Paul Dunion

What’s the Task?

Paul Dunion — Thu, 17 May 2012 20:33:06 +0000

The bad news is that emotional intimacy is not natural. However, couples fall prey to thinking that if there’s enough love and enough kindness, then the depth of emotional connection is inevitable. What is natural is sliding into an enmeshed or fused relationship where one member is sacrificing his or her individuality, typically, in the name of harmony. If emotional intimacy is something about two unique individuals sharing their inner lives, a fused relationship falls quite short. The other natural path is an estranged or alienated relationship where two people remain self-reliant and emotionally separate from one another. One a couple wonders down the fused or enmeshed path there are tasks and accompanying questions which can help point them toward genuine intimacy: Do I tend to dominate my partner? Do I attempt to exercise influence over my partner? Do I acquiesce, letting my partner make most decisions? Am I hesitate to express my opinions if they are different from my partner’s? Does my partner know what I value and want from life? Do I fear conflict with my partner? If a couple wonders down the alienated path, then these questions can be a helpful guiding system: Do I fear depending on my partner? Do I fear being controlled by my partner? Am I willing to feel vulnerable in my partner’s presence? Am I willing to ask my partner for what I want from him or her? Does my partner know me? How do I feel about the way we deal with having differing views and preferences? Does the way we handle conflict feel creative and supportive?

A Descent

Paul Dunion — Sun, 08 Apr 2012 19:08:07 +0000

We are encouraged to see times of loss, failure and longing as simply unfortunate. We might gain some wisdom regarding these times of challenge. Mythology is filled with examples of heroes and heroines losing their way, confused, frustrated and unable to compete some assigned task. Might we be able to gain some insight into living from these stories? The first step is to ask what might be the purpose of a Descent, a going down? What happens to us when we lose our grip, falling away from a comfortable path? It may be that only in a Descent, characterized by failure or loss, do we get the opportunity to allow the magical beliefs of childhood to die. What beliefs do you notice have come into question while you were experiencing a Descent? Were you able to let go of some magical belief without becoming cynical? Being mentored through a Descent can be extremely valuable. The responsibility of the mentor is to allow for the unraveling of the old belief and not to rush us into feeling good. The mentor supports the expression of grief which accompanies the death of some belief and guides the construction of a new story which adds to our empowerment. Lastly, the mentor holds a vision of us living in the new story until we are able to actually live in it.

Good Love

Paul Dunion — Sun, 25 Mar 2012 18:35:23 +0000

An old mentor of mine often spoke of “good love”. I came to understand that what he meant was love that was not smothered with sentiment unable to breathe life and vitality into the beloved. I’ve come to deeply appreciate my mentor’s considerations of love and have found it imperative to allow my own musing to impact the nature of “good love”. I believe that if I commit to living good love, then there are two questions which become paramount: How does my love live in the beloved? and How does my beloved’s love live in me? We can ground the first questions in other curiosities. Does my love add to freeing the other? Does it empower him or her? Does my love call the other to live closer to herself or himself? Does the beloved live more creatively because of my love? Does my love call the beloved to live in a larger story? We can ask the same questions regarding how the others’ love lives in us. Good love calls for vigilance and stewardship whereby we remain devoted to understanding how love lives in those we love and how their love lives in us.

Sacred Tension

Paul Dunion — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 15:16:57 +0000

We have become a culture obsessed with diminishing stress or tension. Our sensitivity to being over stressed is likely a good thing, however, we may have lost sight of the value of tension, especially, the tension associated with human emotions. An ancient meaning of the word “sacred” is “to sacrifice”. We can ask: What do we need to sacrifice when we are willing to hold the tension of feeling hurt, sad, angry, desperate and grief? Well, we may have to wait for an understanding of these feelings, and the comfort associated with that understanding, that is, allowing the holding of the tension to inform us. We can work with the analogy of a woman in labor. Her uterus and the birth canal are tense, and she is instructed to breathe until her body is ready to push forward new life. On an emotional level, we hold some truth waiting to be birthed. One way to see emotional maturity is as a capacity to hold the tension of our emotional lives until the birth of new meaning is ready to emerge. Recently, while holding the tension of grief, I discovered a younger version of myself, heroically devoted to ignoring his limits and attempting super human feats. I came to appreciate that you hero’s reminder that I still very capable of denying my limits.

How Sweet It Is

Paul Dunion — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 02:09:35 +0000

Valentines day is typically a chocolate worshiping time. My hunch is that our confectionary cravings might be viewed as a deep hunger for the sweetness of life. I understand sweetness to be a tender arousal of heart which deepens our connection to ourselves, to others, to nature or even possibility to the Sacred. A couple of examples come to mind. Recently, while visiting my son and his family, I encountered sweetness. I was downstairs sitting in front of the fireplace with my son and my daughter-in-law. My grandchildren were upstairs watching a movie with friends. One of the friends brought an empty bowl of popcorn down to us and apparently returned upstairs asking my granddaughter Erika, who was the guy sitting downstairs with her parents. Moments later the entire group descended the stairs with Erika yelling out, “That’s no guy, that’s my Grandpa!” She proceeded to run over and jump up onto my lap, snuggling in like a puppy who can’t get close enough to its mother. I quickly experienced a tender arousal of heart. Another story I recently read at a workshop had to do with a woman who had a nerve severed in her lip in order to remove a tumor, resulting in a permanent disfiguration of her mouth. She expressed immediate despair upon hearing of her condition. Her husband responded by saying, “It’s kind of cute”, and proceeded to make the necessary adjustment to his own lips such that he could coordinate a kiss which would be a perfect fit. After I told the story, a deep silence fell over the group which seemed to usher in the Sacred.

Needing One Another

Paul Dunion — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 18:27:18 +0000

I am deeply aware lately of living in a culture which has some investment in keeping us in an adolescent holding pattern. I recently saw two commercials on television which directly invite males to remain children. One commercial is a young couple having a meal at Mc Donald’s restaurant. The female says, “Can you believe my sister’s boyfriend who says that Sundays are for football!” The male pauses with a look suggesting that he holds the same belief about football and Sundays. His pause appears to allow him to get it that it is likely not in his best interest to tell the truth. He responds to her by saying “Jerk!”, referring to her sister’s boyfriend. In the second commercial a couple is also dining at a restaurant. The female says, “Am I over sensitive, or are you checking scores on your phone?” The male denies his obvious distraction with his phone. When males reach puberty, they typically begin to prefer to remain anonymous to their mothers as they attempt to welcome their budding sexuality while being a woman’s son. In these commercials, males are encouraged to lie and be deceitful with the females in their lives, placing them in the posture of being a teenage son. In the cell phone commercial, the male is more devoted to his relationship with technology than the female. The culture says to males, “Listen, growing-up is hard stuff, forget it. There are endless toys to acquire and no need to lead a self-examining life, committed to living in integrity, where you know what you value and are devoted to living those values. You can have an emotionally dependent relationship with women, where it’s okay to be deceitful and confused about creating depth and meaning with a woman.” The culture’s voice to women sounds a bit like,”Listen, you’re never going to be loved for who you are. The best it’s going to get is for some guy to need you and you can take care of him and neglect yourself”. The lack of maturity in women is more subtle, where they do not attend to their own needs and desires, do not remain devoted to a life calling where they steward their gifts and deepen their capacity for wholistic self-care. Ultimately, we need one another in order to interrupt these destructive cultural patterns.

The Challenge of Maturation

Paul Dunion — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 13:39:46 +0000

An old meaning of the word “maturation” is “happening at a proper time” referring to the cultivation of crops and the need for rich soil, water, light and fertilizer and stewardship or attention. Our souls are like seed spread for planting. Some seed will fall on barren ground, inaccessible to water, light and nutrients. However, if sturdy enough, this seed will grow and develop. And this is a rare seed. Most of us are like the seed in need of proper attention, mentoring which acknowledges and blesses our gifts, while offering support for our wounds. The mindful mentor does not view us as damaged goods because of our wounds, but rather treats our injuries as a place for deepening who we are. The mentor may also bring attention to some strength which evolved from the wounding. An example would be a person raised in a hostile environment where it was advantageous to become hyper-vigilent, watching and listening to the every move of authority figures who were unpredictably explosive. I have experienced several folks with such a background, who became wonderful listeners. They may need to learn how to tone down their vigilance, and the quality of their capacity to listen is noteworthy. Ultimate, the mentor blesses who we are, while hold a vision of who we were meant to be.

Emotional Intimacy is learned

Paul Dunion — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 02:36:10 +0000

In order to move beyond which ever primitive protective strategy we employ, ie. distancing, dominating or adapting, we need to remain mindful of which one we’re using and be willing to let go of it. Typically, the feelings sitting behind each strategy are fear and helplessness. Consequently, we need to learn to feel these feelings, learn how to express them, give a voice to what we want or need. We can also learn to become competent at identifying and expressing the story which accompanies these feelings and the strategy we are attempting to let go of. The domination strategy will either have story about feeling afraid of losing ourselves or losing the other, the adaptive strategy will inevitably have story about fearing to lose the other, while the distancing strategy will have a story about fearing to lose ourselves. The most creative way to tell these stories and to strengthen rapport is to relate them without blame.

It’s Not Natural

Paul Dunion — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 02:33:59 +0000

One of the most significant cultural myths is that developing an emotionally intimate relationship is a natural phenomenon. It is not natural, meaning we are not innately equipped to develop strong intimate connections with others. Emotionally intimate relationships happen because we acquire a set of compententcies which guide the development of relationships possessing emotional depth. What is natural is to live from one or more of the 3 basic survival strategies: 1) Domination, 2)Adaption, 3) Distancing. These strategies are meant to protect us from a loss of self and/or the loss of the other. Domination is aimed at the uniqueness of the other in the hope that we are not controlled or defined by their expectations and beliefs. The hope of the dominator is that he or she can control the choices of the other, prohibiting both the loss of self and the loss of the other. Adaption is aimed at preventing the loss of the other by providing little or no opportunity for conflict. The Distancer’s aim is to fundamentally prevent the loss of self. We employ all three, in some hierarchical order, having our favorite. None of these strategies possess the strength to support our individuality and our ability to build rapport with another.