Changing the Dance

There is a saying, that the way I do anything is the way I do everything. With that in mind, I compare the way I've been doing my Mile with the way I do this relationship dance with J.

Since I've been doing my Mile the last three or four weeks, I am in better shape, more fit. I've continually redefined my standard as my level of fitness has increased - from walking one lap, to walking two laps, to jogging sections of a lap to jogging an entire lap, to jogging two entire laps, to attempting to jog three laps.

Some days I go out and push my envelope, stretch myself into a new standard. Some days I go out and remember to be compassionate with myself, give my body some time to regenerate, and slow down to a lower standard. Sometimes it feels like taking two steps forward, followed y four steps backward, followed by a baby step, a baby step, a baby step, a baby step, just to get back to where I started from. Then I get to leap forward two or three steps again, and define a new standard again.

So this relationship dance - I think I am doing a better job of using the By me, on me, for me principle. I am being very conscientious about applying that one, and in not engaging in using the tenets and ground rules of 21CL as sparring weapons. I am putting a lot of effort into remaining aware of when I might be doing that and in sucking back when I am tempted to engage that way. I don't always succeed, and sometimes I have to throw my hands up and walk away from a situation, reground myself.

I haven't been tracking how many tenets or ground rules I am violating but I have been getting more conscientious of which ones I am applying; of connecting the various actions and strategies I use to move myself in the direction of keeping my Leadership commitments, connecting those actions and strategies with the tenets and ground rules.

One area in which I am still challenged is the dance of anger that keeps showing up in my relationship. Phil and Lori teach that it takes one person to change a relationship. I am willing to buy that when it comes to relationships in general but am finding it hard to apply it to the dance of anger. I am in a place where I feel like I have been working really hard at managing my own anger reaction myself and that I need my partner's cooperation to really get out of that dance. Perhaps the thought my partner isn't cooperating doesn't serve me and I could stretch my line of ownership and replace that thought. Then again, I also need to tell myself the truth and ask what am I pretending not to know. What am I pretending not to know, and how else can I interpret when I repeatedly ask my partner to stop treating me in a way that does not work for me, and my partner just keeps doing it until I blow up?

By keeping in mind that what I focus on expands, I will focus on my purpose rather than my problem. Focus on my purpose for being in relationship with my partner is to have a physically and emotionally healthy, caring, supportive, family unit. And hold my partner as able to follow when I lead, and to lead when I falter.