Curiosity Interest and Acceptance

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Curiosity Interest and Acceptance — the three things that keep a relationship fro going off the rails. And notice: no mention of controlling the other person!

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Sev­er­al arti­cles ago I and pro­posed the following:

• I can only com­mit to an action — to some­thing I will do. 
• I com­mit to being in rela­tion­ship with you. Here is what I com­mit to: 
• I will be open, hon­est and vul­ner­a­ble in my dai­ly com­mu­ni­ca­tion with you. 
• I will tell you, today, who I am and what I am thinking. 
• I will tell you, today, every­thing I have done, and what it meant to me. 
• I will lis­ten to you with curios­i­ty and inter­est, today. 
• I will accept that you are who you are today, and will inte­grate who you are today with my pic­ture of you from “yes­ter­day.”
• I will make myself ful­ly avail­able and present to and with you, today, and engage in clear and con­cise com­mu­ni­ca­tion with you for not less than 30 min­utes, today. 
• I will own all of my thoughts, feel­ings, emo­tions and inter­pre­ta­tions, work­ing to take full respon­si­bil­i­ty for each and every one of them. If I slip and go into blam­ing, I will stop myself, apol­o­gise, and return to self-responsibility. 
• I will active­ly encour­age you to lis­ten to me and to active­ly hold me to the per­for­mance of what I have com­mit­ted to. 
• I will com­mit to all of these things, with­out any expec­ta­tion of any­thing from you, as all I can ever com­mit to is to what I can and will do.

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Today, we’ll look at:

• I will lis­ten to you with curios­i­ty and inter­est, today. 
• I will accept that you are who you are today, and will inte­grate who you are today with my pic­ture of you from “yes­ter­day.”

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Curiosity, Interest and Acceptance — Sounds like an accounting firm, eh? 😉

Many peo­ple come back from work­shops that teach com­mu­ni­ca­tion, (ours, Haven’s, wher­ev­er) and think they have to use per­fect com­mu­ni­ca­tion all the time — that what they’ve learned is required behav­iour in all situations. 

Then, they go about exhaust­ing them­selves, ask­ing “curios­i­ty ques­tions” of the postal work­er, the store clerk, the pim­ple-faced teen at the gold­en arches.

I sug­gest less fool­ish­ness and more focus.

The truth is this: in a com­mu­ni­ca­tion work­shop, learn­ing the process requires pay­ing atten­tion to every­one there; and then, prac­tic­ing all the time. After all, the only way to learn is to prac­tice, as good com­mu­ni­ca­tion does­n’t come naturally.

Out of the teaching environment, I can only be deeply in relationship with one principal partner, and less deeply, or situationally, committed to a few other people. In other words, you need to pick and choose.

“Sit­u­a­tion­al­ly,” how­ev­er, allows me to choose to use clear and hon­est com­mu­ni­ca­tion “all the time”; what I might choose NOT to do is “go deep” with the barista.

Dar­bel­la gets the most of me; indeed, she gets all I can give. This of course hap­pens every time we are togeth­er, as that’s the deal we’ve made.

Back when I was coun­selling, I con­tract­ed to be present with, hon­est with, and inter­est­ed in my clients, for their ses­sion time.

Beyond that, at the lev­el of friends, my abil­i­ty to be total­ly engaged with them drops off a bit. When a friend is in cri­sis, I choose full pres­ence, but …

what I’m saying is that, in general, it’s not possible to be fully open and present with a ton of people.

Long sto­ry short, about today’s points: this com­mit­ment is with one’s prin­ci­pal part­ner.

With this person, the list must apply fully and completely.

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Curios­i­ty is an inter­est­ing thing. Often, poor­ly trained com­mu­ni­ca­tors think curios­i­ty means that oth­ers should be end­less­ly curi­ous about them — about every detail of their life. This becomes the focus, and it is not rec­i­p­ro­cal. This is the exact oppo­site of what curios­i­ty is all about.

Curiosity is my internal process of comparing the experience I am having “now” with my experience of the person (or thing.) It is also my internal process of comparing what my partner is saying with what my partner is doing.

If, in the mid­dle of my being curi­ous (which is a process I’m engag­ing in inter­nal­ly — not just mouthing the word “curi­ous,”) some­thing is not clear for me, I may ask, “I’m curi­ous about what you intend by your words or actions.” This is so I receive clar­i­fi­ca­tion for “dis­con­nects” in my inter­nal process.

Let me note that listening, being curious and commenting is not the same as judging.

Poor com­mu­ni­ca­tors think that curios­i­ty is a sneaky way to get in a judg­ment or two. The ques­tion, above, becomes, “I’m curi­ous as to why you behave so bad­ly and are so stu­pid.” This is not curios­i­ty — it is judgment.

Curiosity is also not carte blanche to offer unsolicited advice. I continue to work on not slipping on this one.

Respect is one prin­ci­ple in Mori­ta Ther­a­py (a Japan­ese style of Psy­chother­a­py.) A Mori­ta Ther­a­pist nev­er offers unso­licit­ed advice. 

My nature is to pop off with the advice. Dar­bel­la has helped me to learn to be present with­out offer­ing suggestions. 

Most­ly, when Dar is hav­ing a moment, she wants me close, per­haps push­ing Body­work points, and most­ly silent. I can do this, and I do do this, and I still make it hard for myself, as I’m sure my insights are “just bril­liant.” Sigh.

Curiosity helps me to add data and experience to the “file” of the person (or situation) I’m with.

That’s the point of the sec­ond item on today’s list. My goal is to achieve a more and more accu­rate pic­ture of the oth­er per­son. This means that I must add and incor­po­rate new data with­out judg­ment. (Hmm. Maybe the next issues ought to be on “non-judg­ment?”)

This is not the same as con­don­ing stu­pid behav­iour. I always have the right to leave a dys­func­tion­al rela­tion­ship or to refuse to par­tic­i­pate in some­thing I don’t “feel right” about. If I want a deep, full and mean­ing­ful rela­tion­ship, how­ev­er, I can not and must not cre­ate a “straw per­son” to tilt against.

So, I do not have a “here are all the things I’d change” list about Dar. We just cel­e­brat­ed 31 years of mar­riage and 33 years togeth­er, and I’ve nev­er had such a list. What I have is a “here is Dar, as I know her today” file. It con­tains all that I know about her. There are ele­ments in that file, behav­iours that she does and I don’t, that I judge to be part of her and some­thing I don’t do.

What they are not is BAD.

I can nev­er fig­ure out peo­ple who end­less­ly crit­i­cize their part­ners (and then con­tin­ue to crit­i­cize them after they divorce them, as if any­one cares.) I can nev­er fig­ure out peo­ple who blame their part­ners. Who put their part­ners down. Who mock or berate their part­ners either to their face or to oth­ers. I can­not under­stand why I would do that with the per­son I choose to spend my life with, nor can I under­stand what would give me the right to do this.

Yet, blame and criticism seem to be the linchpins of (crappy) relationships.

Here are two truths:

First, your part­ner is exact­ly and pre­cise­ly who they appear to be — how they act — (not who they say they are…) If who they are is trou­bling to you, the only two viable choic­es are accep­tance or pack­ing your bag and leav­ing. The third option, end­less carp­ing, manip­u­lat­ing, fight­ing — judg­ing — is just stupid.

The sec­ond truth — you are not there to fix your part­ner. You can only fix yourself.

Your job is to work on your­self and to share your­self with your part­ner. And your part­ner, in a healthy rela­tion­ship, does the same. Each step along the way, the task is to inte­grate my “new part­ner” (the new data) into my present pic­ture or file. Period.

Get it?

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