Conversations.....explorations of self, of others, of relationships..... human dynamics....have always fascinated me. It's almost like reading an interesting book, more so when it's happening in close context and then you step out of it to witness and understand.....especially when it leads to or reveals a newer layer of the other or of yourself.
In this context, here's an excerpt from 'The Dance of Connection' by Harriet Lerner, a psychologist and relationship expert:
In this context, here's an excerpt from 'The Dance of Connection' by Harriet Lerner, a psychologist and relationship expert:
"The challenge in conversation is not just to be ourself but to choose the self we want to be. What we call 'the self' is never static, but instead is a work in progress. That's why we don't discover who we are by sitting alone on a mountaintop and meditating, or by being introspective and 'going deeper', as valuable as these disciplines may be. The royal road for both discovering and reinventing the self is through our relationships with other people and the conversations we engage in.
In a sad paradox, the more important and enduring a relationship (say, with a partner or relative), the more we tend to participate in narrow, habitual conversations where our experience of our self and the other person becomes fixed and small.
My goal is to challenge us to engage in novel conversations that will create a larger, more empowering view of who we are and what is truly possible.
My goal is to challenge us to engage in novel conversations that will create a larger, more empowering view of who we are and what is truly possible.
Although I resonate with the phrase 'finding our voice', the image it evokes is deceptive. We don't dig our authentic voice out of the muck, as a dog digs through the dirt to uncover a prized bone. Similarly we don't just reveal ourselves in conversation; we can also discover and deepen who we are. The challenge then, is not only to find our authentic voice but also to enlarge it.
Speaking our mind and heart is the most precious of human rights. The ability to speak our own own truths forms the core of both intimacy and self-regard.
The poet Adrienne Rich puts it beautifully: it is not, she writes, that we have to tell everything, or to tell it all at once, or even to know beforehand all that we need to tell. But an honorable relationship, she reminds us, is one in which "we are trying, all the time, to extend the possibilities of truth between us........of life between us".
The poet Adrienne Rich puts it beautifully: it is not, she writes, that we have to tell everything, or to tell it all at once, or even to know beforehand all that we need to tell. But an honorable relationship, she reminds us, is one in which "we are trying, all the time, to extend the possibilities of truth between us........of life between us".
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