June/July 2003

Imagining A New Model of Justice
Denise Breton, Christopher Largent & Stephen Lehman

Breaking the Bank: The Economic Heresy of Herman Daly
Lissa Harris

A New Vision of Development
Roar Bjonnes

Sustainable Businesses Combine Ideals and Vision
Debi Smith

The Politics of Water in the Middle East
Leah C. Wells

Making Media Monopoly Part of the Constitution
Robert W. McChesney

Why People Don't Heal: A Homeopathic Perspective
Douglas Falkner, MD, M.Hom

A Change of Heart: The Sacred Journey of Relationship
Sri Estes

In Search of Enlightened Relationships
John Darling

Ten Things Couples Can Do to Enhance Their Relationship
John Eisman

Witnessing
Peter Moore, MFCC, CGP

The Movie Mystic: Matrix Reloaded
Stephen Simon

The Urban Permaculture Homestead
Jude Hobbs

Cosmic Calendar
Salina Rain

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Ten Things Couples Can Do to Enhance Their Relationship

By John Eisman

A relationship is a living, growing process. We start with attraction, gradually evolve towards intimacy, and the ultimate creation of a mutually supportive partnership. This takes work. Like growing a garden, relationships require attention, nurturing and time. Unfortunately, because most of us usually learn about relationship from people who themselves struggle to connect successfully, few of us are shown how to do it well.

Here, then, as a starting point, are ten basic skills and orientations that are essential for developing satisfying relationships with our partners.

Orienting Towards Celebration. The point of being with someone is to Celebrate each other, and to experience the pleasures of that Celebration. Relationships often get stuck because somehow we shift from that enjoyment into disappointment, doubt, and criticism. However well-founded such feelings may be, we still have a choice as to how orient towards those difficulties. We can view these events as intractable problems, or as candidates for compassion. We can try to win some momentary victory, or we can focus on what outcome we prefer to create. Each of us has the capacity and the responsibility to shape the quality of our experiences, and regardless of what the other is doing, we retain at all times the option to remain centered, open and loving, to seeing the cup of the moment as being half full, rather than half empty.

Integrating our Two Basic Impulses. To Connect and To Separate. As humans in a relational world, we harbor two innate and seemingly opposite impulses. The garment of our being is cut from the fabric of all things—whether we experience this as spiritual Oneness, or as a tangible manifestation of the laws of physics and conservation. This sense of unity creates in us a constant impulse to connect: to relate, to belong, to have a partner, to be a member of a tribe.

At the same time, it is our mission to become a separate and unique individual. We have our own preferences and desires, we set boundaries for ourselves, we develop our own talents and style. This needs to be developed, our individuality summons an ongoing impulse to be separate.

These two impulses—to connect and to be separate—are constant, and we must learn to juggle them, to honor them moment by moment as our needs unfold. In relationship, this means that each of us will be driven both to immerse in the union, and to make time to be alone. We will agree sometimes, and sometimes we will follow a different momentary path. Like dancing the jitterbug, some relational moves will be entwined, while others happen across the room.

Evolving Towards Individuation. Life is School, and we must learn how to be mature, functional human beings: to know what we want and to pursue it; to have full access to our resources; to be responsible; to operate from possibility and not threat; to embrace others with kindness and compassion. Few of us, however, enter adulthood fully embodied in this way. For numerous reasons, our actual maturity and the number of candles on our birthday cake are rarely in synch.

As a result, when people go into relationship, both usually still need to learn more about being a person, to overcome childhood wounds and omissions, and to receive missing kinds of parenting—even though they may now be parents themselves. In addition to all the tasks of daily life and all the maintenance that the relationship itself requires, each partner must continue to develop, to acquire new, expanded perspectives, and to assist his or her partner in accomplishing the same.

Evolving Towards Differentiation. Differentiation is the ability to maintain one’s individuality while in relationship. Sometimes we experience ourselves maturely while on our own, only to have that maturity slip away when we become involved with another. Once again, the relationship suffers, because it’s dynamics lose the resource of one or more partner’s fullness.

Being able to maintain separateness while relating allows us to keep our own identity, and to pursue our own pace, needs and preferences. It lets us say to NO! to those things we wish to avoid, and to say YES! to the callings of our own path, all while still holding our partner’s hand.

Understanding and Resolving our Fragmentation. As children, when confronted by difficult situations for which there seem no resolutions, we fragment our consciousness to represent the various elements of those situations. We put ourselves into a series of trances, or self states, each holding a unique and limited perception of who we are and what we need to address. If, for example, we do not feel loved by our parents, we may create one sense of self that feels unlovable, another that denies the need for love, and a third that covertly seeks to get love anyway. We then grow up not as one whole person, but as a perceived committee of people, each answering to our name, each with a distinct and limited agenda, each enveloped in a specific mood or “feeling state,” and each believing it perceives reality exclusively and accurately. Most of us typically flow in and out of these different trances all day long, often without even noticing.

When we encounter another, we assume we are one person, and that the other is just one person also. In fact, there are several on each side, and the quality of interaction depends on which self-states engage with each other. If my needy little boy happens to trigger my partner’s weariness at feeling responsible for others, we are likely to antagonize each other, since these parts of ourselves care only about their own perspectives.

Such committee wrestling is by far the most common element I see when working with couples who are struggling. It is often a great relief to them to view their conflicts not as a basic schism between them, but as a distinct and manageable tangle of outdated trance states. And so back to “school” they must go, to recognize these trances, and to learn to shift back deliberately to their innate states of wholeness.

Exploring and Embracing Inherent Misalignments. In addition to our misaligned states of consciousness, we may also be out of synch with our partners in terms of our inherent natures. Some of us are more introverted, others more extroverted—leading to differences in how much and in what ways we like to socialize, or not. Metabolically, some of us are designed as race cars, while others are station wagons—thus influencing the pace at which we operate and the kinds of activities we enjoy. Couples need to recognize the hard-wired orientations each partner has, and to find ways to accommodate and celebrate both the similarities and the differences.

Improving Communication Skills. Along with which fragmented selves are relating to each other, how we relate in any situation influences enormously the quality of our interactions. Do you own your own mistakes, or blame them on your sweetie? Do you listen to what he says, and indicate your under-standing, or do you interrupt to express your own need or perspective? These and many more habits of communication determine whether interactions lead to mutually satisfying exchanges, or light the fuse for yet another round of feeling misunderstood, unheard or unmet.

Defining & Maintaining Boundaries. Being in relationship and merging are not the same thing. Through Individuation and Differ-entiation, we need to maintain our own sense of self and autonomy. Because many of our fragmented self-states feel inadequate, we often tend either to try to control our partners, or to be absorbed by them. The relationship becomes a tangled goulash of identities, and loses the freshness and resource of two whole people contributing to a joint project. Learning to set boundaries for yourself, and to respect those of your partner, is essential for a harmonious and flourishing relationship.

Complicating this task is the fact that different aspects of ourselves may have different boundary needs. We may feel quite secure in our minds, and can tolerate any idea, but may be much narrower in our willingness to encounter physical touch. We might include our partner when we feel sad, but keep her at a distance when we are afraid. Without clarity about these dynamics, couples are prone to confusion and conflict.
   
Valuing Engagement. Sometimes one or both members invest too little in a relationship. Issues around intimacy, power and depen-dency may make us operate in a parallel way, with too little engagement to allow for true teamwork. Bob may feel worried about the finances, but not share this with Susie. She starts to think he’s distant and uninterested. and so withdraws to protect herself. In fact he’s so interested in her well being that he’s working overtime to care for her. Unless they express their concerns and needs directly to each other, they may miss the intimacy both are actually striving for.

Couples need to learn to go INTO relationship—to see the relationship as a vessel that can contain whatever is happening for each person and both together. Without this ongoing joint investment, there is little to nurture the trust and resource in the union.

Living in We-Consciousness. We-Consciousness is a state of mind in which we allow ourselves to identify with and embrace both ourselves and others, and the unique third entity that such meeting creates. It is a positive, inclusive and expanded state, in which we simultaneously vote for ourselves, vote for the other, and vote for the relationship. To do so, we must be embodied as mature people, for in seeking to have everyone win, we must have both the security to accept limitations, and also the resources to create a dynamic and fulfilling relationship. In this way, we can invest in ourselves, our partners and the unique union that provides a playground for our ongoing Celebration.

Jon Eisman is the director of the Hakomi Institute of Oregon, and the creator of the Re-Creation of the Self Model of Human Systems. For the past 25 years, he has taught professional trainings and led workshops and couples retreats throughout the world. This article is adapted from material in Jon’s forthcoming book, “Rising in Love: The Re-Creation of the Self Approach to Couples Work” Jon lives in Ashland, Oregon, and will be holding a Couples Retreat there July 30-August 3rd. See the ad on page 24 or contact him at eisgrace@cdsnet.net, (541) 482-2840.