Beyond Peaceful Coexistence… A Recipe
by Patti Allen
I grew up at a time when the Iron Curtain was the great divide between East and West, communism and capitalism. The best that could be hoped for was that hostilities would not lead to open warfare. Though differences remained, peaceful coexistence was possible. Perhaps because the threat of world war and nuclear annihilation played such a critical role in my formative years (when school “take cover” drills in the United States were rehearsed for the event of war) that I think of them now, albeit in a different way.
My husband of 34 years is a traditional, patriarchal, Conservative rabbi, scholar and public figure in our community. And while labels are rarely useful in the long run, they do help set the stage for what is to follow. I am a “healer”—a label that encompasses all the work I do, from being a specialist in dreams and dreamwork, practitioner and Mentor for the Rubenfeld Synergy Method® (a type of body-centered psychotherapy), to Reiki Master and hands-on energy healer.
Where my husband is conventional, I am Bohemian. Where he is institutional, I am individual. Where he is ritualized and standardized, I am undisciplined and spontaneous. Where he is traditional and structured, I am free and intuitive. The God of our Fathers vs. the Great Mother….? Oy vey! These are all potential areas of conflict, just as sure as the world conflicts of my youth that continue in different parts of the world still.
Is peaceful coexistence possible? And if so, how do we manage and how does it speak to all of us facing our own individual journeys? The key to peaceful coexistence is not unlike making a pot of soup. There will be trial and error as you experiment with your particular recipe. There may be times when you apologize to your guests! What is essential is having a blend of different flavours and ingredients, a spoon to keep things stirred up, and a fire underneath it all! Here is a partial list of our ingredients and how we stir our “pot”. You may want to add your own ingredients for your own version, or borrow our recipe.
Humour- This comes first, in my experience. Remember angels can fly because they take themselves lightly. When we take ourselves too seriously a heaviness descends upon our physical body that actually feels like we are carrying a heavy load. This has a ripple effect on our emotional and spiritual life as well. Laughter is healing and is always appropriate as long as we laugh together with each other, not at one another.
Complimentariness- Whether this is actually a word doesn’t matter because we have already added humour. It is here to express the idea that we are not in competition with one another. We are different, each with an equally valid approach to our spirituality. Yet what makes each of us special and unique adds to our life as partners. In my husband’s adherence to the year-round rituals of the Jewish calendar, I gain a grounding element in my life. We share the holidays and the rituals that Jewish law dictates, providing me (the free-spirit) with a foundation that dovetails with my partner. For myself, I see spirit in everything. A cigar is never just a cigar! So as I share this side of myself with my husband, whether I’m marking the Solstice or “smudging” a room, cleansing the energy in it, he, too is affected. His sermons are my weather vane. They’ve changed over the last thirty years of his rabbinical career, so that his sensitivity to spiritual issues is openly expressed. He remains clearly himself, yet richer for what we share, and for what I am.
Openness- We have to be open to the growth and change of the other person in our relationship as well as to our different needs. Change is inevitable. The Buddhists believe that the only thing we can count on not to change in our lives is the fact that everything changes. To believe that we should be the same young kids we were when we married is to ignore the obvious. We are on a journey with twists, turns and potholes, but it is a journey. We are not standing still.
One of the companions on this journey has been my dreams. Listening to my dreams, working with them, understanding them, and playing with them has been a healing element in my life, as well as providing me with a map. So while life changes and we change along with it (if we do it right), one of the things I’ve come to count on is my dreams. It is not possible to get lost when my “dream-maps” bring me home to my Self. So being open with one another, keeps us informed of where each of us is at any given moment. And although we may be on different roads in that moment, openness facilitates where and when those roads will meet.
Respect- The word comes from the Latin, meaning, “looking a second time”. This takes us beyond openness, where we acknowledge the changes, to the willingness to look at what is important to our partner. To look a second time is to begin to see what value these things have in their lives, whether or not it is true for us. For some of us, this requires a prerequisite course in self-respect. To have a right to our feelings without self-judgment, to feel good about ourselves is basic to healthy human existence, and missing from childhood for most of us. So in “looking a second time” we start with ourselves, in love and acceptance, and then respecting our partner just becomes an extension of appropriate self-respect.
Flexibility- This is important for body, mind and spirit. The give-and-take, the compromises, the delay of my own gratification in favour of my partner’s needs, only works when both of us are willing to do this in a way that maintains balance for both of us in the relationship. It becomes a spiritual dance of sorts, with steps forward and back, side steps and turns. And of course, spiritual and physical flexibility means getting exercise. It helps to burn off the hostility that will occasionally surface when we forget to signal our turns or stops on the highway of life!
So the spoon that stirs this mixture is life itself. Work, children, religion and politics can make quite a brew. But the fire beneath it all is our passion for what we do as individuals, and the passion we have for each other and the relationship we forged. (It also helps to have complementary astrological signs!) For us, going beyond peaceful coexistence is not only a loving reality, it’s an ever-evolving happy “political situation”. I share this as a guide to both individuals and world leaders. Politics is never easy and coexistence is certainly fraught with danger, but when it works, there is nothing better.
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"Over the two years that I have been a client of Patti's she has helped me to transform my life in ways that I never imagined possible. She is a mentor and a teacher who is always amazing me with her knowledge in so many areas." Laura K.