Valentine’s Day – a new interpretation

Christmas cards languishing “on sale” and already Valentine’s day cards available on the next shelf. Yikes! I’m sad the original opportunity to pen love notes to a sweetheart has disappeared in favour of what even Wikipedia dubs a Hallmark holiday (second only to Christmas in terms of card sales!). Imagine receiving a hand-written note with a declaration of undying love! When was the last time you sent or received a hand-written note? Email and texting is so easy and yet, so, well so impersonal and devoid of character.

Having lived in the US for nearly twenty years I became accustomed to the American notion of giving Valentine cards not just to a sweetheart, but to a best friend or sibling, teacher or boss, or to other significant people in my life.  I didn’t ever quite get on board with that though, feeling it was too conveniently commercial and Hallmarkesque.  Having said that, the idea of celebrating the variety of people I love and appreciate on February 14th does appeal to me, just not with a card and schmaltzy verse.

Apparently, the alternative Valentine’s Day – Singles Awareness Day recommends just that and goes one step further – suggesting we make someone else’s day special, such as someone we don’t know who’s in hospital or a nursing home.  Now, there’s a good idea! And what a great way to step out into unknown territory, meet new people, be of service, feel grateful and good about yourself. In other words, taking a step toward being your best self which is the best way to prepare to partner.

So, how are you going to spend Valentine’s Day? Celebrating being in relationship with someone you love? Celebrating being single and enjoying your freedom and independence? Or single and sad? The acronym for Singles Awareness Day is S.A.D. which I have very mixed feelings about. Being single doesn’t have to mean sad at all. While I’ve spent enough Valentine’s Days alone and maudling to appreciate how it is to be single on February 14th … being in a bad mood about it didn’t get me anywhere, nor will it you. Important to remember that you are defined by who you are not by who you are dating, or not dating! You may be perfectly content as a single person with loads of friends, pleasing yourself and having a fully independent lifestyle. You may prefer to be in relationship and, if so, one of the best ways to get ready is be the best self you can be. Manage your mood, get clear about who you are, what you bring to the table, your strengths and weaknesses.

Prepare2Partner’s programme in London can help you explore who you are and how to get ready – with a range of Evening Seminars and Weekend Workshops to choose from, check out their website or contact Clare directly.  They even have a Workshop on Saturday February 13th called Communication Counts – we chat endlessly on mobile phones but are we really communicating?

Disappointed …

I’m disappointed not to be launching Prepare2Partner‘s Evening Seminar series in London this evening.  I don’t like being defeated by weather conditions, but at the same time it doesn’t make sense to – literally – plough my way to the office and expect other people to do the same when we’re in the midst of the worst cold snap the UK has seen in thirty years, or at least I think that’s what I heard the newscaster say last night. So I’m at home with a bonus day on my hands, torn between “oh great, now I can work on all those things I never seem to have time for” and “oh goody, I get to play today!”

What do you do when faced with such a choice? I know some people who play first and get to the work later, if they have time; I know others who work first and reward themselves later, if they have the time. Is there a place of balance, somewhere inbetween, where both work and play is equally taken care of? In the domain of partnership and taking care of relationship, we all know it’s important to strike a balance between taking care of the business (or busy-ness) of running a household / managing a family (let alone going to work) and having down time, time to relax, play and have fun…and how many of us actually achieve that balance?  Whenever I’m at a leadership development course I’m always struck by the number of participants, usually the majority, who are striving for better work / life balance. So what gets in the way?

A friend recently sent me one of those funny emails that do the rounds from time to time and this one was about dusting. The final stanza stopped me in my tracks:

And  when you go – and go you must – you, yourself will make more dust!
It’s not what you gather, but what you scatter that tells what kind of life you have lived.

So question for this snowy day is this: how important is it to spend time with someone you love making snowmen, throwing snowballs, walking somewhere beautifully drenched in this glorious whiteness, taking photos perhaps, making snowangels… and coming home to steaming mugs of hot tea or cocoa, curling up in front of the fire and having this day to reflect back on?

Direct or flow?

 

Soft and flowing is the river; firm and direct are the river banks -

neither can exist without the other.

Last weekend, my Integration Training colleagues and I spent the day with a curious group of Brightonian men and women exploring how to be attractive from the inside out.  Such fun!

Martin Egan deftly introduced the concepts of how we present ourselves energetically …. on a continuum from the soft and flowing to the direct and firm. Simply the volume and tone we used to introduce ourselves began revealing where we stood on the continuum. Was I “Contemplative Clare” or “Courageous Clare”? [Take a moment to find a few adjectives to go with your name - notice the different volume and tone you would use if you spoke them out aloud; notice if they tend toward soft and flowing or direct and firm].

Thus we began the exploration of whether we tend toward the soft, feminine end of the continuum, or the direct, masculine end of the continuum. Not male and female, but more the underlying energetic sense of who we are. Would we agree that Nelson Mandella reflects both masculine and feminine sensibilities, as does Hillary Clinton? That Marilyn Monroe was the quintessential feminine and John Wayne the exemplar masculine? And in any event, why is any of this relevant?

Relevant in several ways:

• gives deeper meaning to the old saying “opposites attract”;
• reveals more about the ebb and flow of relationship;
• offers more information about how to manage relationship conflict.

John Gray, Ph.D. began to reveal gender difference to the mainstream in the early 1990′s in his series of books themed Men are From Mars, Women are From Venus and since the late 1990′s the probably less well-known pioneering work of David Deida has been examining the difference between the masculine and the feminine as it manifests in relationship. He describes the arc of attraction between the soft feminine and direct masculine as a natural phenomenon which can be harnessed for benefit in relationship. Knowing where we naturally stand on the continuum, where our partner stands, developing access together to the under-developed aspects of ourselves can expand the capacity of relationship.

As John Gottman, Ph.D. has revealed in his Pacific North-West love lab, couples who have long-term, satisfying relationships have the kind of emotional intelligence which allows them to be present for one another, manage their physiology so that conflict is less stressful and recovery more rapid, and allow their partner to influence them at appropriate times.  These are all qualities found at the softer, more feminine end of the continuum.  This doesn’t mean that women are necessarily better at being present, managing conflict or being influenced! It does mean that both men and women who appear at the more direct end of the continuum will benefit in relationship if they can expand their capacity toward the other, softer end.  It also means that men and women who find it difficult to make a decision, stand up for themselves, and buckle under pressure will also benefit in relationship if they can expand their capacity at the firm, masculine end of the continuum.

If you’re interested in more information, the Evening Seminars and Weekend Workshops of Prepare2Partner’s Programme, starting in London in January 2010 will be exploring these type of issues.

Preparing 2 Partner

Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.

Rumi

To borrow the famous words of another famous man: I have a dream…

I have a dream that couples will routinely seek guidance before they commit to partnership, where they explore how well they know themselves and each other, how compatible they are, if they have a shared vision of their future together – all before making a commitment to one another.  All before The Ring or The Proposal, getting pregnant or living together.

Why do I have this dream?

Because I’ve been consulted by too many unhappy couples; experienced the impact of separation and divorce on too many innocent children; and I truly believe satisfying, juicy, enduring relationships are possible.  Possible IF there is preparation.

What kind of preparation?  Too simple to say conscious, emotionally intelligent preparation to partner, but it’s something along those lines.  I have worked with too many couples who, when it really comes down to that cold-light-of-day-reality truth telling, will admit that had they taken more time at the outset, done more exploration, not dived so soon into living together, or having a baby, or planning the wedding (rather than the marriage), they probably wouldn’t have chosen to stay together beyond the dazzle of the honeymoon phase. Back to the “I like grapefruit, you like grapefruit; let’s move in together!” type assessment which is so compelling in the moment, and so lacking in the long run.

Greg and Jill* are the kind of couple I love to work with and represent the vision I hold for the future for all couples. A devout Roman Catholic and a practicing Jew, they came to see me knowing they loved one another deeply but having grave concerns about how to blend their families and raise their potential children.

In their late twenties/early thirties, one a professional and one studying for a Ph.D., Greg and Jill had been dating for about nine months when they first consulted with me. Even as they walked into my office for the first time I was struck with the tenderness they showed one another, the care and concern, and they continually demonstrated mutual respect, openness and honesty.  Certainly, the going got tough from time to time, but their underlying care for one another provided a firm foundation.

What a joy to be exploring their religious and spiritual beliefs, what shared meaning they might make of these for their children, how to respectfully introduce their families to one another given the differences (with consequent potential misunderstandings and prejudices). We made a plan for our work. We explored their beliefs and traditions in detail, each agreeing to attend the other’s place of worship in a mood of curiousity and open-ness. We examined their religious high days and holidays, their significance, and how it might be possible to celebrate both sets of traditions under one roof. We looked at ways to involve children in all these traditions and how sense could be made of a seemingly disparate jumble of eating special food, candle lighting, praying, singing and worshipping.

We took into account the particular nature of their parents’ circumstances – who they were, what they believed in, personal religious traditions, idiosyncratic dreams for their respective son and daughter in terms of future partner. Greg and Jill acknowledged that both sets of parents were hoping for a Catholic-Catholic union on one side, a Jewish-Jewish union on the other. A mix was not on their wish list. We gently explored ways of easing the blend, winning them over, creating the possibility for success on both sides.

To do this, both Greg and Jill  had to be willing to explore their family of origin issues, know their triggers, find ways to manage their mood, stay committed to making each other a priority, listen deeply to each other’s stories and what mattered – really mattered – about their belief system. They had their work cut out! But the love they felt for one another provided the glue; emotional integrity the firm foundation.

THIS is what I desire for couples! Some dedicated couples can achieve this with the nudge of a great book like The 100 Essential Questions to Ask Before You  Say “I Do” by Susan Piver, or better still, others will take the opportunity to explore their unique concerns with someone who’s trained to see the bigger picture.

In January I will be launching the Prepare2Partner Programme – a series of workshops and seminars to explore those key qualities of partnership I’ve been blogging about over the last month or so. Comment below or sign up on the contact page to be the first to know the details!

 

*all client names (and some circumstances) changed to take care of confidentiality

Spirituality and personal growth

As I survey the title “Spirituality and personal growth” I don’t know where to begin. Finding the photo was relatively easy, but expressing what’s in my heart is another matter.

As Oprah says on the last page of her magazines, “what I know for sure is…” if I am my best self, and my partner is his best self, then we have the possibility for a sensational relationship. When I falter, the quality of our relationship suffers; the same when he stumbles. When we both trip, we have to rely on our well-laid historical foundations to see us through until we can both be centred again, back to our best selves with our best foot forward.

To me, this is what spirituality and personal growth is all about.  

I am my most spiritual when I am connected to what I care about, what moves me, what inspires me, that which is greater than any human being could ever be … my Higher Power. Sometimes my Higher Power is a Christian God, sometimes the Goddess, sometimes the Buddha, sometimes Angelic, and I acknowledge for others can show up in many other forms, or for agnostics and atheists, perhaps not at all. Key here is the notion that I am my best self when I’m connected to what I deeply care about (loving honest, compassionate, authentic, etc.) and at these times, the best partner I can be.

Why would I want to be anything less?  Well, I don’t want to be anything less but stuff gets in the way.  Life stuff. Historical influences, being stressed out, having aches and pains, being in a bad mood, wanting what I don’t have instead of being grateful for what I do have, worrying….. you get the picture.

So how do I attain the goal of being my best self? Well, through my own experience and what I hear from the experts, I do believe it’s having daily practices. Because rather than practice makes perfect, I prefer to say practice makes permanent. We’re practicing something all of the time and what we practice we get good at. Which is both the good news and the bad news. What we practice we get good at (our job, being loving, a sport, being on time, saving) and what we practice we get good at (negative self-talk, being critical of others as well, being late, spending).

Which brings us to the question of what to practice in relationship? Previous blogs have explored some of the key ingredients to statistically successful partnerships so I recommend paying attention to practicing: being honest, loving, compassionate, forgiving, listening deeply, being curious, having fun, knowing yourself and your partner really well, managing your mood, spending quality time together, being affectionate, paying attention, making one another a priority, saying loving and caring things, having shared meaning.

What about practices for self? Room for lots of creativity here! Experts recommend activities such as: meditation, exercise, healthy eating, self-affirming thinking or affirmations, gratitude journal, enough sleep, a job you love, indulgent self-care, quality time for self and friends, hobbies and so on.

To consider:

• what are you practicing? now? generally? 
• are you practicing things that don’t support who you want to be and what you want to achieve?
• what new practices could be substituted for the ones not useful?
• do you need help or support in changing some of your practices? who can you ask for help? friend or professional?

Happy Anniversary!

Today is our third wedding anniversary and I’m grateful I can post this ahead of time and take the day off to be with my partner.  Happy Anniversary to my sweetheart, who I appreciate so much and love unreservedly.

Shared meaning

Shared meaning?  By this I mean literally sharing the meaning of your lives together. If Bob’s goal is to have an easy life, take lots of time for rest, relaxation and travel and his wife Pat’s goal is to climb the career ladder, attend social events supporting this endeavour, network extensively in the business world to open up possibilities for advancement at alternative firms …. then, they’re probably going to be in some conflict.

In contrast, imagine Laura and Meg, partnered for a decade, who both have high-powered jobs and have to carefully manage the little time available to spend together. They met when Laura was walking her beautiful brown labrador Beau, and Meg was out jogging. With a love of nature and the outdoors, their time together at the weekend always includes time in the countryside near their home, or further afield when they take off for some special reconnecting time.  Meg rediscovered her childhood fondness of dogs through Laura and Beau, and when time permits, they volunteer at the local animal shelter together.  Their dream is to create the type of work where they can be home enough to train labradors for the blind.

Herein lies the clue to shared meaning. This is something more than career, something more akin to what you were put on this earth to do, your mission in life.  And mission can change, depending on life-cycle and timing.

Mike and Helen are newly-weds getting down to the business of furnishing their home – for them it is a serious yet fun business. Choosing paint colours and fabrics, testing out beds and sofas and chairs, finding just the right lamp or nest of tables for the empty corner in the living room … activities they love to do together.  Even decorating, together.  Initially their shared meaning is nesting and as time goes by it will undoubtedly evolve into something else. Perhaps they’ll find a hobby together, perhaps a cause to support, maybe they’ll have children and have to decide who’s going to stay home to be the primary care-giver, at least for the first few months or years.

For those couples whose children and child-rearing become their shared meaning, trouble can come knocking as those children become adolescents and prepare to launch into the world of independence. What will Mom and Dad do now? Do they have anything in common? Can they transform their focus on raising a family to something else meaningful? 

Perhaps they’ll discover a shared love of some pursuit like golf, biking, racing, hiking or ski-ing; perhaps something like antiquing, music, gardening or travel.  Or maybe they’ll take up a cause like Meg and Laura – volunteering for a charity, supporting the environment or a political candidate, their local church, or getting involved in their community in some way.

For some people, getting in touch with what gives them meaning is incredibly easy, obvious, they’ve always known it about themselves.  How about you? What gives your life meaning?

Emotional integrity

Integrity

Working with a couple last year, I mentioned casually that it sounded to me like they wanted an emotionally intelligent relationship and Beth asked me to repeat what I’d said.  ”Emotional intelligence?”  ”Yes” she said “never heard it before.”  I was surprised, but perhaps my decades in California familiarised concepts to me not yet widely known in the UK.  And if emotional intelligence is an unfamiliar concept, then I imagine emotional integrity is a new one for some of my readers.  So, what is emotional integrity?  Well, how about emotional intelligence on steroids?!

Daniel Goleman, Ph.D. coined the term EQ to mean Emotional Intelligence (and has written a book by the same name) and this refers to someone who has an intelligence beyond the IQ (intelligence quotient) with which most of us are familiar. EQ is about our emotional landscape. Are we familiar with the terrain of  mood and emotions? Are we able to experience a wide range of emotions (the good, the bad and the ugly)? Can we communicate our moods and emotions with clarity and honesty? Can we manage our moods, are we able to access them, act accordingly and process them? For some, I get that even these questions will be somewhat alien. 

The relationships experts talk about partnership needing to be an emotional safe zone – where we know, absolutely without a doubt, that we are safe to explore our deepest joy and our darkest fears with one another, without fear of attack or retribution.  Such a safe zone can only be created when we have a deep knowledge of one another, a means of managing conflict, appreciate and nurture each other, and a capacity for emotional integrity that provides a safety net to reinforce an already strong foundation.

I often find my clients don’t know what an emotional safety net or zone is because they didn’t have one as a child.  And this points to the first obstacle facing many couples in building this part of their foundation. Pretty difficult to build anything without a model. If, like the majority of us, you have “hot buttons” or triggers which set off moods of anger, anxiety, fear, sadness or a desire to distance and protect yourself, they were likely developed for good reason while you were growing up to defend against things going on around you which were difficult to manage.

To consider:

• if you are in a relationship, does it provide an emotional safety zone? if not, how do you know and what keeps it from being safe?
• what could make your relationship have an emotional safety zone?
• what would you need to do differently to provide safety? how about your partner?
• do you know what your emotional triggers are? your partner’s?
• if you are single, what do you look for in a potential partner to tell you whether or not they have the capacity for having emotional integrity? providing an emotional safety zone?
• do you know what your emotional triggers are? where they came from?
• reflecting on past relationships, can you see how partners’ triggers have affected you?

 

Nurturing

For something to grow and thrive, it needs to be nurtured. Nurtured? This includes feeding, protecting, cajoling, encouraging, loving, supporting, fostering development, even training and educating.

In the context of relationship, we benefit the most when each partner is responsible for nurturing three things:

• self
• other
• relationship

When I am nurturing myself I can say I am my best self – feeling loveable and loving.  When I ignore my own needs, sacrificing them for somebody or something else, I begin to lose confidence and assurance, eventually feeling less loveable and definitely less loving toward my partner. It’s hard to be open to influence and be willing to compromise when I feel yucky about myself or my partner; I stop feeling curious about how my partner’s day went when I’m wound up inside with my own self-pity or anguish.

Reminds me of a story I often tell clients about self-care.  Remember the last time you flew on a plane?  Remember when the flight attendant went through the emergency procedure and talked about the oxygen masks? Well, it’s no mistake you are instructed to put on your own oxygen mask first, and then turn to help your dependents.  If you try to put theirs on first, you’ll be out of oxygen and expire in front of their eyes! Unless you take care of yourself first, no-one else can rely on you for support.

Which reminds me of the alternative version of the Serenity Prayer, another favourite of mine. “Grant me the serenity to accept the person I cannot change, the courage to change the person I can, and the wisdom to know it is me” (and only me!).

Nurturing self, other and the relationship help form a powerful foundation so that in the face of challenging times, a couple can overcome their difficulties more easily.  For me, a couple who nurture their relationship are nurturing their fondness and admiration for one another, deepening respect, proving to one another that they really like and choose one another every single day.  One way to explore what you appreciate about yourself and your partner is to fill in the blank: 

• I appreciate …… (about me)
• I appreciate …… (about you)

Make a list of as many things as you can think of for yourself and your partner. Examples could be: 

• I appreciate using my skills to generate income for us
• I appreciate my sensitivity in dealing with your family
• I appreciate my commitment to our financial budget
• I appreciate how supportive I am to you in your ventures
• I appreciate how organized I keep the house
• I appreciate how flexible I am with your unpredictable schedule

• I appreciate how generous you are with me
• I appreciate when you empty the dishwasher
• I appreciate what a good mood you live in
• I appreciate when you bring me a cup of tea in bed
• I appreciate the loving things you say to me
• I appreciate the commitment to fidelity you have in our marriage

Then, when the time is right, explain what you’ve been up to and share the list about your partner with your partner!  This usually produces smiles, chuckles and ultimately, mutual appreciation. Well done!

To consider:

• how do you nurture yourself? what does self-care mean to you and how do you engage in self-care?
• how does your partner like to be nurtured and appreciated? (if you don’t know, ask)
• if you don’t have a partner, what would they appreciate about you?
• if you are single, what would you like to appreciate about a partner?

Influence and compromise

Imagine a relationship where power is shared.  Where each partner allows the other influence.  Where both are equally willing to compromise. Where “yield” does not refer to a traffic sign but a way of relating. Imagine yielding to win! Such is the goal for couples who work with me on increasing the satisfaction quotient in their partnership.

I cringe internally when faced with a couple for whom being right is more important than being loved and loveable.  It happens much too often. And the joy of witnessing the transformation from here to one of respectful compromise! I’ll be honest though – this doesn’t happen easily, and it doesn’t happen overnight. When couples are in the habit, or practice, of needing to be right, then they’re usually very good at being right and hardly know where to start to give up ground and be willing to yield.

So we start gradually, with things each is willing to give and take.  Is Meg willing to take her book to bed and read there rather than on the couch downstairs in return for her partner Di going to bed half an hour earlier, so they can actually retire at the same time?  Is Dan willing to be home from work by 6:00 pm one evening during the week so he and his partner Beth can have dinner together, in return for Beth re-arranging that evening’s workout to the morning?

With success under our belt for the smaller things, we can then move on to the more challenging concerns like holiday destinations, celebrating Christmas with family (or not), how to bring up the children when parents have different religious beliefs and so on.

I am grateful to have worked with a young couple who loved one another so much, but were concerned to have very different backgrounds – she was a committed and practicing Roman Catholic and he was an equally committed and practicing Jew.  They were smart enough to seek consultation before making a commitment to one another, wanting to explore how their diverging backgrounds could be successfully blended.

We worked over the period of nearly a year and during that time had many emotional sessions where sometimes there were positive outcomes and sometimes there were setbacks, but our overall outcome was their willingness to allow influence and compromise to inform their decisions in planning a life together.  They celebrated their marriage with a specially designed ceremony combining the most important facets of each of their faiths and, while some of their narrower-minded family and friends appeared a little baffled by it all, announced their satisfaction at the first of many hurdles well managed.

To consider:

• where do you dig your heels in, to the detriment of your relationship(s)?
• where could you compromise? how could you make the first step toward making that compromise?
• do you allow your partner to influence you? sometimes? never? how could you make the first step toward allowing an appropriate influence?
• if you’re single, consider with whom you might practice compromising and influencing / being influenced?