Soulmate Skills

“Well, you do it too!”  That’s called a counter-complaint.  This form of defensiveness is so common, we know you’ve either seen it or done it or been the target of it.  It has a psychological purpose: to avoid responding to what your partner has said.  At a deeper level, it’s an attempt not to feel Inner Critic humiliation at the feedback you’ve been given.  Even deeper:  it’s an attempt to win at all costs.  When couples engage in counter-complaining, closeness is lost.  What can you do?  If you’re the counter-complainer, monitor your impulse to respond to feedback by doing it, then resist the pull.  If you’re the target of it, note your pull to go along with the topic switch, then instead say, “You ignored what I just said.”  This will get you started toward connection.  And closeness.

“Oh, I just couldn’t bring myself to do that.”  That’s called reluctance.  We want to decode your feelings of reluctance for you.  When there’s something you’d like to do; for example, make a request of an “important” person, but feel you couldn’t do it, that’s almost certainly your Inner Critic putting the other person on a pedestal and taking away your rights.*  Now that you know, you can get free.  Take back your rights.  “I have the right to ask this thing, do this thing, even with this “important” person.”  Today, go forth free and in your power.

*From p. 128, Disarming Your Inner Critic, by James Elliott with Kathryn Elliott.  It’s available here (click on Products) and at amazon.com.

Empathy no-nos:  Laughing when your partner gets hurt.  Saying, “Don’t cry!” when they’re shedding tears.  Not responding when they tell you they need to talk.  If you want closeness, you’re going to need to be able to empathize.  Why?  Because partners need to understand what each other is feeling.  That means imagining yourself inside the mind of your partner.  What thoughts and feelings would he or she be having?  It’s going to require giving up self-centeredness in favor of attending to your partner.  What can make it hard is your Inner Critic whispering in your psyche that to empathize would be humiliating.  You’d no longer be the center of attention.  You’d be one down.  Don’t believe it.  To empathize, to care, to understand is the path to a soul connection.

It’s Thanksgiving Eve in America.  We tend to focus on the delicious food, the exciting football games, the chance to gather with relatives and friends.  Yes, those things are full of pleasure.  Yet if you’d like to deepen the meaning of this Thanksgiving, we recommend you speak the language of Thanks.  Here are some terms you can use to express the gratitude you feel (they’re pulled from Jim’s and my love letters):  “I am overflowing with joy that you are in my life.”  “How lucky I am to know you!”  “Thank you for your sensitivity to me.”  ”You bless me.”  ”Thank you so much for answering my questions.”  “You are my gift from God.”  Oh, there are so many others.  But this will get you started.  As you prepare for Thanksgiving, let your mind turn to the language of thanks for those in your life.  Then speak your gratitude.  It will be a blessed holiday.

It comes in waves.  Primal pain, that is.  It’s the pain we carry from our past.  All the way back to infancy.  The pain of not being loved, nurtured, responded to.  And sometimes when responded to, only with abuse.  Being in relationships triggers our primal pain.  It can happen for several reasons.  Maybe we choose the wrong partner, someone who resembles those early pain-inflicters.  Maybe we see a really good partner through the filter of those earlier relationships.  I know I have.  One time, I was sure Jim was fussing at me.  It so happened we had a tape recorder on.  Oh my gosh, when I played it back, his voice was the most tender, loving one.  I had heard him through the memory of primal pain.  What to do about primal pain?  Identify the person from your past from whom that pain came.  Imagine they’re with you,  then express your pain and anger as fully as you can.  You’ll be draining your primal pool of pain.  Do it as many times as you need.  You’ll feel relief each time.  Through this process, you’ll be able to see your partner clearly.

England’s Prince William’s engagement is all the news.  It conjures in us images of the fairy tale romance we all long for.  You can live your own version.  I wrote Jim a poem several years ago that captures ours.  “It took a stranger to enter the castle, A foreign knight to break the spell.”  Here are the elements:  a princess under a spell; a foreign knight with a valiant heart; his rescue of her with his chivalrous love.  Now, if you think psychologically, you’ll realize we’re all under a spell.  It stems from inner critic messages of devaluation.  Many a man is in touch with a courageous, loving heart that longs to set his beloved free.  Add the enchantment of falling in love, and there you have it–your own fairy tale romance.  Dare to live it.

Bubbles, the sweet Maltipoo,  brought her puppies to visit!  Two little adorable fluff-balls.  Watching them playing and sleeping is a lesson in love.  They are all over each other.  When nap time comes they sleep on top of each other–full body contact.  We can learn from them how to draw maximum warmth and closeness from our partner.  Jim and I observed that we’re like puppies.  Jim wrote in 1989 after we’d lain together for the first time:  “Remember waking up in the night and hugging each other as we lay, our naked bodies pressed together, your soft flesh curving into mine, fitting together as though God had made them for that purpose?”  So, don’t miss out on this gift with your soulmate–lie together like puppies.

Today’s my birthday.  I’m feeling great gratitude for this life of mine.  I’m also thinking of all the ways Jim and I have celebrated our birthdays–trips to our favorite places, eating out at our favorite restaurants, shopping for goodies.  Recently, I found a letter Jim wrote me on my birthday, five years into our marriage.  It’s a model of how to honor your soulmate’s birthday:  “I want to begin this birthday letter by telling you of my search for you.”  Then, he traced his almost fifty-year journey seeking me.  It was a marvel to read where he was ten years before I was born; the year I was born; how he looked for me in the places he was.  “In 1954 (you were 3) I began working in Detroit as a magazine editor. If you had gone dancing at the Greystone Ballroom, I might have found you and taught you to dance.”  Then he told me,  “In 1985, when you were 34, I couldn’t find you in my master’s program, but I had high hopes of finding you in my dotoral program.  And then there you were!  And now you are 43, and I’ve had you for almost 6 years.”  I have to tell you–to read his words thrills me all over again.  He finished with what I mean to him:  “You make it all worthwile.  Your sweetness envelops me, your goodness warms me.  I love you with all my heart, and your birthday is most important to me.  If you hadn’t been born, my life would have been incomplete, to say the least.”  I’m still savoring this letter sixteen years later.  So, when your soulmate’s birthday rolls around, try expressing your search and finding of them and what it means to you.  Your soulmate will be deeply honored.

“Please, darling Kathy, sharpen your critical thinking skills so you can do battle with anything that might threaten what we have created.”  I was going to a conference, and Jim was concerned that I would hear a lecture that presented some cynical ideas about love and closeness.  He was right.  They did.  He was afraid some negative influence would threaten our relationship.  It did.  I called him from the conference, shaken by some ideas I’d heard that discounted love.  That’s when Jim started teaching me the skill of critical thinking.  This skill entails asking, “What might be wrong about this idea?  What might be right?”  You’ll need some standards, concepts, and values with which to evaluate those ideas.  Jim laid them out for me, and we are laying them out for you here.  Is this idea supportive of inner freedom, love, connection, caring, closeness?   You’ll easily answer “Yes” if the ideas presented are supportive of your soulmate relationship.  Critical thinking is an essential skill for protecting your relationship.   If you value your relationship, you’ll say, like Jim did, “I feel like a Daddy Tiger whose mate and cubs are threatened by outside forces and who will fight to the death to defend them.  Oh, I hold you so close, hug you so tight!”

Bologna.  That’s what I wanted.  It was our first grocery shopping trip together.  Jim went for the ham and put it in our basket.  We pushed our cart on to the next aisle.  Jim saw I was upset.  He said, “What just happened?”  I said, “I wanted bologna!”  He said, “We both get to have what we want.  Did you think you couldn’t say what you wanted or just pick it up?”  I said, “Yes.”  Boy, that was early in our marriage, and I had a lot to learn.  More to the point, I had a lot of self-constriction to overcome.  All those inner critic shoulds not to say what I wanted.  If you have that too (and most of us do), realize it’s just your Inner Critic saying you don’t have the right to say what you want.  It may even tell us that our partner will get angry if we make a request.  What’s needed is an Anthetic challenge.  Here are a couple:  “I have the right to say what I want.”  “Even if my partner gets angry, I still have the right to make this request.”  Now you’ve got it: If you’re afraid to ask for what you want, that’s just your Inner Critic.  Label it.  Challenge it.  Your satisfaction will grow.*

*For more help in making requests, see Disarming Your Inner Critic available here on our sidebar and at amazon.com.