One of the most amazing parts of life are relationships. I don't mean the Divine connecting at a deep level when looking into the eyes of another and you both realize you are on the same page. It is the moment you realize that someone is actually seeing you.
I'm talking about the relationship that occurs when we connect with someone and make a commitment to spend our lives together. Anyone that has more than 25 years in a committed relationship has gone through the process of growing up together. It means the couple have been through the change that occurs as we grow older and go through change.
Do you realize the amount of work it takes to do that? It is the 'flying Wallendas' effect. The flying Wallendas were a family aerial acrobats that did a lot of tightrope work. They would tightrope walk above the arena and then add to the difficulty of the act. Eventually the entire family would be on a tightrope and they would be on bicycles with long poles for balance. Sometimes there two or three family members on the rope itself - then there would be two family members on the second level on bicycles with poles for balance. Finally there would be a third level with another family member on a bicycle and pole. any kind of balance change meant that all the family members would need to adjust their poles to stay on the rope.
This is what the difficulty is about. Two people changing through the impact of everyday life with situations of change and the stress of the world. Then add the impact of growing up into adulthood. Each person changing at different levels and different speeds. And in the end there is a 'sacred' commitment to stay together.
I talked in an earlier blog about content versus context. It means that there are two ways to see life. The first is just to experience it and we do that as a couple. It is not about talking about it but experiencing it. This is the way most couples live their lives.
The second way is something we all need to do. It is stepping back from the experience to take a pause and discuss what is going on for each of us individually and for the two of us as a pair.
It is stepping away from the relationship and talking about the relationship. It becomes a chance to examine the entire process of relationship. It takes some skill and some objectivity. It's rare for people to do this without going through in depth 'talking' therapy.
Someone once told me this kind of therapy can feel like talking a topic to death. One of the things we try do do is periodically is step back around once a year and see where we are at. It is almost like considering marriage and relationship as a series of one-year contracts and each year stepping back, evaluating, and renewing the contract.
We take a look at what we see in the coming year. We look at what new goals to set for our relationship. We look at what we did not achieve during the past year. The cool part about doing this process: it is so much easier because we are committed to be in the relationship. The evaluation is to help move the process along. We both believe it is OK to state "I love you and I don't know what that means but I do!" What an amazing journey! Have you renewed your annual contract this year?
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