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- Herausgeber: IVP
- Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021
How do we cultivate the life-long relationships we are longing for, whether within marriage or friendship? In his book True Companions, psychologist Kelly Flanagan shows how each of us can enjoy the deeply satisfying, transformational love of companionship. He shows us how self-knowledge leads the way to growing in love for both God and others. He shows us how understanding our own loneliness can help us relieve the pressure on our companions. And he shows us how understanding our own psychological and emotional defenses can help us to make the choice to love more vulnerably. In this five-session companion study guide, groups, couples, and individuals will learn how to show up in our most important relationships. Anyone—from single young adults to elderly married couples, from the divorced to the widowed, from siblings to friends—can benefit from the wisdom it uncovers about what it means to be human and to be true companions.
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FIVE SESSIONS ON HOW TO SHOW UP IN YOUR MOST IMPORTANT RELATIONSHIPS
Contents
Live the questions now.
Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.
TRUE COMPANIONS is a book for everyone.
It’s right there in the subtitle: A Book for Everyone About the Relationships That See Us Through. That’s true of this study guide, as well. I’ve structured these five sessions so that you can work through them with a friend or a bunch of friends, with your spouse or lifelong partner, with a class or your church small group, with a parent or a child or a sibling, and even, simply, with yourself. Before we go any further, though, I would encourage you to stop thinking of this as a study guide.
Think of this, instead, as Companion Camp.
I first used that phrase—Companion Camp—at a marriage retreat. The beginning of every marriage retreat is fraught with tension. Some couples are there to save their marriage, and the retreat weekend is a last-ditch effort. They’ve tried couples counseling already, and it has not worked, so the stakes are high. They tend to feel a decent amount of despair, and they are skeptical about the sustainability of any hope the weekend may give them.
Some couples are there not because their marriage is failing but because it is stagnating. For them, the weekend is an effort to take their marriage to the next level. They feel determined and committed, but they are a little skeptical, too, probably because they’ve already tried to find this “other level” everyone speaks of, with nothing to show for it.
On the other hand, some couples are there as a celebration of their marriage. For them, all is well and they are simply seeking a little time away to rest, relax, and enrich their relationship. Nevertheless, they too feel a bit of trepidation at the beginning of the weekend because, deep down, they worry the retreat is going to stir up issues in the marriage that need not be stirred up.
So, yeah, fraught with tension.
I was leading a marriage retreat of about thirty couples, and I’m guessing the couples were pretty evenly divided among these three types. We assembled on a Saturday morning, and sixty sets of eyes stared at me with equal parts caution and distrust. The question written on those faces was clear: “What are you about to do to us?” The first thing I did to them was to read the introduction to True Companions, including excerpts like this one:
In her Pulitzer Prize–winning novel, Gilead, Marilynne Robinson writes, “The moon looks wonderful in this warm evening light, just as a candle flame looks beautiful in the light of morning. Light within light. . . . It seems to me to be a metaphor for the human soul, the singular light within the great general light of existence. Or it seems like poetry within language. Perhaps wisdom within experience. Or marriage within friendship and love.” What if marriage is a singular light within the great general light of companionship, but we keep trying to turn it into the big light itself? What if uncovering the secrets to a stellar marriage isn’t as important as finding our way to the truths at the heart of true companionship?
When I finished reading, I looked up and said, “So, you can quit thinking of this as a marriage retreat. Instead, I want you to think of it as Companion Camp.” The shift in energy was palpable. You could see hope animate some eyes. You could see weight lift from some shoulders. You could see tenderness smooth out some brows.
How do you fix your relationship? That question is riddled with so much pressure and anxiety and stress it is best left unasked. Here’s an entirely different question: How do you show up as the best companion you can be in your most important relationships? The answers to that question can take the pressure off, instill hope rather than fear, and make your relationships more joyful and less stressful. So, right here, right now, I want to say the same thing to you:
Welcome to Companion Camp.
Camp is both entertaining and challenging, playful and meaningful. We are going to talk about the things that are most important to your relationships, but we are not going to talk about them in ways that leave you feeling raw and exposed and undone. We are going to have fun times and hopeful conversations and, in the end, you will have a new vision for how you can best show up in every relationship that matters to you.
Welcome to Companion Camp!
IOU: THE PATTERN OF TRUE CONNECTION
On a warmer than usual autumn afternoon, I had a weekly mentoring meeting scheduled with one of the therapists I employ. I suggested we spend the hour walking and talking in order to enjoy the weather. He happily agreed. Then, several minutes into our walk, I asked him to stop at the ATM with me. His agreement was a little less enthusiastic. As we walked away from the ATM, he asked me if he could give me some feedback. I said yes. He reminded me that a couple weeks earlier we’d done another of my errands during one of our meetings. He told me he wants to become the best therapist he can be, and having my full attention during our supervision meetings would help him to do so.
The urge arose within me to respond immediately and defensively.
Instead, I stopped myself, and I took a moment instead to remember the fundamental pattern that underpins all healthy human growth and connection: inward (I), then outward (O), then upward (U). I call it the IOU pattern. In that moment of reflection, I realized I was tempted to go quickly outward, toward him, offering an impulsive reaction, and skipping the first step in all true human connection: going inward to be with oneself.
The inward journey is always one of self-reflection. It takes us into the swirl of our thoughts and emotions, our impulses and compulsions, our past that feels so present, our present that feels so passing, and our future that feels so opaque. The inward journey brings our attention to the rushing river of human experience within us but, rather than jumping into the river to be carried away, we stand at the banks, watching it flow by, learning from what we observe. This kind of contemplation is at the heart of the inward journey.
The outward journey, as I define it, is the lateral movement toward another person. It consists of the one-on-one interactions that make up most of our days. It’s the murmuring of lovers, the negotiating of partners, the conversing among two friends, the parenting of a child, and the debating of opponents. It makes up the bulk of the fighting and the socializing we do in the world. Even when you are at a large party or social gathering, most of your interactions will happen in pairs. You will talk to one person at a time, one after the other, all night long. This is the outward journey.
