Fall is almost here, and I'm starting to get a little anxious... having my hubby at home during the summer is a wonderful thing, and I recognize how lucky I am - but at the same time, it's a double-edged sword.
With Jason away from the house more and more as he prepares for his new school year, I'm being subjected to the constant litany of 'We want DADDY!' and 'We don't want YOU' and 'Daddy's nicer!' and 'Daddy lets me'. I'm trying not to take it personally, but WTF? What am I, chopped liver???
One of my main intentions coming home from both my Mama's and the Couple's retreat was to BE PRESENT. For my husband, for my kids, for myself... but what about real life? With kids that no longer nap (damn you, KEIRA!!) I'm finding the new struggle of juggling quality time with the girls and finding time for housework and business admin almost insurmountable. There are always housekeepers and babysitters, but you need MONEY for those things and I need to be sure the money is there before I spend it!
I'm not trying to beat myself up, but my husband is much better at being present when he's with the girls and I'm working. But that's also because he doesn't feel same pressure I put on myself for a clean house or foodie dinners, nor does he have a business to attend to do during most of the summer. I'm not trying to give him a bum rap - he pulls his weight around the house and the workload is distributed fairly evenly. For some reason, he fits it in better than me. Frustrating, no?
I'm trying to be creative. This morning the girls were 'helping' me clean the bathroom. Things quickly devolved into a screaming match over the toilet brush, and I have to admit that I was one of the three screamers! I've tried to sneak some admin time in here and there, but my impatient two-year-old will slam the lid of my laptop down on my fingers in protest. Either that or type gobbledy-gook into something I am working on. Recently a colleague's FB status reflected her frustration with her kid pulling the keys off her keyboard to stop her from getting a bit of work done, and I could completely relate.
While I've been typing this post, we've had two timeouts over the proper sharing etiquette of My Little Ponies. I feel partially responsible because I am blogging and not practicing very good presence! But DAMN, it's been a frustrating day and it's only 11:40am.
In any case, just needed to rant. Either that or scream into a pillow. I find this release slightly more effective! Thanks for listening :)
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Sunday, August 15, 2010
Trigger
A week ago, Jason and I returned from a couple's retreat at Hollyhock, hosted by Robert Gass and Judith Ansara - 'Sharing the Path'. Each time someone asks me how it was, I struggle to answer in a way that would adequately explain the immense power of the retreat, and how it has transformed our relationship.
We decided to attend the five-night retreat as an anniversary gift to ourselves - it's our fifth anniversary this coming Friday. Before the workshop we did the obligatory pre-work, identifying our intentions for the retreat and doing a short independent survey on how we function as a couple.
We thought we'd be given lots of free time to play, enjoy the Cortes beaches, drink wine, read, etc. We were wrong! The night we showed up, we saw the schedule and balked... each day contained 3x 3hr sessions and in the orientation, we were instructed to attend EVERY ONE. There was one single afternoon off and an optional night session following. It seemed more like couple's bootcamp!
But then we got into the circle the first night - 15 couples, all in varying stages of their relationships, some in crisis, some in celebration. Some people were totally in their comfort zone, and some were visibly squirming in discomfort and often it was obvious which partner had talked the other into attending! But somehow, Robert and Judith managed to orchestrate a cohesive gathering of people with a similar goal - to make our relationships the best they can possibly be by taking 100% responsibility for ourselves, our actions and our feelings.
Alongside Judith and Robert, the SWAT team - Sensual Women Assisting Transformation - of three fantastic therapists helped each person navigate through each workshop element. And let me tell you, some of the elements were INTENSE. Each morning we would do something really heavy (picture men crying openly), sometimes with our partners and sometimes with different group members, while the afternoons were usually something a bit lighter to complement.
We talked about playing the victim vs. taking responsibility.
We delved into our manipulative behaviours - think you don't have any? Think again!
We practiced different communication techniques, being present, taking turns broaching difficult conversation topics and coming to resolutions where both sides have responsibility.
While Jason and I have always had an easy time with communicating, we both had significant breakthroughs with identifying the ways we trigger each other. Once we figured out the specific triggers, we went through an exercise to figure out what the trigger stemmed from (our own personal 'core wound') and were amazed to find that many of our triggers all came from the same core wound - which have NOTHING to do with our partners! We also traveled through time to see how the same core wound has manifested itself in relationships past - lovers, friends and family. From there, we learned ways to deal with the real problems in a constructive way.
Do you know what your triggers are? Do you continually react to something somebody does in the same negative way? Your heart rate goes up. You want to yell. You feel like you want to barf. You revisit and replay the conversation multiple times, fuming and stewing. Making up snarky replies hours later. Triggertriggertrigger. Nasty.
Like I said, powerful stuff even for the healthiest relationships. And transferrable outside your marriage too, with friends and family, business associates, everyone!
Night sessions were often broken into same-sex circles to talk (very in-depth) about sacred sexuality, sensuality and how we each came to be the sexual (or non-sexual, for that matter) beings that we are today. Sometimes there was light-hearted instruction, since each of the therapists also happened to be practitioners of Tantra! Sometimes there were sharing circles - all very safe and confidential, all very enlightening. We talked about being 'all-day-lovers', meaning you don't need to have sex to make love. Making a coffee for your partner can be making love. Giving them a foot rub, expressing gratitude, reading together while your feet are touching - all just different ways to make love.
And what workshop would be complete without homework? Well, ours was called 'homeplay' and we were each assigned one hour of pleasuring our partner in any way you felt inclined. Get your mind out of the gutter - it didn't have to be like that! But surely we were given many, many tools if that's the way you wanted it to go!
Sometimes what we did was plain fun. Blindfolded dancing. Massage. Feeding each other dessert in crazy ways. Accompanying Robert's amazing voice and guitar. Sharing circles. Oyster BBQs. Conversation around the dinner table. And of course, just enjoying Hollyhock's beautiful beach, food, hot tub, garden... SO RELAXING, and the perfect environment to cultivate our relationship.
So how has it changed us? We laugh heartily at our triggers. We have a few new tricks up our sleeve to make our everyday lives more sensual. I'm really working on my presence, and am already making a ton of headway. And every week we are committing to the 1-hour of pleasure. I know the retreat was only a week ago, but our relationship feels better and stronger than ever.
On that note, I have to brag - this week my husband lit a fire, put marbles in a Rubbermaid with hot water and left me to soak my feet while I read my book and drank wine. Then he gave me an amazing foot massage. We used to do this kind of romancing all the time... and now, we're baaaaaaaaaaack!
We decided to attend the five-night retreat as an anniversary gift to ourselves - it's our fifth anniversary this coming Friday. Before the workshop we did the obligatory pre-work, identifying our intentions for the retreat and doing a short independent survey on how we function as a couple.
We thought we'd be given lots of free time to play, enjoy the Cortes beaches, drink wine, read, etc. We were wrong! The night we showed up, we saw the schedule and balked... each day contained 3x 3hr sessions and in the orientation, we were instructed to attend EVERY ONE. There was one single afternoon off and an optional night session following. It seemed more like couple's bootcamp!
But then we got into the circle the first night - 15 couples, all in varying stages of their relationships, some in crisis, some in celebration. Some people were totally in their comfort zone, and some were visibly squirming in discomfort and often it was obvious which partner had talked the other into attending! But somehow, Robert and Judith managed to orchestrate a cohesive gathering of people with a similar goal - to make our relationships the best they can possibly be by taking 100% responsibility for ourselves, our actions and our feelings.
Alongside Judith and Robert, the SWAT team - Sensual Women Assisting Transformation - of three fantastic therapists helped each person navigate through each workshop element. And let me tell you, some of the elements were INTENSE. Each morning we would do something really heavy (picture men crying openly), sometimes with our partners and sometimes with different group members, while the afternoons were usually something a bit lighter to complement.
We talked about playing the victim vs. taking responsibility.
We delved into our manipulative behaviours - think you don't have any? Think again!
We practiced different communication techniques, being present, taking turns broaching difficult conversation topics and coming to resolutions where both sides have responsibility.
While Jason and I have always had an easy time with communicating, we both had significant breakthroughs with identifying the ways we trigger each other. Once we figured out the specific triggers, we went through an exercise to figure out what the trigger stemmed from (our own personal 'core wound') and were amazed to find that many of our triggers all came from the same core wound - which have NOTHING to do with our partners! We also traveled through time to see how the same core wound has manifested itself in relationships past - lovers, friends and family. From there, we learned ways to deal with the real problems in a constructive way.
Do you know what your triggers are? Do you continually react to something somebody does in the same negative way? Your heart rate goes up. You want to yell. You feel like you want to barf. You revisit and replay the conversation multiple times, fuming and stewing. Making up snarky replies hours later. Triggertriggertrigger. Nasty.
Like I said, powerful stuff even for the healthiest relationships. And transferrable outside your marriage too, with friends and family, business associates, everyone!
Night sessions were often broken into same-sex circles to talk (very in-depth) about sacred sexuality, sensuality and how we each came to be the sexual (or non-sexual, for that matter) beings that we are today. Sometimes there was light-hearted instruction, since each of the therapists also happened to be practitioners of Tantra! Sometimes there were sharing circles - all very safe and confidential, all very enlightening. We talked about being 'all-day-lovers', meaning you don't need to have sex to make love. Making a coffee for your partner can be making love. Giving them a foot rub, expressing gratitude, reading together while your feet are touching - all just different ways to make love.
And what workshop would be complete without homework? Well, ours was called 'homeplay' and we were each assigned one hour of pleasuring our partner in any way you felt inclined. Get your mind out of the gutter - it didn't have to be like that! But surely we were given many, many tools if that's the way you wanted it to go!
Sometimes what we did was plain fun. Blindfolded dancing. Massage. Feeding each other dessert in crazy ways. Accompanying Robert's amazing voice and guitar. Sharing circles. Oyster BBQs. Conversation around the dinner table. And of course, just enjoying Hollyhock's beautiful beach, food, hot tub, garden... SO RELAXING, and the perfect environment to cultivate our relationship.
So how has it changed us? We laugh heartily at our triggers. We have a few new tricks up our sleeve to make our everyday lives more sensual. I'm really working on my presence, and am already making a ton of headway. And every week we are committing to the 1-hour of pleasure. I know the retreat was only a week ago, but our relationship feels better and stronger than ever.
On that note, I have to brag - this week my husband lit a fire, put marbles in a Rubbermaid with hot water and left me to soak my feet while I read my book and drank wine. Then he gave me an amazing foot massage. We used to do this kind of romancing all the time... and now, we're baaaaaaaaaaack!
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