Soulmate Skills

As I come to terms with Jim’s death, I’m processing what his legacy is to us.  So, it was perfect last night when I read his letter to me from March, 1989, written four months before we married.  He closed his letter with these words, “I pour myself out to you–I touch the divinity in you and release my divinity to you–core to core, divine center to divine center.  We melt into each other at the very center from whence the whole world was made, from which it is now sustained second by second, where aliveness gushes forth through us, ecstatically, poured out into the world to enrich it, to bring joy, to bring pure love.”  That is Jim’s blessing to us.

“He hates it when I’m depressed.  He doesn’t know what to do.”  Said by one of my recent female counseling clients.  But I’ve heard it from many.  So, men, here’s some help for you in handling your woman when she’s down.  First, what not to do:  Don’t withdraw.  Don’t say, “Snap out of it.”  Instead, ask her, “Can you tell me what you’re feeling?”  Then, just listen.  Next, ask her, “Is there anything you’d like from me?”  Finally, take her in your arms, and tell her, “I’m here for you.  I love you.  Everything’s going to be alright.”  There.  Now, you’re equipped.

“We have so little time together.  It’s hard to connect.”  That’s the challenge that so often faces the couples we see in our counseling practice.  Here’s what we say:  You can take those few minutes you do have and turn them into a deep connection that sustains you all day.  It takes two steps:  One, avoid using that time to talk about items external to your relationship, such as the news, the neighbors, the chores.  Two, use that time to talk about what you mean to each other.  Jim and I had to put this to the test during the first six months of our relationship.  It was 1989; we were 2,000 miles apart–no internet; just phone and letters.  So, we would dive in to talking about what we meant to each other.  For example, Jim wrote, “When I look in my post office box and there is a letter from you, I begin to feel a glow that starts in my chest and spreads throughout my body, and I sit out on the ledge in front of the library near the steps and read it, and the whole world of Berkeley falls away, and I am intensely with you for a few minutes as you speak to me through your letter, and I have a vivid sense of your sweet presence.”  You can use Jim’s words as a guide.  Say to your partner, “When I look at you (getting the kids ready, waking up beside me, feeding the dog), I begin to feel (warm, loving, proud, in awe), and I fall in love with you all over again.”  Your partner will feel as I felt when I read Jim’s words:  warmed, loved, cherished.  Those few minutes shared with him, and I walked on a cloud.  You will too.

In the last week, we’ve watched the movie Secretariat four times.  Why does it hold such attraction for us?  Because the story of this horse and his determined owner holds archetypal power.  One line from the movie captures it: “Stand up in the world.  Live the way you believe.”  That’s for each of us to do.  In our work in Anthetic Psychology, we call it living fromyour Natural Self.*  That’s the part of you that’s full of aliveness; full of you-ness.  It’s also the part that knows how to live true to who you are.  Your Natural Self knows what will make life fulfilling.  It also knows who will make your relationship life fulfilling.  Our task is as the song in the movie says, “You choose your race, and then you run.”  Secretariat ran his race; he won the final race of the Triple Crown by 31 lengths, a feat that has never been matched.  He’s a model for us.  We just need to live and love true to our Natural Self.  We too will have wings.

*See p. 28 of James Elliott & Kathryn Elliott’s book, Disarming Your Inner Critic, available here on our Products page and at amazon.com.

“Numnutz!” “Old Fart!” If you’ve gotten into a pattern of calling your partner such names, that’s a clue that you’ve got some unprocessed anger toward your partner.  What’s more, it’s turned into an attitude of disrespect.  That’s not funny.  It’s corrosive.  We’re not going to tell you to just stop it.  That’s not enough.  You need to analyze the anger that’s driving it.  For example, “Have I been silencing my voice about my needs?”  “Have I translated my anger into neutral requests of my partner?” There are others, of course, but this will get you started.  We want you to be free of anger, at peace, and happy.  Most important, we want you to have closeness.  So, today, start with No Name Calling!

This day honors Martin Luther King, Jr., prophet and champion of a dream.  He dreamed of a society where people love each other and care for each other–no exclusions.  In Anthetic Psychology, we too have a dream.  We dream of a society where people are equipped with the concepts and skills it takes to dismantle judgmentalism, anger, and vengefulness.  And we are offering those skills for achieving that dream.  In our book, Disarming Your Inner Critic* (James Elliott & Kathryn Elliott), we lay out step-by-step how to do just that.  As we say in our book, once judgmentalism, anger, and vengefulness are processed, “love is liberated; once love is liberated, caring can occur; once love-based caring occurs, people can live in loving harmony with each other.”  Won’t you join us?  We can make this dream come true. 

*Disarming Your Inner Critic (Anthetics Institute Press) is available here on our Products page and at amazon.com.

You’ve probably played this game:  Watching couples and noting how much they start looking alike over time.  Well, research by psychologist Arthur Aron of Stony Brook, affirms not that they look alike, but that couples who were close, began to adopt the traits of the other.  In fact, their brains were slow to distinguish their own traits from their partner’s.  Does this mean you’ll lose yourself if you get close?  No.  The research indicates that it’s that you grow in ways you wouldn’t have without your partner, expanding your identity to include elements of your spouse.  Jim and I say find your twin; use skills for being as close as possible; support each other’s growth.  Life will be exhilarating.

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!

I’m reading Elizabeth Gilbert’s book, Eat Pray Love, to Jim.  She said a Guru is a person who has achieved a state of poise, able to step back from whatever is happening and be even-minded, even blissful.  A Guru is one other thing:  someone who can pass that state on to others.  I said to Jim, “That’s you!  Even with your stroke and its impact on your body, you have that poise, that bliss.”  He nodded, “Yes.”  I asked, “Is it because you disengage from troubles?”  He:  “Yes.”  Me:  “Yet you can merge fully with me and others.”  He:  “Yes.”  Me:  “I see that in you.  You teach me.  You are my Guru.”  He:  “Yes.”  Me:  “Have I also been yours?”  He:  “Yes.”  Our experience suggests to us that each of us can grow to a place where we can be each other’s Guru.  As we practice disengaging from worries, internal reactivity, drivenness, we become an example to others.  We can then pass it on.

“Our meeting is having a profound effect on us.  We have, it seems, taken a quantum leap into a new way of being.  It was just a sort of orientation session, and all we did was talk about our deepest concerns and then shared our love, but the ripples from that are still spreading through our lives; it was a big bang emotionally speaking.”  I’m quoting Jim’s letter to me of February 6, 1989, one month after our first meeting.  This is on my mind, because of a great article by Rebecca Webber in the September 2010 issue of Psychology Today.  It’s titled “Big Moments” and talks about those Aha! moments; peak experiences in our lives.  As Jim and I read it, we reaffirmed that meeting each other at our doctoral colloquium was a perfect example of one such peak experience.  Webber quotes Jeffrey Kottler, psychologist, on the impact of such moments:  “Their sense of who they were and what their place was in the universe had fundamentally shifted.”  When we read that, we both said, “Yes!”  Like us, when you find your soulmate, it will be a peak experience.  In fact, it will be a quantum leap in your life.