Facebook Publication Date: 7/29/2018 16:07

Thoughts on relationships and connection in the midst of the struggle: personal and collective- Part I

Lace on Race
Lace on Grace (Relational Ethics)

There are three therapists I admire, whose works I refer to often; Harriet Lerner, she of ‘The Dance of Connection’, Peter Kramer and, especially Terry Real, who wrote ‘The New Rules of Marriage’, which should actually be called ‘The New Rules of Relationships’ because the principles apply to pretty much any relationship. I have used all of these as guides for years.

In them, they all talk about cycles; taken together, the cycle of Connection-Disconnection-Repair-Back to Connection. This is the dance. Whether or not we acknowledge that we are, we are indeed doing this dance with any relationship we have, be it dyadic, in groups, or to particular people in given groups or cohorts. (It must also be noted that we are doing this same dance with ourselves; for the purposes of this essay, however, we will focus on relationships with the Other or Others.)

For me, a relationship rarely gets to anything approaching authentic depth without going through this cycle.
For me, a relationship is easy when it’s easy. But it’s not yet a relationship, in my view. It is at best, an acquaintanceship; a honeymoon, when people are doing solo dances: jockeying for position, showing their best face, presenting their qualifications.

It’s two tables of contents, mine and theirs. It’s preliminary vetting.

It’s when there’s a bump in the road that the nature, character, and the validity of a given relationship shows itself. It’s when disconnection occurs, what happens then, that is crucial.

Are we going to move from introduction into disclosing our pages, including the dog eared ones; including the ‘tells’ buried in footnotes, including the scraps of post-its and scribbles on the back of receipts and matchbook covers that can often be more revealing than the pages themselves?

Do we dare to show where we have ripped out pages of our stories that have brought us shame and humiliation and insecurity? Are we willing to hand those discarded pages over to the Other?

If we don’t trust them with the hidden pages, what does that say about the relationship we are forging?

If I find that I don’t want to enter that dance to move through the crucible of disconnection to repair and back to a deeper level of connection, that’s telling to me. Likewise, if someone doesn’t want to go through that crucible with me, that is also a sign that cannot be ignored.

But if they do, no matter how messy or inelegant the work may be, if they do want to truly meet me and come out the other side together–welp. I can work with that.

I will show them my pages, one by one. I will allow them time and space to show me theirs.

I will read these pages with curiosity and with generosity, and with what Kramer calls a ‘compassionate agnosticism’—knowing that there is more to the story than I am currently discerning, or even that they are currently discerning.

For my part, I will show my entire hand, perhaps not all at once; but certainly I will not dis-ingeniously disclose with intent to distort of deceive. I will give them the pen that unlocks the invisible ink, and open myself to the unspoken; letting them into my force field so they can see and feel the words I cannot yet say – sometimes because they are too hard; sometimes because they are still unknown, or unarticulated, or both.

I am always looking for a reason to say ‘yes’ to further connection via repair and healing.

I am not looking for ways to trap, or discard them. I take their words in the best possible light.

This must be said: this is not coddling or enabling. I am extending to the Other the exact same grace that I hope for myself.

Because I too will make missteps, I too will use the language artlessly, I too will have chunks of my actions which do not match the ideal of my words. I too come with baggage and things to unlearn.

We both, in our solo dances, are treading cautiously, each of us carrying our unwieldy baggage even as we attempt the steps. We each are struggling with the twin pulls of disclosure and circumspection; of wanting to be seen and accepted, even as we, with eyes darting, search equally desperately for places to hide and withdraw.

We play a game of Battleship, calling out letters and numbers, equally hoping and dreading a ‘hit’; not sure if the point of the game is location or destruction.

If I am indeed found, and I begin to sink, will the Other send down a life raft, or rejoice in our annihilation?

It is in the midst of all these opposing forces we attempt to dance together. It is inevitable that given the above, we will be prone to disrepair, and we need to have the tools in place, and acknowledgement and acceptance of this inevitable disconnection *before the dance even starts*, and be willing to course correct; to wave away the pain of toes trod upon, to be quick with authentic apology and amends when it is our shoe leather on toes.

We learn that, while it is safer to dance with protected feet in steel toed boots, it is easier and more graceful, if more fraught, to dance barefooted—but who kicks off the boots first?

To extend the metaphor, I am sure we have all felt this imbalance—when we have dared to dance unshod, but the Other insists on keeping their protective stance. It is untenable—and one either rushes back to protection themselves, or flees the dance floor altogether. Either way, connection is forfeited.

Whether I am the instigator of the disconnection, or the responder to it. I rarely have easy relationships. Good. Growth is in the mess.

As I think of relationships, the ones with the most residue are the ones that failed to complete the circle. This is true regardless of whether the relationship was romantic, platonic, work related, part of my activism, or part of a group

When I am more or less ‘done’ with someone, it’s not because I no longer like or love them. Rather, it’s because that person no longer has anything to teach me, nor do I feel that I am am to be a productive part of their lives any longer.

If they don’t want to walk with me, I don’t force it. I used to, and it ‘works’ for a time, but it’s just kicking the can down the road.

It is through this lens, through this conceptualization, that I would like to begin a conversation about who we will be for and to and with each other.

This conversation is way overdue in activist spaces. We will do the work here, and if our work resonates, we can share our new ways of being and doing and abiding with each other.

In Part II, a conversation of what we have the right to expect from each other and from ourselves, how to do this work in a safer way—because like there is no such thing as truly safe sex, just safer sex, there is no true and failproof way to abide and rub up against each other.

Thank you for walking with me through this.

—-

Commentary is not only welcome, it is strongly requested. This cannot be a solo project. We need all of your voices, in my personal space, on Medium, where this will be posted, and as will in Lace on Race.

Three different, but overlapping populations, which will overlapping but discrete answers. I very much look forward to the conversation.
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