” A good relationship has a pattern like a dance and is built on some of the same rules. The partners do not need to hold on tightly, because they move confidently in the same pattern, intricate but joyful, swift and free, like a country dance of Mozart’s. To touch heavily would be to arrest the pattern and freeze the movement, to check the endlessly changing beauty of its unfolding. There is no place here for the possessive clutch, the clinging arm, the heavy hand, only the barest touch in passing — now, arm in arm, now face to face, now back to back–it does not matter which. Because they know they are partners moving to the same rhythm, creating a pattern together, and being invisibly nourished by it.
-ANNE MORROW LINDBERGH
in “Gift From the Sea”
The above quote encapsulates the way we view relationships at CCP. We strongly believe in the concept of tuning into your own rhythm and learning to move freely and confidently in both your individual life as well as in your intimate relationship.
In the book, “The Two Step: The Dance Towards Intimacy,” Eileen Mcann says that in every relationship there is a dance with two roles being played. That of the seeker and that of the sought. One is always in pursuit, the other on the run, no matter how close, or far apart the dance may be. (Think about the roles that you have played in your own relationships.)
Mccann defines Intimacy as when “two people (both the seeker and the sought) are exposed at the same time, showing the good and bad parts they usually keep hidden. Both people become vulnerable at the same time, trusting each other with the parts which can be hurt.” As this happens, each partner is simultaneously seeing and being seen by the other, fully aware of their vulnerability, with the intention that their dance will continue. In other words, intimacy is the moment when two people touch (both emotionally and physically).
When both the seeker and the sought recognize their fears, together they become mutually vulnerable. They begin to see each other’s pain and their rigid roles of seeker and sought can soften and reverse back and forth. The hope for this mutual dance lies in our willingness to be honest about our needs–to trust and to risk.
In today’s society, this two-step has gotten even more confusing. It has turned into an out of control concert with too many conductors telling us who to be and how to live our lives, moving us away from intimacy and towards disorientation. We drive around our freeways and sit at our desks in a constant state of fear and panic with “idealized images” in our head of what our lives are supposed to look like. Because of this, at the end of the day, many of us end up feeling off-center, our natural body rhythms completely out of alignment.
What is important here is to identify what is happening and recognize that you have the power to change both your individual life as well as your intimate relationship.
At CCP, we would like to help you recognize some of the ways you can reconnect back to your own individual rhythm as well as to your partner’s rhythm.