In the May Field Note, When You Wish Upon a Star, I explored “relationship phases” and the rediscovery of the core self in the challenging process and dynamics of being deeply immersed in the reality of these phases. The present Field Note is a follow-up on the ‘Star Wishing’ Note about what happens when you wish upon a star and find out what you wished for arrives but in ways that give rise to a new wish, namely, that you never wished upon a star, at least not upon that star and finding that your ‘dream’ partner has transformed, into a Nightmare or at least part of the time. Perhaps of most interest is that I have included a number of ways to work with yourself and the relational field in this Note.

Bob and Mary, Again

Let us re-visit Bob and Mary who ‘starred’ in the April Field Note and who are having their usual argument or, as they often refer to these encounters, as their “bickering sessions:”

Bob (in his Outer World, OW): I don’t like what you are doing. Look at you! Your face is all tightened up and tense, and your voice is shrill. Just being around you makes me tense, stressed, irritated, and a little sick!

Mary (in her Outer World, OW): My face is just fine, thank you very much! And my voice is not different from usual. You are yet again complaining about me and blaming me for your stress and lack of awareness. It’s you who are sickening! I wish you would go back to seeing your therapist. You were more tolerable when you were working with her.

Bob (in his Inner World, IW): I can feel my chest and stomach tightening up as she speaks. She acts as if she knows everything and that what she says is “THE” truth. I am going to set her straight.

Mary (In her Inner World, IW): I can feel the heat building in my chest. He is always putting me down. I want to give him a real blast now. He deserves it! I feel so angry!!

Bob (OW): I don’t like how you are looking at me, and on top of that, you are again telling me what to do! You act like I am your slave? Do you really believe that I should get up and do whatever you want just because you tell me to do so? I am tired of being pushed around by you! Yes, I have not taken the dog out for a walk yet, but I was going to do that. You can never let me do things at my own pace!

Mary: (IW) I am sick of reminding him to walk the dog. Our agreement is that he would be responsible for walking the dog. But then, he almost always waits and waits until I wind up taking her out. I feel incredibly irritated. My day is off to a very bad start. It is his fault. He knows that these encounters drain my energy before my day even starts!

Bob (IW) Hmmm…! I realize that I am at a decision point. I am so tempted to tell her the real truth about my dog walking practices that are very regular, including all the late-night walks, and how I am so pissed about her tone. I know if I do this, she will likely draw on her store of ‘truths’ about my dog walking, other chores, and about my tone. Suddenly I realize that at this very moment I actually have a choice.

Some Analysis

Most disputes like this one come very quickly to a point of rehashing the events, blaming, attacking, withdrawing, wound licking and/or wound flaunting, revenge seeking, and so on. And, as the dispute goes on, the participants become so exhausted that case-making often becomes increasingly incoherent, and they just want to get it all out, and out of it all. Certainly, the feelings of hurt, woundedness, anger, and alonenness are real. And most of us have the tendency to treat these feelings as mortal wounds, and we are convinced that the other person actually caused this extreme discomfort to arise in us. What is this tendency about? We almost certainly have a personal history of early wounding that could explain our patterns of labelling and our reactions, not to mention that we live in a culture that valorizes fault-finding, blaming, and retribution.

In my work with couples as well as in my own relationship, I put an emphasis on the couple becoming acutely aware of this tendency that has become an extremely predictable pattern in their communication and interaction. I encourage them to literally study their patterns in multiple dimensions, to learn about themselves, their partner, and their relational patterns, and to become fully conscious about just how entrenched they are in their patterns.

These situations happen beyond awareness and control.  I I have the view that reactivity and patterns have them and that language that suggests that you have certain feelings and behaviors is inaccurate. These patterns and behaviors reside in the ‘identities’ that reside in your unconscious, and that will automatically perform the pattern over and over. These powerful and entrenched patterns have you. You do not have them. If you did, you might have some choice about how conflicts play out. Some honest and incisive reflection will almost surely show that you and your partner have absolutely no choice in what you do and how you react. It is entrenched in you. With sufficient knowledge and awareness about your individual and co-created ways, the doorway to insight and change can begin to open, however briefly, on occasion. This background learning about self, other, and the relational field is basic to having the possibility of noticing what can be called the decision point. An important aim for all of us is to actually have these patterns, and to take ownership of them in the service of having some say about their emergence.

The ability to recognize the decision or choice-making point during a heated encounter is difficult to grow, but it is vital that it be encouraged to  grow if the relationship is to become robust, sustainable, and generative. If you are able to think of certain familiar feelings, words, gestures, or their combinations, you may be able to begin use them as the signal to ‘wake up.’ See them as the choice point ‘speaking’ to you, offering you a doorway into the next realm of being.

Back to Bob and Mary:

Bob (IW): Ah! The very high heat in my chest is my alarm bell. This is the Choice Point! I can do my usual to try and prove that I am right. Or I can pause for a moment, preventing myself from plunging headlong into the same old pattern. But then what? What can I do differently beyond the recognition of the Choice Point?

Mary (IW): I am so hot with anger, my mind is racing, and I can sense my consciousness going dim. I can give in to my anger and throw a fit that I will justify, scaring everyone, or maybe this is a decision point. What can I do?

A brief moment of reflection about Bob and Mary

Our struggling and adventurous couple, have come to the point where they can do their usual or they can step out of the usual and work for relational preservation, synchrony, and generativity. Such stepping out risks being open to getting hurt, and such risk opens the possibilities for changing the pattern of their way of being and moving into new and exciting realms.

Bob (IW): Well, truth be told, she is not completely wrong with what she is saying. Okay, perhaps I should risk initiating a disruption of our patterns and express something different with my feelings, and the fine details of what we are trying to talk about. Maybe that’s a good first step. In our couple’s therapy, we learned that what’s involved in a couple’s work is more than the two individuals. There is the relational field that is created and enfolds the couple. Just as we would poison and kill ourselves if we pollute the physical atmosphere, if we do not protect the relational field, our couple’s relationship dies, or is at least quite ill. We further learned that exercising empathy is one way that has potential to protect and nurture the relational field. Okay, I am beginning to feel some softening and empathy arising in me.

Bob (OW): Mary, I understand that you are feeling frustrated with me, and probably you don’t want to walk the dog as you are already dressed for work. You have also helped our daughter get ready for school, as well. I want to support you, us, and our family.

Mary (OW): Oh, what a surprising and unusual response. Thank you! I almost missed it and was preparing to ‘fight’ back. I see that you have chosen our relationship over all the other and familiar non-starters. You have fired up a reminder in me about choosing us as well. I feel more relaxed, and I know you are extra busy this morning and in the service of helping you, us, and our dog I will take Sheba for a quick walk.

Dear Reader/Listener: considering the discussions so far and the presented script of dialogue between Mary and Bob, I offer here some suggestions for practice. Please keep in mind that these ways may seem a bit unrealistic or mechanical at first, but with practice, you can increasingly seamlessly integrate and modify them as each moment, circumstance, and the ‘other’s’ state of being suggests. In particular, these practices are for your development with the understanding that at the least you can feel better in tough situations, a not small benefit, and at the best your changes will have a good effect on your partner and the relationship.

Ways of Being in Entanglement Moments

1. Identify if you are a person who tends to focus on process and feelings, or if you are a person who leans towards getting things done, and/or speaking with ‘logic.’ Both these ways are great. However, when one person favours one way, and the other person the other way, they are essentially not speaking each other’s language. This is very common in couples and is a great prescription for conflict. As well, if you are predisposed to one style, this will unconsciously call out the other style in your partner. Identify your style and language preference, the preference of the other, learn to hear your non-dominant language, work on developing your ‘lesser’ or non-dominant language, build your capacity to switch between languages, and eventually this will contribute to being able to meet the other on a common ground of connection, feeling, knowing, fluidity, and ease.
2. Recall the vision and feeling you had when you first met and this person seemed to be somewhere on the continuum of what you had hoped for and dreamed about. This person is still in there and exists as a seedling of possibility for themselves, you, and your relationship. This memory evocation/resurrection is hard to do when you are in the midst of a not great moment, one that you have likely seen many times before. If you can ‘see’ that person, the possibility of redivivus, that is coming back to life; being reborn, is now enhanced. Such a revivifying may be the water that the parched and covered entity needs to begin to re-emerge, in a new and wiser form.
3. Reflect on the possibilities within the Japanese terms of wabi sabi and kintsugi. Wabi sabi points to the imperfections that continually pervade life and an appreciation for that which is less than perfect; ourselves and our relationships. Kintsugi literally means repairing with gold, consequently an aesthetic is born out of the damage that has a unique and precious beauty. Both these terms are not methods, they are the essence of a philosophy that suggests how to co-exist with the realities of life.
4. Simultaneously speaking and listening: This requires enhanced alertness and involves the recognition that when either you or the other person is speaking in words, the non-speaker is also communicating by way of facial expressions, body movement, or lack thereof. Eyes, skin colour changes, subtle sounds, appearances of disengagement or engagement: if you pay close attention, you can learn to hear, see, and ‘feel’ them all.
5. If you are the speaker, noticing any signal that suggests you might pause in your verbal expressions and inquire about the other person’s thoughts, feelings, and/or questions is a way that may open the door to enhanced close and warmer connection and feeling.
6. Learning how to express anything that you wish to offer as an attempt to change the relational field and connect with the other person at a more responsive and interconnected level.
7. Do your inner research and study about how to notice the opportunities for identifying and acting on decision point identification. This is where you decide whether to speak and act in ways that have some possibilities to change the level and atmosphere of the interaction, or attempt to ‘correct’ the views of the other; this latter being a very frequent way to ignite further conflict. Remember that your goal is to make relational shifts rather than contributing to maintaining the status quo.
8. I will reiterate the previous point here, namely the point at which a decision can be made to shift to a process relational level and to not make the common move towards ‘being right,’ reacting, and defending your own vulnerability rather than finding the best way to show it, and creating optimal opportunity for a shift in the relational field in a more harmonious direction.
9. Noticing your own hurt, irritation, and pattern of angry/judgmental reactivity and staying with the feeling of discomfort and your internal dialogue about how you have been wronged or wrongly perceived is an opportunity to learn to hold the experience. This lets your internal pot boil and cook the raw materials in your inner world and give space for your own transformation to emerge.
10. A major challenge, and opportunity, for most is when you are in a centered space and your other is entrenched in a particular way of being. A common example of the latter would be a person who talks non-stop and who has a history of reacting badly to any attempts to intervene and say something. Another major example would be when one of you essentially goes silent, or at least mostly so. What to do?

I will finish here with some general ideas and practices about being in the fire of relationship. The faster you can recognize your own felt sense of helplessness and I might add, loneliness, the better. If this other person is reachable at the moment, you do not see any way to do so. You may well feel a sense of no escape and an experience of helplessness in you. Being quiet and exploring the experience of your helplessness is potentially viable and useful. You can be in your own meditative state even while staying alert to relational opportunities. There may be little that seems obvious to change the situation, and eventually, little need in the moment. This is a huge challenge to your sense of agency. Learning to accept the current reality is a practice that is available to you. This is aligned with the practice of accepting your own helplessness and your experience of ‘not-knowing.’ I strongly recommend working with these inner conditions as this paradoxically puts yon on the pathway to feeling your natural power. The ‘metaskill’ that is being invoked here is being still and quiet within and waiting for any opportunity that may appear. This process is learning to sit in the ever hotter and potentially exciting fire of relationship.

Many thanks to Heesoon for her invaluable help with this Field Note, as well as for her persistent efforts to practice and live what we are writing about, in our dyadic relationship and in all our relationships with others.

Shalom to you all,

Avraham

PS As previously noted, I will, in the not-too-distant future, be bringing you two very experienced therapists as guest Field Note authors :

In July 2025 Chris Nicol, MA, RCC will join us:

https://www.chrispnicol.com

In late 2025 or early 2026 Neelam Oik, MC, RCC will join us:

https://www.lifewiseclinic.com/about-neelam-olk

PPS Many of you tell me you read and enjoy the Field Notes and even send me questions directly, which I appreciate. And I would be most eager to see your written comments in the comments section so others have a chance to share in your wisdom, and also have the opportunity to respond to you.