In the past, my life was riddled with active addictions, misunderstandings, and intense self-judgment. I had difficulty looking in the mirror without criticism, acknowledging what was enough, and coming to terms with the illusion of control. I turned to drinking, drugs and dudes to escape from the pain of Suffer. This only led to even greater Suffer.
Now, I enjoy the fruits of a well-examined extraordinary life of Serenity: sobriety from alcoholism, healthy assertive communication, and radical self-care. Here’s a peak at how I do it:
The three c’s create an extraordinary life of Serenity:
Connection
Communication
Contemplation
Connection is necessary for my top value: Serenity. Serenity is the opposite of addiction. Serenity is comfort in my skin, clarity in my mind, and calm in my heart. I make a daily practice to connect with a sense of ease. Recovery meetings, true friendships, heartfelt hugs with my beloveds. These all happen. Regularly. This is proper use of my will. Connection with truth and beauty happens with a flower outside.
Communication is essential for connection and Serenity. Even if I’m on a 10-day silent meditation retreat, my non-verbal communication reflects whether I’m calm in Serenity or caught in Suffer. The inner self-talk impacts my soul’s expression, so a look in the eyes is enough to tell you how I’m doing. The mirror meditation of each morning, rounding the corner and saying, “Hey Buddy” to myself is much easier when I do the first act of Serenity: Smile upon awakening, before feet kiss the earth.
Contemplation is the art of accurate self-examination through communicating with my higher powers. Prayer (yep, the Serenity Prayer is a daily practice), meditation (metta, maitri, lovingkindness) and writing. These all work. I get to use my will to allow space for them to happen.
Serenity Prayer
God grant me the Serenity
to Accept the things I cannot change
the Courage to change the things I can
and the Wisdom to know the difference
In conclusion, I want to offer a reminder about dialogue. One specific and powerful communicational tool called the Imago Intentional Dialogue helped. Today’s guest blog, from Shambhala Mountain Center (a favorite place of mine for meditation, now called Drala Mountain Center), highlights the power of the Imago Intentional Dialogue.
[As a certified Imago Relationship Therapist, and as a wife of nearly 20 years, I vow to create conscious partnerships in my life and my work. I owe a debt of gratitude to Harville & Helen and invite you to check out their work below and find an Imago Professional near you. Reach out to me for in-person retreats in Hawaii and/or if you are comfortable doing Zoom sessions. Relational health is an extraordinarily wise investment. Aloha, Amy]
Guest blog: Harville & Helen Hendrix:
The Birth of Real Love
When we fall in love, suddenly we see life in technicolor. We nibble each other’s ears and tell each other everything; our limitations and rigidities melt away. We’re sexier, smarter, funnier, more giving. Now we feel whole, we feel like ourselves, we are connected.
But inevitably–whether we marry or move in together– things just start to go wrong. The veil of illusion falls away, and it seems that our partners are different than we thought they were. It turns out they have qualities that we can’t bear. Even qualities we once admired grate on us. Old hurts are reactivated as we realize that our partners cannot or will not love and care for us as they promised. Our dream shatters and we feel disconnected.
Disillusionment turns to anger.
Since our partner no longer willingly give us what we need, we change tactics, trying to coerce our partners into caring–through anger, crying, withdrawal, shame, intimidation, criticism–whatever works. The power struggle has begun, and may go on for many years, until we split, or we settle into an uneasy truce living often parallel lives, or until we seek help, desperate to feel alive again, to have our dream back and feel reconnected.
What we need to understand and accept is that conflict is supposed to happen. This is as nature intended it: everything in nature has a polarity and is in tension. The hard truth is that the grounds for marriage is really incompatibility; it is the norm for relationships. Conflict needs to be understood as a given, a sign that the psyche is trying to survive, to get its needs met, and paradoxically, to restore feeling connected. It’s only without this knowledge that conflict is destructive.
Romantic love is supposed to end.
It is the glue that initially bonds two incompatible people together to do what needs to be done to heal each other, and in the process, heal the rifts in nature caused by our earlier experiences. The good news is that the power struggle is also supposed to end. The emotional bond that is created by romantic love to keep partners together through the hard times evolves into a powerful organic bond through the process of resolving conflict. This is our opportunity to move from an Unconscious Relationship to a Conscious Relationship.
A Conscious Relationship is not for the faint-hearted, for it requires learning more effective coping mechanisms than the crying or anger or withdrawal which have become so habitual for us. It means reconnecting through Dialogue, stretching to give our partners what they need to heal.
This is not easy, but it works.
Regardless of what we may believe, relationships are not born of love, but of need; real love is born in relationships. You are already with your dream partner, but at the moment, he or she is in disguise. A Conscious Relationship itself is the therapy you need to restore your sense of aliveness and connectivity and set you on the path of real love.
[As a certified Imago Relationship Therapist, and as a wife of nearly 20 years, I vow to create conscious partnerships in my life and my work. I owe a debt of gratitude to Harville & Helen and invite you to check out their work below and find an Imago Professional near you. Reach out to me for in-person retreats in Hawaii and/or if you are comfortable doing Zoom sessions. Relational health is an extraordinarily wise investment. Aloha, Amy]
About Harville and Helen
Harville Hendrix, Ph.D. and Helen LaKelly Hunt, Ph. D are partners in life and work. Together, they have written over 10 books, including three New York Times bestsellers. Harville and Helen co-created Imago Relationship Therapy to promote the transformation of couples and families by creating relational cultures that support universal equality.
Imago Relationships Worldwide
Talk. Listen. Connect
Getting the love you want, keeping the love you find and connecting securely and deeply with your partner, these are the goals of Imago Relationship Therapy. We can help you to resolve conflict while staying connected. Deepening intimacy in a safe space invites vulnerability. Communicating effectively with your partner is key to maintaining a long and rewarding relationship. Sharing a life together means meeting and conquering obstacles as a couple while expressing uncertainties and frustrations constructively. Imago professionals offer therapy and educational workshops for individuals and couples throughout the world.
For more information on Imago therapists, workshops or trainings worldwide, please visit www.ImagoRelationships.org.
Do you have “emotional safety zones” in your life?
Emotional safety zones are relationships where you can express difficult emotions without fear of rejection. You may have experienced this with close family members, tight-knit friends, or even communities like churches, sangha, or group therapy.
But perhaps the most important person you can share a safety zone with is your spouse or romantic partner. After all, they are the one person you must come home to at the end of the day — both physically and emotionally. Unfortunately, it is all too easy to interact in ways that make you and your partner feel anything but safe with each other.
This week we are exploring the 3 Realms we dwell in which I wrote about in my transformational memoir, Moonshot: aim high, dive deep, live an extraordinary life. If you would like to purchase my memoir from an independent seller, my friend Mary has some on the mainland she can mail more easily than I can so please send me your interest and we’ll make arrangements. I also just found a great new link buying books at bookshop.org
whew, I digress, back to the topic:
These 3 Realms are Resilience, Compassion, and Service.
In essence, we feel the tender heart of sadness in order to heal it. We remember we are connected to others in order to live an extraordinary life of everyday enlightenment and uplift the world.
As I learned in my professional training in Imago Therapy, we are wounded in relationship, and it is in relationship that we are healed.
We dwell in the Realm of Service
we live and breathe interdependence
we practice response-ability
we practice generosity: we give to live
we choose wisely to uplift our consciousness
Service ordinary definition: the act of helping or doing work for someone
Service extraordinary definition: the way of living that uplifts the world
Ready to join me in the new extraordinary story of tenderness and uplifting the world vs. the old story of toughen up and suffer? Great, letʻs talk, hit reply now, leave your number and time zone, and we’ll hop on the phone.
With much Aloha,
Amy Elizabeth Gordon MA
Relational Health Coach & Compassion Activist
clear your mind
open your heart
rekindle your spirit
energize your life
p.s. Here’s a panel interview I had earlier this year with 3 powerful beings (including my beloved, Marc) to discuss service.
