The Complexity of Connection

So I'm reading, well rereading this book called, "The Complexity of Connection". It's a collection of writings from the Sone Center's Jean Baker Miller Training Institute. My therapist recommended it to me when I was going through similar feelings that my last post described earlier this year.

The book is basically presenting this Relational-Cultural Theory (RCT). This idea suggests that all growth occurs in connection and that all people yearn for connection, and that growth-fostering relationships are created through mutual empathy and mutual empowerment.

At the beginning of the book Miller describes five good things that make up a growth-fostering relationship: 1) increased zest (vitality), 2) increased ability to take action (empowerment) 3) increased clarity (a clearer picture of one's self, the other, and the relationship), 4) increased sense of worth, and 5) a desire for relationships beyond that particular relationship. "These five good things describe the outcomes of growth-fostering relationships, that is, the outcomes when growth occurs through mutual empowerment and mutual empathy; we grow not toward separation, but toward greater mutuality and empathic possibility."

Today I was reading the section on "Relational Competence". And I realized I'm not very competent when it comes to relationships, at least in this model. "The capacity to move another person, to effect a change in a relationship, or effect the well-being of all participants in the relationship might be called relational competence." (15). But another way that Baker talks about relational competence is the ability to participate in a growth-fostering relationship, to move someone, to be in touch with our feelings and our own hearts that we touch the hearts of others and both people are able to grow.

Here's what it involves:
1. Movement toward mutuality and mutual empathy (caring and learning flows both ways), where empathy expands for bot self and other.
2. The development of anticipatory empathy, noticing and caring about our impact on others.
3. Being open to being influenced.
4. Enjoying relational curiosity.
5. Experiencing vulnerability as inevitable and a place of potential growth rather than danger.
6. Creating good connection rather than exercising power over others as the path of growth.

So after all of those big words... Here's my assumption of it all...
I (as an individual) don't foster growth-fostering relationships. I've been hurt before, I've been put in situations where now everything in my body and my heart tells me to protect myself from future hurt. But I want a healthy relationship, I want to be able to create something wonderful outside of myself with someone else who wants the same thing. And most especially now with this wonderful person in my life, I want to make this work more than any other, and I refuse for this to end because of something that I could have worked on or improved on.

To do this I'm going to make my individual focus on the 6 signs of relational competence. And my relationship focus on the 5 signs of a growth-fostering relationship. But I think before I slice off more than I can chew I will work on myself first and see how it goes working with someone else. Who knows maybe the work I do on myself will spill over and automatically revamp my relationships across the board. At least that's what I'm hoping for.

So I've identified what I'm going to try doing but I know I have to have a plan of action for each of those steps. So more to come on that I suppose. I already know I'm going to have a hard time with number 5(vulnerability) and 6(exercising power).
I've got to do it right this time! I've got to change how I interact in this world. It's becoming exhausting.