Media & News:
Building Relationships That Last
by Rokelle Lerner—Excerpts from her article in Conscious Living Magazine
A woman I was once counseling sat in my office, depressed and hopeless. She’d been married twice and both relationships ended in conflict and pain. One session, I curiously asked her if she’d ever really fallen in love. She looked up at me with tears in her eyes and said, “You know, Rokelle, I’ve never really fallen in love. I think I’ve only stepped in it a few times.”
This woman’s statement was amazingly on target! The truth is, that we really don’t fall in love, we grow into love. In our relationships, we don’t really give ourselves the chance to benefit from the wonderful opportunities that loving provides. In other words, all of us desire the excitement and the pleasure of the grand overture, but few of us are willing to stay around for the second act. Those that are willing to stay and do the work required of relationship, reap the joy, vitality, passion and intimacy that enhances their lives and nurtures their spirits.
Relationships provide us with many things: love, security, closeness. I believe that the purpose of relationships are to look at the parts of ourselves that keep us from being whole—the parts of ourselves that still need healing. Relationships act as mirrors to our soul. You can’t see your own eyes without a mirror—we need someone or something to reflect that back to us. We all should have received this kind of mirroring as children. However, if you grew up in a dysfunctional family, you probably had parents who couldn’t give you that clear reflection of your essence. Therefore, many of us grow up looking to others and depending on others for our sense of self.
Relationships do mirror everything about us, some of which we don’t like to see. I think that what people don’t understand is that the real work of relationship begins when love begins to shine upon those dark places of the soul.
You see, no one has ever taught us how to stay in a relationship when the boat gets rocky. All we’re ever taught as kids is “happily ever after”. We don’t get to see what happens to Cinderella when she’s waking up to screaming babies one year down the road, wishing she’d given this prince to her step sister. We don’t read what happens to Snow White after a few years when her Prince Charming starts drinking and can’t make the carriage payments.
Many children from dysfunctional families don’t live—they relive. In truth, even those of us from the healthiest of families do this. There are ways that we all reenact our childhood dynamics through relationships. We need to laugh at some of this and maintain our sense of humor. Without perspective, without friends for support, without our ability to laugh at ourselves, we will tend to take ourselves too seriously and stay in a cycle of self doubt and misery.
The elements of affirmation, emotional sharing and empathy are qualities in a successful relationship, however, self disclosure, self validation and the ability to go through conflict are equally important. In other words, an oyster doesn’t develop a pearl because it wants to make something beautiful. An oyster develops a pearl because of irritation! In order to develop these qualities, we need to be able to turn from reactivity to creativity. We need to develop the ability to manage our anxiety, to self soothe and to tolerate pain for growth. This is imperative not only in our relationships, but for the survival of our planet . The chaos and violence in the world is only a larger picture of what’s going on between individuals.
All of us deserve the kind of intimacy that provides us with vitality, closeness, passion and well being—the kind of life-giving relationships we’ve all longed for.
Rokelle Lerner, MA, is a nationally sought after author, speaker and trainer on relationships, women’s issues and addicted family systems. Reprinted with permission