On Friday evening I drove into town for my Genius Bar appointment (sadly nothing could be done to revive my Mac, so this is another post from my phone) and I saw the huge, bright moon in the sky. I’m rarely out at night anymore so when I am I try to make an effort to look up. On nights when the moon is full and huge I like to think about who else might be looking up and pondering the same thing. This feeling of connection to people I’ll never know makes me smile. (Just like those night feeds at 2am when you feel some kind of invisible bond to the other unknown women you know are doing exactly the same thing at exactly the same time.)
So I was particularly delighted to read about the One Sky project in Austin Kleon’s newsletter this week. Eighty-eight women from around the world all looked up into the sky at exactly the same time and drew/painted whatever they saw. The result is this lovely wholistic capture of what the sky looks like from different perspectives. It’s a great metaphor for how a simple change in position (physically, but also mentally) can provide new perspective and change what we see.
There are so many things I could share this week that have made me stop and think/feel, so it was challenging to just pick 3….
as time goes on, friendships often face more hurdles to intimacy than other close relationships. As people hurtle toward the peak busyness of middle age, friends—who are usually a lower priority than partners, parents, and children—tend to fall by the wayside.
I’ve found myself thinking a lot about friendship lately with the sudden shift in demands on my time that full-time parenting with a new baby brings. In many ways the constant hands-on work means that I have less freedoms to catch up with a friend for a meal or coffee, but in other ways, without the constant intellectual stimulation of work and the interpersonal connections that work brings, I’ve felt a loneliness and longing for connection with friends that has often being hard to satisfy as they deal with their own ‘peak busyness’. This piece has some interesting insights about the contexts and containers that adult friendship exist in, which makes me appreciate the complexity and requisite effort required to sustain these relationships.
2. The Power of Anti-Goals (via Adam Grant’s newsletter, Granted)
…problems are often best solved when they are reversed… it’s often easier to think about what you don’t want than what you do
Our new nanny started today (yay!) and so I’m right in the thick of figuring out what ‘work’ might look like for me over the next 6-12 months. Without a functional computer I was limited in what I could do this morning so spent some time with a pen and paper using this technique to brainstorm what I don’t want my work to look like.
It’s a technique I’ve used before (and have blogged about) particularly in relation to business improvements, but this was the first time I applied it to my own life design.
3. How to fix the person you love (via Emi Kolawole’s newsletter, E is for Everything)
To make us feel loved and valued, our spouse must convey appreciation for the person we currently are. To help us grow, he or she must emphasize the discrepancy between that person and the person we can ideally become, typically by casting a sober, critical eye On our faults.
I feel I’m frequently navigating (often awkwardly and painfully) the tension between playing the role of supporter/empathizer or coach/advisor in my own marriage, so this piece particularly resonated.
Lots of lovely insights here Webby Clare, as usual. “How to fix the person you love” intrigued, so I went right in and read up, thank you for the tip. My thoughts:
The most fertile condition for habit change is psychological safety. And criticism, in which you ask someone to change in order to end their pain about your limitation, is kind of like throwing salt on a pie that’s mean to be sweet, buttery, apple-y. That’s how it’s received in the brain.
Criticism might drive success, but it’s not the kind of success worth having. It tastes, in the end, like it felt at the time, over and over: sharp, contracted, unkind. You might have a marriage like that, but to my mind that’s not a success, no matter how many gold medals you put all over it.
Habit change held with love (“My Darling,” as my husband might say to me, “Did you see the look on your mother’s face when you said that?”) is a walk up a mountain that has “Love” written at the top. There’s room for everybody up there, especially when they’re scared, and frail, and lonely.
Sharing your partners vision of their better self is not the same as criticism. Loving unconditionally is not the same as colluding in whatever shit you’re both pulling today in the long mundane atrocity of your beautiful marriage. Asking someone to change from a vision about them that you’ve already let go of (it’s up to them, in the end; and they know in their soul whether you’ve done that letting go) is the ultimate act of love. In that marriage, gold medals are kind of irrelevant.
Thank you for this lovely, thoughtful reflection Jacqueline and your wise insights about ‘criticism’.
It also prompted me to think about the importance of timing too. Feedback, questions, reflections etc that are offered to support your partner to grow (no matter how lovingly they are wrapped and delivered) also need to be provided at a time when there is the space and willingness for them to be received.