Relationship Garden Blog

We think of holidays as times of joy and family connection.  Memories of delicious meals and visions of children happily opening gifts are dear to our heart.  Unfortunately holidays can also be a time of stress and disappointment.  We tend to hold ourselves and each other to high standards, and when we don’t live up to them we may feel badly about ourselves and sometimes take it out on each other.  In addition to good memories holidays often hold memories of disconnect, disappointment and pain.  When we don’t talk about them, painful memories and feelings from years past tend to sabotage the present.  Below you will find two dialogues.  The first is appropriate to share with your partner before any major holiday.  It invites you to be conscious and intentional about the holiday experience you want to create and to discuss how to support each other in that process.  The second is appropriate to use after any holiday, vacation or major event to process what happened, both the good and the bad.  It invites you to claim what you did right, to explore what wasn’t what you had hoped for and to think about how to handle it better in the future.  Print them out and use whenever you need them.

Let me know if they are helpful…

Holiday Traditions

What I loved about this holiday as a child

If relevant, what was tough about this holiday when I was growing up, or share any painful memories associated with the holiday

What I love about how we have celebrated this holiday in the past

One worry I have about the holidays this year

One way I’m hoping we can support each other this year

One thing you can do to keep me safe

One thing I could do to keep you safe

My dream for the holiday this year

Processing a trip or holiday or party

What I like most about how we handled ____________ is

What was difficult for me about it was

What we might do differently next time is

If we could do that what I imagine would change is

What I appreciated about you during _____________ was

What I was proud of or pleased about how I handled things was

As I think about the overall experience what I am feeling in my body is….

In the Imago Getting the Love You Want workshop we talk a lot about the importance of empathy in sustaining loving relationships.  On the second morning of a recent workshop, as I checked my emails prior to starting,  I clicked on the link to Paul Zak’s TED talk on the connection between oxytocin levels and trust, trustworthiness, morality and empathy.  I was blown away.  I quote:  “it’s empathy that makes us connect to other people, …it’s empathy that makes us moral.”  I especially love his conclusion – that the best way to enhance oxytocin levels and hence empathy and moral behavior is simply – to hug!  The more often we hold each other, the more we connect, the more we touch each other in loving ways, the more oxytocin is generated, the more empathy we feel, and the more trustworthy and moral our interactions become.  Paul Zak recommends we hug each other eight times a day.  Couldn’t have said it better myself!

enjoy!

Paul Zak TED talk on the role of oxytocin in empathy, trust and morality

These inspiring words from Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple Computer, talk to me about how crucial it is to follow your dreams and live from your heart – even when no one else understands why you are doing what you are doing, even when it is very difficult.

“Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle.”
– Stanford commencement speech 2005

This summer, through the power of serendipity, I saw three not so new movies, all of which dealt beautifully with the question of why we need each other and the powerful drive to connect with and care for other human beings.    In all three movies, The Station Agent, The Visitor and Lars and the Real Girl, the lead character sees himself as damaged and unlovable, and yet, in sprite of himself, is drawn into the human community through caring for, and being cared for by others.  As each comes alive and risks connection, he finds himself healed.  Check out this trailer for “Lars and the Real Girl”

Enjoy!

Sometimes it takes great peril to shake us up and bring us back to basics.  Last night, as the wind howled and the rain poured down I was so aware that all that mattered to me was that those I love and cherish be safe and well.  All else paled in comparison.  So this morning, as we clean up the mess and begin to get back to our lives I want to recommit myself to keeping this simple truth in the front of my awareness.  Wishing all of you safety and warmth, electricity that stays on and streets that dry out.  Enjoy this wonderful song of gratitude and redemption by singer songwriter John McCutcheon.  Hallelujah, The Great Storm is Over!

Several weeks ago I was honored to attend the wedding of two lovely friends.  When the minister, the Reverend Kent Matthies,  was giving the homily he commented on the happiness these two have given each other and he started to say that “happiness is necessary…” and I thought he was going to say for a good marriage. Instead he said “happiness is necessary for a good life.”

I was very struck by this.  We all know the truism that you have to love yourself before you can love others.  This seems to go deeper though.  It says to me that in order to be engaged, in order to care, in order to give to others with an open heart we need to know contentment and joy ourselves.  There is a sense that it is difficult to live in a meaningful way unless we are grounded in our own well-being.

This idea flies a bit in the face of the image of the self-less giver whose only thought is for others.  It strikes a balance between self-centered hedonism, and self-less altruism.  It says that the truly good life is one in which our care for others grows organically out of our care for ourselves and our joy in the world we inhabit.  I am reminded of the meditation I learned from the Buddhist sage Thich Nhat Hahn “aware of my body I breathe in, smiling at the world I breathe out.” He says, “because of your smile you make life more beautiful.”

So smiling out my window at my garden I embrace this world and the day that lies before me.  I would love to hear your thoughts on the role of happiness in leading our lives, and what it takes to live a good life. 

In recent years it often seems that anger, resentment, intolerance and hate threaten to overwhelm the voices of those who work for healing and peace.  All too often acts of violence create a depth of pain that leads to retribution and further violence.  And yet in the midst of despair there is hope.  In the midst of darkness there is the promise of light.

I am part of a broad Imago community in many countries across the globe, including many talented therapists and educators in Norway.  As we heard of the horrifying acts of violence and hate earlier this week my first thoughts were for these friends, and the families of the victims.  One of our colleagues, Jorunn Overboe shared the beautiful and courageous response of the Norwegian people to those who would overwhelm the world with violence and hate.  I share it with you in humility and love:

“Thank you for thinking of us and for sending your greetings!!That means a
lot!!

We are all in Norway touched by this tragedy, and I know people who are
closely touched.

I hope you and all the rest of the world have seen pictures from the
Norwegian peoples answer to this horror today:  Hate with love, darkness
with light, coldness with warmth, evil and cruelty with caring, closeness
and togetherness, and endless of flowers and lights all over the country.
Shoulders by shoulders we filled the streets with love.”

Sincerely Jorunn Oeverboe

How much courage it takes to meet anger with compassion, coldness with warmth, darkness with light.  Please share your thoughts on what  we can all do to spread this message of light and love.

In the Wissahickon Center’s Women’s Support Group, Finding the Heart’s Center, we are exploring issues of shame and authenticity.  This week we will be looking at why it is that so often we see ourselves as either being “too much” or “not enough,” and the shame that happens when those feelings wash over us.  I am reminded of the opening scene from the wonderful movie about Tina Turner, “What’s Love Got to Do With It.”  In the scene the little Tina (maybe five years old) is singing her heart out in the church choir, but the choir director is threatened by her exuberance and keeps shutting her down, until she is finally tossed out of church.  Even that doesn’t quench her spirit – she does not fold until she experiences abandonment and rejection. 

I woke up this morning thinking about these twin poles of shame, and what it takes to move past and through them.  Some thoughts I have:

1.  Be honest with ourselves about who we truly are, and let go of trying to be what others want

2.  Be gentle with ourselves when we are less than perfect and recognize that imperfection is the human condition and that that is ok.

3.  Have the courage to speak our truth gently to others when it is helpful and constructive to do so.

4. and Work to see our own value and worth as sufficient to themselves, without comparing them to the accomplishments and value of others.

I would welcome your ideas on self-worth and shame – when do you feel more or less than, and what is helpful to you in sorting through these feelings?

As I have watched the horrific events unfolding in Japan I remembered the quote from Fritz Perls, “today is the first day of the rest of your life,” and the thought came to me:  given that today could be the only day of the rest of our lives, how tragic it would be to spend it with thoughts or feelings of anger, hate, anxiety or fear.  Nature brings us enough tragedy, we do not need to add to it with our own conflicts whether they be between two people who love each other, or two peoples who cannot find a way to coexist.  So just for today I intend to live with a heart full of gratitude for the beauty around me, and to feel the joy of connecting with those I care about.  Peace is a process, one relationship at a time, one day at a time.

Have you ever had the experience of feeling passionately about something, getting excited, wanting something with your whole heart, speaking enthusiastically – and suddenly been overwhelmed with a tide of shame, a feeling of almost physical self-loathing?  Shame occurs when we tell ourselves that who we are, what we want, what we feel, what we think is not good enough – that somehow it is not ok to be who we re in that moment.  Usually it is a voice from our childhood – parents, teachers, other kids from long ago – who suddenly speaks up and says that who we are and what we are feeling is utterly unaccpetable.  At that moment we become small again and desperate for acceptance we squash who we were about to be.

A colleague recently sent me a link to a speech by social work researcher Brene Brown that addresses powerfully the link between shame and the challenge to authenticity.  She states that the definition of courage is the willingness to tell the story of who you are with your whole heart, and that when we are willing to be vulnerable like this we become capable of connection:  “In order for connection to happen we have to be willing to be seen, really seen.” – to be excruciatingly vulnerable. She further states that people who have a strong sense of love and belonging do so because they believe they are worthy of love and belonging. 

To hear Dr. Brown’s entire talk check out this youtube link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4Qm9cGRub0

I believe that this work of owning our vulnerability, speaking our truth and moving out of shame is truly necessary for authentic relationship.  On Wednesday March 9th a new women’s support group, “Finding the Hearts Center” will hold its first meeting in our offices in North Wales.  The group will address these issues of shame, self-esteem, vulnerability and the courage to be ourselves in the relationships that matter to us.  If you are a woman in the Philadelphia region, please consider joining us.