needs. -In order to discover the hidden needs we have to get out of our head and into our body. We need to get out of the past and future and into the present moment, present needs. We have to breathe and ask ourselves what physical/emotional feelings are happening within us. This is a physical thing. We all know what it feels like to be excited or sad. Those are the sensations you are tapping into. After you've sat with that you can attempt to label them and communicate them with one another. -The best way to avoid resenting your partner is to speak your needs often. FRUSTRATION+TIME=ANGER ANGER+MORE TIME=RAGE The parts we think we need to hide in order to be “attractive” are actually the powerhouses of our ability to love.
Common culture teaches all these skills to airbrush our presentation of self, acting more confident, playing hard to get, all those things that are about making yourself more attractive. That approach actually means you’re screwed from the start. It means putting a freeze lock on your authenticity and spontaneity. It never ends up working. It feeds all of our insecurities. We tend to disapprove of the weak, sensitive, vulnerable parts of ourself. But ultimately we never stop loving those parts. These are the parts of ourself that are aching to be liberated. “To the degree that I cherished those qualities in myself I began becoming attracted to people who cherished those qualities in me.” Personal Thought: It’s interesting that when Johnny and I met I wasn’t hiding those parts of myself as much as I usually did. I was being as authentic as I could with him. I don’t know why. Interestingly, he was attracted to me because of that. If we abandon our sensitivities then we will attract people who can never fulfill us. If we embrace our sensitivities we will find someone that honors and cherishes us. The places we feel the most awkward or uncomfortable are our holy places. This is where our gifts lie. You can’t just go after people who are good for you, the ones that you think are good for you. Sometimes there isn’t real attraction there. You can’t force your attractions just because they are “good for you”. There is primal sexual attraction that has to go along with it. (more on that in another post) 2 Different Types of Attraction Attraction of Deprivation: They’re almost available, but not quite. They are hot, exciting attractions, but they only scratch an itch, they don’t feed a real need. What are the types that have broken your heart again and again, you won’t stop being attracted to these people but you should understand that they will never fulfill you on the deepest level. Attraction of Inspiration: This is a different thing. You’re not only physically attracted to them, you’re emotionally and spiritually attracted to them because they have integrity, consistency and by the way they act in the world. Attraction will build in a different way. It won’t be that fiery up and down, up and down kind of ride. It’s more like being fed from the inside and feeling something grow richer, more celebratory and more real as time goes on. That’s where we want to look for love. Find the people who amplify who you are. Who is on the same wavelength as you? Exercise: try this exercise for 2 days Get a journal and over 2 days make little notes to yourself answering these questions: What kinds of interactions fill my heart? What kinds of interactions hurt my heart? What are the themes that emerge? These are your core gifts, where you can be hurt the most and moved the most. Those are the places where your magic lies. The places that you are the most tender are the places that you love from. Things that hurt you=breaks in connection and love where that love matters the most to you. You will find that if there is an insensitivity to a part of you that is hurt you will find that that part of you is a part that you need to be able to honor and choose people who honor that part of you. You may have a tremendous sensitivity to other people being honored. That’s a core gift place. Always ask, “what’s the gift in here?” For a lot of us it’s hard to ask for what we really want from our partner. So we either don’t ask and stay somewhat resentful or we ask but we ask in a way that isn’t coming from a place of need, it’s more like giving an order. When we ask from a place of real authenticity something really different happens. THE GOOD STRUGGLE= Where you have a really hard giving your partner what they need and where they have a really hard time giving you what you need. The question is, “do you honor that journey?” Every single day we make a hundred little and big decisions. These can affect us in small and large ways. In psychology there is this idea of "KEY DECISIONS" meaning, decisions we made at one point in time that have a huge impact on our life from that moment forward. Today I wanted to talk about Key Decisions in the context of marriage and partnership. Here's what I've been learning in my Coaching Certification about Key Decisions: "Sometimes people make key decisions early in childhood to repress and block certain areas of their personality and to focus on developing others. What may work in order to survive in childhood often becomes obsolete in adult life and interferes with every relationship. A man might decide as a boy that boys don’t cry, and in blocking his tears might block all his vulnerability and sensitivity. When it’s time to be sensitive to his wife and his children, he may not be able to do it. A little girl may stand up to her abusive father and refuse to acknowledge that she’s hurt. As a woman, she may be a strong, caring mother, but she may not be able to be vulnerable and loving in a sexual, erotic way with her husband. Often, decisions that are made early in childhood persist into adulthood, long after they have become obsolete, and interfere with our relationships and our happiness. Key decisions made in early life may have positive consequences, such as the decision to be brave, to persist, or to accomplish. Yet sometimes even the most positive key decisions may result in rejecting important parts of our identity. Sometimes the key decision has only negative consequences and persists through adult life even though it has no apparent value." -Robbins-Madanes Training Key Decisions: -Bigger Impact on your life -Usually made under stress -Usually forced by someone or something -Made when you’re not ready to make a decision -Your decision usually means cutting off other options Four Qualities That Make These Decisions so Powerful 1. The earlier the decision the more powerful 2. The more urgent the circumstances, the more influential the decision 3. Key Decisions set a precedence to how you will respond to similar situations down the road 4. Key Decisions are reinforced with repetition and reward How to explore your Key Decision: What is the decision you made? If you're having a hard time figuring it out ask yourself some of these questions: Who's love did I crave the most? Mothers or Fathers (or another caretaker) What did I have to do or who did I have to be to get their love? Did you have to shut off your emotions, be strong, be religious, be happy, be mom, be a caretaker, shut off your own needs to take care of others? How did my siblings react to the same thing? Sometimes how the siblings respond to the parents can affect how you respond. How did your father treat your mother and visa versa? Was your mother cherished and loved by your father? Was your father respected and cherished by your mother? Once you discover the Key Decision you want to explore list off some of the current repercussions. When we associate our Key Decision with negative repercussions in the here and now we can decide on a new decision to replace the old one that is no longer needed for our survival. EXAMPLE: Woman Key Decision: Became emotionally shut off in reaction to an abusive and dominating father. What would have happened if you made the opposite Decision: He would have made fun of me. What Purpose Did it Serve: Protection Repercussions: I am unable to emotionally connect and be vulnerable with my husband and children. Lost her beautiful, strong femininity. New Options: These first two are to show you responses that are not helpful. #3 is the best way to approach a key decision. 1. Normalize a Key Decision: we're prone to defending the decision. 2. Reject the Decision that they themselves made, be haunted by it, never get used to it. 3. Educate themselves about the decision they made and look at the options. They have compassion for why they made that decision and then make a plan. Remember that Key Decisions are very entrenched. What part of myself have I been neglecting because of this Key Decision: What was another way I could have responded to the situation? UNCONSCIOUS KEY DECISIONS: Sometimes you receive a major shock or trauma and unconsciously make a key decision. You brain looks for an explanation for why something happened. Anytime you have that kind of shock the brain makes a unconscious key decision and thinks “whatever happened right before the shock is not okay.” As I mentioned above there are many ways Key Decisions can affect a marriage or partnership.
EXAMPLES: A woman makes a key decision to turn off emotionally and become "strong". Which means she never opens up emotionally/sexually to her husband. A man might make the same key decision, like mentioned above, and shut off emotionally which means he can't be vulnerable emotionally/sexually with his wife. His children will also feel misunderstood and he may pass on these traits. A woman makes a key decision to be an individual who does what she wants because of being smothered by her mother, who expected her to be a certain person and do what she wanted her to do in life. She is therefore unable to collaborate with her husband and feels smothered with the slightest bit of "criticism" from the another person. "you can't tell me what to do" She can become reckless and risky in order to be autonomous. Is there an area in your relationship that you want to change? Is there a Key Decision associated with the way you act or the way you're closed off? What does your partner do that triggers you? What part of yourself are you holding back out of fear? The more we understand about our partners past and why they respond and act the way they do the more we can grow and make new decisions that benefit the individual and relationship. I encourage everyone to Dance as a form of therapy. This can re-connect us with an emotional, feminine, raw side of our self. If opening up emotionally is hard for you, reckless dancing is always a good place to start. It helps you reconnect with YOU. -Bailey Marriage, to me, is a spiritual journey. It carves at the edges of our soul, scraping and probing the deepest parts, at times, without mercy. Love and romance are cultivated and maintained, not effortless. Some moments are grotesque and sad, others are drug-like highs filled with admiration. We journey back to our childhood in marriage. We re-visit old wounds, the ways in which we were loved and the ways in which we were neglected. We try and braid our beliefs together like wriggling snakes, wiley and untamed. Patience becomes of utmost importance and our limits are stretched again and again.
We see things in our partner that we tried to escape and yet we chose it for ourselves. Why? It is the spiritual journey of marriage, to allow our wounds to be exposed, to hurt one another in order to learn how to grow. My wounds become the teachers. They are meant for me to heal and my partner to grow. When he re-opens them, unintentionally, and I lash out, it is in that intense moment that we both realize the weight of things. We realize that I need to heal and he needs to grow. And together we dance through these moments, in fear, frustration and anger. We rip things wide open in order to sew them up for good. We must be aware of the wounds if we are going to heal. We must be aware of our partners wounds if we are going to rise to the occasion of helping them heal, by our growing. Marriage is a challenge to selfishness. The more selfish the individual, the more corrupt the marriage. We find that the more we give to one another, the more we are filled up. I give to him, he gives to me, instead of looking out for our own interests we focus on each others and care for one another. It’s about making sure our negative thoughts about our partner don’t outweigh the positive. Some of us are more prone to being critical of others, which I have lived in the past. This is not a beautiful lifestyle. It hurts to feel that way all the time. It hurts you and it hurts those around you. In marriage, criticalness can destroy the relationship through tiny pinpricks of degradation. It’s like a rock turned into sand by the ocean, it might take a long time to fall apart but the journey itself lacks in luster. Why wouldn’t we attempt to have the most epic beautiful relationship we could muster? Why wouldn’t we dive into life partnership as a way to grow and thrive? Is it hard? Yes. Is it daily effort? Yes. Is it bad ass? Yes. The things that require the most work yield the most epic results. Speaking from 8 years of experience, I have traveled through the wounds of my childhood with Johnny, being re-hurt, re-wounded, but because he is honest, true and constantly in pursuit of that which is best, we have both journeyed through it into a new territory. One that contains an exceptional amount of understanding for one another. It is because of these things that we find ourselves with an obsession for growth and facilitating that for others. It is because of these things that we write this book. There are thousands of marriage and relationship books out there. But how many are written by young couples in pursuit of the epic? How many evoke healing from the get go instead of waiting till things build up. How many remind us that the decision to marry is a decision to step onto a landmine that may destroy us. But as the phoenix rises from the ashes or the fire-weed grows after a wildfire to heal the land, so can the reckless, messy, epic, life changing, bad ass relationship between two humans that surpasses any relationship on earth. We need to start seeing our partnerships like this, instead of the “ball and chain”. No one wants to be imprisoned. Marriage should set you free. And not the you that you’ve created for society, but the you that you diminished and hid from view. The one that screams out freedom and dances with no shame. Your partner is going to hurt you but they can also be the one to set you free. Here are some examples of "bids" in relationship:
-"I really want to take a vacation this year, maybe somewhere tropical, what do you think?" -"Ugh! It felt like such a long day at work, I just want to lay on the couch and do nothing tonight!" -"Did you notice my new haircut?" -"What are you working on?" -"The bathroom is so dirty right now! When is the last time you cleaned it?" -"My friend Dave said him and his wife went to a great restaurant downtown the other night, he highly recommends it!" -"Do you have to work late AGAIN!?" -"Do you think I'd make a good psychologist or should I try out Interior Design?" These might look like random sentences but in fact, these are all bids for emotional connection and attention. Responding well to these bids creates trust in a relationship. Even the negative comments are bids for connection. When a wife nags her husband about a dirty bathroom she is really saying, "I would feel so much more comfortable and at ease in our home if it were regularly cleaned and it hurts me that you don't see that!" Or when a couple brings up a vacation or restaurant idea they are asking the other person to get romantic with them by traveling or going on a date. If the other partner doesn't respond to these ideas or shoots them down then they will feel neglected. When a partner asks for an opinion on something they are saying, "I trust your opinion, you know me and can give me another angle on this." If you don't respond to it or respond negatively then you will chip away at that trust your partner is handing to you. Negatively responding to a bid with sarcasm or criticism is another possible outcome that destroys trust. Most bids, on a basic level, are saying, "I want to connect with you." Healthy Relationships=More/Positive response to bids Struggling Relationships=Less/Negative response to bids Putting it into practice: Begin reading between the lines when your partner says something, asks something or demands something. The best way to shock and confuse your partner is by responding positively to a bid offered as a negative. This is how relationship repair and trust building can begin. So next time your partner nags you, asks you something or makes a statement about how they feel/how their day was, try and see what might be behind the statement. What are they asking for at the core? Connection with you? This is an opportunity to respond to what they are truly asking, not the surface request. EXAMPLE: "The bathroom is so dirty right now! When is the last time you cleaned it?" "Ah! I'm sorry babe. I really should be better about doing that, I know its disgusting and that sucks. I'm going to go get started on it while you're making dinner." "You've said that before, how do I know you're actually going to make a habit of it?" "I'm going to make a habit of cleaning it once a week." "I'll believe it when I see it." That last part is another example of what I call "testing". Partners are going to "test" each other, especially in new territory. The bathroom cleaning will have to happen regularly before the partner will trust the other. But once that bid is responded to positively and re-enforced by repetitious action, trust will be built. This is just one example, you have hundreds of opportunities every single day to serve and listen to one another. At first one of the partners might be bitchy or full of anger about certain bids that have commonly been neglected. It's a process and someone has to "go first". The more bids you respond to positively and re-enforce the stronger your relationship and the better equipped you'll be to handle the big things that come your way. Ah...relationships. A complex merging of two different people who adore one another at one point in time. Everyone will tell you that life-partnership is work, but what does that work entail?
It is our opinion that the work required to love someone "till death do us part" is a combination of reflecting on your past, understanding your triggers and hidden parts of yourself-the parts you have disowned, realizing your partner will have positive and negative traits of the people who raised you and that a relationship with them could bring up old wounds and at it's best it can heal those old wounds. The work requires creativity, playfulness and understanding. It means meeting the other persons needs in the way that they desire, not in the way that you think is best. It means responding to your partners bids for love and attention, even when those bids look negative or confusing. It's about communicating instead of trying to manipulate. It's about understanding your partners "positive intent" behind their actions. It's about being spontaneous, constantly growing, being aware of life-stages and how we change as individuals. It's not a "one size fits all". Your relationship is a unique ecosystem. The challenges that come with marriage require commitment and trust between partners. If you want to have a great life-partner then you have to be a great life-partner. Marriage, for us, has been a mixture of conflicts, hardships, misunderstandings, in-explainable joy, admiration, growth, wake up calls, reconciliation.... and ultimately a challenge beyond comprehension. A challenge that the human spirit can grow and deepen from. Rise to the occasion and become a Relationship Master with us. |