James Cordova

And that is needed in a moment when the thing we are most desperate for is to be understood.

But if we can, if I can take a deep breath, hold my own wanting with some compassion for a moment and prioritize understanding what you're asking of me and prioritize empathizing with what you're asking of me.

then what naturally occurs is that I start to feel more compassion for where you're coming from and when I start to feel more compassion for where you're coming from then I want to help but if I'm stuck in a place where I need you to understand me I can't access the compassion that naturally makes me want to collaborate with you

and this is something that I work with couples on often, that if the only way for me to feel better is for you to do something differently, then I'm trapped in a place where I'm in a sort of self-justifying passivity.

I don't have to do anything.

I can't do anything except maybe complain and hope for you to change.

and especially when it comes to perpetual issues, but I would say that this is true for almost all areas of conflict.

The way that we can reclaim our agency, the way that we can reclaim our power to have a positive effect on our relationship and to deepen the intimacy in the relationship is to be the one who moves first.

And oftentimes, that's simply...

Let me make sure that I thoroughly understand where my partner is coming from.

And the cultivation of that skill I talk about as developing a soft front and a strong back.

so that I can understand where my partner is coming from.

I can understand where the other person is coming from with absolute compassion and empathy.

But that doesn't mean I have to give up where I'm coming from and what matters to me.

So it is a well-rounded compassion, one that involves compassion both for myself and my own wants and needs, as well as genuine compassion for my partner and my partner's wants and needs.

No, absolutely not.

The way that I think about this is the things that are unacceptable are the things that actually diminish us as a person.

So if changing in this way, if accepting this from my partner makes my world smaller, makes me more constricted in my sense of identity or self, then that is too high a price to pay for connection.

There seems to be oftentimes a fundamental difference between partners in terms of our need for interdependence, interconnection, and our need for independence.

And we all need a little bit of both.