July 16, 2007

The Second Secret to Flourishing Relationships

You wouldn’t think of flying in an airplane with a pilot who had no training. Making a marriage or intimate relationship fly is a far more complex task. Yet most of us have almost no formal preparation.

Partners simply climb into the cockpit and take off, hoping not to crash but not really knowing how to avoid a possible disaster. Once they are airborne, they are reluctant to ask for help. That’s not really surprising since our culture nurtures the belief that we ought to be able to figure out how to make relationships work on our own.

This attitude is tragically short sighted. Seeking help (both spiritual and psychological), taking advantage of available resources, and educating yourself are signs of self-esteem self-confidence and intelligence. Actively taking these steps is essential to growing beyond the difficult places you and your mate encounter as your relationship evolves. That’s why relationship education is one dimension of the second secret to developing your green thumb with intimate partnerships.

There are lots of excellent books and tapes available to assist you in beginning your ongoing education for relationship success. You’ll find a suggested resource list at the end of this article. While tools like these are extremely helpful and important, there is no substitute for experiencing a healthy relationship with a teacher, Spiritual director, or couples therapist to assist you in more fully nourishing the love you share with your mate.

Think about how reading a book about operating a computer is quite different from having a skilled computer specialist guide you as you learn. Working together at the keyboard, you gain hands on operating experience. Gradually your confidence grows. Soon you are proficient and effective on your own because you have practiced the skills you need with a guide present to coach and assist you in the process. In a similar way, a relationship teacher serves as a coach and guide as she helps you practice the skills that are most important to develop. In next month’s newsletter, I’ll describe some of those basic partnership skills.

But educating yourself about what works and doesn’t work in an intimate partnership is only one aspect of the challenge. If these important skills are to take hold and take root in your marriage, they need to be planted in the fertile soil of a loving, safe context you and your partner create. Within such a setting, your relationship skills – when practiced regularly and gradually mastered – can flourish and transform your intimate connection.

Both of you need to develop a deep understanding, acceptance, and love of yourself so you can also understand, accept and genuinely love your partner.  In an atmosphere of acceptance and understanding, you create a healthy climate within which love flows freely without walls of resistance and fear blocking its passage. This loving, nurturing context has three facets: your relationship with God, your relationship with yourself, and your relationship with your partner.

Your outer relationships directly reflect your relationship with yourself and with God. If your heart is closed to God’s love, you aren’t able to love yourself fully or openly extend your love to others. When your heart opens to receive God’s love, love for yourself and for others flourishes in the peace of knowing your shared Divine Source. Because you are open to receive love, you have abundant love to give.

When you tune into the Divine love that is the core of your being, you can feel this love streaming through your heart and from your heart to God. Simultaneously it flows freely from your heart into the heart of your partner and the hearts of others. Living in this loving flow, you experience the Divine in yourself and in your partner as well as everyone else you meet. All your relationships blossom and flourish, nourished as they are by the steady rain of inner peace that passes through you and connects you with others.

Why, you may wonder, would anyone’s heart not be open to God’s love?  Is allowing God’s love a function of the intellect?  Do you have to make sense of the Universe in order to allow the breath of love to flow freely through you?  What blocks this flow when it is blocked?

I can’t answer those questions for you. I can only speak from my own experience. All my life I sought this Divine love, imagining that it was somewhere outside me.  I read hundreds of books, worked with Spiritual teachers, went to church, prayed, meditated, and gradually grew and healed many inner hurts. I thought my heart was as open as a heart could possibly be. Truly I made a lot of progress. But I didn’t know what I was missing still, because I could not yet see to the core of what blocked me from feeling God’s love flowing freely within me.

In 2001, I was for the first time in the presence of Dr. Ron Roth, a truly inspired Spiritual teacher. Along with over 200 other Spiritual seekers, I attended a five day intensive workshop on prayer and healing. There I found the key to what kept me unconsciously guarding my heart. I hadn’t realized how I was blocking the steady flow of the Divine love that I craved and didn’t know was at the core of me.

The key to why I guarded my heart so closely was a curse – words spoken in rage by my mother when she was scared and upset far beyond her capacity to cope with what confronted her. “God will get you for this!” she exclaimed to a terrified seven year old me – a child she had just caught being sexually abused by her father, my mother’s husband. In her fearful state, she blamed me for his behavior.  I know she regretted that incident and lived for years carrying deep shame within her. I know she was sorry. I spoke with her about that event before she died. We forgave each other. But I didn’t yet remember the curse. And it was the curse – those devastating and forgotten words - that bound me.

Unconsciously I was afraid of God’s love. Unconsciously I thought God was against me and out to get me. I clung to believing my mother’s words. I wanted her love and approval. Outside my awareness, I obeyed her curse and arranged to “get” myself in a variety of ways that confounded my mind and frustrated my heart.

During that week in Phoenix in Ron’s presence, I remembered the curse. Finally I fully forgave my mother and asked her to forgive me for keeping a wall around me that prevented our ever being really close.  I released her, and I released me. And I felt my heart opening and opening. And then still opening some more. God loves me. God is for me, not against me. I love me. I see my life in a new light. I see everyone with eyes of love, no longer clouded by the unconscious terror that kept me closed despite my best efforts to pry open my frightened heart.

It wasn’t a matter of figuring it out or gaining intellectual understanding. It was a matter of being in the presence of a teacher who emanates love. It was also being in the company of many, many others whose hearts are open and free. Saturated in this Holy Spirit of Love, what still needed healing and recognition rose to the surface of me. I cried great buckets of healing tears. I felt the collapse of the tightness inside me that was so old and familiar I didn’t even know it was there. I felt peace and joy that I had never known before.

Since that time, I’ve integrated this healing in my life. I didn’t plan to write about this when I sat at my computer to compose this article. I did pray that the Holy Spirit would guide me. This is what has come.  

Yes, I already had learned lots of skills and taught them to countless others. Yes, they worked before and they made a big difference in my relationships and in the relationships of the people I counsel. But now these skills go beyond just working. Now they transform – when I practice them within the context of the sacred trinity of love for God, for myself, and for others.

My prayer is that my experience may touch your heart in whatever way is most nourishing for you. If you’re inspired to expand your relationship education and build your partnership skills, here is a resource list to consider.  Read, listen, learn, and practice, remembering always that within the sacred context of Divine love you’ll find the healing magic you seek.  It is the Holy Spirit of Love that truly makes you a green thumb relationship gardener.

Resources to consider:

Loving Your Partner Without Losing Your Self by Martha Baldwin Beveridge
Getting The Love You Want by Harville Hendrix
Reclaiming Your Spiritual Power by Ron Roth
Joy’s Way by Brugh Joy
The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle
Angel Therapy by Doreen Virtue
Small Miracles by Yitta Halberstam and Judith Leventhal
How To Improve Your Marriage Without Talking About It by Pat Love and  Steven Stosney
Love That Works by Saundra Dickinson 

About Martha
Martha Baldwin Beveridge is a psychotherapist, writer, and teacher. A Phi Beta Kappa and honors graduate of Wellesley College, she holds a Master of Science in Social Work degree from the University of Louisville.  She is a Diplomate in Clinical Social Work, a Certified Imago Relationship Therapist, and has been in private practice since 1975.

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