Over the years, I’ve posted multiple riffs on Communicating, and How to Use the Communication Model

and I usually point the The Haven Communication Model as a very reliable tool. For what, you ask?

Letting down your walls through communication

Starting, developing, and maintaining a deep and intimate relationship.

I’m labouring over a relationships book—we’ll see “if and when.” I redesigned the Haven version of the chart a bit, (it’s above, albeit a bit covered by the title text…) as my belief is that the “Action” component is more important than all of the other elements combined. Or put another way, the other elements inform our choice of action.

The Background of this Post

A client was here last weekend for one of our Weekend Residentials. {HEY! You know you want to do this with Dar and me. Schedule one before we take off for Costa Rica in November!}

During a break, I checked e-mail. Another client had sent me the text of the profile she had created for LavaLife (a dating portal.) I was so impressed with it that I printed it out and read it to Dar and our client. I teared up half-way through, as the words and intention of this piece was something I found stunning.

I e-mailed the author, Rubina Quadri, and asked permission to print it here. She agreed, and even said I could use her name! {Yay Rubina!}

I am going to drop in the occasional comment below (in blue) but this document stand on its own. Remember, Rubina is using (Action) this statement to “pre-qualify” people she might be interested in getting to know.

Why?

Because this form of Communication is the most important factor for her, (after “single, heterosexual, male” — which is her dating starting point.) Stating this at the outset is much more helpful than “just picking anybody” (the norm in dating) and then “trying to fix them.”

See my e-book, “Getting EXACTLY the Relationship You Want” for the system Rubina used to figure all this out.

Friendship, open communication, and then?

It’s scary, but dive right in!

Open, honest, and vulnerable communication anyone…after we get to know each other a bit? Buzzwords, I know, so here’s an example of how the communication model I use breaks down.

I see you look at another woman and “feel” jealous. [Rubina put “feel” in quotes because she knows that jealousy is not a feeling; it’s an interpretation. Most people might not (yet) think this way, so she’s being kind.] This is how I would deal with it based on the model.

Sensory input (from the 5 senses) – I see your eyes looking in the direction of a woman

Feelings (body sensations not emotion) – surge of energy up from stomach with a simultaneous “sinking” sensation, heat across the back of my neck, in my cheeks, tension in my shoulders [In the Model, feelings are always just this: “What I feel in my body.”]

Perception (includes words that describe emotion and the storyline that’s going on) – [Here, Rubina, describes what she is saying to herself internally, based NOT upon the behaviour of her partner, but solely upon the stories she’s inventing. The only part that has anything at all to do with her partner is that he is looking at another woman. Everything else is going on in Rubina, (feelings, interpretations, etc. is Rubina, inventing stuff!]

“I’m making myself jealous. He’s looking at that woman.” (I don’t really know if you are until I ask you. You’re eyes may be on her but you could be thinking about that itch on your butt). “She has a great body, better than mine; he thinks she’s more attractive than me. I don’t measure up.” I “feel” insignificant and so on, whatever happens to be going on.

Now you may well be devouring that woman with your eyes and thinking about all the naughty things you’d do if you got your hot little hands on her, but that’s not really the point. The point is that I choose that story when I have those body sensations. I have the body sensations and they may be quite strong and I get an “urge” to do something with that. If I don’t have awareness of what story I’m spinning, then I would react out of that “urge”. Classic behaviours would be to accuse you of not loving me, blame you for being just like your cheating father, start a fight, break out into tears and/or insist that you stop, which would make me a hypocrite because I enjoy looking around just as much as you do, maybe even a little more

NOW at this point, with awareness, I am able to tell you about the game I’m playing with myself, and the story, and choose what I want to do with the body sensations. So I would say something like, “I’m noticing that I feel (all body sensations listed above) and I’m choosing to make myself jealous (and the other items listed above). I know, I know. It doesn’t just roll off the tongue does it? This way of speaking requires me to pay attention and not just react. Also, I’m not trying to make the feelings go away, or pretend they’re not there either.

Intention occurs when I continue to pay attention to those body sensations and I figure out what I want in that moment and what I intend to do. I might want a hug or maybe I want to pound the crap out of some pillows, or cry while you hold me or don’t hold me or lament about how my body keeps changing on me. Hey, you age or you die, right?

So I may say, “I want to cry right now and I’m going to cry for five minutes” and the Action part of the model happens when I actually do it.

I know, I know. How the heck do I know how long I’m going to cry? I don’t really, but if I am still crying after 5 minutes, I can decide if I want to keep going. If I’ve allowed the emotion to take it’s course, it probably won’t even last the whole five minutes. I’m trying to allow what’s there to be there without suppression and without fuelling it to keep it going longer than it needs to. Have you ever been crying or experiencing strong emotion, you go to take a breath for the next round and then you feel it lift and it’s just gone?

The whole point is that it isn’t real, it’s a story that grew out of body sensations. So even if you comfort me in whatever way I ask, it’s just about tuning into what’s happening in my body, not drawing you into the game. In fact, I want you to be able to differentiate your own experience from mine because it’s likely that sometimes I might try to draw you in. What can I say? I’m learning as I go!.

You don’t have to “feel” guilty, sad, wrong etc. unless that’s where you choose to go based on your own stuff. However, my goal is to not feed off each other that way. It creates stuckness.

So the intimate communication occurs in acknowledging, accepting, and revealing experiences for the sake of revelation, to show you who I am in this moment.

Many of you may be reading this and thinking, ‘No way, not for me’. I’m surprised you read this far. Thanks and I wish you all the best in your search. Others may be thinking, ‘Wow, it would be awesome to have someone to teach me how to do this.’ Think again. I am open to learning together, but you must be committed to your own growth and development, so you are either doing this already with or without an “official” model or currently use a similar type of self responsible communication.

Also, it’s easy enough for me to write about this and harder for me to do in the moment, with all those chemicals screaming “just let him have it.” So that’s why I also want you to be capable of this on your own. I’m plenty busy doing my own work.

A similar sense of humour and intellect are also baseline for me. I want to laugh my a** off with you. I’m intelligent, compassionate and caring but my humour is un-pc (more Louie CK rather than Russell Peters), a bit sarcastic and sometimes quite juvenile. Step Brothers anyone? I can’t explain why but the bunk bed scene makes me laugh every time. You can see the gag coming from a mile away…there really is no accounting for taste. Oh, did I mention I swear. Hope you have strong ears.

If you’re like minded (you don’t have to like Step Brothers. In fact, it would make more sense to me if you don’t), send me a smile. I’d like to start with friendship and compatibility and then we can decide if we want to throw anything else into the mix.

Rubina Quadri

OK, so, that’s why I teared up.

This is one of the most self-responsible statements of being “in process” I’ve ever seen. The whole “You do your work, I do mine, and we share the results” is key to elegant relating, and totally mirrors what Dar and I understand works for us, and has for 28 years. It’s what we teach, it’s what we live.

Anyway, this needs no further explanation.

For homework, even if you are in a relationship, think about writing your own “Statement of Relating.” Post what you come up with on the blog.

And, if you think relating with Rubina might be a blast [hint: it is!] post that on the blog, too, and I’ll pass it on to her.

And NO, I’m not starting a dating site!

A Question of Intent

Good communicators will ask their partner, “What was your intention in saying (or asking me) that?” It’s also a legitimate question for you to ask yourself. Just don’t stop too soon. Because intent is often not what you first think it is.

Here’s a good example of what I’m talking about: this couple has been in relationship for two years.

There’s a great set of videos of Ben & Jock doing a Relationships workshop.

Often, parents whose children are now adults have a need, an intent, to remind their kids that they are the parents.

Right up until my mother died, my dad would say, “You shouldn’t speak to your mother that way.” This was always said when I disagreed with my mother. Now, my language was the same as the language I use when talking with Dar, or with my clients —it’s direct, non-manipulative, and clear. My father’s intent was also clear. He wanted me to act like “their child,” and so, he’d find it necessary to remind me of “my place.” I would hasten to add that when my mom died in late 2000, I was a month short of 50.

Another example. I’ve seen one couple twice, the two sessions a year apart.

They have, they told me, three children, all boys. The dad says, “I lecture my boys all the time, and they never do what they are told. None of the boys is living up to his potential. They all have dead-end jobs, no relationships, live in the basement, and yell at their mother and me.”

When I asked dad for his intent in lecturing, I get, “I just want them to be happy and get ahead in life.” This begs the question, “According to whom / to what standard?”

I ask again. “I just want them to get it. I want them to grow up and be considerate.” In other words, I want them to be good little boys and behave “properly.”

I press onward, and ask again. Exasperation.

“I want them to know how tough it is to be their father. They aren’t grateful enough for all I did for them.”

One more push. “I want them to behave exactly as I think they should behave, check with me before they do anything, defer to my wishes, apologize profusely when I criticize them (he added: “My responsibility is to teach them how to be men, according to what I believe,”) and to be adoringly grateful for all my sacrifices.”

Let me add: the “boys” are 25, 28 and 32…

There are many types of hidden intent.

I’m up here because of you!
You just wait!

Rage and revenge are often hidden intents. Like in the first story, many people want to get even when they hurt themselves over the behaviour of another. Being “polite,” they may say something like “I just want her to be nicer,” or “I just want him to acknowledge me as a person.”

When I hear “just,” I cringe. There’s nothing “just” about it.

Many times, when I ask clients to go deeper into their intent, they simply present an endless list of their partner’s sins. Years worth of stuff. I’ll hear, “When my partner makes amends for all of this, then I’ll consider letting up. Until then, I’ll just keep complaining.” Doesn’t match, at all, with “I just want him to talk to me more.” It does match with, “I haven’t extracted my pound of flesh yet.”

The problem with this is that the inaccurate and mis-perceived faults of others has nothing to do with dealing with your own stuff. That requires hard work, much delving, letting go of decades long habits, and replacing dysfunctional behaviours with ones that work.

People prefer to state shallow intents and pretend they are true.

“I just want my children to be strong and independent” masks “But I want them always to come home to me so I can tell them what to do.”

“I just want a better relationship” masks “I’m going to make him/her behave by turning him/her into the man/woman s/he ought to be, or else… I’ll threaten to leave!”

“I just tell her stuff (while blaming her for everything wrong in his life…) for her own good.” masks “She should know, intuitively, that I have all the answers regarding the way this relationship ought to be done. She’d be so much happier doing it my way.”

Once we openly and honestly begin to explore and share our intentions, we can see how ridiculous, manipulative and destructive many of the deep ones are. We can then begin to surface intentions that are simple and direct.

• “My intent is to deepen my relationship with you, by being open and honest and vulnerable.”
• “My intent is to own and express my attempts to manipulate you.”
• “My intent is to treat you as an equal adult, not as a/an (object, sex object, kid, enemy, etc.)”

Look, this week, at your intentions as you communicate, as you relate. Go much deeper than the surface intent. See what else might be lurking under the surface. Wonder at what penalty you’re trying to extract. Then, share what you’ve learned. And work toward letting go of intentions that separate and divide.

Two things happened, a couple of days apart.

I got an e-mail note from a loyal reader of our blog, The Pathless Path. She was thankful for the content, and also mentioned how much she was enjoying my books. “I Imagine I’m hearing your voice as I read.”

Which led me to reflect on writing.

One of the odd things about writing is that the process itself is intensely personal. Mostly, it’s all about sorting through my life experiences, and then attempting to share them in a useful way. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. Then it’s dropped into the blog software, a “publish” date is set, and a lot of the time, that’s it. The words are labour over are gone.

Much like therapy; you never get to know the end result. Which is why I ask for feedback, and was glad to get this note.

She also asked me to comment on cyber relationships vs. face to face ones.

Last week, a client was talking about a guy at work she finds interesting. They talk, they e-mail. She doesn’t know what to do next. I suggested a dialogue, using the Communication Model (there’s a surprise, right???)

She said,

“I get it. I’ll invite him over. I’ll tell him that my back door leaks and needs weather stripping, and if he comes over and offers a “male viewpoint” on weather stripping, I’ll provide the wine.”

Not exactly what I meant, but if it gets them talking… Because real, deep, and intimate relationships take much effort, and much direct communication.

So, first, let’s look at cyber relationships.

One of the greatest problems with cyber relationships is the “charge leads to time” factor. Clients report how much time is taken up by the relationship; there is an almost addictive quality to their chat line or e-mail experience. Yet, in a sense, they are talking into a void.

Then, there is the veracity factor. Sure, there is an actual person at the other end of the contact, but until the contact shifts to meeting the other person, you can’t be sure of their sex, their marital status, their age, whether they are already in a relationship—let alone how “real” the person’s written “perception of self” is.

I did a consulting job for a corporation recently, and my contact sent the material via a high-ranking HR person. As she was heading to a meeting nearby, I suggested she stop for coffee at my home office on her way through. The brief meeting ended up lasting two plus hours; we talked about the project, then ourselves, then life in general.

That conversation has continued by e-mail. I notice, with e-mail, I am more likely to be sarcastic, ironic, than in face to face conversation. I find myself creating an artificial intimacy, to make up for the off-putting nature of the media. I suspect that I got a better “sense” of the woman from our two hour meeting that I get through our e-mails, although the e-mail has continued our contact and therefore deepened our relationship.

It’s a paradox.

As to my client, I asked her to tell me, again, about her plan for inviting the guy at work to talk. She said she found him interesting and different. I then asked her what that had to do with weather stripping. She laughed, and blushed, and said, “What do you want me to do? Tell him I find him interesting?”

I said that this was exactly what I would do, but I wasn’t sure what she should do.

I said that I’d say,

“I find our conversations interesting and I’d like to know more about you. How about getting coffee at Timmie’s and spending some time getting to know each other?” (Timmie’s is a Canadianism for Tim Horton’s, a major donut chain.)

She said, “But my way, we can sort of just fall into a conversation. Your way, he could say no.”

I replied that my approach is both direct and honest—the way I said it meant that I wanted to learn more about the person through face to face conversation.

Her way, on the other hand—weather stripping and wine at her house—has the potential for a much wider set of interpretations—sort of a Mae West, “How’d you like to come upstairs and realign my weather stripping” kind of thing.

What I’m getting at is this: relationships are difficult enough without making them more difficult.

It is essential that people meet eyeball to eyeball, knee to knee, in dialogue, and if you really want the relationship to go somewhere, you need a Communication Model, and you need to “do communicating” all the time.

And this kind of dialogue, to be valuable, needs to be stripped of pretense and game playing, so that what is said is accurate, honest, open and descriptive of what is going on.

Cyber relationships, even ones that include phone calls, are hidden behind a protective layer of technology.

There is a certain safety in the once-removed-ness of the technology. When I was about 10, I listened to my baby sitter break up with her boyfriend over the phone. I thought that was cool, so I called up my “girlfriend” (at 10, that means we liked each other and talked) and broke up with her like my babysitter did. I felt pumped—having said things I’d never have said in person.

That Sunday, her dad came up to me at church and reamed me out, and deservedly so. Because I couldn’t see her through the telephone line, I had no idea what the effects of my words was on her, until he told me a bit of it.

Later, when I was 18, she and I talked about it (I was slow and thick back then … ) and she still was able to feel the pain that I had been totally unaware of. Had I said those words to her face (of course, I wouldn’t have—that’s my point), I’d have seen her very deep response.

So, all of you in cyber relationships, cool. So far as it goes. Don’t however, confuse them with real relationships. No matter how badly you want to.

And for all of you contemplating face to face relationships, try being honest, instead of playing games. Ask someone out for coffee and conversation. Be straight with people—“I’m interested in continuing this conversation and being your friend, but for me this is not about romance,” for example. (see Intimate Relationships for more ideas—near the bottom of the article.)

Some people won’t like it or want to play by the “honesty and openness rules” you want to use. OK. Move on. Seek those who are willing to open up, or who are at least willing to explore opening up.

Hint: you’re never going to find a relationship without drama and conflict. The only way through such conflict is daily dialogue. Not talking, holding grudges, playing games, yelling, trying to be “clever”—all lead to more conflict. Face to face dialogue is key—and you must commit to doing it, even when you don’t want to.

In the end, the depth of our being is determined by how well we are willing to be open and honest—in this moment. This requires being physically present with our partner, and the willingness to communicate with vulnerability. It requires observation, and the sharing of feelings. Anything that gets in the way, whether it is technology or weather stripping, means “living life once removed.”

And life, simply, is too short for that.

The greatest error in relationship-building comes from the idea that your partner can “make you whole,” or will “make you happy.” Here are 3 riffs on relating!

Riff the First — The black hole

I look at my core, the center of my being. I push deep down with my fist to find a calmness I can take outside myself and spread on my arms and legs and face. But when I get there, it’s like an earthquake. There is no calm center, no big teddy bear at the core of my soul. It’s all fragmented and shattered and quaking. And as soon as I recognize it, I give it permission to come out and shake the rest of me. And it does.— Kelly Stern, THESE ARE MY BONES, Dissertation, The Graduate Faculty of The University of Southwestern Louisiana, 1997

A client, last week, said, “I just realized that, for all of my life, I’ve been looking for someone to fill up this black hole I feel inside. I now know that no one can do that for me.” I hastened to add that he couldn’t do it for himself, either. The black hole is real, always present, and its feeling is anxiety.

Its source is our fear of non-being – our fear of death.

We need to understand that all of us are anxious, all of us feel the black hole, and most of us have been conditioned to either deny the feeling, or blame it on external circumstances. Many of us have forged relationships for exactly the reason he states – to have someone else in our lives to make it all better.”

Our death fear blinds us the the truth that no one, including ourselves, can fill in the black hole. There is no certainty to life, beyond the final one – death.

“Life, as a purposeless drift, is a series of accommodations an organism makes as it moves through a medium. By definition, every accommodation is successful, except the last.” Language Structure & Change, pg. 47)

So, we can sit down and feel sorry for ourselves, or we can get up and engage with the present moment. Right now–is Now.

Riff the Second — shining light into the hole

I’ve spend a lot of time encouraging my clients to go out and have a conversation with someone they find interesting. I invite them to make contact—eye to eye and knee to knee. I ask them to go and listen to someone else; to find out what another person thinks life is all about. They don’t have to buy into what the other person is saying, or change in any way. I want them to learn to reach out, to listen and to share.

Why? Because life is a purposeless drift – but not a meaningless one.

In the context of life and living, purpose implies following a “path of purpose” imposed from the outside. Meaning describes the explanation I give to my life.

Meaning is personal.

I love working with couples, many years married, who finally talk to each other from their depths, intimately, softly, with care and compassion. And almost universally, one or the other will look at the other with wonder and exclaim, “Oh my God, you mean you’re scared too? I thought it was just me!”

Riff the third—Meaning becomes meaning-full through intimacy.

As I inter-act with Dar, I remember that she has been listening to “me do me” since 1984. When I come up with some new version of me, which may be so overwhelmingly interesting to me that I just swallow it whole, Dar can offer the perspective of long association, and ask me to come off of my cloud and test what I’m saying.

And I can do the same for her.

This is NOT about Dar making me whole. It’s not about finding someone to complete me. Relationship, for me, is a place where I feel free to share who I am. My goal is to learn about me, accept, joyfully, my being in the face of my non-being, and to share myself with at least one other person, deeply and intimately. And then to sit back and watch and listen to Dar doing the same with me.

A Primer on Intimacy Projects

This is a Haven term for an exercise in self-revelation. The important part is that there are parameters for the project. I’ve been lately proposing three levels, and told several clients I’d post it here:

1. dialogue — this is the minimum requirement–that there be open, honest, and intimate dialogue. We propose following the basic communication model to do so, (see here for the Haven Communication Model) with the goal of digging deeply and learning more of both “self” and “partner.” This project can be done with pretty much anyone, but definitely not with everyone.
2. physical contact — after the above is established, one or both might propose levels of physical contact (i.e. touch, hand-holding, hugging, kissing, massage, etc.) It’s essential to create flexible boundaries in this area, and to immediately discuss areas of confusion / discomfort.
3. sexual contact — after the above two have been established, one or both might propose the addition of sexual contact, again, at the various levels possible. Intimacy projects do not requite sexual expression (despite the mis-use of the word intimacy…) and most actually do not involve it.

If you want to explore sexuality, having the other two levels in place first means that the experience has the greatest potential to be positive.

With intimacy, anything is possible. We have the chance to trust, to open, to be vulnerable, and especially, to explore our own darkness, in the presence of someone who is curious and chooses to acts as a mirror.

In the depth of our darkness we reach out and enter into a dialogue. And in that reaching out and making contact – in the touch – there is light.