I was thinking about softness, and how it changes your vibe. We`re all very smart, very clever, very defended. We don`t want anyone to see how films about animals make us cry, or our scrap- booking, or all the mistakes we made and continue to make around everything in life.
We don`t want anyone to see that we`re lonely, or frightened, or exuberant about the simplest things. We don`t want anyone to see us being childlike and hopeful. So we cultivate our intellect, our opinions, our thoughts on where we`ve been and where we`re going.
Today I was in the kitchen eating what I`d cooked, when my husband walked in. I have a horrible history of burning food. There was the time several months ago when I retreated to the microwave, defeated, afraid my absent-mindedness would burn the house down (talk about repressed rage). In the last few weeks I`ve been trying the stove again - scheduling cooking time, staying put in the kitchen, turning on the timer, sharpening my attention, and not burning anything! I`m cured! I`m a cook! I`m not a menace, I can do this! And the ground turkey I cooked in the pan smelled very nice on my plate. And he says, alarm and accusation in his voice, "Did you burn something?"
"No!" I look up at him in shock.
"It smells like you burned something. Something`s burned." and he walks into the kitchen.
"No, no!" I defend, going for the pan, picking it up to show him, feeling five years old and incompetent. "It`s just nicely brown, see?" I say forcefully, totally righteously. It`s his nose that`s wrong.
"Well, it smells like something`s burned."
All of a sudden I get what I really feel. Yes, I`m five. I screw up my face and do big time mock crying and whining. "But I didn`t burn it!" I wail. "I didn`t...." and I go all gooey, pan in my hand, miserable. And in that second, my husband does a 180. His eyes go deep and very blue-green, he smiles so fast I`m taken aback, and he comes towards me, arms around me, "Ohhhhhhh," he says. And that`s the end of it.
"So, how`s your day?" he skips right to his next thought, and he`s standing right up against me, and we`re connected, and I leap from five-year-old to grown-up, from lump to goddess. Long ago, whenever this happened, I used to think it was because he was competitive and didn`t want me to be big. I thought he liked me girly and the loser at chess and gin rummy. I thought he was scared of my fortitude. Now I know that`s not it at all.
He just likes me better soft. He likes me better where I am than where I wish I was. He likes me better human than mistake-proof. And by liking me better this way, he encourages me to rise to the ultimate test of any relationship: He inspires me to say that I like myself best when I`m with him.
About the author:
In her workshops, classes, private coaching, radio and TV shows and new book, <i>Have the Relationship You Want</i>, relationship coach Rori Gwynne teaches women the completely original, simple-to-do and stunningly effective techniques for communication, confidence, and connecting with men that she used to turn her now-glorious, decades long marriage around.
Visit her website to get her free CoachRori Ezine, tips and tools: CoachRori.com
