Sensitive beings who don’t know how to work with their sensitivity are often “over there” in their partner’s lap energetically, tracking them, noticing them, and then responding to whatever they are reading in Other.

So, here’s a quick 3-STAGE SENSITIVITY MAP to see where you are:

Stage 1 sensitivity. In other person’s lap energetically and emotionally. Person can be a healer-type or simply a shut down dude who, as a child, had to track everything about his environment in order to feel safe. They learn over time to posture over this sensitivity by putting on a thick skin, acting “fine,” etc. But as an adult (since they haven’t done anything to address it), they continue to be tracking everything, mostly unconsciously, looking for a threat. So, in adult relationships they are habitually more tuned in to the other person, than to themselves. They are dependent on their other person’s emotional state in order to regulate themselves and feel okay.

Stage 2: Taking attention off them and putting it on me. Learning how to take responsibility for my own space and experience. This begins to untangle emotional fusion and enmeshment. We learn how to communicate feelings and sensations that arise in me, that are not about you, but often in response to you. When you do X behavior, I feel Y (what’s going on with me). Non-violent communication (NVC) is a helpful tool here. If folks can’t get this one, the relationship will likely remain in a complacent, reactive, co-dependent stage. This one should be taught in grade school to every kid until they master it.

Stage 3: Advanced skill. Learning to track both them and me at the same time, for the sole purpose of deepening connection. Shuttling between what I notice about you and what I notice about me in each moment, but still talking about me and my experience of myself.  I now have choice about being “over there” in your space and I can even share things while owning them as what I’m perceiving or projecting. “I’m projecting that you are shut down or mad honey, and I’m making that about me.  I notice I feel anxious when I sense that. Is that what’s happening over there?” I’m also open to being wrong about them and coming back to me. This person has the ability to be themselves and set boundaries (another critical skill for the sensitive person) regardless of the other person’s reaction. This approach can serve to deepen and strengthen the connection if used skillfully.

Of course, you’ll also want to understand c0-depency and agency, or differentiation.

To us sensitive ones, everything matters, everything. And that is just right, wonderful, and okay. But we might feel like our sensitivity is “too much,” a burden, a problem. Somewhere along the way for example, our sensitive nature might have been judged, criticized, or shut down. Our sensitivity was not welcome for whatever reason. Fortunately our sensitive-ness never goes anywhere. Some of us just learned to cover it up through behaviors and strategies that squashed it, ignored it, or overrode it. We might have even learned to manipulate our environment or the people around us. But the cool thing about being a sensitive being is that you can’t turn it off. Nor is there a switch to turn it down.

The good news is there are very effective ways we each can learn to work with, and alongside, our sensitive nature. For example, we can learn to turn down the dial of our reactivity, thus responding to our environment with skillful means. We can set up our environment to allow in less stimulation so we don’t get blown out or overwhelmed. We can reel in our energy and instead of being “out there” with our energy, we can be “in here” with ourselves. We can learn effective boundaries to honor our sensitive nature and we can begin to train our community to know us in this way and to honor us as we are. Then we can really tap in to the wisdom of our sensitivity and begin to use it to serve others even more effectively.

And if we are raising sensitive kids? If we have no knowledge of, and skill with, our sensitivity, we will act out a lot and our kids will pay the price. If, on the other hand, we have dexterity with our sensitivity, we can be super helpful to our children and train them (through our actions) in how to work with theirs. Embracing our sensitivity is what allows us to learn to work with it’s magic. Thank you sensitive ones, for being exactly the way you are.

Related Posts:

Co-Dependency

Agency

Feel Your Feelings

Photo by Moyan_Brenn, creative commons, Flickr

A lot of folks, including me, get trapped into thinking that intimacy equals closeness. But if any of us are paying attention to ourselves, we see the setup in that. If we see intimacy through this perspective, we spend vast amounts of energy denying, rejecting, or judging ourselves around our need for space and separateness. Some of us might even become co-dependent or emotionally fused with our partner in our denial of this fundamental need. Instead of this kind of one-sided intimacy, let’s embrace the other side—separateness. Then ask ourselves, “How to I accept these seemingly contradictory energies at the same time, rather than pretend to be all about closeness?” It is critical, if we want long-term, vibrant intimacy, that we heed the words of Bruce Tift and come to know and accept intimacy as a balancing act between separateness and closeness.

photo by Karen Sheets de Gracia, flickr creative commons

I’m aware of some new dads who are in quite the bind. On the one hand, they are devoted to their family. They love their family. So much so, that they work very hard to “provide” a good income and stability for their family. But then, at the very same time, they also feel pressure to be home more—more involved, and more available to their kids. So they bust their ass at their job all day, then “work hard” trying to be a good dad at home. They come home, take over, and might be “on” until after bedtime. Then they are “on” on weekends. They feel pressure on both fronts to show up big. On top of these two, they might also want to be a “good” husband and really be there for their partner with the limited time left. Oh yeah, if there’s any space left, he probably wants space for himself by getting some quality personal time, time to check out, or whatever (notice how this is very last). Pretty soon, this dad is pulled in a number of directions.

The “good guy” heroic personality-types try to meet everyone else’s needs before their own. He puts pressure on himself to “be the man” everywhere. Of course, this is impossible. Something’s gotta give. What might arise eventually is a sense of guilt, as though he is not doing enough. The guilt and inner tension can lead to him resenting his job, wife, or kids, or he can simply check out or shut down. It’s as though no amount of effort is ever enough. The way out for this Dad is to learn how to balance his own needs alongside his family’s needs, and really examine (with outside help) his motives. Why does he need to be superman and when did he sign up for this? Where did he get this message and is it even his? His dads? His culture’s? What’s realistic here? How does he find peace with exactly how he is showing up, whatever that looks like?

If he does some good self-inquiry, he might find is that he once again bought into a role and his childhood pattern, rather than doing the inner work of discovering who he really is and what he really needs/wants. When he begins to examine and change his behavior to align with his true Self, he can eventually find a balance that really serves him and his family in a nourishing and sustainable way.

Art by Bryce Widom

Wow. This feels vulnerable…

Sex is a crucible. It has always been a very confronting domain for me. I face my brightest light and my darkest shadow. I (somewhat) successfully avoided going deeper sexually for years because: 1) shame, 2) lack of self/body awareness, 3) wounds and cluelessness, and, 4) I always stayed in short term relationships where I would bail when 1-3 happened or when insecurity or inadequacy surfaced.

In more recent years, as I continue to awaken my sexuality at a deeper level, more opens up for me. I see how, as a man, I bought into my conditioning to perform, please her, or get it right. This approach to sex of course, stops the natural, divine flow of intimacy and kept me stuck in a limited sexual expression. Now, as I grow and develop here, I learn that there are five keys to expanding my sexual range: 1) dropping my agenda 2) attune and connect to myself and all of my body in each moment, and 3) connect to my love for my partner (inside my own body) which allows my heart to be online and engaged, 4) connect to my partner, and 5) be a YES to whatever happens.

Being connected to “some of me” changes our connection and has an impact on both of us. For example, when my heart is off-line, our connection is compromised. The way into deeper intimacy for me is to connect to my heart. The way I do that is to really drop into, and feel, my love for my partner. From this base, I can then meet, and connect to her in each moment, fresh, new, in the mystery of our embrace. From here, when I stay connected, anything is possible. Sexual challenges are now opportunities to be felt as healing experiences in the body, rather than “problems” to avoid. And if one of us gets triggered in any way, I slow down and practice saying YES, even to that. Relaxing. Trusting. This too is part of my journey and part of the vulnerability, magic, and sacredness of sex.

On the ride and learning…

photo by By nataliesophia, creative commons Flickr

“I’d like to say something to her without her freaking out.”

Why’s her reaction a problem? What’s wrong with your partner freaking out?

Most folks have it that the reason they hold back their truth in relationship is because their partner can’t handle it or will get too upset. Sorry folks, but the main reason many of us hold back is that we are afraid. Afraid of what? A few things, but mainly our reaction to their reaction. We are afraid of our own stuff that gets triggered when they get triggered. This is the enmeshed stance in relationship. “I can’t be me because I might upset you, so I’ll protect myself and withhold what I really want to say.” Meanwhile I rob them the opportunity to grow by not saying anything. So what if the other person gets upset? That is their problem, not yours (and, if we are on it, we can make space for their reactivity and love them through it). We have to learn how to be smarter and more courageous than this in relationship, especially if we care about being who we truly are, and especially if we really do love the other person. Let’s give them a chance and trust they can handle who we are. If they can’t, perhaps it’s time to move on.

Related Posts:

The Ayahuasca Wave

The Jungle Prescription, a ayahuasca documentary coming out soon.

Gabor Mate on Parenting, ADD, Raising Boys

Flickr Creative Commons artist Jsome1

How does a man, who is a father and sole-provider, resent his wife after many years? Somehow he thinks it’s her fault that he bought into a role and abandoned himself and his needs. This justifies his “shut down” stance and perpetuates a classic feedback loop in the relationship where he is not emotionally or energetically available to his partner or kids. The loop goes like this:

His kids want more. His wife wants more. Life might even want more of him. He may start to feel overwhelmed or engulfed. He might check out, shut down, or pull away, which only increases his partner’s need and his kids’ needs (the loop). The wife and kids’ start to reach for him even more, until one day they give up and the relationship calcifies into complacency. The man successfully avoids more intimacy. Years go by and the wife pours her heart and intimacy needs into her children. Meanwhile the children lose respect for Dad and he has less and less authority over them. The couple stops having sex or barely relating. They become roommates that learn to get along with a mountain of resentments just under the surface. Yikes! Help!

To short-circuit this downward spiral and to not be this guy, the man must A) get the smackdown from a mid-life crisis, thus entering a massive personal growth journey, or B) learn to take better care of himself in relationship.

He must learn to get his own separateness needs met by setting skillful boundaries. He must think “me first.” Space, time to me. But not time to “check out” or avoid. Time to “check in.” To do this, he has to “want” to do it, rather than feel obligated to do it. (Sometimes the only thing that motivates him is his wife leaving him, a.k.a. mid-life crisis).

Next, he must be brave. The first thing he’ll have to face is his partner’s reaction to his boundaries, which is yet another opportunity to face his own discomfort. He’ll need to stop blaming her for his inability to take care of himself. At some point, he will begin to experience the benefits of getting to know himself and taking better care of himself in his intimate relationship.

He’ll slowly return to his wife and kids more resourced and ready for “more” connection.

A light bulb flickers on as he sees that “taking space” serves to create more connection and intimacy instead of less. Because he wants a different life, he is now motivated to be the change. He can examine more closely his fears of intimacy and why he’s so scared in relationship. Oxygen pours back in to the relationship as he fights for the one thing that has eluded him for so many years—love.

Connection

The foundation of a vibrant intimate partnership is the experience of feeling connected to each other. This is akin to some kind of attuned flow state between two people. It’s a couple’s homebase. From this fertile connectivity, anything is possible.

When two people don’t have this kind of connection as a ground to return to, and they don’t make it THE primary issue to focus on, they get distracted and loop in symptomology.

Attending to the ever-shifting, dynamic, relational current between each other, is a daily practice for the committed couple. To work their connection, both parties need to take on, as a devotional practice, their connection to themselves. I’ll struggle to connect to you, if I’m not connected to me.

Their core connection requires that both people are committed to their own sovereignty in the relationship (differentiation), while simultaneously attending to the garden between them.

Enmeshment

The challenge of course, is that many couples confuse this core connection with the feelings they experienced during the honeymoon stage where most things felt good, where both people were emotionally fused in a temporary love fog. They keep trying to come back to that fleeting feeling of fantasy and projection. Both couples here get hooked in an immature view of relationship and intimacy. They believe the fairy tales and movies and feel constantly frustrated when they can’t return to the warm fuzzies of the first few months. They then get trapped looking to their partner for their own sense of okayness. At some point, they abandon themselves in service of the relationship. When trying to correct this dynamic, they often get very focused on symptoms, rather than the real issue.

Understanding this key distinction moves a lot of couples from frustration to satisfaction if they are up for the real work of relationship.

related post: Co-Dependency