The Conscious Heart (30 page)

O
ne day Kathlyn wrote in her journal: “Appreciating opens like a rose in my chest, layer upon layer of soft caresses. It wells up when I look through eyes of wonder, not the hooded eyes of getting or marking my territory. Two recent incidents reminded me how valuable appreciating is in cultivating joy. Before we taped a training video, Gay said, ‘I want to tell you how proud I am of you and how much I value you.’ After he said this he held my shoulders lightly and looked at me for several minutes. I felt as if a balloon had risen in my chest and elevated my whole body, clearing any fog from my insides. This was a direct expression of gratitude, and as I reflected on it, I realized how rare—nonexistent?—this had been before I met him.

“Later that day I felt gratitude for him for something entirely different. Gay asked me if I had a moment to talk. I said yes, and he said he wanted to come back to a conversation hours before, when we’d been talking about one of our children. I had been explaining some of my recent thoughts and wondering about the relationship and where it was heading. Gay said he realized he had jumped in with his point of view and wanted to know if I had more I wanted to say. He said it looked as if I felt sad, and that it felt like he had interrupted my feeling by jumping in with his point. I realized that my sadness was incomplete, like an open phone line. As I acknowledged the sadness and told him about it, I also experienced waves of love and appreciation for Gay’s awareness of the incomplete communication and his willingness to give this interaction his time and attention. I immediately felt more alive, vital, and valued, not even having sensed that there had been a cord dangling.”

Appreciation can be expressed verbally, as Gay did, or nonverbally in actions, touch, or gestures. One of our colleagues called home to tell her partner, Jan, how much she loved and appreciated her special attention, just as an unexpected delivery of flowers from Jan arrived at the door. Gay appreciates that Kathlyn washes his jeans with fabric softener so they feel soft and friendly against his skin.

Verbal appreciations have more power if they’re specific. “I appreciate you a lot” is a start. “I appreciate the way you look at me when I’m talking” is sensory-specific and grounded in an experience that the listener can locate in time and space.

What blocks appreciation? Many people have never experienced a clear model of appreciating. Many people are looking through eyeglasses that let in only what’s wrong, what’s missing, or what could be improved, rather than what’s possible or what they’re grateful for. Jane Hamilton’s novel
A Map of the World
describes a family leaving the farm they had worked for years. When the wife comes back to say good-bye to the land several months later, she sees the farmhouse without the filter of their commitment to love and steward the land. As if a veil had been
lifted, she sees the shutters falling off, the broken linoleum, and the bare windows. When they had lived there, she had stopped seeing what was missing because her focus was making the home warm and full of love for her husband and children.

A full heart feeds the eyes. If your heart has been wounded, it can be hard to let it overflow with gratitude for someone else. And leaky hearts don’t make good reservoirs for flowing joy. The attitude “What about me?” dampens appreciation and creates a perception of the world and of partners as stingy bankers with all the funds.

Another block to appreciation is ambition. The drive to get ahead, get to work, get a promotion, or get the kids through school often outruns appreciation of what is possible now. Some of our clients use the following question as a meditation: “How much is enough?” It helps them shift into appreciating now rather than leaning into the future.

To appreciate another, you have to see them clear of your judgments and opinions. Otherwise your own experiences shroud the polished glass that could allow their essence to shine directly. You can choose to learn to appreciate by choosing to look for what’s right. What is unique about this day, this event, this person? What is the potential for acknowledging their vision, their desires, their special way of making coffee? For example, Gay doesn’t think he can cook, but because he hasn’t been burdened by following recipes, he combines unusual ingredients with surprising and delightful results. He doesn’t know that something isn’t done, so he’ll put orange peel into the vegetables, or make a dessert from leftover rice, plums, and saffron. Kathlyn appreciates this creativity in him. Coming to your relating as a beginner, ever new, feeds appreciation.

As we mentioned, John Gottman has found that thriving couples have at least a five-to-one ratio of appreciations to criticisms. Two friends of ours, Susan Snowe and Darshan Mayginnes, have invented a game based on that ratio. Every time they catch themselves making a criticism, they call out, “Five appreciations.” On
the spot they generate five appreciations to open a wave of appreciation rather than the downward spiral of criticism. They have been enjoying this practice greatly and notice how much it increases their essence-connection. On a recent trip they had stopped at a diner out in the hinterland somewhere when Susan said, “This food is terrible.” Darsh called out, “Okay, five appreciations.” “There was food when I was hungry,” “I had money to pay for it,” and so on. They have now started to begin the day with appreciations—for each other, themselves, the day. Whenever we see them, they are wellsprings of appreciation because they choose to focus on the positive aspects of life.

8/Blending a Family

P
racticing the path of the conscious heart requires plum-blossom courage in even the most adventurous of couples. We need models of couples who can celebrate their essence connection in the midst of childrearing. Our friends Sandy and Rod Wells have supported the essence of their family for several years. Sandy describes their experience:

“My experience of our blended family brings to mind a fine vinaigrette. Vinaigrette, left unattended, always settles. The oil and herbs gravitate toward the bottom, while the colloidal vinegar floats on top. Without just the right amount of agitation, vinaigrette is piquant and caustic. Cap it up and torque a few wrist
gyrations, and the blend is superb—the taste is beyond compare. So it is with our family. Left unattended, we can settle out into primordial ingredients. Six children, two parents, two phantom ‘noncustodial’ parents, two other stepparents, two half-siblings, ten (at last count) living grandparents, and numerous aunts, uncles, and cousins. I have two children of ‘my own’; my husband has four of ‘his own’; and together we’ve raised the five that have been in our ‘custody.’ We call them ours, and they call us Mom and Dad. By attending to the mix, our own style of gyration, diverse elements commingle, and the flavor is outstanding.

“Family blending is an art with metaphysical underpinnings. The wicked stepparent is not just a fairy-tale character. I’ve been there! I’ve had days when I’ve thought, ‘Why do I have to raise someone else’s kids? I didn’t sign on for this!’ Parenting our own children is a precarious balancing act to begin with; the complexities of blended parenting make the circus guy who balances Ming dynasty vases on the bridge of his nose look like an amateur. Blended parents palm stacks of mismatched chairs—one atop the next—while waiting for the three-hundred-pound midget to be catapulted by springboard, execute two midair flips, and land neatly in the top chair.

“In blended families issues of fairness and equality run rampant, often distorted by what the ‘noncustodial’ parent provides or fails to provide. Blended parents tend to view each other as parenting improvement projects. Brandishing spackle knives, sanding machines, and wallpaper paste, they saunter through the household with hip-hugging tool belts, lavishing counsel: ‘If I had been you in that interaction about allowance, I would have …’ And parental amnesia abounds: ‘Before we got together, my kids never did stuff like this—they weren’t like this at all!’

“Statistics poignantly suggest that blended families have a limited survival rate. The stress fractures and fault lines of multiple gene pools colliding head-on result in a finicky fragility. Even a relatively tame conflict can spike the Richter scale, and the omnipresent solution, spoken or not, is usually: ‘I’m outta here!’ ‘Time
to evacuate!’ Conjugal bliss, the second, third, or fourth time around, corrodes in the face of stepsibling rivalry, unaccustomed discipline styles, and below-the-belt criticism. What’s the fastest way to piss off a blended-parent partner? Just tell them how concerned you are about the behavior patterns of their oldest child, who happens to do life the same way they do. Ironically, most blended families assume that their difficulties come from the fact that they are blending together disparate elements. This, indeed, heightens the challenge of parenting and family cohesiveness. And while riding out one of our quaking aftershocks, I realized that the parenting conflicts I’ve had with my new husband are an eerie reflection of the parenting conflicts I had with my daughters’ father—which are, of course, an eerie reflection of the dynamics of my family of origin. So the questions arise: ‘What works?’ ‘How do we go about practicing this metaphysical artistry?’ ‘How can we increase the odds for survival and actually go a step further—how can blended families flourish?’

“The single, most powerful agent of longevity, joy, and effervescence in a blended family originates in the quality of commitment and intention between the partners. My husband and I have learned over the years that whenever something appears to be amiss with our children, the first place to focus in on is our relationship. Conversely, when something is amiss in our relationship, we tend to take it out on our children—more accurately, on each other’s children. Like most parents in our situation, we came into our marriage as stalwart single parents, lone commanders of troops accustomed to having our attention exclusively. I was habituated to fixing my full focus on my daughters’ wants and needs, just by virtue of the fact that there were no other adults in my life on a regular basis. It has been tempting, sometimes unconsciously compelling, to have my relationship with them be the primary relationship in my life while striving to control the quality and style of my husband’s relationship with them. When they were younger, I used to do a lot of explaining, ‘constructive’ criticism, and nascent nagging. I was a self-certified parenting expert who had read all the
books and gone to the workshops. Of course, as their mother, I knew best what their needs were, where they might be tender or wounded, and how to keep them from getting upset. My operative objective, as I vigilantly scanned the environment with my feeling radar, was to avoid conflict and the expression of feelings at all cost. Truthfully, I was afraid that the day might come when my loyalties would be tested: ‘Okay, Mom, is it going to be
him
or
us
?’ or ‘Okay, dear, is it going to be
them
or
me
?’ I was afraid that anger would demolish our new family, that it would tarnish and oxidize the mirror polish of our loving. This potential can exist only in the face of a fragile, ephemeral marital (or relationship) commitment where the escape hatch is ajar, the emergency exit door is off its hinges, or the windows are wide open.

“Any commitment that follows the demise of ‘happily ever after’ is bound to be edgy. The riptide of divorce leaves us wary of the cross-currents and the undertow. After three years of single parenting, I was easily swept off my feet. Finally, I had met the real prince! I felt much more prepared to make the initial commitment to marriage and much less tolerant of anything that looked like unworkability thereafter. Especially since leaving a relationship was no longer an unknown. I knew that I could make it on my own; I had a proven track record. Sure, single parenting got a little lonely. I had a lot more time to myself, though, and life was very simple. So on bleak days when the inevitable conflict surfaced, my commitment wobbled. I rattled the window sash and contemplated the possibilities. Leaving the relationship was always my first and predominant thought. When I actually confronted that reality, I stayed.

“Children are sensitive barometers of crumbling commitment. They know what they know without verbal communication or confirmation. They provide shockingly accurate feedback on the condition of our relationship, and they parade our unexpressed feelings without ceremony. They often participate unconsciously in our commitment spasms. Many of them live with the thinking error that they caused the demise of the relationship that spawned
them. The potential thinking error that follows is: ‘Hm—if I did that with Dad, I can probably do it again with this guy, who I don’t really like—at least, not today. Then I’ll have Mom’s full attention, and until then I’ll have the full attention of everyone while I’m acting out. Maybe if this guy is gone, Mom will go back to Dad.’ Deep down, they yearn for the appropriate family hierarchy. They would like to live with two adults who love each other and meet each other’s needs for intimacy and closeness.