Soulmate Skills

We want to talk about some pretty core insecurities we’ve dealt with in ourselves.  (Our therapy clients have admitted struggling with these too.)  Kathryn: “I think my thighs are too fat!”  Jim: “Do girls really like semen?”  Because Jim and I wanted as much closeness as possible, we explored these shameful areas with each other.  What we discovered is that when you love someone with a high-voltage soulmate love, you embrace all parts of your partner.  What has been rejected by previous partners is enfolded by your soulmate.  So, Jim told me, “I love your thighs.”  I told him, “I treasure your semen.  It can be my steady diet!”  Our acceptance of each other is a product of two things:  Utter valuing of each other and getting free from any judgmentalism that society can install in us.  You can have these too.

We began our relationship with a commitment to having as much closeness as possible.  As our marriage developed over the last twenty-one years, we discovered a skill that’s essential for having closeness at holiday gift-giving time.  That skill is honesty.  What we learned was that being honest with each other about what we like and don’t like, whether food items, gifts, or activities, is what creates closeness.  And I (Kathryn) learned it the hard way.  I tried to do the conventional holiday attitude; that is, dishonesty in the guise of niceness.  And what I learned is that all that gets you is distance.  If you’d like the read the story behind this, click on our “Twigs” tab for the shower nozzle story.  If you want closeness, you’ll need to say, “I choose honesty over distance and over avoiding an argument.  We’ll learn how to neutrally tell each other what we honestly like and dislike.”

“I live like a spy in enemy territory–Don’t give anything away, because they might get you. I give partial responses.  Jim asks for more, and I grudgingly give it.”  I found this in a journal entry I wrote a number of years ago.  It was a pattern I’d gotten into.  Play it close to the vest.  Jim asked me, “Tell me more.  Don’t just give me a short answer.  Don’t be silent for long stretches.  Don’t shut down.  Don’t shut me out.”  As I analyzed my stuff, I realized I had an Inner Critic should* to be a perfect wife, with no pathology.  I held back on revealing myself in order to obey this should.  Perhaps you can relate to this.  If you, too, live your relationship like a spy, revealing little to your partner, you can change.  It takes an attitude shift.  Ask yourself, “Do I want to be so self-protective and wreck my relationship?  Or do I want to have the right to make mistakes and correct them?”  There’s nothing wrong with that.  It happens all the time.  Join me.  Come out of the cold.

*Read Disarming Your Inner Critic, James Elliott with Kathryn Elliott, for more on getting free.  Available here on our Products page and at Amazon.com.

“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.

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.

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.

“I’m waiting for the right time to talk to him about it.”  We can’t tell you how many times we’ve heard those words.  Our advice?  Don’t wait for the “right” time.  Jim’s 1989 letter to me explains why:  “”How pleased I am at the way we bring up issues and glitches and process them immediately (I know there’s nothing seething inside, and that makes me feel calm and secure).”  So that’s it.  When you talk about feelings as they come up, you’re no longer sitting with it inside, where you’ll start to seethe about it.  Like us, you will feel calm and secure.

They’re like Eden–those first months of your relationship.  Then an argument (what Jim and I call a “glitch”) occurs.  Such trouble in paradise can really rock your relationship.  Four months into our relationship Jim wrote, “The closer one gets (the more merged) the more skills people need, because stuff will get triggered if we get close.”  So, be encouraged, dear ones, if you’re aiming for closeness, you will have arguments.  We all have land mines of emotional pain that will blow up when our partner is close enough to trip the mechanism.  Here’s what you need: skills.  Skills for working with anger and hurt.  That’s our specialty.  Read our skills page; study Disarming Your Inner Critic; call us for an appointment.  We’re here to help.  As Jim said, “We are equal to the task: we know how to deal with the tangles.  That is more precious to me than gold and rubies.”  So, are you wondering if those arguments you’re having mean that you should break up?  Before you answer that, learn these skills, apply them during your glitches.  See if you don’t create a new Eden.

Are you into S&L?  That’s short for “Sweetness & Light.”  You’ve chosen to value “niceness” and “politeness” over closeness.  You don’t dare say the truth to your partner.  Now I love tenderness, which is good.  But that led me to slip into a pattern of not being honest.  Not telling Jim what I really felt.  Why does this happen?  Because if I were to have been honest, my Inner Critic would plead me guilty to the crime of rudeness.  Honesty sounds rude to your Inner Critic.  But it’s absolutely essential for a HighVoltage Relationship.  Don’t get us wrong. We’re not saying you should be uncaring.  You can be honest in a caring way.  S&L will get you distance.  Honesty is a first step to closeness.