Relationships

Learning How To Dance

06/03/2017 by John Leave a Comment

In the life of a relationship, there are periods of pulling together and pushing apart. We seek closeness with others, yet are also afraid of it. Sometimes two people push away too hard and their connection is irreparably broken. Sometimes people pull together too tightly and smother one another.

It is a delicate dance, to stay connected and intimate with another and still provide space for the individuals involved to breath and to grow. The dance of a relationship takes practice, attention, and hard work. But there is learning in the missteps and joy when the moves are flowing freely from one to the next. It is a dance that can never be perfected, but one that rewards every effort we put into it.

Based on a journal entry from 5.30.14

Two Couples

04/14/2017 by John 1 Comment

One night in the house that we used to own, Mary and I sat in the middle of the dining room floor talking while drinking a bottle of wine from Argentina. We chatted about hopes, dreams, and crazy schemes; of living each moment as if it were the last, as indeed it could be. Though it was dark outside, we laughed and smiled and looked at each other as if in the fresh morning light.

We were that other couple that night. The couple who had just met. The couple that thought and believed and lived like all was possible, like the energy of their union could power them through this world like a speeding train traversing new lands filled with wonder and adventure. We were the two who would be greater than the ones could ever be.

This morning we were the couple that has to do the things it has to do: get out of bed to go to work, clean up the detritus left abandoned on the kitchen counter top from last night’s dinner, stepping around one another with eyes not meeting while trying to get into the bathroom. We were the sleepwalking couple, accomplishing what must be accomplished, unconscious to the mysteries all around us: the earth hurtling through space at 67,062 miles per hour, the birth and death of millions of beings occurring simultaneously, and the unlikely chances that bring two people from so far apart together.

We are both couples, the two who shine as one, lighting the way for a fearless tear through life, and the two who do the dishes and try not to let their reactions to the other’s behavior erupt into careless words. If these two couples sat down to dinner, I wonder what they would talk about? Would they find some common ground? Perhaps they might agree that the challenge of a relationship is in learning how to nourish the things you cherish about each other while bringing loving acceptance to everything else.

Based on a journal entry from 2.28.13

Saying No

03/31/2017 by John Leave a Comment

Knowing what you want out of life, and who you want in it, means nothing if you can’t also say no to everything but those people and things. Until you cultivate the ability to say no to the things that fill your life but not your soul, you’ll never have the space to bring into it the things you desperately want to say yes to.
From How To Live a Good Life by Jonathan Fields

Many of us were brought up to say yes, accommodating others needs before attending to our own. We have extended this invitation to the vast influx of information that is now available to us so that we are always saying yes to someone else’s agenda whether we realize it or not. Meanwhile, the things that are important to us get pushed to the side to be done at a vague time we call “later”. But later never arrives until we start to say no today.

There are so many demands on our time and attention. Hours disappear saying yes to reading just one more news article, responding to another email, or to just kicking back to watch a few short videos on YouTube. The people in our life also give us plenty of reasons to say yes. Yes to another pointless meeting at work. Yes to going out and socializing. Yes to listening to a friend go on for the umpteenth time about how they hate their job, relationship, whatever.

But what if we started to say no more often? What if we decided to delete the news apps from our phones and pledge to check email only once a day? What if we demonstrated to our employer that we could be more productive if that meeting is eliminated from our schedule? And what if we compassionately told our friend that we would be happy to help them work through something they are struggling with, but that we do not have time to listen if all they want to do is blame and complain and not take any action?

Saying no is actually saying yes to other things.
Patrick Rhone

If we did these things, we could say yes to those things we think we never have time for. We could get outside more or work on that passion project. We could spend time with people who inspire us or who truly need and want our help. We could do the things that give us joy and provide a sense of meaning and purpose; the things that make us feel whole, and from this place of wholeness, we can become more capable of serving others.

What are you saying yes to? Is it to things and people that are adding value to your life? What could you be doing if you said no instead?