Getting Connected

I live in Mid-Wales. It's beautiful. I am surrounded by rolling hills, wind turbines and sheep, lots of sheep! I live in a valley. It's beautiful. I look out of my bedroom window and I see a plethora of stunning trees and within a short walk I can appreciate a stunning lake and watch the light reflecting, glinting, on its still calm. Picturesque right? Right. Just one problem. Living remotely has its issues: namely connection issues. I can't count the number of times our internet has been down recently despite special packages, satellite dishes and sincere technicians who inform us "all is well now". All is not well. I run a coaching business online. Not well at all. I work with couples who also have connection issues and they work with me in the hope that like the sincere technician I can help make "all well" between them. I usually can. (what can I say? I'm good!).

But, (and its a big BUT) getting relationally connected is as difficult as getting Wifi connected in mid Wales. Yesterday, I walked up and down a mile long lane four times just to check and send messages and answer emails. I've had conversations with friends and family members from my car parked in a layby - pretty uncomfortable and decidedly chilly but I do it because they are important to me.

There's the rub. How important are our significant relationships to us? Do we (like me waiting for my technician) expect a seasoned professional to just somehow "sort us out" while we wait, or do we actively engage traversing our own mile long lane several times, because connection matters to us?

What is it that makes our relationship connections so hard? The million dollar question! Here are a few thoughts I've had about what, in my experience, is our number one issue and some suggestions about what we might do to get a better relational connection.

Fear - what exactly are we afraid of? Being misunderstood, not "seen" at our core, being rejected, not being loved in the way we want or need. Fear can paralyse us. It can stop us reaching out, because no-one likes feeling "un-safe". So, we seek to protect ourselves in the best ways we know how. We have generally learned how to do this by now. We protect our hearts by "fighting" our significant other -sometimes passively aggressively with sarcasm or put downs, often times verbally and in extreme cases with violence. Other times we protect ourselves by "freezing" literally like rabbits in the headlights we don't know how to respond so we put all our feelings in some kind of suspended animation and kind of "blank" our partner out. Or, we "flee" the situation. We make a tactical withdrawal - literal or metaphorical. We become "absent" even when present.

What effect does this have on our relationships?

Well, it tends to up the ante. It triggers our partner into their own well rehearsed protective responses and before we know it we are locked in a relational melt down that we fear we may never recover from.

So, what do we do when we reach out to our partner and they don't respond in the way we'd hoped? How do we stay connected when we appear to be experiencing an infrequent or non existent air waves connection?

Here's some ideas worth trying:

1. Manage your own story - we all love telling ourselves stories. We are born story tellers and meaning makers. A lack of information does not deter us. We make up what we don't know. The next time your partner does not respond to you in the way you'd hoped, ask yourself this question: "what am I believing right now about my significant other and about our relationship?" it can be helpful to actually name this and check out our story with them and then make the necessary adustments.
   
2. Manage your own expectations - we all live our lives as characters from Dickens "Great expectations" especially when it comes to those we love the most. They (we tell ourselves) of all people should understand us. But, the sad reality is they don't. Sometimes they are tired, or busy or worried or distracted or hungry! Sometimes, let's be honest, they are just not that interested. And that's okay. It's hard to come to terms with the fact that the world does not in fact revolve around us or our needs. It's a brutal truth and one that flies in the face of every Rom Com you've ever watched. But, there it is. We are probably experiencing connection issues with another deeply flawed human being. It's time to make peace with that and move on.
   
3. Manage your own heart - our hearts are the epicentre of our emotional world. It is where we keep the things we treasure most. We talk about "heart to hearts" "heartfelt" feelings, "hearty" laughter. But we are responsible for the treasures we keep there. It's very easy to wrap our offences and our hurts and give them pride of place in our hearts. Every so often we carefully unwrap them and re-experience all the pain and angst we first experienced when we put them there in the first place, then we carefully re-wrap and re-place them and then wonder why we feel so unhappy. The honest truth is that hurts and offences may be our most favourite collectibles but they are also the most damaging. Keeping them as treasures in our hearts will seriously impair our ability to re-connect with our significant other in meaningful ways. What do we do with them? Well, that's a subject of another blog, but for now, just acknowledge them, deny them heart access and put them in your "relational" "to do" pile. That's where they in fact, belong.

Relational disconnection is frustrating and heart breaking and sometimes we have to walk the mile long lane many times. Sometimes we have to find lay-bys on the way, sometimes we need the help of faithful technicians. But always, we need to manage our story, manage our expectations and manage our hearts. We do these things because our relationships really do matter. And, as we do when we finally get the signal we've been waiting for, we place ourselves in the very best place to connect in a way that brings us deep and enduring joy (at least until the next technical issue!)