Successful Relationships Reading Corner
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.”