Increasing Harmony & Meaning in Your Relationships

Hi all,

This week, we have the final post from guest blogger, Tahil Gesyuk. It's been so great learning from this masterful coach. Enjoy!

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How to support a relationship to transcend the sum of its parts?

When we relate with others we typically take turns supporting one another. This in turn leads to mutual respect and deepening of connection. In the early stages of connection when we can't show up for each other, an effort is needed to reconnect from lack of momentum of early relating. This momentum vacillates to such a velocity that it transcends the two and gives birth to a third. This third entity has an identity that both partners contributed to and in its transcendent state it contributes back. This article is about how to develop and nurture this transcendence between the couple and how to relate to its contributions.

Timing

If you look at how we relate from a bird’s eye view, you would see us connecting and disconnecting in rhythmic patterns, sometimes speeding up, sometimes slowing down. The more sense of harmony and resonance you feel with one another, the better timing you have.

There are three ways to increase harmony and resonance: Expansive Cues, Contractive Cues, and Presence.

The first part of understanding timing is Expansive Cues, they are the signals to connect.

Expansive Non-verbal Cues...

• A deep breath is taken
• Body relaxes
• Facial expressions match emotional space
• Posture opens (arms and legs uncross and general leaning in and nodding of head in acknowledgement)

Expansive Verbal Cues...

• Pitch gets lower
• Speaking gets slower more introspective
• Speaking gets more expressive of expansive feelings, such as, happy, joyful, grounded, courageous, and relaxed

(Note our culture is often not well versed in expressive vocabulary, thus it is good to be well versed in expansive cues and tones of speech and non-verbal cues of body language.)

The better we get at reading and spotting expansive cues the better timing we will have with our ability to connect. It will become smoother, more efficient, and it will feel effortless—no different than taking a deep breath.

The second part of timing is knowing and understanding contractive cues, because they let us know when it is time to disconnect or time to leave.

Contractive Non-Verbal Cues...    

• Breath shortens
• Body tightens
• Face expression is not matching the emotional space shared
• Posture pulls in (arms crossed, legs cross, and general sense of leaning away)
• Fidgeting: it could be increased movement like ants in pants or twirling hair or chewing on straw

Contractive Verbal Cues...  

• Pitch gets higher
• Speed of talking increases
• Short concise answers that are not open ended

As we get better at reading these contractive and expansive cues, we become better at connecting and disconnecting with good timing and natural rhythm to have more opportunity to drop into transcendent space with our partners.

The third piece in timing in relationship is presence.

Presence is that harmonic space between contractive and expansive cues. Where you feel like you have entered your own private room with your partner as if the rest of the world has disappeared and you and your partner are linked. It feels like time stands still.

Presence Non-Verbal Cues...

• Act of mirroring. You tend to mimic each other’s body movement. This links up your nervous system and a variety of chemical reactions to create a unified almost altered intimacy of connection. It is the body language of bonding.
• There is a tendency to increase eye contact and have extended periods of maintaining its length together.
• Breathing links and harmonizes together with your partner.
• Senses of touch, sight become more active, while the other senses tend to drop away.

Presence Verbal Cues...

• Voices tend to harmonize
• There is a capacity to finish each other’s words and thoughts, and sense of what they are going to say next
• There is a tendency for a greater capacity to communicate without words, using tones, grunts, sighs, etc.

When presence meets presence, transcendence occurs and births something greater than the sum of the two.

Expansive cues let us know the person is approachable; contractive cues let us know they are not. There are some things that need to be understood first. Many of these cues happen unconsciously. The more conscious you become the less likely you will misread and others misread you.

Taking Turns

Often taking turns is a missing function of connection. And it has to do with understanding power dynamics. In order to have healthy flow and rhythm with one another to transcend, we need to be able to give and receive. Some people are better at giving, other people are better at receiving. When we relate with one another, one of the fundamental things that needs to be understood is how our strengths and challenges around giving and receiving are matched with one another. Taking turns reveals those challenges and strengths to us.

As a couple gets more conscious in taking turns of giving and receiving, they will naturally notice and take roles in what fits their strengths or challenge as they connect. This is how partnerships and ally relationships develop.

For the sake of this article, to develop a transcendence, I recommend setting aside time where the roles are reversed. If you feel strong in receiving and feel challenged in giving, take the role of the giver and have your partner take the role of the receiver. This creates a muscle in empathy and understanding that is needed for the foundation of transcendence to occur.

Partnering in the Unknown

Partnering in the unknown is how we relate to something greater than ourselves to the world around us. The more we experience presence meeting presence, we enter into the room together where the world disappears, the more facility we have to function in the unknown together. It is those moments in time where time stops and presence meets presence; something gets developed there that gives us a sense of trust as a couple to face the unknown.

The more we develop a relationship to our relationship, the more we get to reap the rewards of those moments in time where our connection bares the fruit of our poignant union.

The better we develop timing, taking turns, and partnering in the unknown, our ability to transcend and be supported in our relationship, even when we cannot show up for each other, greatly increases. It has its own momentum, its own knowledge, and dare I say, its own identity.

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Tahil has a passion for bringing love, connection,and health into people’s lives. With over 15 solid years of coaching experience, he is committed to bringing forth the radiance in each human being. As the director of the Intimacy Forum, Tahil Gesyuk is dedicated to teaching you the language of creating extraordinary relationships that impact the world in a loving and effective way.

The Intimacy Forum produces events and trainings around affection and connection, bringing a unique synthesis of full sensory and full body learning around *Heart-intimacy*, connection and affection.

For more info, please visit our website: http://www.intimacyforumtraining.com