Reading Corner

Links related to the weekly posts.

 

By Posted on Posted in Reading, Relationships, Successful Relating Tagged with ,

This week we wrote that in a relationship, sometimes just being there is everything. There are many aspects to being there for someone; here are some posts we’ve written about that.

You Can’t Love If You’re Not There: Why Presence Matters “So when you are with someone, by all means, share with them what happened and plans for the future, but also take in the sense of being with another person, because this is a deep need that we all have. To do that, look or listen or feel for the stillness. Which doesn’t mean not allowing yourself to move; it means not doing anything, it means just hanging out. Being present like this with someone involves two things. One is paying attention to their words, their pauses, their tone, their body language, and not being distracted by what else is going on in the environment or what you have coming up later in the day. The other is paying attention to what is happening within yourself – your breath, tension, feelings, and thoughts. Just observe them rather than holding on to them. It’s about doing nothing, of just being on a fairground ride, letting it take you on its journey.”

Why You Need a Balance of Being and Doing in Your Relationships “A relationship also consists of being and doing. The doing is obvious, from the walks on the beach that decorate online profiles to taking the kids to the dentist. But a relationship is more that that; it is a mystical connection between people, and when you set aside all that activity, the being is revealed, the sense of yourself and the other person. Just as the Artist Date grounds and revivifies us, so does paying attention to the experience of being with another person; it feeds our need for connection, it gives a sense of being that is greater than our island self. There is a balance between being and doing – you probably don’t want to be that person who never gets anything done. You need balance in your own life, and you need a similar balance of being and doing to make a thriving relationship.”

Why the Essence of Connection in Your Relationships is Being Present “This kind of presence has many aspects to it. It involves awareness, intention, purpose, willingness, peace, stillness, availability, openness. It is associated with not having a pre-planned agenda. We may have an outer description of what we are doing; writing, walking, eating, traveling, but once we are together it is an adventure into the unknown. Feeling connected to another is dependent on them being there, not necessarily physically, but with their core self. Physical presence and contact adds much to the sense of connection, but Covid has taught us that we can truly have deep relationships at a distance if we practice presence. I was in a Zoom class with a mid-size group this weekend and felt deeply connected to them all. It gave me quite a jolt to notice how much we felt together even though people were attending from around the world. Someone pointed this out and everyone agreed that after meeting for several weeks in both the larger group and in smaller breakout sessions, there was a noticeable sense of being connected – of being present with each other.”

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This week, we asked what’s that special connection in peaceful relationships about? It comes from a shared reality. Here are a few links to posts of the past that touch on this topic.

A True Connection Between People Brings Peace and Joy
PHIL: What I find interesting is that you have an experience of the event, the change, whatever. And I have a completely different description of it, but when I say it, you go, Oh I can see that. Am I right?
MAUDE: Yes, that’s what I’m saying. I wouldn’t have said it in those words, but it is what I felt, right?
PHIL: And when you describe what it was for you, it fits with what I am saying.
MAUDE: It’s a recognizable thing. So, even though these two stories sounded so different, they actually were the same thing; just my words and yours were different. I didn’t know your side; I just knew what I was experiencing. As you were describing your change in behavior, my thoughts were on the joy and pleasure that actual connection brings.
PHIL: Yeah, I’m struggling to put words on what the sense of this is. It’s a sense of being with you. That we are on the same page, that we’re grokking something and each other together. We’re in touch with the same sense of peace. Lots of phrases like that. I’m sorry to come up with only cliches. This feeling is so nonverbal because it is the experience of meeting you.”

Musings on the Anniversary of our Meeting “Phil created a private site online where we could write to each other, and for two years we examined the main ingredients that went into this strangely harmonious relationship. We were surprised to find over and over that we were both experiencing the same thing and could describe it in such similar terms. At the end of that time, we decided to put these writings together under a few major themes and share them in a little personal book. The idea was simply to say “This is happening with us and therefore we know it is possible. If it’s possible for us, it can be possible for others as well. Take a look and see if it might lead you to find your way to having a peaceful relationship.” And right there our project was born: spreading peace one relationship at a time.”

What Important Secrets Can We Learn From Animals About Relationships? “Animals sense our emotions and respond with love, comfort and acceptance. We receive a profound sense of being seen, felt, heard and even clearly acknowledged. They offer physical reassurance and freely given love, as well as the chance to care for them and to receive uncomplicated loyalty. To say it directly, they offer complete and unfettered loving presence. It is these aspects that have led me to want to write about this in our blog on peaceful harmonious relationships. We too can offer these things in all our relationships: love, comfort and acceptance, as well as hearing, seeing and acknowledging each other. Most of all we can give the gift of our presence; a presence that asks nothing and seeks nothing but the chance to be there for each other. We can offer the warmth of our physical presence, a silent shared witnessing of what each of us is experiencing and the willingness to be there with our full selves. In this, as in in many other areas, we can learn much from our animal friends.”

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This week, we wrote about why peaceful relationships require being undefended. Here are some posts we’ve written around this theme.

The Art of Undefended Love — How to Create Truly Peaceful Relationships “One contribution to ease is that we turn up undefended. That needs trust, and trust needs time, but once that is established, why not be fully open? For me, there is often a small wall to jump over, a relic of the past, but—thank you, Maude—it works out every time.”

How Acceptance is the Best Path to a Peaceful Relationship “A shared behavior of total acceptance has miraculous properties. It creates a feeling of safety and undefendedness. It allows you to grow and keep exploring and sharing yourself. It engenders a lightness of interaction and freedom of being that is the very definition of peace and harmony.”

How Being Defended Stops You From Being Close in Your Relationships “But reactions like this arise from being defended, from feeling that you have some vulnerability that has to be protected. If you can take an undefended attitude, much of this melts away and becomes part of the exchange between you. The complement of being undefended lies in total acceptance of the other person – that’s just how they are, and all the responses are yours to deal with. This allows the other person to be completely undefended in turn, because they are not going to be criticized or corrected. Total acceptance and being undefended go hand in hand. Talk to your partner about this, and shake on it.”

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This week, we wrote about a different approach to differences in relationships. We’ve touched on this before in various posts of ours. Here are a few of them.

A New Way to Look at Differences in Relationships “With joy, right? With fascination at the very least. It’s an exciting thing to embrace otherness. If you move towards embracing this, you know, with all these elements of exploration and attraction and interest and curiosity, then you become expanded by it. That’s why it feels so peaceful. It pulls you into that place where you kind of settle in, like this is the right place to be, sitting in that place with a person. This is an entirely different way of relating. It’s an amazing thing because what you discover is the real connection between people.”

How to Embrace Differences, Not Trip Over Them “There are some important areas that lay the groundwork for these kinds of connections. This has to come from your own inner exploration by practicing peace inside yourself and learning how to deal with your own inner differences between what you value and how you feel. This is, of course, an ongoing process. The more you achieve peace in the face of your inner anxieties and stressful situations, the more attracted to it you will be. When you reach out for peaceful relationships, look for shared core values: those meanings and values upon which you base your life and your interactions. You need to know and become familiar with what your core values are if you are to use these to create and support peaceful relationships. Take some time and reflect upon what those are for you, and look for them to be present in those with whom you build your deepest relationships.”

How Can You Delight in the Differences in Your Relationships? “Coming to terms with the fact that people are different from you can be a challenge. It might be your partner; it might be anyone. It’s fine when you agree, but when you don’t, how can anybody be so stupid? Obviously your way is right: you know the correct route, can stack the dishwasher properly, know how to fix the homeless problem, and know the best way to handle a tantrum in a supermarket. You’re right and everybody else is…less right. But everyone acts in the world as they choose, and maybe there is more than one approach to doing something, and maybe you never saw it before, and maybe they just like doing it that way. It might seem that some differences are irreconcilable. That is seldom the case; there are ways to find common ground. Most issues arise from how these differences are handled. By looking closely at your own response rather than just reacting, you can evaluate how real and important these differences are to you. Do they touch on your core values, or are they a matter of habit or preference? Is there another way to satisfy the same thing without emphasizing the difference, and instead finding a place that works for both of you? Are you truly listening to the other and hearing what they express? And if so, is it a real difference or just a different way of expressing the same thing by another individual? If it is really different, can you incorporate it or change it and still stay true to your values?”

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This week, we wrote that you should base your relationships on connection, not competition. Here are some of our previous posts on different aspects of this topic.

Why It’s Important to Relate to Community as Well as Individuals “I have been reflecting since the recent event how deeply important it is to feel this type of connection and to have an awareness of not being isolated from it. None of us is alone. We live intertwined with one another, sharing services and depending on each other in a million tiny ways for our lives to function. As we foster peace within our individual relationships, we need to nurture the sense of community and our relationship to it as well. We have different options since the restrictions of Covid times brought us Zoom and the ability to meet up with each other without distance being an issue. As that way of being together evolved, it has created a whole new forum for us to become aware of each other and to share and support each other. This is also true of some social media, depending on how those avenues for interaction are used. In these current times, it is ever more important to foster these relationships and to find a sense of backing and support within community, as we each strive toward individual peaceful relationships.”

We Depend On Each Other, So Let’s Love One Another! “I have been thinking a lot about how society is structured. Everybody cooperates (literally “works together” from the Latin opus: work) by doing different activities and sharing the results. This is not obvious because cooperation is so much a part of what we are and so ubiquitous that it fades into the background. Instead, we see life in terms of competition and rugged individualism. Yet it is very difficult to live completely alone and have to do everything, like smelting iron, yourself. I’ve also been seeing more and more research showing that friends are good for your health. Putting the two together says to me that it is in our nature to value our connections with each other and be grateful for them, and this is what makes a community cohere. (An interesting word: it means both stick together and agree.)”

How We Create Peace in Our Relationship by Intending To Do So “Another source of our belief is the fact that people live in communities because they need each other to survive, both physically and emotionally. Relationships, from business to personal, are how we get those needs fulfilled. This is a cerebral argument, but it’s a useful idea that at base, you and your partner need the same things. Believing in a peaceful relationship is a challenge because of the prevailing common view that conflict is inevitable and even healthy. This idea is so easily accepted because we live in a capitalist society that reveres competition and free markets. You might say that couples also fight over limited resources, but a relationship is more about emotional needs which are not limited in the same way; when differences in a relationship arise, they are better handled with a mindset of community than competition.”

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