The Conscious Heart (38 page)

Without the second level human relationships would be flat and one-dimensional. And without hearing the emotional undercurrents of communication, we would be doomed to miss out on the defining moments of intimacy. In our therapy practice we asked one couple whether they were committed to solving a certain problem. (This question often brings up the emotional level of communication very quickly.)

US: Are you committed to solving this problem?

NINA: Yeah.

JOHN: Sure.

On the surface—just seeing the words—you would think that both were committed. But the emotional tone told us a very different story. Her “Yeah” came out with an eye-roll of exasperation. It said, “Oh, right—like that’s going to make a big difference!” His “Sure” was tinged with hostility and resignation.
As therapists, of course, we are trained to pick up on emotional nuances. Lovers often train themselves to tune out that very same level—or rather, they tune it out to their conscious minds. On a deeper level, they register all of each other’s emotions and many other levels as well.

With this couple the emotions were crying out (to our ears), but the two of them seemed to be oblivious to the feeling-level of the communication.

US: John, tune in to the feelings underneath the way Nina said “Yeah.” What do you hear there?

JOHN (
long pause
): I don’t know.

US: Of the big three feelings—fear, anger, and sadness—which one did it sound more like? Did she sound scared or angry or sad?

JOHN (
another long pause
): I guess I’d have to say angry. Maybe sad too.

US: Let’s check it out. Nina, as you tune in to your body-signals, do you feel angry or sad?

NINA (
starts to cry
): Yeah. All of the above. I feel angry that I’ve tried for so long without any success. I’m sad that I feel so alone.

US: How about John’s feelings right now, Nina? Can you tune in to his “Sure” and say whether it was more like angry or sad or scared? Or more than one?

NINA: It would be mostly sadness, I guess. Maybe some anger too.

US: Is that accurate, John?

JOHN: Um-hm. Yeah, I can feel both of those.

US: Okay, so you’re both feeling the same feelings.

(
There’s a long pause as it dawns on them that they’ve been tuning out the very same feelings in each other that they’ve been feeling themselves
.)

US: You also both look scared too, from our perspective. Check inside and feel if that’s accurate.

JOHN: Yeah, I’m scared. I don’t want to be alone, either. That’s been my big concern—I’ll find that that’s what I’m thinking about when I wake up in the morning.

NINA: Yeah, me too.

US: You’re both scared about the same thing, too.

This is a classic example of something we see every day: Underneath the surface battles both partners are often feeling exactly the same emotions. John has been tuning out Nina’s emotions because he does not want to feel them in himself. And vice versa.

Instructions

“Speaker, you will have a minute to say anything you want about your feelings or the relationship. After you have spoken for a minute, Listener will tune in to the emotional level of what you’re saying. When you’re ready, begin.”

(
Speaker talks for a minute
.)

“Speaker, pause.

“Listener, tune in to the feeling or feelings you were hearing under the words. We’ll focus on three of the most important feelings: fear, anger, and sadness. In hearing what Speaker said, did he or she sound more angry, scared, or sad? Or a combination?”

(
Listener replies
.)

“Speaker, is that an accurate summary of your feelings?”

(
Speaker replies. Go back and forth until the various feelings are accurately summarized, then switch roles
.)

T
HE
T
HIRD
L
EVEL

B
eneath the words and the feelings runs a third level: what the person wants and needs. A big sticking-point in communication, perhaps the biggest, is that we get so caught up in our own
conscious and unconscious needs that we cannot hear what other people want and need. This practice is designed to remedy that problem.

Instructions

“Speaker, you will have a minute to say anything about your feelings or the relationship. When you’re ready, begin.”

(
Speaker talks for a minute
.)

“Speaker, pause.

“Listener, under the words and the feelings, what does Speaker most deeply want and need?”

(
Listener replies
.)

“Speaker, is that an accurate summary?”

(
If yes, switch roles. If not, ask Speaker to clarify the wants and needs that were not heard by Listener. Keep going until Speaker has okayed Listener’s response
.)

You may find, as we have, that these conscious listening practices work miracles. If you find that they are not working for you, try them out with a third party keeping you on track. The only cause we’ve ever heard for the practices not working is that the partners got hooked by a contentious issue partway through and failed to follow the instructions. This has happened to us more than a few times, so don’t be hard on yourself if this occurs. Remember, these practices involve lifelong learning. We have been doing them for fifteen years now, and every week we seem to learn how to do them a little bit better.

2/Making Soul-Commitments

T
his essential practice is one you can do by yourself, as well as with a friend, colleague, family member, or romantic partner. We have found it equally valuable in the boardroom, the bedroom, and the family room. It is organized around two questions—in fact, two questions that are great gifts to ourselves and anyone we ask them of.

The first question is: “
What is really important to you?
”

You can use this question as a powerful problem-solving tool. For example, you could ask each other what is really important about:

• Leaving now to go to the party

• Having a certain amount of money in savings

• Disciplining the children

We all need to know what we really want. If we don’t, how are we going to commit, body and soul, to any path of action? How can we enlist the support of others to help us get it? Asking what is most important—and listening to the answer—closes the information gap. You don’t have to imagine what your partner wants or fill in the gap with inaccurate information that sends you spinning down the wrong path. Very few of us have ever had the total attention and support of another human being to bring our deepest dreams into reality.

One of our friends told us a story that brought the concept home forcefully. During her first marriage she asked her husband if something was going on, because she was feeling out of sync inside and out of touch with him. He denied that anything out of the ordinary was happening, denials that continued until he left an obvious clue that allowed her to catch him in his affair. Before she got that additional information, she had felt literally crazy inside, making up thoughts about what the problem might be, getting sick, missing appointments, feeling paranoid and irritable. Her illusions would quiet the craziness for a bit, but the rattle wouldn’t settle. She said something very interesting about that time: “Once I recovered from [his] massive withhold [about the affair], I could see that I had been frightened of this very thing and had unconsciously colluded in the secret by not wanting to hear it.”

When partners ask each other, “What is really important to you?” they commit to listening to the answer. You can then place your attention on just what you and your partner want, so that the information loops are kept open and circulating.

There are four useful areas about which to ask, “What is really important to you?”:

•
Yourself
: your inner life, your relationship with yourself and who you are becoming

•
Interactions with others
: your relationships with others in your family, workplace, church, and other organizations, or in a particular meeting

•
The material world
: the realm of “stuff”; your wishes in the arena of cars, rugs, houses, jewelry

•
The larger world
: your relationship to the environment, to other cultures, to the reality we all share

The second question brings dreams into form: “
What can I do to help make that happen?
”

Your partner’s response to this question can focus your actions and shape them in the direction that will most benefit both of you. People are often surprised by the common response to this question: “Your listening is what I most want; that’s all—that’s plenty.” In many long-term relationships the support that partners experience from asking this question and listening to the answer provides all the jump start they need. Actions grow directly out of knowing what is most important.

In raising children, especially teenagers, these two questions are often the most effective way to become allies. Asking “What’s important to you?” helped us to find out what Chris and Amanda actually wanted in their lives and from us. If we listened to them for a while, they would get down to wants that everyone could agree on—in contrast to our previous attempts to corral them into wanting what “was best for them” or what might be most convenient for us. Many conversations involved long discussions of what was currently important, whether it was getting the right material for an art project or understanding why people walk the way they do and what that means. For Chris, these conversations evolved into his career as a massage and movement specialist. For Amanda, they grew into a master’s degree in fine arts from UCLA. We would take the time to support the question, then to see if we could support that course of action or empower them to create the result they wanted.

3/The Essence-Meditations

Q
uestions are magical, because if a question is genuine, it takes us into the unknown. For this reason we have become strong advocates of asking questions to catalyze change and healing. Most of us grew up in an answer-oriented milieu, such as school, where getting the correct response was rewarded. On the spiritual path questions move into the foreground. Questions have the power to pull you into a future you can’t currently imagine.

Our favorite teaching about questions comes from Rainer Maria Rilke’s
Letters to a Young Poet
:

I want to beg you, as much as I can, to be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and to try to love the
questions
themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything.
Live
the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.

E
SSENCE
-Q
UESTIONS

A
number of questions generate the feeling of essence in people who ask them sincerely. A good time to float these questions through your mind is first thing in the morning, before you engage in daily activities. Then they become like beacons to orient the day. Another way to meditate on these questions is to post them around your environment—dashboard, mirror, computer screen—so you enter them into your consciousness throughout the day.