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Three-Legged Race: What a Childhood Game Teaches Us About Love

Not Just a Childhood Game

Most of us have run a three-legged race at least once in our lives. You stand hip to hip with a partner. Someone ties your adjacent legs together with a length of rope. A starting pistol fires, and suddenly you discover something humbling: you cannot move well by simply doing what you always do.

You have to learn something entirely new together.

That moment of discovery, awkward and often hilarious, holds one of the most elegant truths I know about intimate relationship. It is not enough to be capable on your own. It is not enough to be willing. What changes everything is whether you and your partner can find a shared rhythm and move within that rhythm, together, as one.

The Illusion of Two Separate Runners

We tend to enter relationships the way we enter a race: confident in our own stride. We bring our history, our habits, our pace, our preferred direction and way of doing things. And for a while, that can work. But eventually, the binding that exists between the two of you begins to show itself.

The key is not to see it as a limitation, but as an invitation.

The invitation is this: your individual stride is no longer the whole story.

In the three-legged race, a runner who insists on her natural pace regardless of her partner’s will bring them both down. A runner who completely abandons his own movement and waits for the other to lead will bring them down just as surely. What works is something neither of them could have predicted before the tie that bound them: a new stride, co-created, belonging to neither one alone.

This is coordination. And coordination is not compromise. It is something far more alive.

Coordination Is Not Compromise

Compromise suggests that each person gives something up so that a midpoint can be reached. It suggests personal loss. You wanted this; I wanted that; we settled for something in between that neither of us fully wanted.

Coordination is a different animal entirely. In a three-legged race, the pair who wins does not split the difference between their two natural gaits. They are the ones who discover a third thing: a shared rhythm that actually works better than either individual stride would have alone.

In relationship, this shows up as the moment when two people stop negotiating and start genuinely listening to each other’s timing. When one partner is moving through grief and the other is full of energy, coordination does not demand that one manufacture sadness or the other suppress joy. It asks something subtler and more beautiful:

How do we move together right now, given exactly who we each are in this moment?

The answer to that question is never the same twice. Which is why coordination is a living practice, not a formula.

Balance Is Not Stillness

What surprises people about the three-legged race is that balance is achieved through constant, responsive micro-adjustments, made in real time, in response to what your partner is doing.

If your partner stumbles slightly to the left, you do not stop and announce that they have pulled you out of balance. You feel it, and you respond. A small shift of weight. A slight slowing of pace. An arm around the shoulder that says, without words, I’ve got you.

This is what healthy relationship balance actually looks and feels like. It is not a static equality, achieved once and then maintained effortlessly. It is a dynamic responsiveness, a willingness to pay attention and adjust, moment by moment, over the entire length of the race.

The couples I work with who struggle most are often the ones who are trying to achieve balance as though it were a destination. They want to arrive at a place where everything is equal, fair, and settled. But relationship is not a destination. It is a live process of maintaining balance.

Partners who are maintaining their balance are attuned to each other in a shared experience.

What the Tie That Binds You Actually Is

In the literal race, there is an external constraint, something imposed from outside. But in relationship, the binding between two people is something far more intimate and chosen. It is made of love, of history, of commitment, of the particular ways you have shaped each other simply by being together.

That binding is not always comfortable. There are moments when you will wish you could simply run at your own pace, in your own direction, without accounting for anyone else. Those moments are human and honest, and they deserve to be acknowledged.

And they are also the very moments when the deeper invitation of relationship becomes clear.

Being bound together is not the problem. It is the point.

It is what makes this a different kind of race altogether, one that cannot be won alone, one whose finish line only exists if you cross it together.

The Practice of Moving Together

If I were to name the single quality that allows couples to find and sustain this kind of coordination, it would be this: the willingness to pay attention to your partner’s well-being as well as your own.

In the three-legged race, you cannot afford to be so focused on your own movement that you stop feeling what your partner is doing beside you. Nor can you abandon your own awareness entirely and simply try to mirror them. Both of those strategies end in a fall.

What works is a quality of dual attention, an awareness that holds both yourself and your partner at once, and is always asking:

How are we doing right now? What does this moment need from me?

That question, asked honestly and often, is the heartbeat of a healthy relationship.

Coming Home Together

The three-legged race always ends. When the binding is released, you can both walk on your own two feet again.

But something has changed. You know something now about moving together that you could not have learned any other way. Together you have found a rhythm that belongs to both of you, that only exists now because you have been willing to be bound to each other and figure it out in real time.

That is what the deepest relationships offer us: not the safety of sameness, not the comfort of never being challenged, but the extraordinary experience of discovering who we become when we are truly in it together.

The race is long. The terrain is varied. Some stretches will be easy and some will bring you both to your knees.

When you find your shared stride, there is nothing quite like it.

You are no longer two people running side by side. You are something new, something that only exists in the space between you, moving forward together.

That is the whole point. That is the homecoming.

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Keeping The Doors Of Love Open In Your Relationship

Keeping the Doors of Love Open

Does your relationship feel like a place where you can fully be yourself?

Or do you find yourself editing who you are, choosing your words carefully, softening your reactions, bracing for what might come next? Do you walk on eggshells, not quite sure which version of you your partner needs today or which one you are willing to share?

These are questions worth sitting with. Because the quality of safety within a relationship, the emotional climate the two of you create together, may matter more than almost anything else about how you love each other.

I officiated at many weddings over the years. And because I also offer couples mentoring, my friends used to tease me about the obvious conflict of interest. “What do you do?” they’d laugh. “Say, ‘I now pronounce you husband and wife, and here’s my card, just in case’?”

It was funny. And it was also a little heartbreaking, because the truth is that roughly half of all marriages do end in divorce. Two people stand before witnesses and make the most profound promises of their lives, to love, honor, and cherish, and still, so often, something gets lost along the way.

That’s not because the love wasn’t real. It usually was. It’s because loving, honoring, and cherishing aren’t feelings you declare once. They’re choices you make, again and again, in small moments and large ones, every single day.

The Ring Exchange That Says It All

One of my favorite wedding rituals captures the essence of what it actually takes to keep love alive.

In this exchange, each partner places the ring on the other’s finger only as far as the knuckle. Then the recipient slides the ring the rest of the way home, claiming it, accepting it. The message is simple and profound: love is not a gift you give and then you’re done. It is a living exchange that requires both giving and receiving, continuously, from both people.

For love to stay vibrant, four things must be happening at once. Each partner must be actively giving their love. And each must be genuinely open to receiving the love being offered to them. These are four separate acts, four doors you might say, and all four need to be open.

When they are, both partners feel seen, held, and safe. When even one door quietly closes, out of hurt, habit, or self-protection, the atmosphere in the relationship begins to shift.

How We Close the Doors

It’s remarkably easy to shut one of these doors without fully realizing we’ve done it.

Your partner says something dismissive in front of others. They forget something that mattered to you. They make a choice that leaves you feeling invisible. And something in you, understandably, humanly, withdraws. You pull back the gift of your love, or you stop letting theirs reach you. It feels protective. Reasonable, even.

But when that withdrawal becomes the default response to disappointment, something corrosive sets in. Trust erodes. Emotional distance grows. What began as self-protection starts to look a lot like disconnection. And disconnection, over time, can harden into the kind of quiet alienation that unravels even the most promising relationships.

The commitment you made wasn’t just to your partner at their best. It was to each other as flawed, imperfect human beings, through change, through difficulty, through the moments neither of you expected.

Four Ways to Stay Open When It’s Hard

The real test of love isn’t how you show up when things are easy. It’s how you show up when you’re disappointed, when your partner has hurt you, let you down, or made a choice you can’t quite understand.

Here is what can help in those moments:

First, separate the behavior from the person. You can be deeply troubled by what your partner did while still holding love for who they are. Let them know how the behavior affected you, specifically, honestly, without cruelty. That kind of truth-telling, offered from love, is love.

Second, affirm that your doors are still open. Even while you’re hurt, let your partner know that you haven’t closed off. That the love is still there. This is not about pretending nothing happened. It’s about refusing to let one painful moment or even a major derailment define the whole of what you’ve built together.

Third, when necessary, be clear about what you can and cannot accept. Love doesn’t require you to accept everything. You can hold someone in your heart while also naming the behaviors that cause harm and the consequences of continuing them. Both things can be true.

Fourth, invite a genuine conversation about what comes next. Not a verdict, not a punishment, but a shared inquiry. What do each of you need? What can you both do differently? Couples who can face that question together, with honesty and goodwill, can move through nearly anything. The greatest disturbance in your relationship can be transformed into a more profound experience of loving than you might have ever experienced before together.

What You’re Really Tending

A relationship isn’t a static thing you either have or you don’t. It’s a living environment, one that you and your partner are co-creating, moment by moment, through every choice you make about how to show up for and with each other.

The doors of love don’t stay open on their own. They require attention, intention, and a willingness to keep returning, even when it’s hard, especially when it’s hard, to the person you chose.

So here are the questions I’ll leave you with:

  • Which of the four doors of your relationship are open and which ones are shut to the flow of loving between you?
  • If there are any shut doors, consider who shut them, and why, and whether or not you are both willing to do what it takes to restore the flow of love between you.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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How to Stop Turning Your Partner Into the Enemy

When Love Meets Difference

Most of us have been trained to see life through a very narrow lens.

We live in a culture whose values, social norms, institutions, and systems have largely been shaped by a level of human consciousness that is binary in nature. In this way of seeing, we are taught to divide life into opposing categories: good or bad, right or wrong, yes or no, win or lose, higher or lower, better or worse.

Without realizing it, we learn to organize our perception around separation and comparison. We see ourselves as separate from one another. We measure ourselves against one another. We form hierarchies in our minds. We compare our intelligence, our success, our attractiveness, our moral goodness, our competence, our status, our children, our partners, our homes, our bank accounts, and even our suffering.

The underlying question is often not simply, “Who am I?” It becomes, “Where do I stand in comparison to you?”

This way of thinking is so deeply woven into our culture that we often mistake it for reality itself. We assume this is simply how life works. Someone is right and someone is wrong. Someone wins and someone loses. Someone is superior and someone is inferior. Someone has the power and someone does not.

In a binary frame of mind, there is no room for win/win. There is no room for shared humanity. There is very little room for oneness.

This matters because the way we perceive life shapes the way we live it. It shapes how we speak, how we listen, how we love, how we defend ourselves, and how we respond when someone sees things differently than we do.

The Binary Mind in Love

Nowhere does this become more painful than in our intimate relationships.

Most of us enter love with a deep longing for union. We want to be seen, known, chosen, cherished, and understood. We want to feel that magical sense of “we.” We want to believe that love will lift us out of loneliness and give us a place to belong.

And often, in the beginning, it does.

Falling in love can feel like a temporary vacation from separation. The boundaries between “you” and “me” soften. We delight in our similarities. We feel enlarged by the presence of the other. We say things like, “I feel as though I have known you forever,” or “You understand me in a way no one else ever has.”

For a while, love gives us a taste of oneness.

Then difference appears.

One person wants more closeness. The other wants more space.

One person wants to talk things through immediately. The other needs time to process.

One person feels hurt by what was said. The other feels accused and misunderstood.

One person thinks the money should be saved. The other thinks it should be enjoyed.

One person wants order. The other wants freedom.

One person remembers what happened one way. The other remembers it differently.

Suddenly, the beloved becomes “other.”

This is often the moment when the binary mind takes over. Instead of experiencing difference as something to understand, we experience it as something to defeat. We stop being curious and start building our case. We listen for what is wrong in the other person’s perspective. We gather evidence. We defend our innocence. We try to prove that our version of reality is the correct one.

Without intending to, we move from partnership into opposition.

The Survival Instinct Beneath Conflict

When we encounter difference in someone we love, it can feel far more threatening than we expect.

On the surface, we may be arguing about dishes, money, time, tone of voice, sex, children, plans, or who said what. Underneath, something much deeper is often happening. Our nervous system may interpret difference as danger.

If you see things differently than I do, will I still matter to you?

If you do not understand me, am I alone?

If you want something different, will I be abandoned, controlled, criticized, or dismissed?

If I yield, will I disappear?

If I do not win, will I lose myself?

This is why conflict can escalate so quickly. The subject matter may be ordinary, but the emotional meaning underneath it can feel enormous.

In a binary frame of mind, difference easily becomes a threat. If one of us is right, the other must be wrong. If one of us gets our way, the other must lose. If your feelings matter, mine may not. If I acknowledge your pain, I may have to surrender my own.

This is the great dilemma for those of us who dream of becoming one with a partner while living in a world that trains us to divide, compare, defend, and win.

In the consciousness of separation, love can feel like union only until difference appears.

The Moment Love Has to Grow Up

It is easy to feel loving when we agree.

It is easy to feel close when the other person reflects us back to ourselves in a way we enjoy.

It is easy to feel generous when our needs are being met, our feelings are being understood, and our point of view is being affirmed.

The real test of love comes when difference enters the room.

Can I stay connected to you when you do not see things my way?

Can I remain curious when I feel hurt?

Can I care about your experience without abandoning my own?

Can I make room for your truth without feeling that mine has been erased?

Can we stand on the same side of the problem instead of turning each other into the problem?

This is where love has to grow beyond romance and preference. This is where love becomes a practice of consciousness.

Moving from Consciousness 1.0 to Consciousness 2.0

I think of this shift as moving from Consciousness 1.0 to Consciousness 2.0.

Consciousness 1.0 is the consciousness of separation, comparison, and survival. It sees difference as a problem. It organizes around either/or thinking. It asks, “Who is right?” “Who is wrong?” “Who is winning?” “Who has the upper hand?” “How do I protect myself?”

Consciousness 2.0 begins to perceive from a wider field. It does not erase difference, but it does not worship it either. It begins to see that two people can have different experiences without one of them being the enemy. It makes room for complexity, compassion, mutuality, and shared responsibility.

In Consciousness 2.0, the question changes.

Instead of asking, “How do I win?” we begin asking, “How do we understand what is happening between us?”

Instead of asking, “How do I get you to admit I am right?” we begin asking, “What are you experiencing that I have not yet understood?”

Instead of asking, “How do I protect myself from your difference?” we begin asking, “How do I remain connected to myself and open to you at the same time?”

This is not a small shift. It is a profound reorientation.

It does not happen all at once. We do not simply wake up one morning and permanently leave behind our defensiveness, our fears, our need to be right, or our instinct to protect ourselves. Human beings do not evolve that way.

Instead, we begin to glimpse a wider way of seeing. We notice a moment when we could have attacked, but we paused. We notice a moment when we could have dismissed our partner’s feelings, but we listened. We notice a moment when we could have insisted on our version of the truth, but we made room for theirs.

Little by little, these glimpses become choices. The choices become practices. The practices become familiar. Eventually, what once felt unnatural begins to feel more like who we really are.

Love That Can Hold Difference

Love from the perspective of Consciousness 1.0 often depends on sameness. I feel close to you when you agree with me, want what I want, validate my experience, and do not challenge my view of reality.

Love from the perspective of Consciousness 2.0 is different. It can sustain a sense of union in the presence of difference.

This does not mean anything goes. It does not mean we surrender our needs, silence our truth, excuse harmful behavior, or pretend conflict does not matter. In fact, Consciousness 2.0 requires more honesty, not less.

But the honesty is held differently.

Instead of using our truth as a weapon, we offer it as a doorway into deeper understanding. Instead of using our partner’s difference as evidence against them, we become curious about the world they are living in. Instead of trying to defeat the other person’s point of view, we try to understand how it makes sense from inside their experience.

This is the beginning of real intimacy. It is not the intimacy of perfect agreement or emotional fusion. It is not the intimacy of one person disappearing into the preferences of the other.

Real intimacy is the capacity to remain lovingly present while two distinct human beings tell the truth about what they see, feel, need, fear, and hope for.

The Path Forward

When couples get stuck, they are often not lacking love. They are lacking a level of consciousness spacious enough to hold the love they already have.

They may still care deeply about each other, but their conflicts are being run through a binary operating system. The system keeps asking, “Who is right?” The relationship is quietly asking a deeper question: “Can we learn how to understand each other?”

This is where the path opens.

The next time you find yourself in conflict with someone you love, try noticing the frame of mind you are in.

Are you trying to win?

Are you building a case?

Are you listening only to defend yourself?

Are you making the other person’s difference mean that they do not love you, respect you, or care about you?

Then pause and ask a different question.

“What am I not understanding yet?”

This one question can soften the battlefield. It can interrupt the reflex to defend. It can create just enough space for love to reenter the conversation.

And if both people are willing, another question can follow.

“What would help this work better for both of us?”

That is the movement from win/lose to win/win.

That is the movement from opposition to partnership.

That is the movement from Consciousness 1.0 to Consciousness 2.0.

A Different Kind of Love

We are not here simply to fall in love with someone who reflects back what we already believe, prefer, and understand.

We are here to learn a deeper kind of love. It is a love that can stay awake in the presence of difference. It can listen without surrendering itself. This is the kind of love that can speak truth without domination by making room for two human beings, two histories, two nervous systems, two sets of needs, and two ways of seeing.

This kind of love is not automatic. It is not the default setting of the culture we live in. It has to be chosen, practiced, and cultivated.

But when we begin to live from this wider consciousness, something beautiful becomes possible. Difference no longer has to mean distance. Conflict no longer has to mean combat. Love no longer has to collapse when otherness appears.

Instead, our differences can become invitations to grow beyond the small self that needs to win and into the larger self that knows how to love.

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Why Do We Keep Having the Same Fight?

Photo by Jakob Owens on Unsplash

The argument isn’t really about what you think it’s about.

If you’ve been in a long-term relationship, you know the feeling. A familiar tension rises, words are exchanged, and somewhere in the middle of it, a quiet, exhausted part of you thinks we’ve been here before.

Most couples find themselves not in a similar argument, but the exact same one, cycling back with the same charge it always carries. Maybe it’s about who initiates closeness and who pulls away. Maybe it’s about how decisions get made, or whose feelings take up more space in the room. Whatever the subject, the choreography is identical and no matter how it ends, nothing seems to change.

So why does this keep happening? And more importantly: what are we actually fighting about?

Two people, two entirely different worlds

A client once described this exchange with her husband, who had grown up in a different culture:

She: How come whenever you initiate sex, you expect me to be responsive, but if I initiate, you never are?

He: You have to understand. It is like a light switch. If I turn the light switch on, we have sex. If I don’t, we don’t.

She: You have to understand; I can turn the light switch on as well.

What’s striking about this exchange isn’t the disagreement itself. It’s how completely reasonable each person sounds from inside their own experience. He isn’t being dismissive; he’s describing his world as he genuinely lives it. She isn’t being demanding; she’s pointing to an assumption he didn’t even know he was making. Neither is wrong, exactly. They’re simply speaking from different inner landscapes.

And we don’t need to come from different countries for this to happen. We each live in our own unique inner environment, one that quietly shapes how we perceive, interpret, and respond to everything around us. A simple gesture can land entirely differently depending on the world inside the person receiving it.

The filter you don’t know you’re using

To understand why we keep having the same fight, we have to look beneath the surface of the argument, at what’s happening inside each person before a single word is spoken.

This filter is made up of everything we have accumulated over a lifetime: our conditioning, beliefs, assumptions, expectations, prejudices, preferences, memories, judgments, fears, hopes, and dreams. These are the source material of the stories we have been telling so long we stopped noticing they were stories. It is the inner atmosphere through which each new experience must pass before it reaches our awareness, and it is what shapes our thoughts, feelings, behaviors, and over time, our very way of being in the world.

By the time our responses reach each other, they have already been interpreted, filtered, and assigned meaning in our respective inner worlds. The meaning we have each found is not neutral. It is colored by everything we have ever experienced, felt, or come to believe about ourselves, about love, and about how the world works.

Why we reject what we don’t recognize

We are conditioned to sort our experiences into categories: desirable or undesirable, safe or threatening, right or wrong. In the context of relationships, this sorting happens automatically, and it is almost always biased toward our own perspective. Both partners are doing this simultaneously, each convinced they are seeing clearly, while the other is not.

So, when your partner sees something differently than you do, your first instinct is rarely curiosity. It’s more likely a quiet sense that they are simply mistaken. Their point of view feels foreign because it passes through your filter and doesn’t match what you know to be true. And the reverse is equally true for them.

This is why the same fight keeps happening. It isn’t really about the dishes, or the tone of voice, or who reached for whom. It’s about two people, each looking at the world through their own accumulated inner landscape, each certain, often without realizing it, that their view is the accurate one.

What becomes possible when we see this

The moment we recognize that every disagreement is, at some level, a collision between two inner worlds, something shifts. The other person stops being an obstacle or an adversary and becomes, instead, someone moving through their own experience, just as we are moving through ours.

This doesn’t mean all perspectives are equally valid in every situation, or that accountability disappears. It means that understanding becomes more available to us. And understanding, real understanding rather than just nodding along, is the beginning of change.

The same fight will keep cycling through your relationship until something changes inside one or both of you. Not who wins the argument, and not who makes the bigger concession, but something deeper: a willingness to become curious about the inner world your partner is living in, and perhaps a bit more honest about the one you’re living in yourself.

That willingness is where the real work begins. The argument dissolves when you are willing to recognize your respective filters, question the stories you’ve inherited, and meet each other across the gap of two very different inner worlds.

If you would like to know more abut my couples mentoring program,  click here.

If you are ready to go deeper, I’d love to hear from you. Feel free to schedule a free 30-minute conversation here to see if we might be a good fit to work together.

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Why Being the Responsible One Can Leave You Feeling Empty

You are the one who remembers.
Who follows through.
Who handles things when they fall apart.

Others rely on you. Things work because you are there.

And yet, at times, you feel inexplicably tired or flat. Not burned out exactly. Just quietly worn down.

If you are honest, there may be moments when you wonder how you became the strong one, and when that role started costing you more than you realized.

When Responsibility Becomes an Identity

Many people step into responsibility early. Sometimes it is expected. Sometimes it is simply what needs to be done.

Over time, being capable becomes familiar. Others come to depend on it. And without noticing, responsibility shifts from something you do into something you are.

From the outside, it looks admirable. From the inside, it can feel isolating.

What Is Happening Beneath the Surface

When you are the responsible one, you are often attending to what others need while quietly setting your own needs aside.

Not consciously.
Not resentfully.
Just habitually.

Over time, this creates an imbalance. You may be deeply involved, highly functional, and emotionally present for others, while feeling strangely disconnected from yourself.

The emptiness does not come from caring too much.
It comes from being consistently absent from your own inner life.

Three Insights That Can Shift How You See This Pattern

First, responsibility is not the same as intimacy.

Being needed can feel like closeness, but it often replaces mutuality. True connection requires space for both people to be impacted, not just supported.

Second, over-functioning slowly erodes desire.

When one person carries most of the emotional weight, there is little room left for spontaneity, curiosity, or shared aliveness.

Third, resentment is often delayed honesty.

It is not a character flaw. It is information. It signals that something true has gone unspoken for too long.

A Story Many People Recognize

I have worked with many couples where one partner says, “I do not know when it happened, but I stopped feeling like myself.”

Often, that person has been holding the relationship together for years. Making things work. Anticipating needs. Avoiding disruption.

Relief does not come from assigning blame. It comes from naming the pattern out loud and realizing it did not begin with a failure, but with an adaptation.

A Simple Next Step

If this resonates, notice where responsibility shows up automatically in your relationships.

Not to change it.
Not to correct it.

Just to see it.

Ask yourself, “What do I consistently take care of that no one has asked me to carry?”

That question alone can begin to restore balance.

A Closing Thought

Responsibility can be a strength. It becomes a burden when it replaces mutual presence.

If this reflection resonates, you may want to explore other posts in the Relationships section of my blog, where I write about emotional dynamics, connection, and the patterns that quietly shape how we relate.

Take what resonates. Leave the rest.

Judith

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Different Is Not Wrong: The Missing Skill in Most Relationships

At the heart of every relationship is a simple and often challenging truth: the other person is not you. They do not think like you, perceive the world like you, or experience life through your nervous system. They are living inside an entirely different inner universe.

Different is not wrong.

What often feels threatening is not the difference itself, but the discomfort it stirs in us when our expectations are not met.

As a mentor to couples, I often discover that the dissonance people experience in their relationships stems from an inability to accept their differences. Many react on autopilot in a familiar pattern that goes something like this:
“I’m not happy. It must be your fault. Let me tell you what you’re doing wrong so you can change and I can finally feel better.”

The next time you notice yourself judging your partner, or anyone else, as wrong, try pausing and exploring the moment through a different lens. Consider the following reflections to see if you can gain value from the experience rather than polarizing into a right versus wrong stance:

  • Different does not automatically mean wrong.
  • In what way does this difference feel uncomfortable for me?
  • What am I trying to accomplish by making the other person wrong?
  • How am I responding, and why?
  • Can I acknowledge that their experience is as valid for them as mine is for me?
  • What is the most loving response available to me in this moment?

Relationships are not static. Each of us is a living ecosystem, moving through space and time in a constant state of change. Being in relationship with another ecosystem challenges us to create a partnership where difference is not a threat, but a source of expansion and shared growth.

A healthy partnership asks us to honor both our individuality and our shared experience, without sacrificing one for the other.

Rather than polarizing into blame when something feels off, couples can shift toward shared responsibility for the quality of the relationship. Instead of finger-pointing, there is an invitation to turn toward one another and ask together, What do we need to do here for this to work for both of us?

My Couples Mentoring work is not about convincing anyone to change or deciding who is right. It is an invitation to look honestly at how your relationship is functioning and to work together to create a path forward that truly celebrates your oneness while honoring your differences.

If this way of approaching relationship resonates with you, I invite you to visit my website to learn more about how I support couples in doing this work together.

 

 

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How to Handle Family Dynamics Around a Dying Loved One

Families can be complicated, to say the least. When they are beautifully loving and caring, it’s one of God’s most delightful gifts. But often, when the well-being of a critically-ill loved one is involved, tensions can flare. We don’t all love in the same way. And, love is often tainted by self-serving motivations or competition for power and influence in decision-making.

In fact, terrible things can be done in the name of love. And, the dynamics of power and influence that can develop among family and loved ones can be shocking. Tensions can escalate as judgments and discord fester. Frequently, childhood politics surface and you suddenly find yourself the seven-year-old kid who used to be bullied by her older sister.

Everyone might sincerely believe they all have the patient’s best interest in mind. Yet, they may have diametrically opposed views about what that would look like and how it is to be accomplished. Unfortunately, all too often family members polarize against each other behind the scenes rather than uniting in support of the patient.

Here are some guidelines to help families navigate these stressful and emotionally challenging times.

Respect the patient’s right to make his or her own decisions as long as deemed mentally competent.

Recently, a client shared her family’s drama around their terminally-ill mother. Behind the scenes, some family members are under the impression that mother is depressed and needs antidepressants. They emailed her doctor urging him to prescribe them. Others are concerned about drug interactions and over-drugging mom. They worry about masking feelings that she needs the opportunity to process. When I asked what the mother wanted, my client didn’t know. No one had asked her. They were too busy campaigning for their point of view behind her back.

Be sure that the patient designates a healthcare proxy before being deemed mentally incompetent.

The person who is appointed as the patient’s healthcare proxy is charged with the responsibility to make all decisions on his or her behalf regarding healthcare.

A client told me that her father was the healthcare proxy for her mother. However, he was terribly uncomfortable dealing with death and dying.

The choice of who to appoint should not be primarily governed by the person’s rank in the family pecking order. Rather, the patient should thoughtfully decide based upon who is most able to communicate comfortably with the patient about their needs and care. It should be someone ablle to advocate for the patient with doctors, nurses and caregivers. For example, a family member might hold a strong personal or religious belief that is quite different from that of the patient. This could prevent that individual from following the patient’s wishes. Therefore, they would not be a good choice to serve as healthcare proxy.

No matter how strong your opinion, that doesn’t make you an expert.

As a family member, you may have concerns about the treatment protocol and care being given to your loved one. Address it either with the patient and/or their healthcare proxy. Do not take it upon yourself to try to direct their care. Feel free to express your point of view, but respect the right of the person who is making the decisions. Be careful not to make others wrong for not agreeing with you.

Clarify, agree upon, and respect a pecking order for the flow of information and influence.

The role of the primary caregiver and/or healthcare proxy should be respected. They typically have the most up-to-date knowledge about the patient’s condition and needs. If you really want to demonstrate your love for the patient, than do everything you can to support this person. Offer your help. Be a team player. Help to keep communications clean and above board within the family.

Avoid the temptation to judge and talk about each other behind backs. If you have a problem, address it directly with the person(s) involved.

Having a loved one who is critically-ill is stressful enough. Do not make matters worse by bringing your personal animosity toward another family member into the situation.

Handle your emotional needs on your own. Don’t act them out around the patient.

It is important to be ruthlessly honest with yourself about how you feel and to deal with that within yourself. Be respectful of the patient’s needs and the normal routine that has been established for the patient’s care.

It is not uncommon for relatives who live at a distance to visit and try to overcompensate for their absence. They may be acting out of guilty feelings by playing the hero or trying to make a larger-than-life impact on the situation.

For example, don’t take it upon yourself to feed the patient two big bowls of oatmeal because that used to be his or her favorite breakfast. Find out what the patient is eating now and stay with that. Also, consider the possibility that if you did manage to feed him or her that much oatmeal it wouldn’t necessarily mean that it was a good idea. They may be fully aware of your need to feel helpful and be eating it to please you even though it will cause digestive distress later.

In most cases, an in-law should focus on supporting their spouse in handling the emotions, tensions and concerns regarding the situation. It is usually not their place to be a major player in decision-making.

There are exceptions. For example, an in-law may be the primary caregiver and/or supervising the day-to-day care of the patient. Then his or her knowledge of the patient’s needs should be highly regarded.

Visitors should always seek the primary caregiver’s guidance about what is in the best interest of the patient. This is especially important if the patient is living in the home or in a nearby facility while other family members are not local to the situation.

Remember that you are writing family history through your behavior. Consider giving the patient a wonderful experience of loving, united family support.

 

If you would like to know more about me and my work, please explore my website here.

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Do You Know the 6 People in Your Marriage?

Have you ever noticed that you and your partner keep having essentially the same fight over and over again?

No matter what the topic, whenever you get into an argument, does it always seems to  turn out the same way? That’s usually because you are shadowboxing with the wrong person.

Let me introduce you to the six people in your relationship.

#1: You, when things are going along fine between you .
#2: Your partner when things are going along fine between you.
#3: How you see your partner when he/she has pushed one of your emotional buttons.
#4: How your partner sees you when you have pushed one of his/her emotional buttons.
#5: How you see yourself when your partner has pushed one of your emotional buttons.
#6: How your partner sees him/herself when you have pushed one of his/her buttons.

What emotional buttons inside of you is your partner pushing?

You might have noticed this all boils down to how we react to when one of our emotional buttons gets pushed. Unfortunately, most of us are unaware of our internal emotional wiring and how and why we are getting triggered. We prefer to think the problem is always our partner’s fault. So, we end up trying to get our partner to change his/her behavior. Instead, consider looking within yourself. Seek to understand how and why you react as you do. What exactly is making you angry, defensive, or feeling misunderstood.

Stop blaming your partner and do your inner work.

Stop blaming each other and start decoding your inner dynamics. This will put you on the road to significantly improving the health and well-being of your relationship.

Let current button pushing show you where you need to heal leftover hurts from the past that are being activated. Getting hot-headed and blaming each other will eventually drive you apart seeking seemingly greener pastures. Instead, how about  embracing the opportunity to transform your relationship into a safe emotional haven for you both.

Here’s an example of the six people in action.

The following example might help you to recognize the six people in your marriage or partnership in action. Remember, most arguments seem really stupid when you replay them.

Meet Robin (#1) and Jack (#2). They are in love, have been dating about a year and are becoming disillusioned by their habitual fights. To make it easier to follow, I’m just going to present explanations of Robin’s behavior and leave Jack’s perspective (#4 and #6) to your imagination. Robin is a graphic designer and marketing expert and this is her first serious relationship.

A recent argument went as follows. Everything was just fine between them. Then, Jack told Robin he was planning to develop a new website. His plan was to lay out his vision of what he wanted. Then he would have his friend Chip do the graphic design work that would bring his vision to his website. Robin became incensed. Why didn’t Jack  even consult her for her graphic design expertise? She began spinning reasons in her head about all the things that are “wrong” with Jack, fueling her upset. She got more and more angryas she told herself how “right” she was (#5) and how “wrong” Jack was (#3).

She condescendingly corrected him saying it would be Chip who created the vision – not Jack. Jack felt insulted that Robin thought he was not creative and would have no creative input in the design of his own website. Finally, Jack, running late for work, headed for the door. Robin was left in disbelief that he could just walk out like that.

Here’s the decoded version of what was really happening in the above scene. All was fine between them until Robin (#1) got triggered by several things that she misinterpreted about what Jack way saying. She took offense that here she was a graphic designer and loving partner (#5) and it didn’t occur to Jack to ask for her input. This reinforced her belief/fear that Jack didn’t value or respect her professional competence (#3). That’s the person she was fighting with.

I asked Robin to focus on the feeling she had when Jack first pushed her button. Then I asked her to trace it backward in her life. Where else had she felt that way? She immediately recognized this feeling being associated with her relationship with her older sister. A specific image came to mind of playing with their Power Rangers. Her sister always took the pink one and never even noticed or cared that Robin would have liked the pink one too. This had become a pattern in her life.

So, standing there with Jack, her sensitivity to being left out of consideration by another was the trigger. The old, unresolved emotions with her sister wereskewing and fueling the intensity of her reaction to Jack. Angry, she asserted her authority (#3) by correcting Jack’s description of turning over his designs to a graphic designer to execute. Jack, with his own sensitivity to believing that Robin didn’t think of him as having any creativity (#4), got angry and disgusted with her. He also felt that, as usual, she was making an issue where none existed. He headed for the door because he wanted to get away from her and this craziness.

Robin, outraged at his choice to leave at that moment, feared that he was leaving her forever. That was another childhood fear that was being triggered.  She told me how  her father used to storm out in disgust with her mother. As a child, she was always afraid her father would never return and thouht it was all her mother’s fault. With Jack gone, she began turning her anger on herself and blaming herself for pushing him away, afraid he would never return. Got the picture? Each one was having an entirely different experience and conversation – doing battle with figments of their imagination in the theater of their minds.

Get rid of your old emotional baggage.

This is common behavior between “normal” people who have not cleaned up their old emotional baggage. And inevitably, past baggage gets triggered in present relationships. So, what do you do? If you can afford it, I suggest getting a marriage counselor or mentor with a good sense of humor.  Learn what your respective triggers are and how to deactivate them. This will allow you  to approach your differences in a constructive, exploratory, and non-blaming way.

Alternatively, try to do this decoding on your own. The place to begin is always to turn your attention inward instead of outward. Shift from the blame game to truly healing and transforming the quality of your communication. It is important to realize that we each need to become intimately aware of how we are wired based on past experiences. Otherwise, it all runs on autopilot and runs amuck as in the example above.

If your partner is not willing to do this together, don’t let that stop you from pursuing your own inner work. He or she simply might not be as convinced or ready as you are. Take the lead. Do your part to take ownership of your own baggage. Discover how past hurts are creating current sensitivities. Once you start behaving differently – as in doing a different dance step — your partner will follow along eventually. When six people are fighting, no one is being heard.

If you would like to know more about me and my work, please explore my website here.

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If so, please share it with them. 

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Celebrating Oneness in Diversity

Do you and your partner frequently battle over who is “right” and who is “wrong?” If so, battles will be won, but a war will rage on.

Right/wrong thinking makes a relationship an ongoing power struggle. It is the territory of two ego personalities who are only considering two options: winning or losing. Only one can be right, and the other is therefore wrong. As long as we think in those terms, we will always be at war with each other.

It is the decision-making process used, rather than the decisions themselves, that speak volumes about the quality of a relationship.

When you replace either/or thinking with both/and thinking a whole new world of healthy relating opens up. It allows for the process of co-creation by equally respected partners. Whether deciding what to have for dinner or when and how to express shared intimacy, your decision-making style makes all the difference.

Think in terms of a continuum of possibilities. At one extreme the decision-making process will demonstrate one partner dominating and silencing the other. At the other extreme is a shared process of considering each person’s point of view, evaluating the alternatives together, and finding a solution that serves the highest good of all concerned. Guess which one is more healthy?

Take a look at the major relationships in your life and ask yourself how healthy your decision-making style is. Are you a bully? Do you play a victim role? Do you feel heard?

When one partner dominates, something dies in the other partner. When both participate, both partners thrive. This is true whether the two parties are schoolyard children, marriage partners, business associates, or countries.

Dominance expresses a lack of caring and consideration for the concerns and welfare of the other. It is a silencing of one by the other. Dominance breads hostility. It demonstrates a lack of mutual respect and an inevitable retaliation in one form or another by the underdog. Consider the waiter who secretly spits in your soup because you were condescending and rude. What drives a marriage partner to withhold sex claiming frequent headaches?

The fact that you are able to dominate and silence another person by throwing your weight around  doesn’t make your point of view the “best” approach. It simply shows your lack of awareness and inability to participate in more fruitful, kind and caring relationships with others.

Bullies, social and institutional norms, and political hierarchies of power often silence the most brilliant, creative minds that might otherwise contribute better solutions.

I often wonder how rich and healthy we could be if we nurtured the full participation of all rather than the advancement of the few.

Many people who carry unresolved and accumulated anger from their past let off steam by bullying others. Some, flashing the badge of their social position, title or wealth, pursue their own agenda at the expense of others. They tell themselves it is their right — they are entitled and others are not.

Consider the “mean” boss, the bully in the schoolyard, or one who abuses children. Think about how the “most powerful” countries in the world take advantage of the smaller and less developed nations.  “Might” most certainly does not make “right” nor does it demonstrate the best of which we are capable.

The social consequences of allowing bullying, dominance, and right/wrong decision-making to prevail in our world are enormous.

How much personal growth, loving, caring and sharing is sacrificed when right/wrong thinking and dominance prevails?

How much creativity, productivity and camaraderie is lost to systems and leadership styles that stifle  the contribution of employees?

What countries truly strive to maximize the health, happiness, and productivity of their citizenry? The irony is this is more true of “primitive” societies than of “advanced” societies.

The sad thing is that the worst offenders don’t even know what they are missing and are satisfied with the spoils of the greedy wars they wage. They are often unaware of the magnitude of abundance they could create by nourishing rather than starving others.

Look around and you will see many who are consciously working to break through the prevailing cultural pattern of creating personal hierarchies of power in human relationships. It is a slow process of choosing more kindness, more caring, more encouragement of hope and participation. It is fueled by a vision of celebrating our oneness while honoring our differences.

Many are seeking to find ways to tap the vast resources of participation, creativity, and productivity.  Momentum is growing as individuals look for enlightened lovers and leaders and join causes that seek greater health and well-being.

People are learning to speak up rather than allowing themselves to be silenced or to give up. Some are creating relationships and organizations that are alive and evolving. They nurture all participants to be free, safe, and encouraged to fully participate.  Collaborative thinking is being encouraged.

Pay attention to your affiliations and the quality of your relationships. Are you perpetuating the old or helping to bring in the new?

If you would like to know more about me and my work, please explore my website here.

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If so, please share it with them. 

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When Loved Ones Aren’t Very Loving

Do you dread gathering with your family and friends for holidays, weddings, funerals and other events? Or have you been blessed with a truly loving and nurturing family? Dysfunctional childhood and family dynamics have a way resurfacing and making us feel crazy, trapped, and wanting to run for the hills.

If this sounds familiar, ask yourself these questions to explore the role you play in these dramas:

  • Are you consistently kind to everyone?
  • Do you reject certain people and favor others?
  • Do you hold grudges that have been festering for years?
  • Are you one who stands by pretending not to see the elephant in the room? Has it been there for many, many years?
  • Do you strive to truly demonstrate loving kindness for everyone there?
  • In what ways do you contribute to the discord?
  • Do you see yourself as a helpless and innocent victim?
  • Are you someone who thinks you are somehow better than everyone else?
  • What kind of attitude and behaviors do you contribute?

The term ‘loved ones’ implies special status – our inner circle. Yet, some of us are kinder to total strangers than to those with whom we share our lives.

In many families at least one giant elephant of discord sits in the room. There is a silent conspiracy that everyone participates in pretending not to see it or to do anything to get rid of it. Perhaps there is a drug-addicted child, or an alcoholic parent whose toxicity dominates the experience of being together. Or maybe it is a nasty, judgmental sister, a boring uncle, a nerd, or someone you hold a grudge against.

If this is a familiar experience for you, are you going along with the same old dysfunctional dynamic? Is there something you might do to contribute to healing the situation? It takes courage to go against the tide. Are you willing to name the elephant and to initiate efforts to deal constructively with the negativity?  Consider the alternative of letting things continue to fester. Do you really want to forego the possibility of having a mutually respectful and enjoyable time together?

Consider the following example. I know one family with two sisters and a brother in the middle. They have put up with the older sister’s judgments and rejection of the younger sister for decades.

The elder sister feels that her disdain is justified by her judgments of her sister. The brother plays the peacemaker and maintains separate relationships with his sisters. He initites family gatherings in the hope that this will go away. He tries to be a good sport and acts as though he is  unconscious of the feud. Meanwhile, the younger sister suffers through these gatherings. After making numerous attempts to talk to her sister about healing the discord between them, she has withdrawn from family gatherings.

Every family gathering is tainted.

“all the while scarlet thoughts, putrid fantasies, and no love”

-Louis Auchincloss

 

Consider what is at stake. Why should everyone have to suffer because someone doesn’t like one of the family or group of friends? Why not challenge that person either privately or publicly? Let them know that you do not appreciate or support their behavior. Acknowledge to them that their negativity is toxic for everyone else involved? Why not go on record as being unwilling to support this kind of behavior in the future? Ask the person what they are making more important then loving one another.

Another constructive act is to let the apparent victim know that you care about their well-being and do not approve of the aggressor’s behavior.

As adults we are each responsible for what we create, promote, and allow in our lives. We are accountable for how our behavior affects others – no matter how justifiable we believe our attitudes and behaviors to be.

At the end of the day, we are either contributing to more loving kindness for all involved or more distress and discord.

Is there something you might do differently next time to demonstrate that nothing is more important to you than being loving and kind to one another?

If you would like to know more about me and my work, please explore my website here.

Do you know someone who might benefit from reading this article?
If so, please share it with them. 

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