Believing in love...for the first time

I decided that a relationship I'd been in for almost a year wasn't working for me and we stopped seeing each other. It's been a few months now and I am sometimes troubled by concerns about the choices I made:  what I said, what I did.... Was I clear? gentle? loving? Did I act in alignment with my values for kindness, direct communication, and honesty? I've been beating myself up a little, thinking that maybe I didn't handle this breakup very well. I suppose that many of you have had experiences of this kind...yes? (I kind of hope so, just so I won't be alone.)

Well, yesterday, soaring tens of thousands of feet above the earth on my way home from a business trip, I suddenly had a new perspective. I literally got the "30,000 foot view" organizational planners are always talking about...but on my personal life. The epiphany struck me with such force, I'd have fallen out of any chair into which I wasn't wedged like a sardine in a can (thank you, Delta, for saving me from that fate).

Here's what I suddenly realized:  that was the first time in my life I've intentionally and mindfully ended a romantic relationship. I think it's the first time I was fully an adult during and through the end of a romance.

Even now, as I write those words, I am stunned by this reality. I am 60 and 1/2 years old and this is the first time in my life I've said no to a romantic relationship from a place of grounded self-awareness of my needs, and a clear-eyed observation of my potential partner's ability to meet those needs. This is the first time I left because I felt I wanted something else and deserved to have it. So what if I didn't do it perfectly! (No offense/insult intended to the other party.) But, really, if I flubbed the details a bit this first time, I think I can stop feeling bad about that. I should be throwing myself a party, celebrating with loved ones this amazing victory of personal growth!

Freedom: A Glorious Madness

The universe has been bringing me opportunities to think about freedom. Oddly, it started with me catching a piece of a Big Bang Theory re-run. Will Wheaton asks Sheldon Cooper, "You don't like me, do you, Sheldon?" Sheldon replies haughtily and proudly that he owns Ihatewillwheaton.com, .org, and .net, and asks Will, in an aggressive tone, "What do you think of that?" Will's reply is brilliant. He says, "I think I'm living rent-free, right here," as he taps Sheldon's forehead.

That reminder that I give rent-free space to everyone about whom I spend time brooding brought with it the sobering notion that I'm not free. As long as I maintain space in my head for unhappy thoughts about people who have attacked and tried to hurt me, who disrespected me, who violated me or my "stuff" (some of them, many years ago), I am not free. When I let my life be taken over by thoughts and feelings about how I've been wronged, hurt, used, or disregarded, I'm chained for life to the job of "Building Super" in my History Hotel. I'm stuck in a no-pay lifetime commitment, maintaining property for every person I think has wronged or hurt me. They wander the halls of my mind in their pajamas, stepping on the popcorn they've dropped. I trail along behind them with my vacuum, grumbling and sucking up their mess.

Why Do We Hurt The Ones We Love?

Giving my time, talent, and treasure in service often returns disproportionate blessings, such that I feel a bit guilty for receiving such wealth when my intention is to give. This happy version of the maxim "what goes around comes around" recently bestowed this grace upon me in the form of a timid little four-year-old boy. After hearing a fellow preschooler blurt some pretty standard age-4 "potty mouth" words, this pint-size Wise One said to me, "Those are porcupine words, right?"

In further dialog, I learned that porcupine words are words that poke: hurt, frighten, disturb, or make sad or mad. Their alternative, according to my young friend, is "teddy bear words:" words that comfort, support, affirm, or express love or connection. Nice. Elegant, simple, and clear names to help a young mind grasp the reality that our words have an impact on those to whom we speak them. At this age when the Childhood Treasure that is the capacity for Negotiation is being developed, this porcupine/teddy bear tool is just what the Development Doctor ordered!

I've been thinking about porcupine words and teddy bear words from the framework of adult communication. By the time we reach adulthood, many of us learn that we create impact not just with our spoken words; our nonverbal communications have as great, and sometimes greater, effects. So, from which category do you draw most of your words, facial expressions, tones of voice, and gestures when you are in a state of conflict with someone you love? Are you a user of mostly porcupine words (PWs) or mostly teddy bear words (TBWs) ?

The Kiss that Kills: Love that Builds Immunity

I read something fascinating this morning. Lauren Sompayrac, author of How The Immune System Works,  says that, when a mother kisses her baby, she picks up a sample of that special baby-grubbiness soup that is on the baby's skin--that special mix of everything the baby's been in contact with since her last bath. Then, Mom's immune system analyzes for pathogens her sample of whatever Baby has been rolling or crawling around in, and the next day Mom produces breast milk specially tailored to kill whatever little nastiness was brewing up on Baby's face.

Babies crawl around in filthy environments (even the ones that look clean to us aren't all that pristine!), pick up anything that catches their attention, and put everything they meet into their mouths. Even the most helicopter-ish of parents can't be watching EVERY moment. And babies' immune systems are not fully developed, so this pattern of casual access to potentially harmful bacteria has found a good match in a breastfeeding Mom who kisses her baby's face regularly.

What really fascinates me about this little miracle of Nature's artful design and maintenance of us little short-lived organisms called humans is the great 7 Childhood Treasures metaphor it suggests. For there is another way that the love embodied by a kiss can kill something else that can harm our children.

What happens to love?

What happens to love? Someone tells me s/he loves me, maybe we’re even very close, sharing a deep emotional intimacy. Then, something happens. Something always happens; maybe hurt feelings or a misunderstanding. Maybe I create a genuinely deep wound in the one who loves me, as I act out my own pain. And the result is...love goes. Swiftly as it flowed into my life, as from an opened floodgate, love dries up. It goes. At least, the other person’s ability to think well of me goes. The space between us that was once filled with love fills with anger, distance, and pain. What happens to love?

Recently, a friend asked me for my definition of love and I shared my favorite, which comes from M. Scott Peck’s classic self-help book, The Road Less Traveled (1978). Reflecting the work of Erich Fromm, Peck wrote that love is “the will to extend one’s self for the purpose of nurturing one’s own or another’s spiritual growth.” 

This definition works for me in so many ways. First, it says that love is for the purpose of nurture. Good. So, love is not for controlling each other. Physical violence and threats don’t fit under the category of nurture, either. Nor is love for worshiping each other as “better,” either than self or past friends or partners. It isn’t to provide me with a yardstick to unfavorably compare my abilities, accomplishments, or attributes to another’s, to create new ways to loathe myself. My loving of another should nurture my spiritual growth, or it should nurture the spiritual growth of my beloved. So, if my purpose, your purpose, anyone’s purpose, in loving is to nurture spiritual growth in ourselves and others, then how can love ever go? 

Mary, Mary, quite contrary, how do you fight?

Had a fight lately? I've been witness to a few lately, or heard the aftermath reports of them. I'm not talking about a physical fight, from which wounds often heal quickly, but a verbal fight, which can inflict wounds that never heal. These are the fights in which words, tone of voice, facial expression and body language take the place of fists and feet that bruise the body. Verbal fights can bruise the spirit, the mind and the heart, sometimes invisibly. Have you had that kind of fight with someone you care about in the past few months? Past few weeks? Past few days? If you have verbal fights with your friends and loved ones on a regular basis, then the 7 Childhood Treasures have some wisdom for you.

First, the wisdom of childhood has taught me that fights, in and of themselves, do not harm a relationship. Bringing to the surface and then working through the issues that come up are necessary features of all relationships. Disagreements and misunderstandings (AKA "fights") can result in stronger, more durable relationships for family members, friends, and couples. Whether conflict leads to healing and growth or creates an un-crossable chasm of pain depends on how you fight.

So how do you fight? Do you do it consciously, with the intention to heal an issue? Or do you let your fight explode from your gut, which you've allowed to twist into a knot over several hours, days, weeks or longer? Do you express your feelings from your perspective, or do you tell the other person who they are, what they think, how they feel, and what's wrong about all of that? Do you listen with respect to the other person's point of view, or do you try to shoot it down, demeaning it as less valid than your perspective?

My recent observations have led me to look at the ways we fight -- "dirty" and "clean" -- and to think about the Childhood Treasures that make the difference. Here's what I've observed....

Confidentially, let me tell you the latest...

Why is it so hard to know something that only I know, something told me in confidence? How can the urge to share it, even with just one highly-trusted individual, so frequently overwhelm my good intentions and good judgment?

You've done this, right? When have you revealed to another something told you in confidence? Maybe

only once, or maybe a long time ago, but you've done it, haven't you? Maybe your violation of confidentiality ignited a giant firestorm of interpersonal betrayal and damaged relationships. Maybe nobody ever found out. Maybe you felt guilty for days, weeks, months or years afterward. Maybe you still carry the guilt decades later. Maybe you forgave yourself or were forgiven by the one whose confidence you betrayed. Maybe you've convinced yourself that it "wasn't a big deal."

Regardless of level of guilt felt or forgiveness sought, are you ready to explore, with deep honesty, the whys of that mistake? Will you join me in seeking to understand the humanity of our poor choices, so that we can make better ones in the future? The 7 Childhood Treasures have some wisdom to offer you. Can you bear to see, with the gentle eyes of your heart, what has driven you to betray those who trusted you with private information?

If not, move on to some other blog post. If so, proceed at your own risk. Deep honesty has been known to cause serious reflection, personal revelation, and change.