by Donna Eden
Meanwhile, Barash and Lipton go on, if a woman plays her hand well, the arrangement allows her to be impregnated by men with superior genes and higher status than her own while ensuring that she and her offspring will be provided for by a man inclined to make a strong investment in progeny he believes to be his. Oxytocin is a powerful propellant for women to bond with one partner, but the historical record as well as evolutionary biology suggest that both men and women are wired, though in very different ways, for sexual liaisons outside their primary relationship. As we look at these scholarly conclusions, we ask ourselves, “What’s wrong with this picture?” A lot, actually, if you are wanting your relationship to take you to the most profound depths that two people can reach together.
Will Self-Defeating Impulses Always Run the Show?
Here’s some good news. In a carefully documented scholarly paper called “Is Biology Destiny?,” philosopher Phil Gasper concluded that “the key to our ancestors’ success was their enormous flexibility and ability to learn, not patterns of behavior hardwired into their brains.”74 The male inclination to spread his seed far and wide may be powerful, but it is not a biological imperative. The female inclination toward suitors other than her partner may be powerful, but it is not a biological imperative. As our brains evolved and increased in size, no longer were rigid biological programs the basis of social behavior. We are endowed with the neural connections, logic, and memory to steer beyond the hazards inherent in our biological instincts. We are capable of navigating in ways that are not bound to outmoded strategies in our hardwired biological programming. Even as legions of conflicting biological and social forces are scurrying around in our psyches when we commit ourselves to “till death do us part,” the evolutionary advantage of the human brain is in its enormous flexibility. Polygamy is a choice. Monogamy is a choice. Most of the women we know are less driven by the pursuit of better genes than by the pursuit of attention, love, and affection.
Monogamy vs. Monotony
Monogamy, if from the heart, is an agreement to enter into deep communion with another human being. . . . While the mortal mind sees monogamy as a feast for guilt, the divine mind sees it as a feast for love. At the level of our souls, we do not want monogamy in order to imprison each other, but to free each other—to create a context where the deepest level of safety might occur . . . that the deepest level of growth might occur.
—MARIANNE WILLIAMSON, ENCHANTED LOVE75
Our teen years were shaped by the sixties. As our outlooks were developing, we were exposed to free love, women’s lib, open marriage, and the impact of contraception on sexual attitudes and behavior. We will admit to having considered numerous arrangements during our long and tumultuous relationship. But we are fully convinced at this point, and have been for many years, that every attempt to support freedom and variety through sexual liaisons outside our relationship had high potential for creating pain and distance. The damage would far outweigh the fleeting pleasures and even the deep soulful connections. In whatever way they operate within you, sexual drives are powerful forces that can be (1) squandered, (2) used in ways that are divisive to your primary relationship, or (3) channeled in ways that deepen it and make it more wondrous. This is why we have learned to enjoy sharing any attractions with one another—recall Brian Swimme—rather than trying to suppress them or allow them to take us in directions that divert us from intimacy.
We realized long ago that if we want our partnership to grow closer and more profound, our priority, even when things become strained or stale between us, needs to be on renewing the vitality of our own relationship. While it requires some chutzpah to broadcast that we have discovered what was right there in the Sixth Commandment all along about sexual relationships outside a marriage, we are also broadcasting the deep but elusive truth that monogamy need not equal monotony. Keeping our relationship fresh and vital keeps each of us fresh and vital.
Marriages that have gone the distance in a manner that supports each partner’s growth tend to remain interesting and exciting. Sue Johnson, who developed the most effective approach to couple counseling that has been investigated by scientific research, observes that “hot sex doesn’t lead to secure love,” but rather “secure attachment leads to hot sex” as well as to “love that lasts.”76 Couples whose love does last have developed a sense of deep understanding, safety, and soul connection—all of which play into the fact that many women report that they enjoy sex more after years of marriage than they did when they were first married.77 As Mary Jo Rapini observed: “My husband says things and touches me now in a way that is much deeper than when we first married. . . . Our way of communicating is different than it was. I get him, and he gets me. Couples who have been happily married for a long time understand the concept of feeling ‘freer’ with marriage than they were being single.”78 Asked about his many opportunities to stray while discussing his fifty-year marriage with Joanne Woodward, Paul Newman replied, “Why go out for a hamburger when you have steak at home?”79 Channeling your passion into your relationship brings out the beauty in your partner and your partnership.
We are not saying or even feeling that our path should be your path. If you have found a better arrangement, go for it! We know of polyamorous arrangements that were done in a manner that felt sacred to the participants. But if you want to use your sexuality as a sacrament for the deepest spiritual connection available to you and your partner, monogamy paves a path that can lead there. Writing about sacred sexuality, Anaiya Sophia states it strongly. To enter “the space of deep communion” allowed by “the penetrating process of sexual intercourse . . . there must be no other man or woman on the sidelines . . . The back door of your sexual exchanges needs to be firmly closed for this sacrament to work alchemically. . . . Energetically this sacred act can only take place when we close the back door and cast instead a sacred circle.”80
On to Chapter 9
Your sexual relationship is the first of the mutually created aspects of love we are addressing in this final section of the book. Building a conscious partnership is next.
9
Conscious Partnership
Staying Awake through the Highs and the Lows
The highest purpose of intimacy is to call forth the beloved’s soul.
—MARIANNE WILLIAMSON1
The term conscious partnering is bandied about a good deal in couple self-help books, teleseminars, and workshop descriptions, yet we were unable to find a good definition of what it means. Conscious partnering as contrasted with what? Normal partnering? Unconscious partnering? To put “consciousness” into context, only a fraction of your brain is dedicated to conscious thought. In a typical waking moment, in fact, the parts of your brain involved with conscious thought process about forty nerve impulses per second while the brain areas involved with activity outside your consciousness process forty million nerve impulses per second.2 However complicated your life may seem, it would be even worse if you were consciously tracking each instruction your brain generates.
This suggests, with no insult intended, that “unconscious partnering” plays a much larger role in your relationship with your beloved than conscious partnering. Fortunately, much of this works to your advantage. You may have, for instance, eventually learned to automatically leave the TV clicker in the agreed-upon spot. Your subconscious mind is a storehouse of the lessons life has taught you as well as your natural abilities and intuitive wisdom. Along with countless automated actions as mundane as putting on your shoes, your subconscious mind holds innumerable instructions for more complex actions and has access to transcendent sources of inspiration for solving the bewildering problems life presents and for pursuing your most creative aspirations. While your subconscious mind is an enormous source of sound guidance that is available 24/7, it also stores past hurts, self-limiting beliefs, unresolved conflicts, and dysfunctional behavioral strategies. So it doesn’t always work to your advantage. Because a large per
centage of our cognitive activity is controlled by outmoded genetic or acquired programs downloaded into the subconscious mind, explains Bruce Lipton, we are compelled, despite our most sincere conscious intentions and desires, “to lunge for the Krispy Kreme donuts in the refrigerator or fall for the biggest jerk at the party—again.”3
In this chapter, we will explore the nature of conscious partnering and describe seven qualities of consciousness that you can cultivate, using energy techniques, to make your journey together a richer one. We will also identify outmoded biological programming and habitual patterns that undermine conscious partnering as well as happiness and suggest ways of overcoming them.
A Glimpse into a Conscious Partnership
In trying to make the concept of conscious partnering more concrete, we could think of no better way than to interview a couple who illustrate its principles in their living experience. We asked ourselves, of all the couples we know, who do we think really “walk their talk” in terms of what they strive for in a relationship? A couple came immediately to mind. Both are noted musicians. We sent an e-mail asking if we could interview them for our book on love. They were actually leaving the next day for a recording in New York City where the husband, Paul Horn, was going to accompany his old buddy Tony Bennett, who was performing with Lady Gaga! It promised to be an interesting mix. We got to conduct and record our interview with them over Skype just before that trip.
Paul is a jazz hall of fame flautist who, in addition to Tony Bennett and now Lady Gaga, has played with Duke Ellington, Nat King Cole, and Paul McCartney, among many other world-class musicians. He was first known to us through his haunting meditative solo flute recordings, done inside the Taj Mahal, the Great Pyramid, and other sacred sites beginning in the 1960s. Donna first met Paul in 1963 during the successful healing of a grieving, dying killer whale while Paul played to it. Paul is married to Ann Mortifee, a dear friend to both of us since we met her in 1990. Ann is a singer, composer, and playwright. During the first Earth Day festivities in Vancouver, in 1970, she sang her songs to eighty thousand people. David and Ann have worked together. Their first project was an album for people facing death, Serenade at the Doorway, which is still used by many hospices throughout the world. Ann closed the 1994 Commonwealth Games with “Healing Journey” from that album, heard by hundreds of millions of people worldwide.
Different Temperaments
Ann and Paul first met when Ann had written a musical score for the Royal Winnipeg Ballet in 1971 and Paul was one of the musicians, but they did not become a couple until after they had raised their own families. We asked, “We know that you, like us, have very different temperaments—how do you make that work?” With her wonderful dramatic flair, Ann described an image she once saw in a temple in India:
In the middle of the temple, there stood a sculpture of Shiva [one of the major Hindu deities] and dancing around him were statues of the sixty-four dakinis [forms] of Shakti [the goddess of female creative energy]. On one of the statues she has blood dripping from her mouth. She holds a sword in one hand and the head of Shiva in the other. In another, she’s a beautiful Madonna. In another, she’s the sexy lady. And Shiva, in the middle, remains always the same. It’s like he’s saying: “Whoa, look at her go!” And I remember thinking, “If I am ever with a man who can let me be all the selves that I am, that would be marvelous!” And Paul lets me! He doesn’t hold me to some expectation. Perhaps I have come to a brink where I physiologically need a good cry or I will explode. I burst into tears, weep deeply, and he is right there saying, “Let it go, let it go!” Maybe at some point he’ll say, “I love you,” or “I’m here,” but it doesn’t wrangle him in the slightest. He doesn’t worry about me. He is simply there. [Paul interrupts, “I might say, ‘What a woman! There she goes! Hold on! Let me get my camera.’” We all laugh. Ann continues:] We both simply recognize that one of my dakinis has just gone by! And so I feel a tremendous permission to be as extreme as I am. Being loved like we love each other has changed my physiology. Something has relaxed in me so that now I almost never go to those extreme emotional places anymore. I have become more balanced than I ever thought would be possible for me. The little voice in me that always believed someone was judging me, which they usually were, is completely gone with Paul. So whatever I go through passes very quickly and a new pathway is being created from my subconscious mind and into my consciousness. Old patterns simply fall away.
Sharing Separate Paths
PAUL: “Both people have to do their own work, walk their own path. The path is about the big questions. ‘What am I here for?’ ‘What’s important?’ Of course common interests are also necessary, but when people have done their own work on these big questions, or at least have made a good start on them, then the relationship is going to be based on their deeper journeys, not on externals.”
ANN: “Both of us have done an immense amount of work. I was not looking for someone to complete me. I wasn’t hungry for someone to give me something that would make me feel good or fill a void. I was content to live alone for the rest of my life if that was what was meant to be. So was Paul. But I was open for a true partner to continue evolving with me. I already came with a basketful of my own Self, as did Paul. Both of us have gone through the joys and agonies of love with other people, and we’ve both come to a place of having made a clear decision to either live alone or to create something truly splendid.”
PAUL: “Having had other relationships in our lives, we would often say, half kidding, ‘If it’s going to be fun and rich, I’m in. Otherwise, I’m not interested.’”
The Real Purpose of Marriage
Paul spent time in India with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi at the Maharishi’s ashram in 1967 and then again in 1968, the year of the Beatles’ famed stay. He returned as one of the first teachers of Transcendental Meditation. The Maharishi had said something to Paul that has become a cornerstone of Paul and Ann’s relationship: “The purpose of marriage is to help each other grow to cosmic consciousness as quickly as possible.” They took that on as their motto—that their real purpose together is to help one another evolve to their fullest potentials.
Allies, Not Enemies
ANN: “That’s been right at the center of our relationship from the beginning. When we are at the edge of old patterns, of misunderstandings, we pull out. We say, ‘This does not serve us. We are allies. I am never going to look at you as my enemy. You are my ally.’ Anytime that an argument comes up, we immediately stop and say, ‘Okay, I need to learn something here.’ We don’t point fingers at one another. We’re very disciplined in that. Paul never calls me on things in a negative way. He sees when I’m overwhelmed, and he’s very tender with me, very sweet with me, and it dissipates like that [snaps fingers]. Sometimes, when you’ve got so much to do, it’s easy to forget that there are things that are more important than changing the hydrofilter [laughter]. It’s very sweet to be so kind to each other. Speaking the truth with kindness brings out the best.”
PAUL: “Or as Maharishi used to say, ‘Speak the sweet truth.’”
Another Damned Opportunity to Evolve
ANN: “We have opposite difficulties and learning edges. Usually for me it’s got to do with discernment. Not being clear enough, not being focused, not using my best judgment. And for Paul, it’s usually about not being as accepting or compassionate as he could be with others. So we know this about each other. I know the little quirks that Paul has. He knows mine. When something comes up that causes me to react in a negative way, I always ask myself: ‘What is it in me that triggers this reaction? Why do I lose my equilibrium when this comes up?’ If you have a higher purpose, it’s not about the other person anymore. It’s about your own evolution.”
PAUL: “Yes, another damned opportunity to evolve!”
ANN: “And your partner usually can see something in you that you cannot. This is a great gift not to be squandered. This is the relationship that can make al
l the difference in your journey toward self-realization, the most important journey of all. I’ve often thought: If you can stay conscious in a love relationship, you can stay conscious anywhere!”
It’s Not Easy Living with Your Guru
ANN: “Regarding my challenge with discernment, oh my God, this is the most difficult learning for me. I meet someone who is hurting or in need. I know I shouldn’t get involved. I warn myself not to get involved. But they share their sorrow with me and, suddenly, I am involved. I lose all perspective. My heart goes out to them and I’m off to the races. It’s been tough to learn boundaries and edges. It’s been tough on both of us. But the fact that Paul understands how difficult this is for me, and doesn’t judge me for it, is helping me to move through it and evolve. And I do want to evolve. I want to leave this planet very awake, and that’s what we bring each other. Paul has been my teacher, my mentor, my guru in discernment. He understands my challenges with it. When I’m not being discerning, I can feel that old feeling, the impulse to jump into an unwise decision, but I can’t hide anymore. I can’t get any mileage out of the old excuses.”
PAUL: “And Ann has been my teacher in love and forgiveness. I lived alone for many years and got into the habit of ruminating about what or who might be bothering me at the time. Ann has helped me to see that these conversations with myself were not serving me or anyone else. As Ann said, ‘You can’t hide anymore.’ It’s not always easy living with your guru.”