(This is Part 4 of a series. Go back to Part 3.)
Recently two different friends told me how miserable they were in their marriages. One felt extremely isolated and alienated from her husband; the other felt extremely angry and frustrated by his wife.
In both instances I gave roughly the same advice. Noting that, I thought it might do a little good to repeat it here:
Basically, I said this: Not for theirs, but for your own sake
you need to work through this anger and alienation. And whether you choose to separate or stay together, in either case you want to do so as friends, and to recapture the feeling of inward peace and gratitude.
There were two recommendations: Step 1 was to make a list of ten things we appreciate about that person. And if we're having trouble making such a list we can ask: What could I appreciate about this person if I wanted to?
It need not be long; a line or two for each of the ten things will do. In any event, we make a list of ten things that we appreciate about this person and then just review the list each day a couple of times.
This daily review of the list need not take a lot of time. We simply go down each item on the list and ponder it for a few seconds, then go on to the next item in the list. After finishing, we go through the list a second time in the same way. That's it.
The idea is to do this consistently each day, and not to be concerned about the results. There will be a time lag that can take weeks or months, and in any event the idea is not to change the other person—always a hopeless objective —but to allow something within ourselves to transform.
As we begin to slowly appreciate some things about this person again, we'll begin to remember what we originally appreciated about this person and why we were drawn to them. This in itself will be very helpful.
And as our own mind transforms about this person, we'll begin to speak and act about them differently. Without even consciously intending to, we'll begin to voice our appreciation of them, both to them directly and about them to others. It will simply begin to come out of us.
This will eventually have a profound effect upon the person, but that's not the point. That is simply a bonus, because we're no longer insisting that they change. The real objective is to be happy with what's going on inside our own mind; then the external world can be whatever it will—which it will be anyway of course.
(This is the end of Part 4. Go to Part 5.)
—jim sloman, 7.21.05
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