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Here’s some easy pillow talk: A DuPont marketing study once revealed that the period of time it takes for a person to actually buy a new pillow after he or she decides that a new pillow is necessary is typically two years. Why? Because we get attached to the pillow, inertia takes over, and so we continue to sleep on it—long after it’s a pain in the neck. But when two pillows are involved the problem can get much more protracted. According to relationship researcher John Gottman, who has studied marital stability for 40-plus years, by the time a couple chooses to get counseling, at least one of the two has been in relational distress for an average of six years. That’s a lot of pain. The upside is this: one painful pillow will never get better, but two pillows just might.

Of course there is a reason that couples often don’t seek help until the situation is dire, and I always warn clients upfront that, whatever discomfort got them through my door, they should be prepared to feel equally, if not more, uncomfortable as they shift away from the status quo. Many clients come hoping to get answers. What they learn is that what they really need is to ask five illuminating questions.

1. What Do I Need to Face?

People pay me good money to ask the seemingly obvious. Why? Because to acknowledge “what is” is an enormous first step. When we feel uncomfortable, we tend to deny, defend, or rationalize our behavior. We get lost in our own stories about a situation: “She always has to be in control, and I’m walking on eggshells. If I try to defend myself, it just makes her angrier.” We also lose our capacity to discover deeper truths: “I’ve given away my power in this relationship and default to his demands.” Facing “what is” is the first step toward improving your plight.

2. What Do I Need to Feel?

We consider ourselves rational beings, yet our emotions are the prime motivators for most of our choices—just ask any marketing expert. Experiencing anger, sadness, fear, joy, and sexual feelings is an integral aspect of being alive. Staying current with our feeling states supports us in staying connected to our aliveness.

These feeling states are much like the spectrum of a rainbow. They each have their own unique hues of expression, yet they often blend together to create more complex emotions. If a backlog occurs, it can contribute to confusion and a feeling of being overwhelmed.

Allowing your emotions to flow does not give you license to dump on others without their consent. It does mean taking ownership of your emotions and finding an appropriate environment to acknowledge them fully: “This relationship reminds me of my parent’s dysfunctional marriage, which I swore I’d never repeat. Underneath my frustration, I feel scared and deeply sad about how I’m repeating the same patterns.” Tears flow, the body gets hot, maybe it trembles. Welcome it. Most clients are surprised to find that just a few minutes of allowing their most vulnerable feelings to flow creates inner spaciousness and a greater capacity to deal with whatever they have to face.

3. What Do I Need to Take Responsibility For? (Hint: what I’ve been blaming somebody else for)

It’s common to react with blame when life isn’t giving us what we want. Blame and judgment—including judging yourself—serve to perpetuate negativity, not to resolve it. When we are able to step back and sincerely take stock of our role in a situation without blame, a shift begins to occur—we get curious, we open to learning, and become willing to approach an issue from a fresh perspective: “I have an old belief that speaking up leads to problems with women, and it’s my job to keep quiet. I wonder how I can shift that in myself?”

4. What Truth Do I Need to Express?

When we squelch our truth, we forfeit an opportunity to directly influence “what is,” and so we remain stuck. Being candid with someone without blame (#3) and from a place of spacious vulnerability (#2) can have a profound impact in how it’s received: “I am no longer willing to sacrifice my truth in a futile attempt to keep the peace. I’d prefer we get support together around this pattern. Either way, I am committed to shifting it, or leaving.” Even if your truth is not well received, being truthful evokes a sense of inner congruency. The more congruent we are, in ourselves and with others, the more authentic our choices—and our lives—become.

5. What Right Action Do I Need to Take?

Most clients arrive wanting to know, What do we do? They have been in an unsatisfying cycle of reactivity and want resolution. Right now! But right action is the product of a clear mind connected to a clear heart. In other words, it can only occur after thoroughly exploring questions #1 through #4. Through that process, simplicity emerges and next steps become clear. Often right action involves courage, where we must be willing to acknowledge our fears while simultaneously trusting our heart’s wisdom on how to proceed. Sometimes that means working alone and building to the point of saying, “I am going to share with my partner what happened here and ask her to come with me next time.”

Pain and suffering are motivators for changing our behaviors that lead to destruction if we don’t heed their call to attention. So whenever a well-worn strategy stops working, be grateful. Life may be summoning you to the next level of your evolution.

Riding the Horse of Life by Chris Hagan

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My husband’s sly smile tells me something good is coming my way. I know he is toying with me, enjoying my anticipation as much as I am relishing his attention. I feel a familiar pulsing warmth spread through my body as my skin gently flushes. He takes his sweet time before leaning in and offering me what he knows I am lusting after. As I take his offering into my mouth, my eyes roll back in my head. I moan involuntarily and purr, “This is the most amazing chocolate mousse ever!”

If this scenario reflects an exchange you’ve had with an intimate other, chances are you are one of millions of people who “get off” on food. I call this experience “taste bud orgasm” and for many couples, it’s foreplay. Yet food is only one of many ways we can evoke the compelling mix of sensations known as “feeling sexual.”

Understanding and navigating sexual feelings is a hot topic in my coaching practice, and we should first define our terms here. Many people confuse having sexual feelings with having sex. Yet sexual feelings can occur anytime, anywhere, and for a variety of reasons. Our sexual feelings help us tune in to the creative pulse of this terrestrial plane. In short, we feel sexual feelings when we are in touch with our earthly aliveness. Many of us need to allow sexual feelings back into our everyday lives.

Chances are you have several subtle sexual feelings a day (perhaps including reading the opening paragraph above). I was 42 before I first started fully paying attention to the quiet fluttery or lightly pulsating sensations that I now recognize as sexual. We all have a unique relationship to this feeling state as well as some common global experiences. One of the easiest ways for most people to connect with their sexual nature is, well, in nature. And while the rust-red hues and expanse of a desert evokes a wild aliveness in one person, that same landscape might evoke fear of snakebite and scorpions in another. Perhaps you prefer the primal rush of sunlit breakers on a warm beach or maybe the ferny and phallic majesty of ancient redwoods.

Other common ways sexual feelings are evoked in us are through dancing, creating art, performing, and yes, eating. Indeed, some people experience more sexual feelings eating or dancing than they do having sex. I notice that most gifted motivational speakers run a large amount of sexual energy and are able to masterfully circulate it to their audience, who in turn get turned on and “want what she’s having.”

In partnerships, sexual feelings often arise after a backlog of emotional energy gets released. One common example of this is where one partner continually expresses their frustration and dissatisfaction while the other chronically withdraws. The stonewalling partner usually has a long list of evidence for why expressing their “negative” emotions will lead to no good. Yet, in a safe context, when the long-stoic partner finally takes a stand and blurts out their pent-up feelings, a common response from their partner is “I notice I’m feeling a lot of sexual energy toward you right now.” My guess is that the notion of “makeup sex” derives from this dynamic. When your sex life is off with someone whom you crave intimacy with, chances are there are some other feeling states—most likely anger, fear, and sadness—that are blocking your sexual feelings from flowing freely.

“Squeeze and Pop” or “Spread”

In my experience, sexual feelings flow through two basic pathways: “squeeze and pop” and “spread.” Each pathway creates distinctly different physical sensations, breathing pattern, and visual bias. Sexual feelings tend to originate in the pelvic area, causing a fluttering to pulsing to throbbing warmth. In the “squeeze and pop” pathway, the energy stays focused in the genitals, perhaps with links to other specific erogenous zones, and is most commonly associated with orgasm-oriented sex. Breath is fast or held in, muscles are tense, and the visual field is fixated on the object of desire. If orgasm occurs, there is a climatic surge that quickly moves out or up, discharging pent-up energy and leaving deep relaxation in its wake.

Along the second pathway, sexual feelings are invited to “spread”—maybe through breath, dance, a creative project, appreciating an exquisite mouthful of food, or perhaps enjoying sex. There is a “nowhere I have to go, nothing I have to do” attitude that supports pleasure for pleasure’s sake. This powerful, undulating primal force spreads throughout the entire body, ultimately charging the skin with an electric, humming radiance. The breath becomes more oceanic in its rhythm, rising and falling as pulsing waves move through the body. Mind attunes to sensation and focus becomes soft. When ecstasy is present, eyelids may flutter and eyes roll back in their sockets.

Experiencing both pathways can be both delicious and therapeutic. Our capacity to consciously play with each opens us up to a greater breadth of pleasure and helps us honor our preferences. I firmly believe that normalizing and understanding sexual feelings is a fundamental key to accessing our birthright of radical aliveness.

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If I had a dollar for every time I heard a new client say, “We need help learning to communicate,” I’d be retired by now. (Scratch that—I love what I do.) Yet, learning to communicate is rarely the real issue for most couples. Most clients are capable communicators; in fact, many talk too much. The real issue is that they haven’t learned to listen.

I recently saw a greeting card that explained the problem like this:

I’m usually done hearing people before they finish because I’m a fast listener.

If we’re honest with ourselves, most of us will admit that we tend to fill in the blanks of our partner’s patter, imagining we know what they’re thinking or feeling. Some other common listening filters are:

• Listening to gather evidence
• Listening to prove the self inferior/superior
• Listening to finds holes in the speaker’s logic
• Listening to fix a perceived problem
• Listening for approval
• Listening for an entry point to change the subject

When we approach our partner with such filters in place, chances are we’ll end up in an ego skirmish. This is why so many “We need to talk” scenarios get louder with no one listening at all.

The Struggle to Hear

There’s a paradox when it comes to relating: In order to connect authentically with another’s essence, we must be willing to engage with their ego. I think of the ego as a sentry to the deeper chambers of another’s heart. As a primary protector of our tender selves, the ego is masterful at creating obstacles and diversions. So, as with any hero’s journey, it takes fortitude to traverse another’s multilayered egoic landscape of resistance, blame, and epic stories in order to gain entry into their inner sanctum.

This requires centering yourself and adopting an attitude of respectful curiosity. I invite Deep Listeners to imagine that they are social anthropologists on assignment in a foreign world—their partner’s. Their job is to comprehend this world as accurately as possible and to discover what is most precious to its inhabitant. To this end, they train themselves to reflect back what they are hearing to ensure that their understanding is accurate.

Words are very important to the egoic mind, so if you skip over important words—or worse, reinterpret the ego’s story—chances are it will react or retreat. You will likely be tested to ensure that you are worthy of an audience with the speaker’s most vulnerable parts, so be prepared to navigate through several ego strata.

Reflecting accurately what someone is saying does not mean you agree. It simply means you comprehend their point of view. So don’t skimp on reflecting another’s words back to them. It may feel awkward at first, but eventually something magical happens: The speaker begins to reveal themselves more deeply—to them as well as to you. Often they are able to connect some vital dots in resolving an issue that’s been bothering them.

While you are respectfully giving the ego its due, you are also picking up on cues through your own body about what your partner is feeling and silently empathizing with them. Maybe your partner is expressing frustration about their work, yet you keep tuning in to anxiety or a sense of loneliness. Allow yourself to feel beneath the surface of their words, but don’t offer your insights. The time for that—if at all—is after they are fully expressed in their sharing.

Deep Listening is a generous act, akin to inviting someone to a leisurely picnic in the sun when you’ve both been used to a steady diet of drive-thru fast food. The best part is that you will both feel nourished from the experience.

Listen for the Longing in the Words

I encourage couples to practice Deep Listening on different days (as opposed to back to back). Allot at least 45 minutes—you may use less, but spaciousness supports the process. Be sure you have an agreed-upon signal that alerts the speaker that the listener is “full” and needs the speaker to pause so they can repeat back what’s been said.

Listener: Open the practice with centering breaths and adopt an attitude of respectful curiosity. Extend the invitation “I’d really love to know what’s going on in your world, if you’re willing to share.”

Speaker: Share whatever is arising in the moment, ideally noticing not just your thoughts, but your body sensations and feelings, too.

Listener: Reflect back to the speaker what you’ve heard them say as accurately as possible, then ask, “Is there anything else?” This is the primary question you will ask throughout the process. If you lose a piece of the story, don’t ask the speaker to repeat it. Listen for the longing embedded in your partner’s words, not just the surface content (but stay with them on the content).

Speaker: If your partner misses a piece that’s important, let them know that and repeat it for them.

Repeat this process until the speaker feels heard. Then take a few breaths to discover if there is anything else the speaker wants to be acknowledged—no matter how trivial. It becomes obvious when the speaker is fully expressed: They will feel relaxed and appreciative.

Listener: Now you can engage in a three-part process I’ve dubbed “gestalt empathy” where you share your heart and body responses to what you’ve heard.

1. “I imagine you’re feeling…”
2. “I imagine what you really want is…”
3. “I can relate to what you shared about ___________. I have a similar experience in my world.”

End the practice with each partner appreciating the other.

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At the tender age of 51, I walked for the first time down the wedding aisle. That I said, “Yes!” to marriage seemed remarkable, at least to me. That I chose to do so publicly and with considerable ceremony truly baffled me until I began to understand that I was under the influence of the archetypal energy I now recognize as the Queen.

An archetype is an original pattern or prototype that can be reliably replicated. In Jungian psychology, archetypes represent patterned potentials of our collective unconscious. The diversity of archetypes is limitless, yet there are classic archetypal energies that naturally emerge through rites of passage such as birth, menses, marriage, promotion, loss, or death.  In my case, I never longed to be a Princess; instead, my choice to marry marked a passage from my more familiar—and reclusive—archetypal roles of Healer and Sage to a more visible Queen status. As I gradually embraced this latent energy in myself, a new level of confidence emerged in me.  I became less interested in what other people thought of me, more willing to assert my influence in service to my vision.

Claiming my inner Queen was both exhilarating and initially perplexing. Like many girls, and boys for that matter, I grew up with Queens that were marginalized or highly maligned. I knew England had a Queen, yet the message I internalized was that she was just an antiquated figurehead who inadvertently validated our more modern political process. Queens were passé and presidents replaced Kings in our more perfect union.

I was also raised with stories that vilified the Dark Queen. She was classically portrayed as a middle-aged, demonically beautiful, cunning power broker whose prime motivation was to destroy lovely innocents who reminded her of her wounded past (whose unhealed pain was obviously unresolved). “Evil” and “Queen” went together like “Prince” and “Charming,” and though the Dark Queen exercised a good deal of power, she was bitterly isolated and had only henchmen for lovers. Not an ideal role model.

But then it struck me that we have been subject to a collective spell that’s had us rejecting our majesty and sublimating our sovereignty to outside forces. We’ve been fed a poison apple of perception that has us equating powerful women with a hardened heart. We have been enchanted into going to sleep to our fullest potential.

Then again, perhaps I have read too many fairy tales!

What I understand now is that a true Queen knows how to hold court with others and, even more importantly, inside herself. Her sovereignty comes from no longer needing to look outside herself for validation, although she willingly receives wise counsel. She understands the parameters of her domain— whether it is in her home, her community, or her enterprise—and she is willing to assert her influence. Alas, there are still Dark Queens in our midst (think Meryl Streep in The Devil Wears Prada). Yet, whether diabolical or benevolent in nature, every Queen is highly aware that her reign is granted through her supreme devotion to her dominion.

Maiden, Mother, and Crone have long been classic archetypes used to describe the stages of adulthood for women. Yet in my practice, I’m witnessing a revitalized version of the Queen archetype reemerging, as more women are being called to new levels of power. Many are Mothers who, once their babies are weaned or have left the nest, are ready to trade in their sacred, sweat-stained robe of motherhood for their Queen’s mantle. Some are able to enjoy a hybrid Queen-Mother status as they build a business while caring for their young.  Others are Maidens who fall in love with a King and intuitively know that the longevity of their relationship requires them to take their power alongside him.

If a couple’s archetypal journey gets out of sync, their relationship can suffer. Most Queens are desirous of a King, although some, much like Guinevere in King Arthur’s tale, are more attracted to a warrior-consort like Galahad who meets them in their passion and is gallantly devoted to them.  If a Maiden falls in love with a Prince and then becomes a Queen, she may find herself increasingly annoyed with his youthful folly and be tempted to turn him into a frog (at least in her own eyes.)

A true Queen realizes that there’s real work involved in “living happily ever after” and takes responsibility for her own happiness.  She knows it will require all of her alchemical genius to dispel the distorted myths she’s inherited about beauty and power. She’s learned how to use her strengths, and she looks into her magic mirror to have her blind spots revealed.

Real-life Queens author their own lives, tell stories that inspire their youth and honor their lineage, and believe that happy endings, though welcome, are not as important as fulfilling one’s destiny.

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