When a Day Feels Too Long

Really, the trick is “having.”  Having what you have.  Choosing what you have.  Allowing yourself to be present to what you have.  Being grateful.

Sometimes the thing we want so much is right in front of us, if we’re willing to let ourselves just have it. I think a lot of us struggle with this.  I wrote the following for my partner, JoAnn, in the wake of such a struggle.

When a day feels too long
When people aren’t much fun
You drive home in the waning light
Looking for a nowhere moon
On a gray dismal day

With your knees aching
Feeling somewhat colder than before
Warding off today’s headache
With yet another Anacin
As you squeeze the car
For the millionth time
Into your narrow garage

And dragging too many
Bags of clothes, food, makeup
Open your door
To cold, darkened rooms
And you climb the stairs
To take off your face
And, for whatever reason
Take a cold, hard, maybe
Too close look at yourself
And think God
Am I’m getting old

And when you move
Slightly out of the way
Of your own reflection
And see me standing behind you
Smiling
You think to yourself
Maybe just once in my life
I could let myself have
The one thing I’ve
Always said I’ve wanted.

And when I look at
You in the mirror
I see so much more
Than a beautiful woman
I see a brilliant, gifted
Giving soul who can
Meet me where I live

And it makes me think
Maybe just once in my life
I could have for myself
The one thing I’ve
Always said I’ve wanted.

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What Are New Earth Relationships?

In A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose, Eckhart Tolle talks about a world where a critical mass of the population has an elevated conscious.  My book, New Earth Relationships, A Guide for Couples in the 21st Century, describes a process for you and your partner to support each other in elevating your respective consciousness.

Beyond having our basic survival needs met (shelter, food, clothes, health), what does make us happy?  Here’s a short list.

  • Feeling loved.
  • Feeling lovable, worthy and capable of having someone love us.
  • Feeling balanced and internally peaceful.
  • Feeling at one with the universe.
  • Being of service – having an experience that we make a difference.

If we want to feel contented and fulfilled, that’s where we need to put our energies.  If we want to get there, we need to learn how to be present and grateful. If you can get there without doing any more work on yourself, you have my congratulations. For the majority of us, perhaps the purpose of having a relationship is to support our intent to work on ourselves.

A new earth relationship gives us someone to push our buttons, so we’ll have to do that work. A new earth relationship allows us to get the positive and negative feedback we need in order to true ourselves to a higher purpose. And a new earth relationship gives us a real partner to support us during the good and bad times.

Sometimes the thing we want so much is right in front of us, if we’re willing to let ourselves see it.

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Exercise: Loving Communications

Goal

Offering loving written communications, notes, cards, poems and so on to your partner on a weekly, or more frequent, basis.

Instructions

Write a note to your partner.  It may simply be an “I love you” left in your partner’s lunch bag, on your partner’s pillow, in your partner’s car, on your partner’s voicemail, etc.

Recommended Frequency

Once a day for three weeks or at least 21 times within two months.

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Exercise: Feeling Safe, Loved and Cared About

Goal

Communicating what makes you feel safe and what makes you feel loved and cared about, and routinely reviewing your partner’s list. Being responsible for your part in having your partner feel safe, loved and cared about.

Instructions

Each partner makes an initial list of what makes that partner feel safe, loved and cared about.

After each of you have made your lists, share them with each other. Review the lists to make sure you understand what your partner is communicating.

Each week, add at least one item to your list and share the entire list with each other.

Recommended Frequency

Once initially, and then each week for eight weeks, or at least eight updates in three months.

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Exercise: Being Responsible for Getting Acknowledged

Goal

Being responsible for getting yourself acknowledged, despite how awkward it initially feels to do so.

Instructions

Partner 1: Request that your partner acknowledge you for something specific: for example, “I’d like to be acknowledged for getting a raise last month.”

Partner 2: Acknowledge your partner.

Partner 1: Feed back to your partner as to whether you feel acknowledged. If you don’t feel acknowledged, communicate what was missing.

Partner 2: If at first you don’t succeed, continue to acknowledge your partner until you do.

Switch roles and repeat.

Recommended Frequency

Once a week for nine weeks, or at least nine times in three months.

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Exercise: Making Declarations

Goal

Making declarations to create a future for your relationship.

Instructions

Every other week, switch off which partner does this. Make a declaration to your partner – anything from “I love you” to some future state in which you can envision your relationship (for example, “In one year we’re going to be the most loving, passionate couple we know”).  It’s now your responsibility to live into this declaration and bring it into existence.

Recommended Frequency

Once a month for six months, a total of three times each.

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Exercise: Making and Keeping Promises

Goal

Making and keeping promises to your partner.  Holding your partner accountable for  his promises.

Instructions

Partner 1: Make a promise to your partner, if you have not already done so in the previous exercise, Making and Accepting Requests.  Make sure it meets each of the four criteria as stated in the Promises section of Chapter 11: Tools for Effective Communication.

Partner 2: If you feel you can count on your partner to keep his promise, accept it and lovingly hold your partner to account. If not, work with your partner to revise her promise to something for which you’re willing to be accountable.

Switch roles and repeat.

Recommended Frequency

Once a week for nine weeks, or at least nine times in three months.

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Exercise: Making and Accepting Requests

Goal

Making requests of your partner and being open to your partner’s requests. Making counteroffers to requests that you do not wish to accept.

Instructions

Partner 1: Make a request of your partner.

Partner 2: Accept, reject or counteroffer the request.

Switch roles and repeat.

Recommended Frequency

Once a week for nine weeks, or at least nine times in three months.

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Exercise: Delivering Withheld Communications

Goal

Identifying what wants to be communicated that you are withholding from your partner, and then communicating responsibly and powerfully.

Instructions

Partner 1: Communicate something you are withholding from your partner.

Partner 2: Really hear your partner and validate your partner’s experience.

Switch roles and repeat.

Recommended Frequency

Once a week for nine weeks, or at least nine times in three months.

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Exercise: Delivering Complaints

Goal

Delivering complaints about your partner in a manner that is nurturing of your partner’s ego, loving, responsible and effective.

Instructions

Partner 1: Practice delivering a complaint to your partner following the recipe for complaining in the section Complaining Responsibly of Chapter 11: Tools for Effective Communication.  Start with something relatively small, and over the nine weeks work your way up to the bigger complaints after you’ve had success with smaller ones.

Partner 2: Provide feedback to your partner.  Did your partner use “I messages,” if appropriate? Did your partner make the communication easy for you to hear? Did your partner come from a loving place in delivering the communication?

Repeat the process with the same complaint until Partner 1 can deliver the complaint in a way that is effective and loving for Partner 2.

Switch roles; have Partner 2 communicate a complaint and Partner 1 provide feedback.

Recommended Frequency

Once a week for nine weeks, or at least nine times in three months.

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