We're looking forward to our couples workshop this weekend in Seattle (www.betsyandbruce.com). As former long time Puget Sound residents (our two daughters and their families, including three grandchildren, live there), we always have a special affinity for the participants there and greet each new event as a chance to grow and learn ourselves. As we never tire of saying, this work is a journey not a destination. We are so grateful for the chance to keep on sharing what we know and are passionate about! 

This is a great time for both of us. As we come to believe more fully than ever in each other's ideas and creative potential (and to reinforce our beliefs through continuous mutual appreciation), the possibilities keep expanding and the self limitations keep shrinking. Our awareness of our still growing teamwork has prompted this issue's lead article "The Relationship Mantra: You Gotta Believe!"

Also, in the next issue or two look for information about new classes, events, and programs for early 2008 both here at 14 Leigh St and elsewhere (as well as via teleclass) that will offer even more support for creating and sustaining the intimate and loving relationships we all seek.

Until next time, as always best wishes for finding the path toward connection and the love you want in your life.

The Relationship Mantra: You Gotta Believe.

The expression "You Gotta Believe" is for sure well worn. By now it's been the cry of many a local school, college, or professional team's fans, and the slogan for maybe one too many ad campaigns.

In the spring of my senior year in high school, the college acceptances came out.  After I opened and read my letter of acceptance to the college I would attend that fall, I rushed down to the college advisor's office to tell her.  She gave me a look of complete surprise and said she was shocked that they had accepted me. Almost instantly, my excitement was gone.

 

Now I knew that I had learning problems and might have a difficult time getting into college but an even greater fear and doubt was that once I got there, I would fail. That would be even more shameful than not being accepted in the first place.

So my advisor's words basically held out and confirmed a vision of failure for me and validated my hidden fear. Even though the college by admitting me held out the expectation I could succeed, now I had been told by someone in authority that in essence the college admissions office had made a huge mistake. I could not hear the positive message of what it was they saw in me that led them to believe I could do it.  Their implied affirmation of what they saw in me and what they thought I could do was overridden by the doubts of someone I looked up to. 

In consequence, once on campus and from start to finish in college, I took every step I could, not to succeed and flourish, but to avoid failure! I would even seek out from other students what the "easy" courses were so I could take them and get by and at least defy the negative expectation that was given to me.

The sad part was that in running shamefully from failure, I missed the opportunity to take the risks and set the goals that would have made for real education and growth and true satisfaction of my underlying quest for learning.

I was following this minimal program doing this all alone. I often wonder what my four years would have been like if just one person, especially my parents, whom I now see had their own self-limiting beliefs and expectations, had instead of remaining essentially silent through it all, been able to hold and express the vision and expectation that "You can do it" and actively validate, appreciate and encourage me every inch of the way.

Fortunately, this isn't the only story I have to tell. This second one is the  flip side and that's why I am telling it:

Many years later (34 to be exact!), I found myself vaguely motivated to return to graduate school.  Yet I was filled with vacillation and doubt. Could I really do this? Could I even complete the application? It was then I heard the words from Bruce, words that I had always wanted and needed to hear, words that made all the difference and contradicted my fears: "You can do it," he said. "I see you. You are motivated, excited, enthusiastic to learn and you ask excellent questions. You are ready and you can do it!!" (no, he didn't say 'You gotta believe', but it amounted to the same thing!)

 

Hearing his words changed my life. With his unremitting expressions of confident belief that I could do it, all the self negating beliefs I had been carrying around since childhood began to crumble.  As he literally hovered over me with encouragement, I filled out the application that made my case, and I was accepted. At age 55 I began a brand new love affair with school and learning and with my life (after kids).

 

Yes I knew my learning weaknesses probably better than anyone else, but when belief transcended doubt, I learned how to take on these weaknesses and get the help I needed honing my learning skills. The weaknesses no longer occupied the center of my attention. And as Bruce's beliefs in me and visions for me became mine as well, my self-image and self-esteem skyrocketed! 

 

And of course the special bonus was that I was freed up to redouble my belief in him!

So when you hear from us, as you frequently do if you are a regular reader, about the value of appreciation, just remember that high expectations and beliefs in one another's abilities and aspirations are part of the same package as appreciations.  Herein is the synergistic power of relationships. 

1. Each of you take 10 minutes (separately - need not be done at the same time) to write down your biggest unfulfilled dreams or life goals for the next 5-10 years.. These could be about anything - career, family, relationships, home, travel, money, service to others, fun, whatever.  Don't be limited by present circumstance or negative self-talk or pre-judging. Let yourself be "big". Get at what you truly desire.

 

2. Make an appointment with your partner and divide the time equally to take turns sharing your lists with one another. As the speaker, keep what you say positive - what you dream of and desire, not what you don't want or why it's impossible etc. As the listener, simply listen and make a mental summary of what you hear, maybe writing down your partner's main points so you can refer to the list. As each of you finishes, the other summarizes what was said, sticking as close as possible to what he or she heard. Avoid questions (except maybe to check to see if you heard correctly). Especially avoid any evaluative statements or doubt casting or reality testing or interpretative questions. At the end of each turn the listener simply says to the speaker: "Thank you for telling me about your dreams and goals. It makes sense that you would want me to know them. I want you to keep sharing with me about them so we can be teammates in helping each other truly know and achieve our highest visions and goals". 

 

3. The final part of this assignment is to notice what thoughts, feelings, and reactions you may have while you do it, and then taking turns again to express what doing this was like for each of you - your excitement or satisfaction or surprises or maybe your fears or doubts.

We know this may not be as easy as it might appear. If you find this homework interesting or perhaps challenging or especially if you discover negative energy surfacing, take a close look at the Getting the Love You Want© weekends coming up November 30-December 2-11 and February 8-10, 2008, and then come join us. This is an excellent chance to develop much more fully your relationship vision and goals, as well as learn many safe and reliable processes for dealing with every communication challenge or need.

What is this Thing Called Love

Are you old enough, (as we are) to remember Ella Fitzgerald singing the old Cole Porter tune "What Is This Thing Called Love?" Whether you're old enough or not, have you ever wondered what you actually mean when you say the word? 

If so, here's a critical distinction between two dimensions of love: love as feeling, and love as action and attitude.

Love, as in "I love you", refers to a feeling, specifically a feeling of closeness or connection.  Saying,"I love you" equals saying, "I feel connected to you". Similarly saying, "I'm not in love with you any more" ("I've lost that lovin' feeling!") amounts to saying, "I no longer feel connected to you".

In this sense love is not really a matter of action or attitude. You feel what you feel, period, It's out of your hands. It's in the hands of your unconscious, or your hormones, or your genes, your body odor, whatever. And it doesn't involve doing anything or even thinking about it! Love is a wonderful feeling, but that's not the love we're talking about.

The love we want to talking about, and the love we deal in through our work, is love as action or attitude.  When you think of the word in this sense, love becomes a choice.  It's a choice to do loving behaviors (actions) and to hold the attitude of gratitude toward another person or toward the world in general. It reflects the highest universal perspective - it comes from the core of who you are and what you came into the world with. It's the perspective from which our highest potential may be expressed and realized.

This is the love that invites you to have a conversation with yourself that might sound something like this: 

"OK, I know that I came into this world with every potential to express myself in a completely loving ways. So I know I may have been acting like kind of a jerk in my relationship, probably out of some negative experiences I have learned along the path of growing up. And these negative experiences are helping to keep me stuck in this negative reactivity or

perspective about the world. Even my self esteem is clouded in negativity.

"But I don't have to continue to live this way. I can at any time change my perspective about the world and about my relationships regardless of how I feel.  If I'm feeling a lot of negativity towards my partner, it does not mean I have to act on that feeling. I know that if I do I will only end up disliking myself more and feeding my already developed low sense of self.  

"And the worst part is when I blame and act out my negative feelings on someone else, guess who loses the most!?  Me!  And the more I keep on handing out those negative blaming comments, the more I will have to deal with my own worst fear of abandonment as people and partner move further and further away from me, and then I will also I have to deal with disliking myself even more. That's when I become my own worst enemy! 

"So all this said, how exactly do I move forward and into my loving, caring self?"

Now, if you've responded to the appeal of your own inner self and had this kind of talk with yourself, great! And here's our mandate in response to your final question: "How exactly do I move forward and into my loving, caring self?"

The Mandate: Change Your Perspective!

Now we're not saying this is easy to do.  We know the realities of everyday life. When you turn on the news every night and have to listen to all the negativity that's presented about the world, or when your partner who said he would be home at six and it is now seven and he is still not home and hasn't called, or when she said she would stop at the store on the way home from work and pick up a loaf of bread but walks in the front door empty handed, or when your two kids who are fighting over the TV are now really acting out at each other and at you, too, for insisting they do their evening chores before dinner.

Finding what is good or what you can feel grateful for in these moments takes courage as well as skill and art. Appreciating and seeing the positive in situations where you feel only anger and negativity takes determination and commitment to not let yourself down again, to act on the core of who you are when, for instance:

Your partner walks in the door at 7:15, and you are able to put your arms around him,

• give him a hug and tell him how relieved you are that he is home and how scared you were becoming when he hadn't called. And to say, "I get scared because I love you and I'm afraid of losing you."

• Your partner comes home without the batteries and you are able to greet her and appreciate the fact that she is home regardless of no batteries.

• You appreciate the kids if you see even one of them trying to work out the problem, and say,  "I can see how much you each want to watch your own program and how at one point, Sarah, you were trying to make that happen. It takes skill, doesn't it? Maybe we can help you to figure this out the next time this happens.  You are such great kids and I know you are trying to help me."

Homework

Here's a three-part assignment for the coming week:

• 1.      Tomorrow morning when you wake up and maybe are feeling a bit grumpy, anxious, or not looking forward to the day, in the moment find at least four things you can feel grateful for or you are looking forward to.  Either write them down right then and there, or tell them to your partner before you even get out of bed.

• 2.      During at least one dinner time this week, tell each family member three specific positive behaviors you have seen them do that day.  To make sure you are on task and ready with this one, write them down when you notice them. Be deliberate. Don't trust yourself simply to remember them.  (Your mind is probably better trained to remember the negative behaviors!).

• 3.      During the next five days, write a note to each family member saying briefly what they do that makes you feel so connected to them and put them on their pillows at night or in their lunch boxes or on the steering wheel of the car.

One important final note: remember that you are doing all this with no expectations of receiving anything in return. You are doing this because you are a loving and caring human being.

Loving behaviors are what heal childhood wounds and build self-esteem and strong positive relationships!

If you find this homework interesting or perhaps challenging or even frustrating, please consider what we offer and can find described below. Besides the Getting the Love You Want© weekends coming up November 9-11 and November3-December 2, we are offering on Saturday November 3 a one-day workshop on the topic of Closing Your Relationship Exits.  It will be an introduction to some of the main processes we teach in the weekend workshop. This is an excellent chance to learn some basics of restructuring your frustrations with one another in a safe and reliable way.  

This one day workshop would also be an appropriate follow up for workshop grads looking for review as well as newcomers to Imago.