Writing an E-Book about intimacy encourages us to deepen our own understandings. Right now we are writing the chapter on Pathway G - the Pathway of Giving and Receiving.
We were on a walk this week and met a newly married couple who are so in love; it was such a beautiful sight to experience. We saw them treating each other so kindly, giving and receiving in such beautiful ways.
After our contactful moment with this couple, we continued on our walk. We began to discuss about how couples give and receive, especially in the later phases of their relationship and what cuases people to stop giving and receiving?
Then we hit on it, after a long, hard and intense exchange!
Phil began by asking me, "Lalei, can I give you some feedback?" All of a sudden I could feel myself braising up inside and said to myself, "Uh-oh here it comes." I told him, "Wait just a minute, Phil, is your feedback positive, negative or neutral? I need to be in a space to receive what you are giving." He said, "My intention is positive and I want you to receive it in a neutral way. I just want you to hear me, my feedback - not to make you good or bad, not to make you anything it is just what I observe. Because it is really about me anyways."
I breathed and listened as he shared with me what he had observed me doing when we were talking with the couple.
"Lalei, I noticed that when you meet someone you become so excited and that you tend to hear only one part of the conversation. What happens with me is that I shut down because I don't want to dampen your excitement, but I want you to take a moment and take it all in. I have not told you this before because I didn't want you to think I was controlling you." Then he said, "Tell me what you got." Even though I thought I was in neutral, I said, "You are noticing how I don't listen when I am excited." Interestingly enough, he responsed with "No, that is not what I said. I just want you to slow down right now and tell me what else did you hear? "I heard you say you see me reacting fast in my excitement and not listening." "Lalei, I didn't say that at all, that's why it is good for me to check it out with you."
We went back and forth. He said it to me a few more times, getting cleaner and cleaner in his description of his perception. I started to et hot and said to him, "You are noticing that I do this more and more and you are just telling me NOW when you've noticed this for a long time... We have been working together for such a long time and you are just telling me now!" You can only imagine... Then he beautifully shared, "Can you please slow down? I would like this to be positively clean with you. My intention is not to criticize and put your down. I love that you get excited. It is not that you doing it more now, it is simply I am becoming more aware of how to cleanly describe to you what I am observing and feeling. The last thing I want to do is criticize you, I just want to share my observation in a way that is not critical. I am simply noticing more. I am noticing that I get annoyed and irritated. I simply want to be curious about what I'm annoyed about."
Then I got really hot and said, "Do you want me to stop being excited and spontaneous?" His point then was, "This is why I don't like talking to you because you hear a piece of something and then you stop yourself and want to do something about it. i just want you to hear the impact it has on me and my observation of my experience."
After a long while, we both relaxed and were clear what the other was offering. Then in a flash of insight I knew we had gotten it! "You know what we just practiced, Phil - giving and receiving. You were helping me receive what you were giving and I was helping you give in a way that I can receive."
We came home from that walk and we were so excited and elated that we actually worked through Pathway G. We find that the longer couples are together, they take a lot of shortcuts. They don't take the time to savor the giving and receiving that happens.
It was hard for me to hang-in there to receive the gift of Phil's observations. It was also hard for him to see that he needed to communicate it cleanly in ways that I could receive. We realized that this is a wonderful tool for couples, for giving and receiving.
To find out more about Pathway G in our E-Book The Ten Pathways of Healing Love, join us at www.tenpathwaysofhealinglove.com.
Love ~
Lalei
