Connect with nature to reconnect with each other

By BRIAN & MARCIA GLEASON, Relationship Reporters for Babyboomers.TV

As we have discussed in earlier articles, the structure of the modern relationship creates such a strain that, for many couples, it is nearly impossible to sustain. We have come to believe that for most couples (ourselves included) there is an undercurrent of approval-seeking in how we orchestrate our daily lives. “Look at how good I am!” is often the unconscious motivation behind our drive toward accomplishment. The result is a relationship that is imbalanced and careening toward collapse.

We talked previously about what constitutes a sustainable relationship. In our last entry we discussed the importance of emotional literacy and honesty. Today we would like to focus on another component, namely a connection to the natural world.

Relationship ecology, or the creation of a healthy environment that allows our partnership to flourish, can be summed up in a word — balance. When we are operating from the yearning for approval, or when we are motivated by fear, we live our lives with an ungrounded frenzy. There’s an old axiom that reminds us, “If you chase two rabbits, you catch neither.”

I am guessing we all know how this feels. When we are busy chasing down the elusive targets of acknowledgement and safety, we fall out of rhythm with the natural order. When we learn to re-connect to the pulsation of nature we realize there is a time for everything. Core energetics tells us that all life goes through continual cycles of “charge” and “discharge.” That is, we build tension and intensity and we soften into relaxation and release. But when the focus shifts away from living in harmony with this basic impulse we become anxious, insomniac and irritable, or we slump down into depression, exhaustion and apathy.

We need to rediscover our intimate connection to nature’s rhythms in order to create a balance between the poles of over-charge and under-charge. There is a profound difference between the good feeling that comes from our ego, which says “I guess I’m OK — look at all I have done,” and that which comes from an inner sense of balance and connection. Relationships that sink into a competitive struggle to out-do each other leave both partners tired, depleted and resentful. Such couples can never quite feel safe in being just who they are. Their lives come to resemble a log-rolling contest where each person runs faster to get the other to fall first.

To feel our bodies and enter the flow of life force, we need to bring our relationships into the natural world. For the two of us, this has recently meant a return to gardening and a new foray into raising chickens. For you it could be riding bikes, walking the shoreline, climbing trees, making love in a meadow, fishing, or watching the sun rise or set. Or, it could be a thousand other possibilities.

To make contact with the natural world helps us to feel ourselves and to experience each other. Though we often forget, we live in bodies — we are our bodies — and our partners have bodies too. We are not just ego-machines dutifully doing what we think we should. We are alive, and we are part of the grand and beautiful world that resides just outside our minds.

A sustainable relationship is dependent on the realization of our intimate connection to nature. Breathing, feeling, and allowing our five senses to encounter the fullness of nature are vital to an authentic relationship. Too often we go entire days only relating through our words. A wholesome, alive relationship uses a language that speaks through our skin, not just our vocal chords. Balancing our “doing” side with our “being” side is vital to the creation of an alive, sensual connection. Marriages become much more sustainable with a vital connection to the earth, our bodies, our “beingness” and one another.

Here is an exercise to try:

Go for a walk or hike together, and agree not to speak. Engage your senses of sight, hearing, smell and touch. Make contact through your bodies by holding hands, hugging etc.

Appreciate and enjoy each other.

Brian and Marcia Gleason developed the Exceptional Marriage, an experience-based couple’s methodology which aims to maximize the potential that resides in every long-term committed relationship. For more information, visit their web site at www.exceptionalmarriage.com.