(Question) I have been reading all your posts on enlightened relationships. I’m loving them. And stuff is coming up for me. I’m dealing with that. But I actually have a question about something you said in the very first part. You said: “So your partner truly doesn’t need to do anything. You truly don’t need to do anything. Your partner doesn’t need to be anything either. You however, do. You need to be present. You need to be alert.” What do you mean when you say we have to be alert?(Raven) Yes. Sure. So what I mean by Be-ing alert is just that. In romantic relationships and indeed all human relationships, there is a tendency for reactivity, projection, insensitivity, poor communication, and other things to show up. Being alert simply means being aware that some or probably all of these things are going to be a part of our relationships at one point or another and then responding out of Presence when they do instead of reacting out of ego, when they do show up.
I would say some of the things we need to be most alert of are--our reactivity, our projection of our stuff onto our partner and what I call the dynamics of holding the space. I will address each of these separately.
Reactivity: Feel your body; your heart; your pulse; your blood pressure; that place on the back of your neck; your gut; your eyes; that sensation of blood rushing to your face. These are the expressions-- the places where the most common physical clues arise that inform us we are moving perhaps from a place of deep listening or calm responding to a place of reactivity. That transformation can take place instantly or it can build slowly like a volcano. Once we are in reactivity mode, all bets are off. There is usually no more conversation or discussion or listening taking place. Once we are in reactivity, one or two mental positions or stories are simply jockeying for dominance; usually, by any means necessary. So we must be very alert to either notice when we are moving into reactivity mode (and those physical cues are incredible for bringing about that awareness) or knowing that we have entered it and that we probably, at that point, need to take a timeout from the conversation. Hurtful, regrettable things will likely begin to flow out of mouths at a faster pace than the flow of the Colorado River at peak current.
Projection: This is about owning our stuff and resisting the extremely powerful urge to label our stuff as our partner’s stuff and to then move into blaming, attacking, and defending of our mental positions. I’ve already previously spoken about this at length. I have nothing substantive to add to that at this juncture except to tell you to notice and to try to be alert when this is happening.
Holding of the space: A very large number of disputes between people, including partnered people result from one partner clumsily or disastrously asking the other person to “hold” something for him/her. This could be me asking my partner to hold my pain, my anger, my sadness, my hurt, my feeling of being misunderstood all the way to very deep long standing issues like holding the years of anguish and rage I have about being sexually molested for 20 of the 25 years I’ve been alive. On the other side of that is the receiver part. Most people who are clumsily or disastrously asked to hold this kind of stuff or energy are at least as clumsy or disastrous in their communication of their discomfort and openness to holding it or their absolute resolve not to hold it.
Here is an example of the most idealistic way that whole dynamic could play out around a specific potentially disastrous conversation: (Partner A): “I know we have tried to discuss this before and we’ve not gotten anywhere, in my opinion. I however, want to try again. I want to broach the conversation once again about us starting a family, about us having kids. I know this is difficult for you and brings up lots of stuff for you. I am sensitive to that. And, this is a need of mine. Are you able to go there with me right now?” (Partner B) “I love you so much. I really do. I know this is important to you. You have been so patient with me on this. And no, I am not ready to go there right now. I just can’t. I can’t do it just now.” (Partner A) “Ok, do you have an idea when you might be able to have that conversation with me?” (Partner B) “No, I don’t.” (Partner A) Ok, I’m going to check back in with you in a week. Is that Ok?” (Partner B) “Yes, and if I get ready before that, I’ll initiate a conversation with you about this. Thank you for being so sensitive to where I’m at right now.”
Ahhh, the joys of a Hollywood ending. Unfortunately, for such a weighty discussion as having kids where one partner is totally wanting to go there and the other partner totally isn’t, that conversation, I just demonstrated is probably all too rare. It doesn't need to be though. As I said, a lot of difficult conversations revolve around one person wanting the other to hold something and the other person not being ready to do it and neither person being able to articulate clearly what they are doing or needing or requesting…or demanding (we’ll get to that in a moment…the demanding part, I mean).
So here is where alertness comes in. We must become very alert to the fact that we are often asking our partners to hold something for us; usually that is some specific thing or some specific set of complex emotional energies. We have to become equally alert when our partner is asking us to do the same. And we must become alert to all the stuff that can come up in that process.
Usually, when we get the information that someone is not ready to hold something for us, the best advice is to retreat. However, this is not always the case. I am currently reading a book entitled “The Survivors Club” by Ben Sherwood. In this book Sherwood tirelessly examines all kinds of emergency and life threatening situations that can show up in people’s lives. He, through research-- talking to experts and through many other exhaustive means, creates a sketch of what types of things and personality traits seem to predict who survives these catastrophes, and who doesn’t. Fascinating stuff. In one of the many stories in this book he describes a plane crash (he discusses many plane crashes, but I’m only going to focus on one here). Many people survived the initial impact. But the plane is on fire and the cabin is quickly filling up with choking, toxic smoke. There is a woman sitting in one of the emergency exit seats. She survived the initial impact. But, as we learn in the book is very common, she is psychologically and physically frozen. She just sits there as a rapidly growing line of survivors find themselves literally at safety’s door…and she is blocking it. So basically everyone in line is asking this woman to “hold” her responsibility for agreeing to sit by the emergency exit and to follow through with that holding by opening the door so people can escape the burning plane.
People audibly ask her to open the door. She is frozen. She is non responsive. So in essence she is saying “No, I can’t hold this responsibility right now. I’m too freaked out.” So one of the other passengers immediately forces his way past her, kicks open the emergency exit, physically picks this woman up and throws her out of the plane onto the wing and then allows the other surviving passengers to escape from the plane. People died in that crash. Many more would have perished if not for this particular passenger. This man saved many people’s lives because he refused to accept this woman’s refusal to “hold” the energy of being responsible for the safety of others; a responsibility she took when she agreed to sit by the emergency exit.
Now, how does that relate to the typical romantic relationship, you might be asking? Not too long ago I had a boyfriend, where there was an issue that was, from day one, a troublesome issue for me. I tried many times to discuss this with him. He wasn’t having it. He wasn’t ready to hold my energy and emotions around this issue. So I retreated…repeatedly. I knew the Starship Enterprise could boldly go where no man has ever traveled before. The Starship Enterprise however, even knew not to go where another person isn’t emotionally ready to go. At one point however, I became like that man on that plane. I very calmly and lovingly began a conversation with my partner once more about this thing he didn’t want to talk about. He immediately let me know, in many verbal and non-verbal ways that once again, he was not ready to hold my energy with regard to this topic. I persisted. He physically got up and removed himself from me. I followed him and gently stood in front of him and said my piece. For me this was the relationship equivalent of us being on a burning plane with toxic smoke filling up the cabin. So I forced the issue. I forced him to listen and he did. He broke up with me 2 days later because I essentially kicked open the emergency door and threw him out onto the wing and he didn’t like that. Metaphorically speaking, he would have preferred to die on that plane.
I was distraught, heart broken and completely beside myself when he left me. If every single element of that situation, including many things I have not reported, repeated themselves in my life today, with what I now know, would I do the same thing? Yes, in a heartbeat. Sometimes, very rarely and very selectively, we must also understand that even if the person is silently or actually screaming “I can’t hold this right now!” for our own sanity and deliverance, we must make them hold it. And then accept, whatever consequences that follow.
(Q) Those are powerful stories and powerful words. But all that being alert stuff sure sounds like a lot of work.
(Raven) It’s only a lot of work if you tell yourself it’s a lot of work. Tell yourself it’s a lot of love and it will be a lot of love. Tell yourself it’s a lot of compassion and it will be a lot of compassion. And even if it is a lot of work, what amount of “work” is your relationship worth anyway? That is something we all would benefit from being clear on before we engage in one
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