2010 March » CoupleDumb

Shadow Boxing

Mar 312010

Yep, that about sums it up.

We can’t be a relationship site doing two whole weeks on the topic of therapy and not talk about couples counseling. Obviously we strongly believe in its significance and, if you have made it into the door of the therapist, you have made a strong declarative statement that you value your relationship. We have done a lot of work on our marriage but, the funny thing is, we never done it as a couple.

Paul says: If, by this point, you have not figured out that Lee and I have done a lot of therapy then you’re not very bright. Sorry but it’s true. Most of the work that we have done is in a group milieu which means that we get to hear the reasons that others were in there with us. My person favorite reason: ‘I’m here for my wife’. When the guy said that, standing with his arms crossed and oozing arrogance, some of us groaned, some laughed but all of us knew how wrong that statement was.

There is a standing rule in the therapy world: the only person that you can fix is yourself. That is why Lee and I say that we have worked on our marriage individually as a couple. We work hard on ourselves, knowing that we are becoming the best people we can be. So we cry and rage and examine our lives and, in the end, we come out with new insights.

But then what? What happens when you go home with this new outlook on life and meet up with your significant other and their new outlook? One of the fallacies of relationship is that communication is the end all and be all of bliss together. Yes it is important but what is being communicated is more important. Let’s be real, honestly communicating ‘I hate you bitch’ is not going to strengthen the relationship, no matter how heartfelt it is.

The stuff that Lee and I are doing now is very Jungian in its foundation so there is a lot of metaphor dealing with our archetypes and shadows and the wounds of our inner child. We come out of one of our weekends of therapy after finding out that my shadow, that is the dark part of me that I am not proud of and that comes out during certain times of stress, wants to kill people and Lee’s just wants to be invisible. What do we do with this information? The worst case scenario is that my shadow goes hunting and hers makes her disappear. Obviously not conducive to a happy marriage.

This is the part where healthy communication comes into play. We talk about our shadows (or whatever new self-perception come up) as they apply to ourselves as married people. Or in other words, ‘sometimes I want to go shotgun-in-a-bell-tower on someone’s ass and this is how it applies to me as a husband’. Yes, dinner conversation at the Reyes-Fournier house is always lively.

Lee says: I think it is more instructive to say that honest, constructive, emotionally centered communication is a key to a healthier relationship. Knowing each others hot topics and buttons is crucial. Not for arguing as ammunition (you thought it, don’t deny it) but to know the instructions or the schematics of your partners. Those topics are the issues they should work on in therapy.

Let’s face it people, if you mention things in arguments as a way to gain advantage over your partner, you two are truly screwed. Arguing and conflict should be used as a means to building a healthier bond not a battlefield exercise to win a game. Healthy communication includes talking, sharing and arguing. It is when we are disrespectful, calculating or physical that arguments are unhealthy. And, for those couples who don’t know how to argue, this would be a great reason to visit a therapist.

I had a professor many years back tell his class that arguments should be the grounds where couples should take quantum leaps to health. I think this guy smoked pot between classes but the thought was sound. Unfortunately, most people learn their fighting styles from Mom and Dad. My Mom and Dad would have scared the poop out of Mike Tyson.

I am Water

Kids and why you can't kill them

Mar 302010

That's one happy elephant

As we wind up our two week therapy rant, we would like to highlight a couple of good points: you model healthy behavior for your kids, going to therapy can be fun, Paul is a hippy-angel, L. Ron Hubbard created a religion because he was bitter and everyone can benefit from a stint on the couch. Now it’s Lee’s turn to show her freaky side and share some of her recent discoveries.

Lee says: I have used all kinds of therapy and modalities as a therapist. I especially enjoy group work since you have built in support for the clients and the therapist can be as creative as they want to be. When I ran groups, I could do didactic presentations (teaching), guided imagery, confrontation and experiential exercises. As a client, I have enjoyed the same and am willing to push the traditional therapy boundaries.

In the work we do now, we use modalities like hypnotherapy, meditation, breath work and psychodrama. These forms of therapy lend themselves to deep work in a safe environment. I have mentioned metaphor before and this is very important in our understanding of what we discover in our sessions. One could take at face value what they see or experience or they can interpret it as metaphor and apply it to their lives. For example, in last Friday’s post, Paul explained that he was an angel. Now we can look for the wings and harp or we can see that it is another way of saying that he is special, divine and of God. It was a deeper affirmation that he accepts that he is a child of God.

In my recent work, I was searching for my essence; who I am after you peel the influence of my parents away leaving the soft creamy center. I created the intention that my essence would come to me easily and I laid down and closed my eyes and began to breath. I immediately began to see the ocean. It was deep ocean with no sign of land. If you’ve never been out that far, the water is very different out there. The water out there is a deep blue which almost borders on purple. I thought ‘huh, I thought this would be easy’ and continued to look at the water in my minds eye. And then it struck me, I am water.

The realization began to flood my brain with evidence to confirm this discovery. I shower a minimum of twice a day. Sure it’s a little OCD but I feel so comfortable in the water. Swimming has always been second nature. I find the water inviting, sultry, sexy and safe. I am water.

I am fluid and flowing. I am refreshing, cleansing and replenishing. I am nurturing and a force of nature. I am a cool, artistic individual who is connected to all. I am powerful. I am water.

It’s weird really. I have sat with this knowledge for a week and for the first time I feel that all of this makes perfect sense. I am all these things and so much more. In my core, my essence, I am the ultimate Lee. With this information, any question of ‘who am I’ is quenched. In the end, I should have always known that I was just a tall drink of water. Ahhhhhhhh!

Paul says: I, for one, love to swim in her essence. I can come up with all kinds of sexual innuendo but, to be honest, the image of her as water overwhelms me. The metaphor is too perfect. Over the couple of decades that I have known her, I have watched as she battled her nature to violently pound against the shore and I have been amused when she was surprised by her calmness and depth. I take pride that I get to sail on her ocean and drink in her essence.

Angels and (Personal) Demons

Monday, Heavy Monday

Mar 292010

I dress like this all of the time.

This week’s topic is therapy but before we continue, we need to issue a warning. If you are not accepting of Jungian, hippy, out of body, experiential , subconscious-talking kind of shit or if you are one of our fundamentalist readers who believe that God is a perennial grouch who giveth and taketh in direct proportion to our blind obedience then you might want to stop reading now and check back in tomorrow. We’ll write something funny on Saturday.

Paul says: Now that I know that our dear readers are safe, that no one’s sense of reality is going to be crushed, I can continue. Well, this weekend I found out that I was an angel. With eyes closed, encircled by friends, I tapped in to that conversation with God that I had that infinitesimally long moment before conception. I saw, in Biblical vernacular, leagues of angels standing before me and, as I asked for understanding, they said in one soft voice, ‘you are one of us’.

Before you worry that I am going to don a robe and go strolling through the streets announcing that I am the herald of the Lord, rest assured that that is not going to happen. This is my divinity that I was able to tap into, a divinity that we all have. So I am, paradoxically, singularly special and totally common.

I am not going to bore you with every nuance of my experience. Realize it was an hour and a half of oscillatory laughing and crying that, at some times, cycled so quickly that they became one emotional outburst. My daughter calls it craughing (Crying/Laughing). This process came at the end of two days (or a lifetime, depending on how you look at it) of me preparing and searching for a remembrance of that defining conversance.

But I’ll give you one of the big pieces. The therapist asked me what my agreement with God was. I said that I was to bring safety and, of course, I began to cry; overwhelmed. ‘Wow,’ the therapist said, all loving, ‘that’s a lot of responsibility’. This brought about a renewed wave of weeping. Understand that, in the therapeutic milieu, divinely inspired, grandiose responsibilities are generally frowned upon. Being charged by God is usually not good on the psyche. But that was my message so I went back to The Source for explanation.

Here is the climatic reveal: I misunderstood. I was not to bring safety but to be safety. I know it seems like I’m splitting hairs but in the world of divine messages this is a huge difference. Bringing safety is a lot of work. There are a lot of unsafe people out there and being the Santa Clause of security, without even the benefit of elves, is kind of overwhelming. But, being safety just means that I sit my ass down, trust that God’s got my back, and simply be. Easy, peasy. (Honestly, one of the reasons that I am in therapy and had the experience that I did was because I have problems trusting God…but I’m working on it.)

Since I was the demonstration, I had the opportunity of sitting back and watching as everyone else in the group did the same process and I was struck with some clarity of the human condition. As one person danced to the music of grief filled sobbing, her eyes closed as she danced herself into the person she wants to be, I saw us as the same. As the group lent lyrics to the music, words like ‘thank you’, ‘I hate you’, and ‘why did you abandon me’, it became clear to me that we all wanted one thing, to be lifted from the pain of a lifelong birth and be placed in the awaiting arms of love.

And that embrace is waiting for you. Trust me, I’m an angel.

Lee says: I recently wrote that therapy is like finding your lost luggage and realizing you didn’t really need it. In the case of my wonderful husband, it was remembering that he was loved. He knows I love him; that is never in question. But its kind of messed up when you feel that your Father didn’t love you. Not his parents, but his Father (wink, wink- get it). Now that that is handled, I wonder if Mr. Angel will continue to take out the trash.