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She'll be alright
just not tonight
....so I let her be.
- Rob Thomas, Her Diamonds
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Space in Relationships
“But let there be spaces in your togetherness.
And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.
Love one another, but make not a bond of love.” – Kahlil Gilbran
I think most people have trouble with the task of creating space within togetherness. Taking space for oneself, leaving it for the other, and creating it for the relationship are challenges that we need to make conscious and face head-on. Togetherness should never feel like imprisonment, and love ought not come with shackles… though it often seems this way. I think we need to ask whether love is even the right word if what is being offered comes with restrictions that feel like imprisonment.
Whereas prisons and shackles don’t sound very appealing, the truth is that many of us participate in this way of being together: Parents, children, siblings, romantic partners, and friends. Why is this?
For a great many, fear is the answer (it often is)—Fear of rejection, abandonment, humiliation, and shame. We think we won’t survive such experiences, and so we set-up our relationships—or try to—in a way that we believe will allow us to avoid them. We, understandably, try to protect ourselves from the potential pain. We seem to do this in two related ways.
1. We don’t give the other the space to be fully him or herself.
2. We don’t take the space we need to be wholly our selves (Eric Francis, www.planetwaves.net). **
The problem is that in the long run, these strategies only create more pain.
Most of the time this process happens subtly, which makes it all the more insidious, with fear flowing into the relationship unnoticed, underground, and yet pervasively. Working this out would be more simple, for example, if a woman said to her partner: “I’m afraid that I won’t be important to you some day and that you’ll leave me. When you spend time golfing with your friends, I feel my fear strongly and so I want you to stay with me rather than go out golfing.” Instead, this same fear is often acted out more passively and subtly: The woman starts to grow silent whenever her partner talks about going out with friends, and she grows angry when he/she’s on the phone scheduling a tee-time. Her partner notices this but doesn’t understand why. Her partner cannot see her fear.
We can say that because of her fear, the woman is not giving her partner the space needed--space to nurture other friendships and to engage in his/her passion.
Let’s say her partner feels her anger and hurt, even if it’s not explicit. And let’s say this partner then decides to cancel plans with friends. Or maybe the partner gets very angry and starts blaming the woman for all sorts of dissatisfactions in his/her own life. Either way, the partner is now the one not taking space for him/herself, probably because he/she is also afraid. Afraid of not being good enough, afraid that the woman might walk away from the relationship, afraid of being accused of being selfish, or fearful of engaging in life with passion….
As adults, we are responsible for filling up the space of our own lives. Doing so involves recognizing one’s own needs and acting in ways that best allow these needs to be met. Conscious living is about awareness (i.e., recognition) + action (i.e., exercising one’s ability to respond). Fear, again understandably, gets in the way. Fortunately, there is a way out of this: When fear is present we can look for a need within it, and we can recognize that the more intense the fear, the more than need is experienced as a matter of survival.
Let’s go back to the woman: Under her fear is a need for something- perhaps a need to feel important. This need is valid for her. It may even feel like a matter of survival because of some deeply held belief she learned long ago: “I will only be loved if I’m important.” What is problematic is that now, as an adult, she is expecting her partner to take responsibility for this. She relies on her partner to help her to feel important, and she does this unconsciously (meaning without awareness and without her own ability to respond to her need), which ends up feeling a bit like shackles to the partner! As challenging as it might be, it is up to her to feed her own need for a sense of importance, and it is up to her to test out and possibly learn that even when she doesn’t feel important, she is still loved and she can definitely survive.
Going back to the partner: If he/she tries to fill the woman’s need to feel important due also to fear, and in doing so neglects his/her own needs thereby failing to take space for him/herself, resentment is the likely result. The whole situation becomes a vicious cycle and the inability to give or take the space-to-be becomes toxic, poisoning the relationship between partners as well as the relationship that each partner has with him/herself.
How do we step out of this cycle? Because it is fueled by fear, the way out must contain a great deal of compassion. Each partner must be compassionate with him/herself and with the other. Compassion allows us to see through the defenses to the fear, just as seeing through to the fear allows compassion to flow. Compassion does not mean giving up one’s own space! We cannot have true compassion for another unless we also have it for ourselves, which literally means coming together with our own passions. Stated another way, this means filling out the space of our own short lives, which further requires tolerating the fear, guilt, or shame—of others and ourselves—that may arise as a result. Therapy can help both the process of increased awareness as well as that of tolerating the resulting feelings that can at first be difficult when one begins to live more consciously.
** The notion of giving another space is influenced by Object Relations Theory and D.W. Winnicott’s notion of a holding environment (1960). The idea of taking space is attributed to Eric Francis, whom I have heard speak about this concept in personal communication and various pieces of writing.
And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.
Love one another, but make not a bond of love.” – Kahlil Gilbran
I think most people have trouble with the task of creating space within togetherness. Taking space for oneself, leaving it for the other, and creating it for the relationship are challenges that we need to make conscious and face head-on. Togetherness should never feel like imprisonment, and love ought not come with shackles… though it often seems this way. I think we need to ask whether love is even the right word if what is being offered comes with restrictions that feel like imprisonment.
Whereas prisons and shackles don’t sound very appealing, the truth is that many of us participate in this way of being together: Parents, children, siblings, romantic partners, and friends. Why is this?
For a great many, fear is the answer (it often is)—Fear of rejection, abandonment, humiliation, and shame. We think we won’t survive such experiences, and so we set-up our relationships—or try to—in a way that we believe will allow us to avoid them. We, understandably, try to protect ourselves from the potential pain. We seem to do this in two related ways.
1. We don’t give the other the space to be fully him or herself.
2. We don’t take the space we need to be wholly our selves (Eric Francis, www.planetwaves.net). **
The problem is that in the long run, these strategies only create more pain.
Most of the time this process happens subtly, which makes it all the more insidious, with fear flowing into the relationship unnoticed, underground, and yet pervasively. Working this out would be more simple, for example, if a woman said to her partner: “I’m afraid that I won’t be important to you some day and that you’ll leave me. When you spend time golfing with your friends, I feel my fear strongly and so I want you to stay with me rather than go out golfing.” Instead, this same fear is often acted out more passively and subtly: The woman starts to grow silent whenever her partner talks about going out with friends, and she grows angry when he/she’s on the phone scheduling a tee-time. Her partner notices this but doesn’t understand why. Her partner cannot see her fear.
We can say that because of her fear, the woman is not giving her partner the space needed--space to nurture other friendships and to engage in his/her passion.
Let’s say her partner feels her anger and hurt, even if it’s not explicit. And let’s say this partner then decides to cancel plans with friends. Or maybe the partner gets very angry and starts blaming the woman for all sorts of dissatisfactions in his/her own life. Either way, the partner is now the one not taking space for him/herself, probably because he/she is also afraid. Afraid of not being good enough, afraid that the woman might walk away from the relationship, afraid of being accused of being selfish, or fearful of engaging in life with passion….
As adults, we are responsible for filling up the space of our own lives. Doing so involves recognizing one’s own needs and acting in ways that best allow these needs to be met. Conscious living is about awareness (i.e., recognition) + action (i.e., exercising one’s ability to respond). Fear, again understandably, gets in the way. Fortunately, there is a way out of this: When fear is present we can look for a need within it, and we can recognize that the more intense the fear, the more than need is experienced as a matter of survival.
Let’s go back to the woman: Under her fear is a need for something- perhaps a need to feel important. This need is valid for her. It may even feel like a matter of survival because of some deeply held belief she learned long ago: “I will only be loved if I’m important.” What is problematic is that now, as an adult, she is expecting her partner to take responsibility for this. She relies on her partner to help her to feel important, and she does this unconsciously (meaning without awareness and without her own ability to respond to her need), which ends up feeling a bit like shackles to the partner! As challenging as it might be, it is up to her to feed her own need for a sense of importance, and it is up to her to test out and possibly learn that even when she doesn’t feel important, she is still loved and she can definitely survive.
Going back to the partner: If he/she tries to fill the woman’s need to feel important due also to fear, and in doing so neglects his/her own needs thereby failing to take space for him/herself, resentment is the likely result. The whole situation becomes a vicious cycle and the inability to give or take the space-to-be becomes toxic, poisoning the relationship between partners as well as the relationship that each partner has with him/herself.
How do we step out of this cycle? Because it is fueled by fear, the way out must contain a great deal of compassion. Each partner must be compassionate with him/herself and with the other. Compassion allows us to see through the defenses to the fear, just as seeing through to the fear allows compassion to flow. Compassion does not mean giving up one’s own space! We cannot have true compassion for another unless we also have it for ourselves, which literally means coming together with our own passions. Stated another way, this means filling out the space of our own short lives, which further requires tolerating the fear, guilt, or shame—of others and ourselves—that may arise as a result. Therapy can help both the process of increased awareness as well as that of tolerating the resulting feelings that can at first be difficult when one begins to live more consciously.
** The notion of giving another space is influenced by Object Relations Theory and D.W. Winnicott’s notion of a holding environment (1960). The idea of taking space is attributed to Eric Francis, whom I have heard speak about this concept in personal communication and various pieces of writing.
Cest la vie
Feeling stuck in life continues. I've tried every way out of the box I know how, to no avail. Today I ended a rather brief course of therapy with a therapist who basically agreed that I'm between a rock and a hard place. My hope was that he would help me to see through myself... that we'd uncover an insight I was missing that would unlock something, would unblock the dam, would allow me to start feeling alive again. He confirmed that there was no such key.
So I'm trying to accept that this is just my life. It's hard. To believe, that is. I just can't understand that the universe would want me to give up my dreams. It feels cruel to me. I'm a Pisces- "I believe." The motto of the fishes.
I know people talk about getting to the place of giving up completely; of having nothing left to loose; and that something opens up from there. Today, I have no hope of this.
I write to have a record, to get it out, to in some way try to connect with something other than myself.
So I'm trying to accept that this is just my life. It's hard. To believe, that is. I just can't understand that the universe would want me to give up my dreams. It feels cruel to me. I'm a Pisces- "I believe." The motto of the fishes.
I know people talk about getting to the place of giving up completely; of having nothing left to loose; and that something opens up from there. Today, I have no hope of this.
I write to have a record, to get it out, to in some way try to connect with something other than myself.
Monday, July 13, 2009
Grief, Beauty, and Spaces
“It is in dialogue with pain that many beautiful things acquire their value. Acquaintance with grief turns out to be one of the more unusual prerequisites of architectural appreciation. We might, quite aside from all other requirements, need to be a little sad before buildings can properly touch us.” Alain de Botton, The Architecture of Happiness
The 20th century, German philosopher, Martin Heidegger wrote a great deal about the way in which things gather world. An early 18th century home gathers a very different world than does a 1970’s ranch. White Rock, New Mexico allows for a different kind of world than does Miami, Florida. And an ashtray gathers a different kind of world than does a pin-cushion. I imagine an ashtray and think of a darkly-lit jazz club or of journalists meeting deadlines late into the night. A pin-cushion, in contrast, conjures up images of an older world, when women worked at home mending the clothing of husbands and children—a world of grandmothers and those older 18th century homes that are so different from those of the mid-late 20th century.
The idea of things gathering world is a Vestal concept—different spaces, structures, and things allow a certain character of world to come into being just as they preclude other worlds from taking shape. I wonder if this is where grief finds its place in architectural appreciation: In grasping the beauty of one way of being we simultaneously mourn the preclusion of others. And in mourning what is not, we can appreciate the unique and special character of what is.
The tears that accompany grief and sadness help to clear us out, like a river running through us. The experience of grief allows us to let go of possibilities that we once held on to, and herein lays both its pain and its gift. When we truly experience the sadness of what no longer is, or of what will never be, we clear space for something new to open up; and in this space lies an appreciation for how special and impermanent this next something is. This is a space of true vulnerability, of being open to what is and to what is yet to come, even as we carry the pain of what is no longer and even as we know the pain of one day needing to let go again.
It is this space of vulnerability that allows one to appreciate art; for art is very much about letting go of possibilities. A painter must choose one form over another; a songwriter needs to let go of certain words; and an architect only has so many corners to work within and a finite number of buildings to design.
I read the quote above on a day when I was sad and immediately understood. It inspired me to sit by a building I love, and I began to feel grateful for the sadness I was experiencing. I was reminded that every one of our feelings has a place, a purpose, and a beauty that can be discovered if we only enter into them. I allowed the beauty of the building to sink in, mingle with the grief, and create a sweetness that I could not have predicted nor experienced had I not let the river of sadness doing its clearing. Here’s to tears, to letting go, and to the capacity to be touched by a building.
The 20th century, German philosopher, Martin Heidegger wrote a great deal about the way in which things gather world. An early 18th century home gathers a very different world than does a 1970’s ranch. White Rock, New Mexico allows for a different kind of world than does Miami, Florida. And an ashtray gathers a different kind of world than does a pin-cushion. I imagine an ashtray and think of a darkly-lit jazz club or of journalists meeting deadlines late into the night. A pin-cushion, in contrast, conjures up images of an older world, when women worked at home mending the clothing of husbands and children—a world of grandmothers and those older 18th century homes that are so different from those of the mid-late 20th century.
The idea of things gathering world is a Vestal concept—different spaces, structures, and things allow a certain character of world to come into being just as they preclude other worlds from taking shape. I wonder if this is where grief finds its place in architectural appreciation: In grasping the beauty of one way of being we simultaneously mourn the preclusion of others. And in mourning what is not, we can appreciate the unique and special character of what is.
The tears that accompany grief and sadness help to clear us out, like a river running through us. The experience of grief allows us to let go of possibilities that we once held on to, and herein lays both its pain and its gift. When we truly experience the sadness of what no longer is, or of what will never be, we clear space for something new to open up; and in this space lies an appreciation for how special and impermanent this next something is. This is a space of true vulnerability, of being open to what is and to what is yet to come, even as we carry the pain of what is no longer and even as we know the pain of one day needing to let go again.
It is this space of vulnerability that allows one to appreciate art; for art is very much about letting go of possibilities. A painter must choose one form over another; a songwriter needs to let go of certain words; and an architect only has so many corners to work within and a finite number of buildings to design.
I read the quote above on a day when I was sad and immediately understood. It inspired me to sit by a building I love, and I began to feel grateful for the sadness I was experiencing. I was reminded that every one of our feelings has a place, a purpose, and a beauty that can be discovered if we only enter into them. I allowed the beauty of the building to sink in, mingle with the grief, and create a sweetness that I could not have predicted nor experienced had I not let the river of sadness doing its clearing. Here’s to tears, to letting go, and to the capacity to be touched by a building.
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