Ya’Acov and I are taking our annual holiday to celebrate our 37 years together and our 34th wedding anniversary. As we raise our heads from all the details of our work and look into each other’s eyes, we are seeing and being seen afresh and taking stock of how we are together. I’m finding this process beautiful, demanding, hilarious, challenging and resulting in exquisite mutual healing between us for which I feel so grateful.
What’s become clear (again) is the hard-core challenge of long term committed relationship. And the extraordinary new landscapes that keep unfolding between us make it so wonderfully worthwhile. What do I mean? Well, to put it bluntly, there ain’t nowhere to hide.
Challenges and rewards
My, his and our somewhat predictable (by now) and predictably mutually reinforcing shadows, fears, manipulations and self-protective survival mechanisms have become a little more easy to spot. We are still getting to know the precise nature of our particular "shadow marriage" and how it seemingly necessitates pre-emptive strikes, sometimes dressed up and hard to see. At the same time, there is enough trust to go deeper, and so the next layers of our personal paleontology are being revealed.
And the rewards? A depth of mutual soul recognition that is off the richter scale, and love beyond my wildest dreams on all levels. Nuff said.
We’re experiencing such liberation, laughter, tears and healing in the naming and the owning. And the recognition that there is so much bedrock of trust needed to get here, and it still feels like we’re just beginning the next step, which if course we are. As I wrote to friends of ours who are on their initiatory marriage pilgrimage (otherwise called a honeymoon): “the stairs are littered with ample juicy rewards for those intrepid and courageous enough to climb. Not easy, often seemingly impossible, but SO worth it”.
So as we labour in the fields of our psyches and receive so much beauty and harvest, we give thanks to all that supports this journey, and send out respect and encouragement to everyone involved in the dance of love, be it with yourself, with others and with life itself.
with love, Susannah Darling Khan
Resources
Susannah’s Embodied Listening course is recommended for anyone wishing to deepen the dance of relationship, whether intimate, friendship, colleagueship or family. This practice has profoundly supported the deepening of trust and mutual understanding in our relationship.
We occasionally offer our couples courses and workshops (THE SPACE BETWEEN US: Forging Understanding, Communication & Kinship) for which it is recommended as preparation.
