Are you confident going Head to Head one on one with another? Debating an issue and speaking up for your rationale and why you think what you think?
Does your confidence alter if you speaking up with the same sex or the opposite sex?
Yes No? Which one would you circle?
How about standing Toe to Toe if you are being physically intimidated? Are you a "bring it on" sort of person who has no trouble standing their ground if someone is invading your territory?
Again just ask yourself... are you as confident with men as you are with women?
Yes No?
How about deep and meaningfuls with those closest to you where there is emotional struggle? What's your success rate with constructive Heart to Hearts? Specifically with husbands, wives, lovers, siblings, parents, children, close friends? How brave and emotionally skilled are you at being emotionally present during a Heart to Heart?
Are you consistently able to hold your personal power and self respect without losing heart balance by becoming submissive or aggressive?
Are you able to be rigorously honest and share your deepest feelings no matter how vulnerable, fearful or guilty you feel?
One more time .... Are you as confident with males as you are with females?
Yes No?
If you got a yes for all three, good for you.
If you responded with no this indicates that there is perhaps room for improving your confidence in one, two or three areas?
There are many who will to go Head to Head and Toe to Toe with either gender with confidence, but when it comes to Heart to Heart for many adults, confidence drops dramatically.
Many of my clients face what I term emotional bankruptcy when it comes to Heart to Heart connection with the opposite sex.
Academics and intellectual giants who are at the top of their career ladder with professional success sometimes live in emotional poverty. Whilst some can go Head to Head in a boardroom debate wielding intellect, theory and rationale like a master swordsman with skill and precision, when it comes to matters of the heart, they are amateurs. Thinking not feeling our way through intimate relationships costs us dearly.
Emotional bankruptcy also sabotages the lives of Gladiators in sport and Goddesses in beauty. The physically elite who can stand Toe to Stilletoe in their fields and command huge salaries and public adoration become bewildered when lovers leave them for another who they see as less physically perfect than they. Doing focused people often place action and physical performance involving their strength and beauty as the highest priority in life. Lack of willingness to invest time in being emotionally present with a loved one always costs us heartfelt intimacy and loyalty.
A robust heart connection is the only thing that will endure when careers end and our physical beauty and strength change as we mature.
How do we learn how to face Heart to Heart communication in relationships sharing ourselves without losing ourselves? And where and when do we learn it?
It is often said in therapeutic circles that the first love affair the heart experiences for a girl is with her Dad and for a boy with his Mum. Going Head to Head, Toe to Toe and Heart to Heart with someone of the same sex is an important life skill we must all learn without a doubt. However emotional miscommunication increases when dealing with the oppposite sex. Males generally find males less emotionally confusing than females and females get other women's games far quicker than a man will.
Takes one to know one so to speak.
But how fluently, honestly and respectfully the language of our hearts is spoken with our gender opposite elder in our youth, does impact on the communication skills we carry into adult life.
I personally had never had a sober Heart to Heart with my father before he died at age 49. Head to Head intellectual discussions rarely happened either, I just believed he was smarter and due to his violence, I dared not disagree so silence was the safest option.
Toe to Toe however I became fluent at in my adult life with males and the help of a lot of booze. I am still most confident speaking with silent physical energy but had been out of balance in the other two dimensions of my life up until I addressed my emotional bankruptcy at age 33. Now aged 50 I am in alignment, but it takes daily discipline and a lot of practice to attain and sustain balance.
There are too many women and mothers like me who didn't acquire confidence in their youth to have a constructive Heart to Heart with a male, so superficial head and body relationships eventuated and of course disintegrated. Many fathers too lose their voice when it comes to standing up and speaking up from the heart to a female or daughter.
It's a skill, knowing how to hold your power without becoming submissive or aggressive in Heart to Heart communications.
My therapist set many tasks for me over the years as emotional homework to help build my confidence as a woman and mother with males. This assignment I secretly thought I would get let out of before my next session as I felt sure my son would decline to participate. But he didn't.
My sons were 13 and 15 and listening to me less and rolling their eyes more when I spoke. I had been a single mum for a while, winging it on how to manage teen testosterone without a live in adult male to consult for tips.
In short, my boys were confused and so was I. Their mum had left their dad, got clean and sober, changed her life, cried a lot, wrote a lot and let them get away with less. I was losing credibility; they didn't understand me and my motives and looking back now I so understand why.
In their teens they were exploring their interest in females and expressing their increasing frustration with me. It was suggested as an emotional homework exercise that I start working on my Heart to Heart connection with my oldest boy as he was struggling the most. I was to offer my raw manuscript to him to help me edit. As the Dux of English in is school his grammatical input would undoubtedly be helpful. My therapist emphasized just to ask him if he would like to, as he thought my book would be a non threatening way for him to absorb who is mother was and is at a heart level and why she had made all these big decisions that had impacted on him.
I felt sure he would not be interested. He was.
A few weeks later, I was hanging out the washing as he came thundering down the stairs with a red pen behind his ear and the manuscript under his arm. He had actually read it. He was a huge young man at 15 standing 195cm, now at 25 he is 203cm. He has huge physical presence a young gladiator and an academic. Up until this point I had only really ever addressed his intellect and ensured I looked after him physically, I had trouble being emotionally present I felt incompetent and awkward. I was only brave enough to write from my heart back then, not speak from the heart as I was not yet fluent, but had been practicing with my therapist.
My manuscript was my hearts first imprint. Like I had put a 20 cent piece underneath paper and scribbled a led pencil over the top to reveal its patterns. I had shared my heart with no-one but my therapist up until then.
I was terrified as my son hovered on the other side of the clothes line manuscript firmly under his arm. I hid like a coward behind the tea towels with my heart pounding. I heard him clear his throat so I could tell he was emotional as he spoke.
"Mum there's something I need to say about your book,"
"Okay Sweetheart dinners nearly ready go back upstairs I will be there in a minute." I responded in the most authoritive voice I could muster.
He didn't move. But paced repeatedly back and forth, his head appearing menacingly above the close line like the fin in the Jaws movie. My terror was palpable. I had no script for this. I couldn't think of what to say, I didn't know what to do. My heart was full of thunderous emotions I was afraid to feel. I was sure now that now my son would realize that when mothers were being handed out he now knew for sure after reading my hearts ramblings that he really drew the shortest straw. Being an academic gladiator male he was burdened with a mother that draws cartoon characters alongside her words to tell her hearts story. I felt foolish, dumb, embarrassed, ashamed, inadequate, fearful, exposed and lost all at once.
I hid behind the last tea towel frozen in fear when he said again clearing his throat of any tears that might try and interrupt him ...
"Mum I have to say something about this book"
I realized he didn't want to go upstairs where his brother was, it was between me and him, our first one on one, Heart to Heart ... and he was braver than I, he spoke first.
I was looking at my feet in shame with washing hanging between us. He stretched out his long muscular teenage arm, pulled all the washing aside in one movement as if it were a curtain. He looked me deep in the eye. It was like his heart dropped anchor in mine entering through my pupils.
I felt him touch down in my heart.
I saw and heard him in a way I had not before.
"Mum, I just gotta say.......
He cleared his throat and his eyes were glassy with tears.
"Mum I just gotta say that ...
His eyes smiled gently to comfort me as he could see my vulnerability,
"I just gotta say, that I really like you Mum"
Our hearts touched.
Tears welled up in my eyes. Tears of joy filled my heart with deep relief and gratitude like rain on dry soil after a long drought. The heart pipeline between my son and I had just been cleared and has been flowing freely ever since.
That evening we sat at the dinner table for hours. Both of my boys asked me many questions about my life. They had the manuscript on the table and flicked through it referring to passages and cartoon characters. I could see the lights go on in their hearts eyes as things finally made sense. I made sense they understood me at a heart level.
Opening the libraries of our hearts to loved ones and sharing ourselves in a meaningful Heart to Heart without losing ourselves takes courage and practice. It is the only way to build intimacy, trust, respect and earn credibility and loyalty. For women like me who have had an emotionally or physically absent fathers I have a few tips on closing. For males who have had a mother who was not fluent in language of the heart it is never too late to find a tutor and learn.
Like learning any new language it takes time and a patient and interesting teacher that we believe in and has credibility.
My boys are beautiful men now aged 23 and 25. I look at them both almost in disbelief at times for they are such impressive young men with brave hearts who have already accomplished so much. They can speak fluently language of the heart and hopefully will not ever have to face emotional bankruptcy like their mother and grandfather did.
Heart to Heart work is often dismissed as being less important than learning to speak up and go Head to Head or stand up and go Toe to Toe. However I believe it is of equal importance. If we are emotionally bankrupt therefore absent during our loves ones heart struggles, we can't expect to be invited to be present to share their hearts successes.
Here are some simple tips to help you start working on practicing the language of the heart.
1. If you don't have a mentor, elder or therapist to practice Heart to Hearts with, find someone. Allow yourself to become willing to be teachable, approach someone you respect and tell them you need their support, or contact me for a referral if there is no-one in your life suitable.
2. With someone you love and trust share a story of importance about your life that is heartfelt that you haven't shared with anyone before. Or take the time to ask them to tell you a heart story about them that you may not have heard before.
3. The heart speaks through laughter and tears and receives valuable input through our common senses. Sight, smell, taste, touch and sound. If you haven't shared laughter or tears with anyone lately your heart is overdue for some release. Create time to deliberately enjoy things your senses love i.e. food, music, fragrance and nature; perhaps even hold the hand of someone you love, take the time to look into their eyes and allow your heart to feel them.
As a recovering emotional bankrupt I can say from firsthand experience emotional abundance trickles into our hearts tank gently one day at a time. The journey from anxious to lighthearted, neediness to self confidence, hypersensitive to balanced, controlling to surrendered, demanding to grateful, blaming to understanding , critical to supportive changes our lives and the lives of those who love us and choose to journey with us.
Contact me anytime if I can be more helpful... I will leave you with these Word Vitamins today from Vernon ..
"Where is home? Home is where our heart can laugh without shyness. Home is where our hearts tears can dry at their own pace."
