Exploring Intimacy and Differentiation:
A Relational Meditation

Compiled by Kekuni Minton, Ph.D. (sources: David Schnarch and Murray Bowen)

The following points should be considered guidelines for a relational “meditation” or practice.   This is not a description of a plateau that one reaches (at least I do not know of anyone who has reached this plateau).  It is an on-going moment-by-moment mindfulness practice.

1. Developing the capacity to have a separate sense of self while in relationship.  This means that you take responsibility for your own psychological and emotional health and balance.  If you feel emotional or psychologically out of balance, rather than blaming one’s partner, you take responsibility for your own sense of balance.  You have an intimate knowledge of:
   
   • your somatic sense of self (Taking your seat in the relationship (entitlement).  Standing on your own two feet.)
   • your sexual sense of self (developing your own sexuality, your preferences, your needs, your sexual worth)
   • your emotional sense of self (knowing how you feel)
   • your cognitive sense of self (knowing what you think)
   • your spiritual sense of self [developing your own unique spiritual path (which undoubtedly differs from your partner)]
   
   
2. Developing a self-validated sense of self.
   
   • Don’t find yourself through your partner.  Don’t lose yourself with your partner.
   • Take responsibility for your own feelings of well-being or worthiness: know that you are sexy, successful, beautiful, intelligent through your own validation.  If you feel challenged in certain areas (not good enough, not smart enough), take responsibility to develop in those areas or to feel your worth as you are.  Don’t expect your partner to make you feel good about your self.
   • Unburden your partner of the responsibility of making you feel good about yourself.
   • Anything but a self-validated sense of self is a contingent sense of self.  In an other-validated sense of self, one’s self of self-worth and well being are contingent on how one is perceived or received by others.
   
   
3. Become non-reactive (behaviorally) in the face of your partner’s reactivity. 
   Develop the capacity to withstand the reactive moods of your partner without acting out yourself. 
   
   • Self-soothe, self-soothe, self-soothe. 
   • Know your “breaking points” (where you would normally become reactive) and work through them. Unburden your partner of making you feel okay when you reach these points.  Find your “breaking point” and work through it.  Do this not for your partner but for you.  Successfully doing this practice takes great differentiation skills and will eventually give you a sense of mastery.
   • Be responsible for your own emotional state: If you’re triggered its yours.  Making requests for changes in other’s behavior is fine.  However, no one else can change the emotional response that your body creates with any given stimulus (what hormones and feelings get dumped into your bloodstream) except you.  Ultimately no one can manage your emotional state once it is created except you.
   
   
4. Learning to tolerate the painful (and pleasurable) feelings that emerge in intimacy in favor of growth and to use good judgment.
   
   • All of the above skills necessitate the capacity to tolerate very painful emotions without shutting down or venting or reacting.  Reactivity allows one to vent the painful feeling or project it onto an other.  When one doesn’t react (behaviorally) [see #3 above], one must either shut down inside or breathe with the uncomfortable feelings that are there.  Stay present!
   • Unburden your partner of the responsibility of making you feel better.  Self soothe your own anxiety.
   
   
5. Do #1 through #5 above while staying in intimate contact with your partner.
   Many people can do the above skills while meditating, walking in the woods alone, or abruptly leaving their partner in the midst of an argument.  They will find it harder to do while staying in relationship, especially in eye contact.  Develop these skills while staying in “the heat of the kitchen” (the intimate contact of your partner).