The Conscious Heart (9 page)

THREE

Seven Soul-Commitments That Allow the Conscious Heart to Thrive

Any time not spent on love is wasted
.

—TASSO

I
n the first two years of our own relationship, we spent much time finding out what true commitment was all about. We had no models to follow. Our parents had married into traditional relationship that emphasized duty and hard work. They had lived through the hardships of the Depression and the war and had firsthand familiarity with scarcity and sacrifice. Both our families lost lands and businesses in the political and economic upheavals
of those times. Afterward they valued stability and lifetime commitment. As of this writing, Kathlyn’s parents are approaching their fifty-first wedding anniversary. As we were growing up, it was difficult to see
how
a lifetime commitment could work except by denying feelings, settling into unquestioned roles, or sliding into sleepwalking.

As we began to inquire into it, we saw that most people were focusing on the wrong kind of commitment. They were making
outcome
commitments rather than
process
commitments. An example of an outcome commitment is: “I will stick by you through thick and thin until death do us part.” It focuses on the outcome, on the goal rather than the journey, ignoring the fact that outcomes can’t be controlled. In a process commitment two people make an agreement about how they will travel together, not about where they are going. Process commitments focus on things that are absolutely within their control, such as telling the truth, keeping agreements, and listening nonjudgmentally.

By making soul-level commitments to seven specific processes—each of which is completely within your control—you take ownership of a reliable map of the path. Then reaching the destination becomes a real possibility.

THE SEVEN SOUL-COMMITMENTS

As our relationship grew in depth and understanding, we found that there were seven major process commitments that really made a difference. We took years to develop, understand, and embrace these commitments in our souls. Once we did, however, the heart-level satisfaction of our relationship became much more profound. Here are the commitments that we discovered to be essential:

The First Soul-Commitment

I commit to realizing my full potential for both closeness and autonomy. I open myself to learning about and honoring my essence-rhythms of closeness and separateness, and to learning about and honoring those rhythms in others
.

The Second Soul-Commitment

I commit to full expression, to holding back nothing. This means telling the truth about everything, including my feelings, my fantasies, and my actions. I commit to telling the unarguable truth—truth that no one can argue with—instead of giving my opinions, beliefs, and prejudices. I also commit to listening, nonjudgmentally, to what people say to me
.

The Third Soul-Commitment

I commit to becoming the source of full responsibility for my life, including my happiness, my well-being, and my life-goals. I absolve everyone, living or dead, past or present, from any implication that they cause my feelings or actions in any way
.

The Fourth Soul-Commitment

When faced with the choice between being happy and being defensive, I commit to choosing happiness. I commit to doing this especially in those situations when my defensiveness seems most warranted and when it is totally obvious to me that I am right and the other person is wrong
.

The Fifth Soul-Commitment

I commit to learning to love and appreciate myself and others in my close relationships
.

The Sixth Soul-Commitment

I commit to the full expression of my creativity, and to inspiring the full creative expression of those around me
.

The Seventh Soul-Commitment

I commit to celebration as the dominant emotional tone of my relationships. Particularly, I commit to celebrating the essence of myself and those close to me
.

As you step into these soul-commitments, you may find, as we did, that you have stepped off the shore and into a vast ocean of possibilities and currents. As we learned to appreciate the daily challenges of riding the waves of discovery, we sometimes tumbled and rolled with an unexpected swell.

C
OMMITTING TO
C
LOSENESS AND
A
UTONOMY

W
e came from very different places on the autonomy spectrum: Gay was from the “don’t fence me in” school of autonomy, while Kathlyn was from the “devoted to the point of self-sacrifice” school. At first each of us thought our own path was the only correct one. If only the other could be like me, each of us would wistfully think. As we matured, though, we saw that our real growth came from accepting each other’s way of being as our
teacher. For Gay, one of the key learnings of his life was to let go of some of his go-it-aloneness: “I had always been a loner ever since my childhood. There were few other kids in the neighborhood and they were mostly older, so I spent a lot of time playing by myself. As I got into close relationships in high school and college, I still held back a large part of myself. One time I took my girlfriend and a friend of hers to my dorm room to get something, and the friend exclaimed, ‘There’s nothing on the walls—no posters or anything! There’s no personality.’ My girlfriend replied dryly, ‘That
is
his personality.’ It stung, but I knew what she meant.