The Conscious Heart (22 page)

“When Gay first shared his sexual feelings, I felt happy that he was telling me about them so quickly and fully, and then I began to see that this was not just like other times when we’d shared deep feelings with each other. I saw a zing in Gay and noticed that he was looking at Kristin in a way he hadn’t looked at me for some time. I also noticed that as he told the truth, his feelings didn’t dissipate as they had in previous communications about the periodic pulls of heart and groin.

“I felt this incredible aching in my chest and had difficulty breathing. I suddenly realized my heart was breaking. At the same time that I felt the entire structure of my life crumbling, I felt the undercurrent of the same kind of totally transformative electric energy as when Gay and I first got together. My personal internal editor was commenting, ‘You’re an expert on relationships—this kind of thing doesn’t happen to you! Oh, man, this is going to be interesting for our trainings and presentations! Headlines reading: “Renowned Relationship Therapists Just As Messed Up As Rest of Us!” ’

“I was most pulled to compare. In my mind I saw a strobelike stream of aging women comparing themselves with younger and more beautiful women, opting for comparison rather than
creativity. I was partly in shock and partly electrified. The stream of yes and the stream of no were dancing wildly in my body. I was mad, and I wanted to lash out and hurt back. I felt so deeply hurt, I could hardly breathe. I could feel the layers of the hurt, the victim that would kill me if I embraced it, the warrior facing into the storm, and the clam that must be softened to be edible. I was most stunned by Gay’s turning his attention away from me. One of my short poems expresses my experience at that moment:

I tore myself from your lifeforce

glike a leech from the leg

of a long-distance swimmer.

Both the leech and the leg bleed.

“I heard, once he mentioned it, the tone of control covering the fury I felt, and I knew the fury at being left belonged at least back in my childhood, but further back to the men who left my grandmother’s mother without nurture or support. The steely resolve of women to do it themselves is part of my genetic heritage.”

Gay picks up the narrative of the day after the dance: “That afternoon, as we were driving around the California wine country and talking intently, Kathlyn turned to me and told me that I was free to have any kind of relationship I wanted with Kristin. She said she was going to let go of trying to control me and put that energy into expressing her own creativity.

“As the shift toward full responsibility happened in me, Kathlyn began to shift also. She woke up to her own end of the issue. She realized that her central creativity issues were woven into this event. She saw that she had submerged her own creativity to be the administrator of our institute and the main teacher of our trainings. She had taken on the role of the CEO so I could occupy the role of Creative Genius. She was mad about the role she’d created but hadn’t said anything. Her anger had been expressed through gaining weight and pulling back from me sexually. These
roles were keeping her from opening up to her own Creative Genius. She saw that she had projected onto me all the responsibility for carrying the wild and crazy creative energy in the relationship, while she played the Good Reliable Stodgy Wife. After taking a look at all this, she decided to make a major commitment to owning her own creativity again. Poetry started to pour out of her over the next few weeks. She also lost fifteen pounds in about a week.

“Over the next week or so, I kept opening up to all the different feelings I had for Kristin. I would get a burst of sexual feeling for her, and I would let myself go into it. Sometimes I would feel guilty, but then I would consciously let go of the guilt and permit myself to feel the strong energy. When I allowed myself to feel the energy cleanly, it usually shifted into more of a whole-body feeling, like a sparkle in my bloodstream. Kristin and I talked on the phone a few times, but it wasn’t until two weeks later that I saw her again. Being around her for two days at that time gave me ample opportunity to open up to the sexual energy I felt, although I chose not to engage in actual physical sex with her.

“I’m glad we didn’t rush into a physical relationship, because there were other types of relationships I wanted to explore with her. For one thing, she was going to be doing her doctoral work in areas related to our work, and I was considering offering her a job doing research for our institute and helping at the trainings while she was working on her doctorate. For another, she had a facilitative effect on my creativity; I found myself generating a lot of new ideas after I was around her. Third, she had a ‘best friend’ feel to her; I felt very comfortable in her presence and could ‘think out loud’ with her. I also have that kind of relationship with Kathlyn, but I had not experienced it very often in my life. I treasured it.”

Kristin was also exploring her feelings: “I began to notice sensations in my body that were signaling me that I was most interested in a mutually creative and spiritual friendship rather than a sexual relationship with Gay. I noticed that I felt streaming aliveness throughout my body when we supported each other in dreaming up a new creative idea, and as I allowed myself to fully
feel my sexual feelings, they were replaced by a deep celebration of Gay’s being.”

Gay continues: “The next two weeks were full of much processing of our feelings—all three of us—and since Kathlyn was often out on the road teaching and Kristin was in California, this often required conference telephone calls. It was one of those months the phone company dreams of.”

Kristin continues: “I felt radiantly open to hearing both Gay’s and Kathlyn’s feelings as we continued to tell the truth about them. My intentions were to feel my feelings thoroughly, to be a space in which Kathlyn and Gay might feel their feelings completely, to continue to tell the truth about them, and to live in the question of how we might reach a resolution. I am particularly grateful that we set the intention together early on that our lessons be gentle and friendly for everyone involved.”

Kathlyn’s journals during this time reflect her intense inner work: “I continued to teach and work a very full schedule during this whole crisis. Teaching reminded me to ask, ‘What can I learn and apply from this current transition?’ We have no obligation to stay the same, and in fact relationships where people stay the same require more and more energy to fortify the structure, to prevent leakage of affection or attention. The issue seems to be to allow our phases of individuation and closeness, to find ways to recognize the waves, and to support creativity when we are exploring unknown territory. I am convinced that a way can be found to honor both within the whole of our relationships without having to break the whole to break out.…

“I remember Gay saying that his anger at me was the result of not knowing what to do with this new sense of internal yearning. He said he didn’t want to slip into comfortable old age in a better BarcaLounger, but to find a new source of energy.

“We have been so focused on work for so long that I think it has put us out of balance. Both of us have a strong drive to contribute to the world, but it has taken the balance askew, so that now much more time needs to be given to our individual idiosyncratic
impulses. Maybe this time needs to be approached as archetypal energy, with deep-breathing appreciation of its force and power, a time when intellect and reason won’t confine or channel the energy.…

“I felt excited and stimulated to receive another wake-up call about continuing to open up to my full energy and power, both sexual and creative. There must be a place that people can’t share, a place that is full of unspoken thoughts and feelings: images of things not done and things that won’t be done; regrets and limitations that may be constitutional or learned; the finality of time, the looking into the future and seeing an end to time for you; the wild sperm energy of starburst dissemination, I know that Gay has issues to resolve that are separate from me or us, and yet I live in the midst of them, surrounded by the mists. The silverback has other responsibilities from the rest of the pack, carries a different burden and vision, sees the pack as whole and as his to guide safely. I wonder how big Gay’s pack is.…

“Gay suggested that the best way to have fun with this experience would be to fully value myself and let go of whatever no longer has value, to discover the constant stream of creativity that can serve the rest of my life. My first response was anger: ‘Are you really interested in me having fun or in me not getting in your way?’ After many layers of exploration and nights filled with epic dreams, I realized that I was really afraid of the awesomeness of my energy. I decided to let this transition purify my body and to heal myself completely of old patterns, to make space for new creativity that I couldn’t yet imagine.

“I formed my frontier on some new commitments that Gay and I created in many phone and in-person conversations. These turned out to be anchors and jumping-off places for the next several months as I tore down and rebuilt my sense of myself as an individual and in our relationship.

•
I commit to appreciating my experiences
.
Rather than indulge my critic, who loves to devalue my feelings, I focused on appreciating my experiences as they
arose, the way I would appreciate a Noguchi sculpture or a bunch of freesias.

•
I commit to turning my experiences into artistic expression
.
This commitment saved my life. Many nights it was the only choice I could see. In the midst of so much turmoil, much of my structure just disappeared. This commitment anchored me. I had no idea that it would free my poetic voice and bring forth a stream of moving and liberating verse. But that’s what happened as I used everything I was experiencing to make art. Poems erupted from me, often as I was waking. When I stopped filtering my experience through Gay, I opened a channel where the universe could speak through me directly. Here is one poem from this time:

Remains

What remains?
The spires of hope,
down.
The highway of the future,
closed.
The clear space of trust,
bombed.
Expectations,
pried out of their shells
and left to dry.
Gestures,
cut off at the shoulder.

What remains?
after the whiteout of withdrawal and
random thoughts sputtering in the night.
The mind stunned and stuttering,
streams of connection diverted or
dropping over the edge of the past.

What remains?
Some rhythm of grieving
undulates under the surface
with a keen whistle and low hum
of I am.
I am plucking sweet words from my bones
with a blunt crochet hook
to hear them sing again before soaring
into blue and black.
What remains of love?
when the web of knowing and holding
shimmers and sinks into the vast pool.
A mutation glimmers in the depths
that is still unformed
and yearning with a lidless eye.

•
I commit to speaking to myself or you free of criticism
.
This commitment popped me loose from a vise of internal criticism that had hampered my freedom to experiment with new behavior and adventures. As a result, I began inventing new training activities, went skydiving and sea kayaking in Alaska, and deeply claimed my right to be in the world.

•
I commit to speaking to myself or you free of evaluation
.

•
I commit to speaking to myself or you free of judging
.
I saw that most of my internal and external speaking flowed through a judge who determined the worth of my utterance or idea and usually found me wanting, especially in comparison to Gay. When I noticed these filters, I consciously turned my attention to the first two commitments, to appreciate my experiences and turn them into artistic
expression. I found this a fierce discipline at first, especially when I realized how much I evaluated and criticized.

•
I commit to listening to myself and you as an artistic work in progress
.
From the time I was a little girl, I thought I was supposed to know things without being taught. Mistakes and progress were supposed to be invisible, and only the polished result was to be evident at all times. To consider Gay and myself like Michelangelo’s marble being sculpted by life released some deep tension in my body that allowed me to be spontaneous and to appreciate Gay’s unfolding discoveries.

•
I commit to speaking to myself or you free of comparison
.
This commitment was the tough one. I was embarrassed and horrified to see how much of my mind and emotions were entrenched in a sticky mass of comparisons. As I looked at the act of comparing straightforwardly, it led me to a deeper understanding of my social and cultural heritage. I saw that women are socialized to compare and to see themselves as decorations in a fierce and mostly silent competition with other women to grace the arm of the available men. If my age was showing, I was terrified of slipping into the invisible realm where men no longer saw me. Until I freed myself from comparison, I couldn’t access my true value and genuine curiosity about life.

•
I commit to being open to feedback when I slip into criticism, control, evaluation, or comparison and to letting go efficiently and to returning to healthy communication quickly
.
This commitment was so helpful. Prior to choosing feedback I had defended against any sign that I wasn’t perfect, since I was already supposed to know everything. I began to learn more quickly and more deeply than I had since I was a young child, and to get excited about the possibilities of this adventure. For the most part, of course. The battle
between my conditioning and freedom often paralyzed me for hours before I popped into choice again.

“Time after time over the next few months, I relearned a fundamental lesson: I have absolutely no control over any aspect of Gay. Not what he feels, who he talks to, his sexuality, his creativity, his actions, any part of him. This led me to a central discovery. The unconscious commitments and personality tasks we set at the beginning of our relationship were complete. I saw that I have my life and can accomplish the kind of magic that I had always thought Gay owned. I realized that for about a year I had been full of power and not owning it, not fully stepping into sourcing responsibility. I had been referencing to Gay out of a profound confusion between genuine love and my devoted persona. I think my devoted persona and Gay’s critic interlocked and that this crisis was the final jolt I needed to destroy the grip of the devoted persona. I felt waves of gratitude and appreciation for Gay’s assistance in helping me find my expression.