Your Secret Stash

In the opening scene of the Carol being wrong, and maintain a victim identity. Mar-movie “Mr. and Mrs. Smith,” we find the couple in a therapy session. Mrs. Smith tells experience up to the light, it cia knew that if she held the the therapist, “There’s this huge would dissolve. But she chose space between us, and it just instead to keep it in the dark keeps filling up with everything so she could continue to claim that we don’t say to each other.” it. This perceived payoff kept While we might be inclined to define relationships portion of it, underground, the relationship, or at least a by what we say to each other, and impeded the friends from they are more accurately defined by what we don’t say to day the issue will be resolved, moving ahead together. One each other. but only when Marcia perceives a greater benefit in re-My friend Carol owns a successful business she has leasing it than clinging to it. built over many years with Fear regards light as an her executive assistant Marcia. enemy. Michael Pritchard In general the two women are declared, “Fear is that little good friends, but recently they darkroom where negatives are had an argument. Marcia told developed.” Love, by contrast, Carol, “I am still deeply hurt is willing and eager to bring by what you said to me a few all things into the spectrum years ago.” of greater awareness. If your Carol was stunned. She intention is to heal, you can couldn’t imagine what she hold anything up to the light had said that had disturbed and it will serve the healing process. We have heard, her friend so much. “Please tell me what I said that hurt “the truth hurts,” but the only you,” she asked, wishing to thing truth hurts is illusions. rectify the problem. Compassionately expressed, Marcia shook her head. “I’d honesty works in your favor rather not tell you.” and that of those you touch.

Marcia’s response indicates It has been said, “Those who her hidden agenda to keep the are brutally honest are more problem in force. If she truly interested in brutality than intended to heal her pain and honesty.” Any communication maintain the best possible delivered with love begets loving results. relationship with her friend, she would have revealed the What we withhold from incident by which she felt relationships is what keeps hurt. Then the two could have us feeling separate and alone. processed the experience until they came to resolution tell everyone everything all I’m not suggesting that you around it. the time; relationships can be Marcia’s investment in damaged by too much information. I am suggesting that holding on to the grudge rather than releasing it indicates the important things need to that she held it as a “treasured be shared. If emotional pain wound.” She perceived a payoff for feeling slighted: she got your friend, putting it on is standing between you and to be “right” at the expense of the table can dissolve it. But take care how you share it, and why. If your intention is to punish your partner, be right, or fuel the same argument you have been having for years, you are better off keeping your mouth shut. If, however, your intention is to dissolve upset, come closer to your partner, and deepen your relationship, your communication will serve as a gift to both of you.

Your experience in all relationships is the result of your intention. You use relationships to project what you want to make of them. Some people create relationships to be a source of deep reward and soul fulfillment. Others use relationship to intensify discord, separateness, loneliness, combat and pain. The good news is that even if one of your relationships, or many, have been horrid, you have to power to shift any of them by choosing harmony over discord. Your wellbeing does not depend on the other person’s actions or attitude.

It depends on your choice. The other person may continue to choose upset, but if you choose peace, you have mastered the situation and bestowed upon yourself the only gift worth gleaning from it. When you choose peace for yourself, you invite the other person to meet you on higher ground.

The key to healing relationships is joining – finding common ground on which you and your friend are unified. In my book “Happily Even After,” I interviewed couples who had been steeped in bitter acrimony as a result of a breakup or divorce, and then found ways to harmonize and support each other.

The most common theme I discovered was that couples who had children agreed that they both wanted the best for their children, which gave them a shared purpose, and opened a door to joining. To heal a relationship you don’t have to have children, but you do need a vision of connectedness. “We are in this together, so let’s do what we can to make it a happy ride for everyone involved.”

In the world of separation, there seems to be a huge space between us. What we fill it with makes all the difference.