Soulmate Skills

There’s no getting around it.  Conflict is going to happen in your relationship.  So, how do you cope?  Low-Voltage partners usually rely on one of three options: fighting, submitting, or distancing.  They have to avoid closeness, because they lack skills.  If they get too close, they often end up in a bitter argument.  That’s a combat relationship–one where verbal attacks have become accepted as normal.  High-Voltage couples, on the other hand, have learned skills for successfully resolving conflict.  That creates a safe haven.  Safe enough to talk about anything, especially feelings.  How can you tell if you’re creating a safe haven?  You’ll enjoy emotional closeness, soft-heartedness, and love.  It all comes down to a basic values choice: Do you choose a safe haven or a combat zone?

Here’s a tip for how to recognize your soulmate:  There’s a realization; in fact, a revelation that will emerge in your mind.  You’ll marvel, “I have never loved like this before.”  I know Jim and I each wrote those words to each other during the first six months of our relationship.  Oh, you may have loved before; even deeply.  But the love you feel for your soulmate is deeper yet.  It’s at the soul level, deeper than you’ve ever been.  It will have an element of surprise and even awe for you.  It must be mutual, of course, for the relationship to develop.  And, you’ll need skills–like the ones we teach.  With such soulmate love and the skills for creating closeness, you’ll be well on your way to ecstasy.

Wow! So your first date went well.  Now what?  Jim and I want to share with you what we did.  We’re considering our ten-day doctoral meeting our “first date.”  What we did was talk about it–to each other.  At length.  Listen to Jim’s letter written about the night we parted:  “As I lay in bed, all kinds of images came to me–your dear face, your empowering words, the song you sang.”  (He’s bringing up the images of our meeting that stayed with him. You can do that too.)  Then he told me the impact on him our meeting had produced:  “I was driving to go shopping for groceries, and a car cut in front of me.  I was about to get angry when I said, ‘Wait a minute,’ and I was now speaking from some deep place in me, and the episode of the other driver now seemed quite insignificant; just a little ripple way up there , not very important at all, and I could love the driver of the other car.  So I now felt that serenity that I hadn’t known at all that I was lacking.  And you had evoked that in me.”  Here, Jim puts into words how I had affected him; even changed him.  You can do that too.  So, if you’re wondering what to do after the first date, we say, talk about it.  Review with each other the scenes left in your mind.  Most important, put into words how that experience has impacted you.  Do these things, and you’ll be creating your high-voltage soulmate relationship.

Endings can be hard.  Even painful.  Whether it’s the last day of vacation or of college; of a career or of a life together, when you’ve loved the experience, it can be heart-wrenching for it to end.  But the way Jim and I spent the last day of our meeting experience at Asilomar may be helpful for you when you face those inevitable ends of things:  That meeting had it all–everything we each loved–intellectual sharing, collegiality with warm people, the beauty of the ocean, cozy fires, great food.  But most important, it had our meeting; our Finding each other.  That final night was a celebration of all this.  Jim and I and our fellow learners and faculty gathered in our meeting room.  We sat in chairs or on the floor in front of a warm fire crackling in the fireplace.  We left the room dark, only the firelight reflecting on our faces.  We talked about our impressions of each other and of what the experience had meant to each of us.  And then we began to sing!  Song after song.  Songs of joy.  Songs of blessing.  I was on a cloud.  Here are the elements you can use:  Talk directly to each other of your impressions.  Savor what the experience has meant to you; speak of it to each other.  Sing to each other.  Bless each other.  You will make that ending wonderful.

“I want to take you somewhere to show you something I think you’ll really like.”  That was Jim to me 22 years ago today.  We’d only met six days before.  He drove a few blocks and parked the car at a building as yet a mystery to me.  As we walked from the car to that building, I could begin to see what was inside.  It was a carousel!  The Monterey carousel.  Oh, my!  This man truly was seeing that inner child that longed for a man to see her; to play with her; to love her.  Though the carousel wasn’t running that night, we took pleasure in walking around, looking at all the fanciful horses.  It was magical.  Here are the high-voltage soulmate elements of what Jim did:  1)  He saw me.  Took in that I had revealed to him that I had a child part who loved things like stuffed animals.  He extrapolated that I’d also love a carousel.  In other words, he beheld me.  2) He took time to think of something that would thrill that inner child in me.  3)  He initiated taking me there.  4)  He played with me.  You can learn from Jim.  Follow his lead.  Behold the child in your partner.  Think of what you could do that would please that child.  Then play together.  It will be a heart-touching experience.

Did you know you are a sculptor for your partner?  According to the late relationship researcher Caryl Rusbult, if all goes well, partners sculpt each other to help them become the person each aspires to be; in fact, the ideal that each desires for himself or herself.  I loved reading this research, because it gave me a name for what I asked Jim to do for me when we first met.  In fact, after only five days of knowing him, I asked him to inseminate me!  I said, “I have a request that you inseminate me with your strength, with a belief in myself.”  And he began that process that very evening.  He has continued it over our entire marriage, teaching me the skills for becoming strong; for becoming the person I ideally wanted to be.  He’s affirmed the strength in me.  So, now I say, “Jim, you are my Michelango.  You have sculpted me and brought out the best in me that I aspired to 22 years ago.”  We share this with you so that you, soulmate questers, may assess any potential partner:  “Do they affirm me and help me become, not what others think I should be; not what they think I should be; but what I would love to be?”  If you’re already in a relationship, you can help your partner in this unique way:  Hear their heart’s desire for what they long to become.  Then affirm and support them in doing just that.  Rusbult says here’s the true test:  If your partner is being your Michelango, you will feel exhilarated.  I can attest to that!

We love this item from the New York Times.  Research shows that the happiest relationships are ones that foster self-expansion.  That means we increase in knowledge, experiences; even capabilities and a greater sense of who we are.  This effect is especially pronounced at the beginning of a relationship.  So, soulmate questers, you should be able to assess this early on.  In my second letter to Jim after meeting him, I wrote, “Thank you, Jim, for naming me, loving me, seeing me and receiving me.  It’s a transforming experience.  I have been a powerhouse of activity on my doctoral work; others have sensed some aura of spiritual openness in me.  They are sharing things of themselves they never have before.”  We recommend you add the self-expansion test to your criteria list.  To read more, here’s the link (it also has a great quiz for you to take): 

“I don’t like to talk about feelings.”  This statement is not what it appears–a simple statement of dislike.  You’ll need to decode this one.  It actually is a symptom of thymophobia, which means a fear of feelings.  We all have a certain amount of this problem.  For example, you may find it easy to cry but have trouble expressing anger.  Or you may find it easy to express anger but difficult to express hurt.  In each case, the avoidance of feelings is driven by trying to avoid the Inner Critic induced pain you’d feel if you dared to express that feeling.  Not only does thymophobia block our personal growth, it also blocks closeness.  Because when we can’t confront a feeling, we don’t want to listen when others talk about their feelings.  So, to get free, take back your right to feel everything!  Come alive!*

For more on thymophobia, see page 113 of Disarming Your Inner Critic by James Elliott and Kathryn Elliott.  It’s available here on our sidebar and at amazon.com.

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.”

Christmas brings out the child in all of us.  That can be for better or worse.  It’s a good thing, when we get in touch with childlike joy, love, wonder, and expressiveness.  It’s for worse when it triggers all the disappointment, pain, and heartache that our childhoods held.  Now, that we think about it, even that can be a good thing.  If we analyze and label and talk about those old childhood hurts, we can become free of their power to steal our happiness.  Jim and I had to learn this early on.  We had just moved into our home.  We’d bought our Christmas tree, decorated our new house, and started to consider what traditions we’d create as a couple.  I wanted to create a Christmas like my childhood, where there were lots of surprises and I got just what I wanted.  For Jim, surprises meant opening a present to find his parents had bought the wrong lunch box he’d asked for.  Or his alcoholic father had spent his check on liquor and so could only afford an orange in his stocking.  As we talked about what we each needed, we decided we’d shop together and get just what we each wanted.  The shopping would hold wonder and joy, the fulfillment of our heart’s desire.  We spent Christmas Eve reading a favorite Christmas story to each other; Christmas morning cooking together and singing Christmas carols.  You, too, can forge a Christmas tradition that frees you from Christmas wounds.  Talk about the worst of your Christmas experiences.  Realize that today you have the power–the power to create a Christmas that’s the best.