This week has been a great READING week for me, but not so much of a writing week. And since I lost my voice last weekend, it hasn’t been all that much of a speaking week, either. And it turns out I really like talking! I started reading Letting Go: The Pathway of Surrender and The Wisdom of the Enneagram and am really enjoying both books. So this week’s newsletter is a little shorter than others, but I hope it gives you something to think on. As always, thanks for joining us.

-Mindy

Today is my parents’ sixty-fourth wedding anniversary. They are in their mid/late 80s, so they’ve been together now for ¾ of their lives. They still live independently in the home I spent my entire childhood in, but have considered moving into a different sort of arrangement. They both have some physical limitations (my dad has very limited vision and could benefit from hearing aids but doesn’t have them and my mom has had both hips replaced and has chronic pain and limited mobility as a result) but their overall health has been good. Their marriage is not happy. It’s easy to point the finger of blame at either of them, and they certainly do, but after 64 years together I think it’s reasonable to say that they are both responsible for the state of their relationship today. 

A couple months back I read a great book, which I shared with David and he read as well. It’s called Conscious Loving: The Journey to Co-Committment by Gay Hendricks and Kathlyn Hendricks. One of their ideas that really struck me was that each member of a relationship bears 100 percent responsibility for the relationship. Every person is 100 percent responsible for the creation of their own reality. A relationship doesn’t exist without two people choosing to be there. They define the goal of relationships to be one of co-commitment:   

“A co-committed relationship is one in which two or more people support each other in being whole, complete individuals. The commitment is to going all the way, to letting the relationship be the catalyst for the individuals to express their full potential and creativity. In a co-committed relationship between two people, each takes 100 percent responsibility for his or her life and for the results each creates. There are no victims in co-committed relationships. In fact, victimhood is impossible when both people are willing to acknowledge that they are the cause of what happens to them. There is little conflict, because neither person plays the accusatory, victim role. With the energy saved through lessened conflict, both people are free to express more creativity.”

Next month David and I will celebrate our 23rd wedding anniversary, and since we are both 46, it’s our halfway point for spending our lives together. It wasn’t even four years ago that David came to me and shared how frustrated and tired he was with some of our patterns and dynamics and that something had to change because he couldn’t keep going the way we had been. Our lives today, individually and collectively, look very little like they did back then. Actually, maybe they don’t LOOK all that different to a casual observer, but they FEEL dramatically different. As we have gained tools to help show up better in our relationship, it has made space for old issues and emotions and “programming” to surface, which then have needed to be worked through in order for us to continue towards our goal of a co-committed partnership. We have a lot more love and joy in our relationship now, but some of the rough times have been incredibly rough. And we no longer use the old strategies of distraction, repression, etc to deal with the challenging emotions as they come up, so in the midst of the hard stuff it can feel worse than ever. I think this is where faith comes in. And not faith in a God, but faith that our efforts will continue to pay off because they have paid off. We both look at where we are now and can see the progress we’ve made and how much more joy we have in our relationship, and we have faith that continuing on this path will just make that more true. 

It takes so much courage to fully show up in a relationship. I think we often show up better in friendships than we do in our marriages, because we don’t have to be ON all the time. I can take a break from my friends when things are rough. But with David, he’s kind of stuck with me even when I’m working through rough stuff and I’m not much fun. How often do we give our best selves to others, expecting our partners to love us anyway, even when we don’t make much of an effort. Something David has brought up frequently over the past few months is how he desires to know me and to be known by me. Even the rough stuff. Even the shadowy stuff, the stuff we don’t really want to know about ourselves. I admit that there’s parts of me I’m still reluctant to know, let alone to share with him. This is another area where faith comes in. Faith that we can continue to turn towards  each other and remove the blocks that get in the way of love. 

-Mindy

NEAT!

Stuff we think is neat enough to share! (David⚡️ & Mindy✨)

• A very cool groove for you: Black Catbird. 🎶✨

• I am a sucker for a killer French song, and this is a great one. 🎶✨

• David shared this one with me for the first time last night while we were dancing with some new friends in their living room. 🎵 ⚡️

• With the invention of this coffee cup, I guess I can pursue that childhood dream of going to space. 🚀 ✨

SOMETHING TO TRY

I had a birding app that I loved and used for years, but it became a subscription service and I didn’t want to go that route. I just downloaded Merlin by the Cornell Ornithology Department this week and have been having a lot of fun stopping while out and seeing if it can help me ID what birds I’m hearing. It does a pretty great job! 🐦

-Mindy

PARTING

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PIC

That’s all for this week! If you’re into this, share this newsletter with all your friends. Connecting with new subscribers is magical! 🧚🏻‍♀️

DISCLAIMER: This newsletter is for educational and informational purposes only and is not intended as a substitute for professional medical advice.