Continuing on with What Conscious Partners Know – Chapters 22 and 23
- Connecting is sustained by intentionality, so they speak with a positive tone and use only appreciative or neutral words in all transactions, which helps them feel connected most of the time.
- The sign of a thriving relationship is how quickly partners engage in curiosity rather than judgment.
- Connecting is sustained by intentionality, so they speak with a positive tone and use only appreciative or neutral words in all transactions, which helps them feel connected most of the time.
Feeling Connected
Two things I like about #22. The first is: “They feel connected most of the time”. Alfred Adler’s great saying: “Have the courage to be imperfect” fits here. None of us is perfect, so there will be times when partners might feel disconnected, but this ties into #23, the importance of “quickly reconnecting”. The second bit that strikes me is “Connecting is sustained by intentionality”. From my experience, most relationships tend to be unconscious, old brain and reactive. What I try to do with couples in the office, and with these blogs, is to help couples become more conscious, use their new brain and become more intentional.
Being More Intentional
I tell couples, half of what I do is to help you become more conscious and aware, which in turn leads to being more intentional. If you want a great relationship, you have to be willing to work at it. If you want to be healthy, you need to intentionally eat good food and exercise. For most of us, that doesn’t happen automatically, but we can choose to make those healthy choices. Similarly, if you want a great relationship you have to make healthy choices on a daily basis: “so they speak with a positive tone and use only appreciative or neutral words in all transactions”. The benefit is, the new behaviours become as automatic as the old behaviours, but the outcome is pleasure not pain.
- The sign of a thriving relationship is how quickly partners engage in curiosity rather than judgment.
Harville’s wife Helen is the great promoter of curiosity. In another place she says: “Safety is nonnegotiable. Without it, human beings may survive, but they cannot thrive.” And she goes further:
- You cannot control your first thought, but you can control your second.
- Think before you speak.
- Curiosity may have killed the cat, but curiosity saves a marriage.
- The sign of a thriving relationship is how quickly you reconnect.
- Ask not what your partner can do for you, but what you can do for your relationship.
Where Conflict Arises
Harville’s belief is that most conflict comes from the “objection to difference”. In a conscious relationship, rather than be judgmental about why someone is different or does things differently, be curious. We lived in Zambia in Africa for six years a long time ago, but I think we were pretty good about being curious about how often people there did things differently than here in Canada. Rather than make them wrong and us right, it was just interesting to see how different people do things differently. The same applies to your relationship.
