day eleven: relationships
Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.
-Rumi
Many full moons ago, when I was one month away from finishing my Masters in Social Work, I took a trip to the Caribbean. Sitting on the beach, I met a four-year-old girl who was vacationing with her mother. While playing in the sand, I tried to explain my job to her—what a psychotherapist does. Let’s just say that Jack is upset with Joanna—Jack might come to talk to me about it. Her face scrunched up as she poured sand from one hand into the other and then back again. She looked confused. Then she asked, Why doesn’t Jack just talk to Joanna?
Sitting in front of the gorgeous turquoise water, the degree I worked so hard to earn seemed silly. She was right—why don’t we just talk to each other? One of the reasons is that it can be damn hard and that often makes us put it off, taking for granted that we’ll have the time to make things right, to forgive, to get it sorted—someday.
But if a global pandemic can teach us anything at all—it’s this:
The unexpected can happen at any time. We live like we have forever but our life and the lives of our loved ones are temporary. Every breath is borrowed. As David Whyte says in The House of Belonging: And I thought this is the good day you could meet your love, this is the gray day someone close to you could die.
The intensity of this past year may be holding a magnifying glass on our relationship dynamics.
It may help us see that we need outside assistance to heal a relationship—pay attention. Seek it out.
It may help us see that we’re sorry for something—pay attention. Admit our wrong doing.
It may help us see where we’ve been holding a grudge—pay attention. Forgive.
It may help us see who drains our energy—pay attention. Let them go.
It may help us see who shows up for us—pay attention. Say thank you.
It may help us see who needs our presence—pay attention. Be there.
It may help us see whom we long for—pay attention. Let them know.
Let us not squander what we’re seeing. Let us use it. For connection. For healing. For love. And for good.
Reflective Journal Prompts
What is the magnifying glass showing you about your relationships, near and far, old and new?
Who would the little girl on the beach urge you to talk to? What would you say?
Discussion Prompts
Talk about what you’re learning about your relationships. For children, ask them how they feel about their friends, teachers, relatives. Or ask them to draw a picture of the people they miss most.
Suggested Action
Reach out to someone to voice any unsaid sentiments—whether unresolved, appreciative or affectionate.
Further Reading
It Happens All the Time in Heaven
Hafiz
[Note: this poem was written in Iran in the 14th century.]
It happens all the time in heaven,
And some day
It will begin to happen
Again on earth -
That men and women who are married,
And men and men who are lovers,
And women and women
Who give each other
Light,
Will often get down on their knees
And while so tenderly
Holding their lover’s hand,
With tears in their eyes
Will sincerely speak, saying,
My dear,
How can I be more loving to you;
How can I be more kind?