Ele­gant Relat­ing — 10 Exer­cises for
Con­scious Communicating

Rela­tional Stages

1. The Urge to Merge—biol­ogy trumps brains. This stage is expe­ri­enced as bliss­ful, and any issues that arise are glossed over, ignored, or excused. “After all, we re in love!”
2. Con­flict—this is inevitable, as the veneer slips and the part­ners become more comfortable.

Sud­denly, it seems, there are dif­fer­ences, and the dif­fer­ences (there all along) become both obvi­ous and impos­si­ble to ignore.

Choices: to EXIT, to end­lessly fight, to slip into bore­dom and apa­thy, or to enter into DIALOG.

3. Fights are always about ‘who is right,’ as all that changes is the ‘rea­son for the right­ness’ (I’m smarter, my par­ents did it this way… I’m just try­ing to help, etc.)
4. Bore­dom and Apa­thy are pop­u­lar choices. Rela­tion­ships become ‘polite,’ like room­mates. If the heat goes up, some­one leaves the room to attend to some­thing impor­tant. Con­ver­sa­tions are stilted.
5. Dia­log is the harder choice, and is taken by per­haps 5%. Open, hon­est, vul­ner­a­ble dia­log leads to a sense of alive­ness, vibra­tion, and ener­gized liv­ing. Its char­ac­ter­is­tics are curios­ity, pas­sion, integrity, and co-creativity. (With thanks to Ben Wong and Jock McK­een, The Rela­tion­ship Gar­den.

for more, use the links above to go to the whole booklet!

About Dia­log

We teach a self-responsible com­mu­ni­ca­tion model, designed to start peo­ple down the path of self-observation and self-revelation. Once a per­son begins to think and talk self-responsibly, the pat­tern of the model can go back­ground. The dia­log has been agreed upon, and thus is no longer optional.

True dia­log has sev­eral characteristics.

for more, use the links above to go to the whole booklet!

So, if you can’t com­mit to an exter­nal, what can you com­mit to? You com­mit to a way of relat­ing.

I can only com­mit to an action—to some­thing I will do. There­fore, I com­mit to relat­ing with you.
This is what I com­mit to:
I will be open, hon­est, and vul­ner­a­ble in my daily com­mu­ni­ca­tion with you.
I will tell you, today, who I am and what I am think­ing.
I will tell you, today, every­thing I have done, and what it meant to me.
I will lis­ten to you with curios­ity and inter­est, today.
I will accept that you are who you are today, and will inte­grate who you are today with my pic­ture of you from “yes­ter­day.”
I will make myself fully avail­able and present to and with you, today, and engage in clear and con­cise com­mu­ni­ca­tion with you for not less than 30 min­utes, today.
I will own all of my thoughts, feel­ings, emo­tions, and inter­pre­ta­tions, tak­ing full respon­si­bil­ity for each and every one of them. If I slip and go into blam­ing, I will stop myself, apol­o­gise, and return to self-responsibility.
I will actively encour­age you to lis­ten to me, and ask you to actively hold me account­able for every­thing I com­mit to.
I will com­mit to all of these things, with­out any expec­ta­tion of any­thing from you, as all I can ever com­mit to is to what I can and will do.

Exer­cise #1 Set­ting Aside Time

Set aside thirty min­utes per day, for com­mu­ni­ca­tion practice.

No excuses! Many peo­ple tell me how busy their lives are, what with kids, work, shop­ping, TV watch­ing, Hockey, what­ever. Their rela­tion­ship sucks, but hey, what do you expect of me?

for more, use the links above to go to the whole booklet!

Exer­cise # 2 — First Essay – Stages of Relating

This is a writ­ing exer­cise. The goal is to answer the fol­low­ing ques­tions, then share your answers with your part­ner. DO NOT edit your writ­ing to fit what you think your part­ner wants to hear! Remem­ber, we’re all about hon­esty here! I’ve inter­spersed ques­tions, in pur­ple, below. Think back on the stages of your relationship.

for more, use the links above to go to the whole booklet!

# 3 — Com­mit­ting to Commitment

Above, on page 3, is a list of char­ac­ter­is­tics of a healthy, com­mit­ted relationship.

Talk with your part­ner about your ‘take’ on this list. Which parts work for you? Which seem dif­fi­cult, which seem impos­si­ble, and which do you dis­agree about completely?

Make your own list of things you will agree to.

Devise a clear, “I” based state­ment of what you will com­mit to in your rela­tion­ship, along with a state­ment ask­ing your part­ner to hold you account­able for what you com­mit to.

for more, use the links above to go to the whole booklet!

# 4 — Open Revelation

Have a con­ver­sa­tion about some­thing that has, in the past, been a dif­fi­cult topic.

One of our favourites is to set up a “peo­ple who turn me on” con­ver­sa­tion, by sit­ting with your part­ner on a bench at the beach, the mall, wher­ever peo­ple gather.

As usual, take turns. When some­one walks by whom you find attrac­tive, tell your part­ner about it—what you find attrac­tive, what you’d like to ‘do’ with the person.

Part­ner, lis­ten and learn. It is just infor­ma­tion, so let go of mak­ing your­self think this is some­how threatening.

Now, shift roles.

for more, use the links above to go to the whole booklet!

# 4 View­ing the World from a Dif­fer­ent Perspective

For sev­eral years Dar and I have been offer­ing what we call Week­end Res­i­den­tials. It’s an oppor­tu­nity to move in with us for a week­end and to explore your issues. We pro­vide dia­logue, exer­cises, and body­work as reg­u­lar parts of this experience.

One of the exer­cises we always assign cou­ples is what we call the chair exer­cise. This is espe­cially nice in good weather—the lounge chairs out­side are perfect—but the exer­cise can be done indoors also.

for more, use the links above to go to the whole booklet!

#5 — Imple­ment a ‘car­ing days’ list

One of the essen­tial things to ‘get’ is what is pos­si­ble and what is not. This exer­cise comes in two parts.

First, (instruc­tions for cre­at­ing page is in the full ver­sion…) Sec­ond, dif­fer­en­ti­ate between pos­si­ble and impos­si­ble requests.

Exam­ples:

Impos­si­ble: Be nice to me (what’s ‘nice?’) Make me happy (no one makes any­one any­thing.) Love me. (How?) Make me feel safe. (You make you safe.) Fix my prob­lems. (You cre­ate your prob­lems, and you fix them.) Don’t demand things from me. Let me be me. Don’t get mad. Never look at another woman.

Pos­si­ble: Give me a hug. Say “I love you,” 3 times today. Give me gen­tle neck rub. Ask me how my day was. Invite me to go for a 15 minute walk. Hold my hand in pub­lic. Take a shower with me.

On a blank piece of paper, list the Impos­si­ble Things you reg­u­larly expect from your part­ner. Share the lists with each other, and then burn the lists!

Now, cre­ate a Car­ing Days List. Each item on the list must be pos­si­ble, pos­i­tive (i.e.) “Rub my head,” vs. “Don’t ignore me,” and do-able in 15 min­utes or less. See above for suggestions.

for more, use the links above to go to the whole booklet!

# 6 — Estab­lish a ‘date night’

Amaz­ing, really, how far off the rails most cou­ples get. As I said above, in # 1, get­ting cou­ples to agree to talk 30 min­utes a day is quite the strug­gle. I’ve noticed that cou­ples in trou­ble sel­dom if ever have dates with each other, let alone have “dirty week­ends away.”

Sure, out come the excuses. “We’re broke!” (Want to know how much that shiny, new divorce is going to cost?) “There’s no time!” (Maybe after you’re dead there will be more…) “We have kids!” (They’ll live with­out you for a few hours.) “What if we fight while we’re on our date?’ (Why the heck do you think you need a date in the first place? Get over yourself!)

for more, use the links above to go to the whole booklet!

# 7 — Have a dis­cus­sion about emotions

Guess what? Emo­tions are a part of life. Not just the ‘good’ ones—all of them. You do not get to pick and choose which ones to have. You’ve got them all.

Peo­ple get all bent out of shape about emotions.

Anger is one that pops to the top of the list. Most peo­ple con­fuse anger with vio­lence, which is never OK. To deal with anger safely, you need boundaries.

for more, use the links above to go to the whole booklet!

# 8 — Essay 2 – write about your great­est fears

Another oppor­tu­nity to write and share.

We tend to be fairly pro­tected around things we fear, espe­cially if we are male. Women also fear stuff, and might be freer to express, but get caught in not want­ing to get their part­ners going—as the men ride the white horse to the rescue.

Write about things you fear.

for more, use the links above to go to the whole booklet!

# 9 — Silent sit­ting and eye-gazing

Here’s one of those odd, chargy, scary things most peo­ple never do.

1. Ignore the dis­tance and touch­ing in the pic­ture. Set it up this way: Sit oppo­site your part­ner, in a chair, a cou­ple of feet apart. Set your timer for 5 min­utes. Set it where you can’t look at it.
2. Breathe. Breathe through­out the exer­cise. As anx­i­ety rises, we tend to hold our breaths. Kind of dumb, as oxy­gen is a good thing.

for more, use the links above to go to the whole booklet!

# 10 — Review the state of your rela­tion­ship, and
make a New commitment

By now, you’re get­ting much bet­ter at lis­ten­ing and being reveal­ing. This exer­cise is really the basis of your ongo­ing communication.

From now on, as you have your daily talk time, rec­og­nize that the real topic is ‘the state of the union,’ so to speak. From now on, keep your part­ner in your loop. Share your thoughts, feel­ings, emotions.

for more, use the links above to go to the whole booklet!

Resources:

Be sure to down­load our two free rela­tion­ships booklets

My book, This End­less Moment, is an excel­lent resource for liv­ing fully, deeply, and in the moment.

If you would like to have a resource for a full year of self-reflection, have a look at Liv­ing Life in Grow­ing Orbits, which is avail­able as a PDF download.

Bless­ings and metta,

Wayne C. Allen

http://www.phoenixcentre.com/blog