by Chris G Moon
A relationship is the best environment for an individual to heal his or her old psychological and emotional wounds. There are a lot of jokes about the painful ordeal of relationships (Q: Why do singles live longer than married people? A: Because they want to). But if we really look at relationships with an open mind and through the eyes of the heart, we would see them as a truly spiritual, healing path, and not the path of a masochist.
So why does the pain we experienced in our past stay with us over the years and not eventually just go away? Doesn’t time heal all wounds? Why doesn’t the pain go away in time? It would, I believe, if we respected its real purpose and responded to it in the most appropriate way. In my experience, pain has always preceded a step forward in consciousness, self-knowledge and emotional maturity. I resisted my pain, and buried it in the basement of the subconscious, because I was not ready to take the step or learn the lesson that was being offered. Until the step is taken, the pain will remain. Through Power Struggle, I attempt to make it the responsibility of the other person, mainly because I sense that my subconscious pain is too big for me. When I was younger I saw it as a threat to my wellbeing, if not my very life, and I carry that impression with me to the present day.
To grow, one must go through pain. As children we simply reacted—understandably so—and so we did not grow in self-awareness. This growth might be easier if we did not get pain mixed up with suffering. At times I’ve seen within myself the capacity to transcend physical and emotional pain simply by focusing my heart and mind on something greater than the pain itself, while at the same time experiencing the pain fully. Choosing love, Truth, or the light of my soul and reaching for it with willingness and determination allowed the grace of life to lift me through my hurt to a place of peace, and a greater sense of myself. When I did not make that choice, I was left to struggle against the pain, the result being a long period of suffering before I could eventually numb myself to the hurt. I often assume that when pain arises my only options are to struggle and suffer with it, or else manipulate my partner into taking my pain away. My present relationship provides me with the opportunity to approach my past—and present—pain and in the face of it, choose something greater so that I might grow to know who I truly am. This opportunity is the Love Intention that exists within each and every Power Struggle.
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THE SHORTEST DISTANCE BETWEEN TWO POINTS OF YOU
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“They shall travel far until the two become as one.”
—Paul Stokey, “The Wedding Song”
So far, we have looked at the pain that causes relationship conflicts, the way we try to control and suppress that pain through Power Struggles, the purpose of the pain’s existence, and the Love Intention that secretly resides behind this particular stage of the relationship. At this point I would like to share some insights on basic relationship dynamics that may be of vital importance to the understanding of anyone on this path. After that I would like to offer some concise, simple methods for moving through relationship conflicts that will enable us to confront our personal pain like the truly great people we are and reach beyond it to a higher level of relationship and love.
A further challenge that we face in resolving conflicts is the way two people will polarize over an issue. For the first month after my wife and I moved into our newly built house, I was amazed that we could not agree on anything! The disagreement over the angle of the sofa was just one of hundreds of issues that came up on which we held rigidly opposing views. Fortunately I teach about this stuff, so I was aware that two people in any kind of relationship will tend to go from somewhat opposed to completely opposite viewpoints on most life issues. Even knowing this, however, I was still impressed by how strongly these viewpoints could be maintained once the energy of Power Struggle entered into the situation. We had to keep reminding ourselves that we were merely seeing things from one of many perspectives, and that neither of us was right. In all conflicts, both parties are holding a point of view equally distant from the central point of conflict.
Imagine that you are sitting across from your partner at a table. In the middle of the table, at exactly the same distance from both of you, is a hat. On your side the hat is red. On your partner’s side the hat is blue. You cannot see any part of the blue, nor can she/he see the red. If asked to describe what you see, your description would be different from your partner’s. The problems start in a Power Struggle when both of you are locked into your point of view, convinced that the other was looking at the hat the wrong way (“What are you? Colour blind? Any idiot could see that it’s red.” “That’s right, an idiot would see that! A normal person would see that it’s blue!”).
In truth of course, both of you are simply perceiving things from your own angle, insisting that you are right. But if you left your position and saw it from your partner’s point of view, you could combine it with your own and come up with the truth—it’s a red and blue hat!28
The problem with the position-taking in a Power Struggle is complicated by the fact that we are never upset for the reasons we think, and therefore whatever we are arguing about is never what we are really concerned about. But try telling this to a couple who are in the heat of a fight. Obviously they are suffering. If they were not wrestling with their pain they would be feeling peaceful and happy, and thus treating each other with love and respect. But when the pain begins to emerge, subconscious alarms go off, warning both of them that if they don’t push the other away they will be forced to suffer. Therefore they pick a less threatening issue and take opposing positions on it, locking themselves into a fight that ignores the real problem. This pushing-away tends to accentuate the polarities that already exist within all relationships.
If there were no conflict the polarities in a relationship could work together more or less in harmony. Just as a battery with only one pole doesn’t work, and no coin would exist without both a head and a tail, relationships would not exist unless there was a positive partner and a negative partner. Here is a chart that lays out the basic characteristics of the two types of people that make up one relationship.
Positive
Negative
Optimist
Solution oriented
Denies emotions
Producer
Praising
Makes a good president
Loves everything
Broad perceptions
Overlooks faults
Expansive
Tends towards generalities
Pessimist (call themselves “realists”)
Problem finder
Indulges in emotions
Director
Critical
Makes a good vice president
More discriminating
Penetrating perceptions
Focuses on faults
Contractive
Tends towards details
It is really unfortunate that the Negative has such a bad public image, because they are of great value to this world. The Positives built the factories, but it was the Negatives that made us aware of the dangers of pollution, poor labour conditions and dangers to personal safety in the workplace. The Positives may have improved the quality of life in developed countries, but it was the Negatives that demanded something be done about the poor living conditions in other parts of the world. Without our Negative aspect, human beings would not be motivated to improve. On the other hand, if not for the Positive, we could well find ourselves steeped in the misery and negativity of unsolvable problems. It is the Positive that sees what’s possible, and has the energy to make the possible a reality. The Negative is the course corrector.
In personal relationships, it�
�s the negative that alerts the couple to an upcoming problem, sometimes days in advance of its arrival. The negative, being more emotionally attuned, will sense the emergence of an old pain making its way up into consciousness. They won’t necessarily recognize it for what it is though. When I’m the Negative in the relationship, I won’t alert my partner by saying, “Oh, oh, honey, I sense an old childhood pain emerging for us to heal!” Rather, I’m more tempted to say something like, “who keeps leaving all the goddamn lights on in this house? Do you think we have our own private generator in the backyard?”29 That’s because the Negative may be subtly aware of the imminent crisis but is not necessarily willing to confront it, being as afraid of pain as the Positive counterpart. Negatives tend to feel many emotions, but not the most important feelings. In the above example, my wife would be the Positive. So does she immediately realize that my complaints are a signal about approaching old pain? Does she think, “Oh, oh, my honey is complaining about the lights. He must be sensing that the opportunity for a major healing of old wounds is about to be offered to us”? I’m afraid not. Her tendency would more likely be to run around and turn off all the lights—maybe even the electrical breakers for good measure—and light a few cheap candles to make her Negative hubby happy again. This is because Positives wish to avoid unpleasant situations at all costs, even if the unpleasant situations are screaming in their faces. They will respond to their Negative partner’s discomfort by removing the physical irritant, hoping that the whole problem will magically pass them by. If they can’t remove the irritant, they will deny its existence. A Positive could find himself sitting in the middle of a battlefield and respond to his Negative buddy’s terror with a simple, “Bombs? What bombs? Just ignore them and they’ll go away!”
Since becoming aware of these polarities in relationships, I am convinced that Negatives would spend their time in heaven looking for dirt, while Positives would build rocking chairs in hell to get a comfy seat close to the fire.
In general, the polarities work pretty well in a relationship as long as both partners are willing to respect each other’s perceptions and accept the other’s input. The Negative will bring a problem into the light, and the Positive, after listening openly, will come up with a solution. The Negative will then pick out the problems with that solution and the Positive will refine it, coming up with a more workable and realistic answer to the problem. This process will go back and forth until the most satisfactory solution is uncovered. At the same time, you will also find the Negative becoming more optimistic and the Positive becoming more realistic. The relationship thus achieves a harmonious balance.
However, when an old wound begins to emerge, and the temptation to fight increases, the differences between the polarities is magnified and the desire to resist the pain results in mutual distancing from each other. This can begin weeks before any actual fighting occurs. After a particularly wonderful couple of weeks with my wife, I will notice that we are drifting slowly and subtly away from each other, neither of us aware of the moment when the wonderful feelings begin to dissolve. We are not angry or fighting with each other, but if I look very closely I will recognize that we are pushing each other away. Positives push away by becoming distant from their feelings, though they often appear cheerful and optimistic on the outside—a good enough act to fool even themselves. They may act detached, disinterested, or may even seem to be loving and caring, but they are not feeling love and concern because they are simply not feeling much of anything. Negatives push away by focusing on a problem that they perceive is affecting the relationship and dwelling on the emotions that this problem brings up—usually angry, irritating, or depressing emotions. Often, the problem on which the Negative focuses is not directly related to their partner’s character or behaviour. A Negative might begin to comment on the money situation, the repairs needed on the house, the barking of the next-door neighbour’s dog, or even the decay of the social structure in the nation. Put simply, the Positive attempts to avoid pain by denying its very existence, whereas the Negative will avoid it by reacting to the irritations and blowing them out of proportion, thereby distracting themselves from the real issue.
Sooner or later, that ancient pain within us keeps moving upward, begging for attention. Eventually push comes to shove, and the Power Struggle, which has been brewing for some time, begins in earnest. It always starts with a “situation” that has become intolerable for the Negative. Due to a very human tendency to react quickly, people rarely see that all situations are neutral. Your partner forgetting to pick up your dry cleaning is neither good nor bad, neither right nor wrong. Your boyfriend spending too much time with his friends doesn’t mean anything one way or the other. Until you give the situation meaning, it is absolutely neutral. Your interpretation of the situation determines whether it will be a problem or not. It is the emerging of an old pain that influences one’s negative interpretation. I have developed a model that describes the journey that relationships take, assuming that the relationship is functioning in at least a somewhat healthy fashion:
HAPPY
PSEUDO HAPPINESS
(Denial, cautious relating, avoidance of expressing any negative concerns)
CHAOS
(Increased polarizing, power struggle, competition,)
PROCESS
(Effective communication, sharing of emerging feelings, responding to one’s pain, “joining”)
HAPPINESS
Of course the happiness soon progresses into a state of denial (pseudo-happiness), which moves to chaos, to process, to happiness, etc., etc.. But the operative word here is “evolves.” This means that the chaos stage which produces Power Struggles is a forward movement to ever-greater levels of happiness and intimacy in a relationship. Let’s follow the development of a Power Struggle with our friends John and Mary. Watch how maintaining either position, especially in times of crisis, stunts the relationship and blinds both sides to the real opportunity that is being offered. Mary, the Negative in this case, has just turned a situation into a problem.
Mary: Did you see our electricity bill today? It was a hundred dollars more than the last one!
John: Well it is wintertime, honey. We’re using more lights now.
Mary: But a hundred dollars? And our heating bill was twice what it was last month. We’ll never be able to afford a vacation at this rate.
John: Sure we will. I’ll just put in some more overtime; we’ll be okay.
Mary: But there’ll be less time for us. You’re putting in so much overtime right now that we hardly see each other as it is.
John: Sweetheart, we see each other all the time—we live together, for God’s sake.
Mary: Yeah, but we never go anywhere or do anything anymore.
John: We went out last weekend to the Jenkins’ for dinner.
Mary: I mean just the two of us. We always stay home and watch a film, or go to one of our friend’s places for dinner. I feel like we’ve become an old married couple.
John: Well we can go out this Friday—just the two of us. We’ll go to Armani’s for a nice supper.
Mary: John, you’re so unrealistic! We can’t afford Armani’s.
John: I really think you’re taking this electrical bill a little too seriously, sweetheart.
Mary: It’s not the electrical bill—it’s us! You’re never around anymore. I feel like we’re strangers.
John: Oh God! Look, we need milk for tomorrow morning. I’m going to go for a walk down to the store and pick some up. Can I get you anything?
Mary: Yes! A new husband!
John: [Rolls his eyes, sighs loudly, shrugs his shoulders and leaves]
This couple is not even close to what the real issue is about. On the surface it may seem to any listener that John is this really nice guy living with a whining nag who is
impossible to please. In most cultures, Negatives are not appreciated for their ability to recognize problems, but are more often see as problem makers. Positives are perceived as happy, good, decent sorts. But why does he want to get out of the apartment? Does he have some sort of milk addiction that he can’t live without it? Of course not; he wants to get away because he’s beginning to feel some bad feelings. No one can bring a Positive down into the pits of negativity like their Negative partner. Once that happens the really ugly stage of Power Struggle can begin, with anything from vicious attacks to equally vicious silences. If John had a shorter fuse, he would have stayed to duke it out with Mary, justifying his attack with the righteous conviction that she started it. As it is John is now probably scurrying down the street, distancing himself from the threat of pain as quickly as possible. If he is thinking about a problem at all, it’s that the only problem he has in his life right now is waiting for him to come back with the milk so she can dump on him some more.
How many people would see that John is in as much pain as Mary, and that the electric bill bothers him as much as it does her? And what observer could ever see what is really happening, which is that both Mary and John are being called to deal with a very old, very deep sense of unworthiness—or maybe something even more painful? But if they insist on looking no further than the surface problem, John will continue walking away from his beloved and Mary will continue to chase after him with an ever-growing list of complaints. John and Mary are simply following the standard human policy for dealing with pain: indulgence or denial. One will indulge in the anxiety, anger, and discontent that the problem stimulates, while the other will suppress those same emotions and run away from the problem by denying its seriousness. Once the pain begins to emerge:
The Negative zeros in on the biggest irritant available, establishes the “problem,” and expresses it to the Positive.
The Positive often responds to his/her partner’s behaviour by denying that there are any problems (except for the ones in their Negative partner’s head).