غنی سازی رابطه

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

ENRICH YOUR RELATIONSHIPS

There are only two words of advice you need to improve any relationship. Say it. I was speaking at a sales meeting for a retail brokerage firm in Florida and afterwards a tall man named Don approached me. He was in his late 50s. He had a beard and he was wearing a sport coat over a moderate shirt. He said he wanted to share something with me about my five second rule. Don had his own version of the rule that had changed his life. He had made a decision a few years ago that nothing important would be left unsaid. Then he shared a story about how acting on instinct, he pushed himself to share something with his daughter and it completely change their relationship. Over the years, his daughter Amber and her husband had taken in family members who’d fallen on hard times. They also volunteered almost every weekend in their community and had completed several service trips. Don told them that he admired them. He admired how they live their lives and the example that their lives provided to the world. He added that he was so proud of the young woman, Amber had become. And then he told me this: right before I was about to say it, I was afraid. Imagine that. I was afraid to say something because I was afraid to get emotional. He said that after that conversation, his relationship with his daughter was never the same again. They are now closer than he ever imagined, and the experience inspired him to live by this rule: Leave nothing important unsaid.

You see, intimacy, connection, it takes courage. Risking getting emotional or upsetting someone so that you can express yourself is scary, but the result is nothing short of magic. I experienced that magic in a simple conversation with my father last fall. I was on my way to the airport having just finished speaking engagement in Miami and I saw a text for my dad. Call me as soon as you can. That’s odd, I thought to myself. I called the house snd my mom picked up the phone. Hey mom, I just got a text from dad asking me to call. Is everything okay? My mom said, you should talk to him, let me get him for you. She set the phone down and as I tried to catch her, mom but what, mom mom… Wait, what.. I could hear the kitchen door crack as she opened it and yelled for my dad, Bob, Mel’s on the phone. I had no idea what was going on. Now, at first I thought that I was in trouble, of course, right? I sat in the back of that cab. I felt like I was a 10-year-old who was about to get grounded. I mean, isn’t that amazing how quickly your mind can take you down the rabbit hole that something’s wrong? Uncertainty had triggered my habit of worrying and now I was inside that mental what if loop. Did grandma died? Did I do something wrong? Is dad in financial trouble? It must be me. What did I do? Did you catch what happened? Within five seconds I had convinced myself that my grandmother had died, that I had done something wrong, that my dad was disappointed in me, that somebody was in trouble. I heard the back door open and I could hear him walking toward the kitchen. He picked up the phone and he was as nonchalant as you could be. Hey Mel, thanks for calling. So where are you right now? I was freaking out, is where I was. I’m in Miami on the way to the airport. I got your text, dad. Dad, you scared me to death. Did I do something? He laughed and he said, no it’s not about you. It’s about me. I didn’t want to tell you and your brother until I was sure. I almost dropped the phone. Oh my God, you’re dying. You have cancer. He interrupted and he said, will you let me talk? I do not have cancer. I have an aneurysm and I need open brain surgery to remove it or it’s gonna kill me. He went on to explain the whole story. He had had a bout of vertigo and he had collapsed while playing a round of golf with his buddies. That led to an MRI to check out the vertigo which he was cleared of, but they happened to make an incidental finding of the aneurysm. They found it by mistake. And he was telling me, he’s having surgery at the end of the week at the University of Michigan. I sat frozen on the other side of the phone. My father-in-law had died from esophageal cancer and within seconds of my dad starting to talk about open brain surgery, I had this immediate thought of the day of my father-in-law’s surgery. And it was just a moment.

I’ll never forget this. We we’re all sitting in the waiting area at Sloan-Kettering in Manhattan and the nurses were wheeling my father-in-law can off to surgery. And just before they turned to push him through those double doors, you know how they separate the wing where you sit from where they take him back to surgery with those double doors? He turned and he looked back at us. He smiled and he gave us a little wave. And we all smiled and waved back and I remember giving him a thumbs up. I remember that moment because I remember feeling this pang of fear right as he turned around and disappeared through the swinging doors. We had no idea that his surgery was about to go horribly wrong and that the complications would eventually kill him. I snapped back into the present moment, terrified now that I’d remember that moment with my father-in-law and so I listened to my dad and I started to picture my father waving goodbye from a hospital hallway at the University of Michigan and I was afraid. And you know, I don’t know why but I really wanted to know if my dad was scared too. I have this instinct. I just wanted to ask him. I wanted to, I wanted to ask him if he was afraid. And immediately, I hesitated. And immediately, my brain got involved. It was like, do not ask that question. Of course he’s scared, you idiot. You know, just keep it light. Keep it positive. You don’t want to freak him out and have that aneurysm explode while you’re talking to him on the phone, Mel. That moment right there, that’s what Don was talking about. Leave nothing important unsaid.

So I 54321, and I asked. I said, dad, are you scared? There was silence on the other end of the phone and I started to immediately regret asking him the question. And I’ll tell you what, I was not expecting to hear the answer. I’m not scared, I’m nervous. But I really, I really trust my surgeon. And you know Mel, I actually feel kinda lucky. Lucky? Yeah, I have an opportunity to try and fix this thing before it kills me. And at the end of the day if something happens I have no regrets. Watching my mom, take care my dad after his stroke or watching Susie die of ALS, that was horrid. Quality of life, I realize it’s really important to me. And the quality of my life is been more than I could’ve ever wished for. As a kid, I always wanted to be a doctor and I became one. Your mom and I had a wonderful life together. You and your brother actually turned out. I basically done exactly what I wanted to do with my life. And that’s all you can ever ask for. That and more time to enjoy it. I have to tell you, I think it was one of the most beautiful moments I’ve ever shared with my dad. And without the five second rule, I wouldn’t have had the courage to ask the question.

I just sat there in the back of the cabin. I took it all in. And then he said this: actually there is one thing that I want to do. I’d like to go see Africa and if I make it to 90, I want to jump out of a plane like George H Bush did on his 90th birthday. I laughed and said you will dad, you will. Not with me. I’m not jumping out of a plane, but you can do it. That conversation with my dad reminded me of something important. Waiting for the right time to get real in your relationships, it’s a fool’s errand. There is no right time to have the conversation, to ask the hard questions, to say I love you or take the time to truly listen. There’s only right now. Sometimes, it’s not merely a hard question that you need to ask. It’s actually ending the silence between you and somebody. It’d been years since Courtney let a relationship go with her father but she had been wanting to make amends. After learning the rules, she didn’t pass out or overthink it like she would have in the past. Instead, she trusted her instincts and just picked up the phone. I told you, it takes five seconds to change your life.

This is what Courtney wrote: I have to tell you, I listen to you in Salt Lake City a month ago and came home on fire. I actually used it to make amends with my father. It’d been years since I let things go and moved on and I actually sat in my fiancé’s room and set out loud 54321 and just hit call and did it. And I didn’t pass out or overthink it like I used to. So thank you for not only helping me in my business, but also personally. Hiding is what Mike was doing in his marriage until he found the courage to 54321 and say it and be more honest with himself. As he wrote to me: I am talking to my wife again about subjects I would’ve rathered just been ignored. Not like they were going away because my head was in the sand or anything. And I’m being more honest with myself and most of all I like that. I may not be perfect but I’m worthy. I’m surprised by just how damn good that feels to be worthy. Mike just shared a very powerful secret. To feel worthy, you must first make your own instincts worthy of your attention and your effort. And Anthony was surprised to learn that something so simple is having the courage to lean into what I normally shy away from, could create such enormous change in his marriage, helping him to be closer to his wife and to get his needs met. Here’s what he wrote: That something so simple could create such enormous change. That was surprising. I used to expect people to know my needs and would harbor resentment when my needs were not met, mostly with my wife. I thought all wives could just read minds. Imagine my surprise. By using the five second rule to simply lean into what I normally would shy away from, I’m making great strides in a few areas of my life. I’m smiling as I type this. I’m closer to my wife and my needs are starting to be met. I had no idea my silence was the problem.

As Anthony, as Anthony said, he had no idea that my silence was the problem. Silence is always the problem. Deciding not to say what you feel creates what researchers call cognitive dissonance, between what you truly believe in your heart and what you actually do in the moment. And those problems, guess what? When you stay silent and this cognitive dissonance gets created, the problem’s build. And over time they can break your relationships. That’s what happened to Estelle. During what she described as an ordinary moment in time, a seemingly stupid argument with her husband cracked a branch in the silent woods and her response was immediate. I asked him for a divorce. But here’s the thing you need to know. She’d been thinking about it for years.

Here’s how Estelle described it: my mind was suddenly crystal-clear and I used the five second rule to say it. It was now my choice to do it or I would allow my brain to pull the emergency brake. I’d chosen that moment to act. I asked for a divorce. In retrospect, that decision catapulted my life in the direction I knew I wanted to go, but always held myself back from. This is not to say it was easy. It absolutely has not been easy, but I have never for one second doubted my decision. In that pure moment of action, of truly choosing to act on what I knew was right and authentically me, I have found myself. There have been dark and sometimes lonely moments, but what surprises me is that in those moments, I never regret my choice. We all have moments throughout our day to act or to choose. We sometimes hold ourselves back. We choose to be cautious and not act and to not risk. I choose to act and it is in those moments that I feel most alive, have found my soulmate, and more importantly my true self.

I said from the beginning that the rule was simple. I never said, saying it would be easy. The truth is the shortest distance between two people and it may very well save your relationship. Silence creates distance. Truth creates connection and that’s exactly what Natasha discovered. Natasha was overwhelmed with her life after her mother died suddenly. Her optimism evaporated and she could only see negatives in her future. That was the moment when she learned the five second rule. She wrote to me about how she used it. Here’s what she said: The first one is a small one, really. I worked 10 hours a day and by Thursday I’m usually shattered. I used the five second rule to give me a boost to do chores when really, I’d love to crash on the sofa. I get the impulse to empty the dishwasher. I count to five, get up, do it and then it’s done. My second use of the rule is a bit bigger and linked to your first book. I was having a difficult time at the start of the year after my mother passed away suddenly from cancer. I find myself getting overwhelmed often with life in general. My usual optimism evaporated. My three year relationship was suffering as a result. I felt daily anxiety that something bad would happen, and I was worried the relationship was unsustainable as I couldn’t see any positives in the future, only more negatives. in June, after realizing I was not fine, I used the five second rule to start a conversation about my relationship. Explain how I felt and how I wanted things to be better but I did know how to fix it. My partner patiently listened to me and we took time out to talk and connect. We ended up receiving help from a relationship counselor to help us gain new perspectives. We realized how much we had been through, how resilient we were as a couple and how I had nothing to fear about our connection being broken. We’ve been nurturing our relationship for the past two months and I now live without fear. I’m confident in our connection. This was reinforced more at the weekend when my boyfriend proposed. Of course I’d said yes and I’m the happiest I have ever been. I had no idea what the outcome of my original conversation would be, but I knew I needed to speak from the heart and see what happened. The outcome has been amazing. I am so grateful, I didn’t let fear paralyze me.

We often fail to appreciate the profound power that’s held inside the smallest moments of our relationships as the days raised by. I recently had something happened that reminded me of the importance of slowing down, being present, saying it and tuning in when your heart speaks to you. After giving a speech, a man sent me a Facebook message and he asked me to check out a memorial page for a family friend. It was for a guy named Josh Woodruff. He felt that Josh was the epitome of a person who lived his life to the fullest and embodied the five second rule. And he sent me the Facebook memorial page because I, because he thought I would enjoy reading the tributes. On an instinct, I clicked on the link that he sent me to the memorial page on Facebook, and the first post I saw was from a woman named Mary. It was beautiful. It was about intimacy and the connectedness we all want in life and how we pull away from it for the silliest reasons. A week before Josh was killed by a hit-and-run driver in New Orleans, Mary had seen him at the grocery store but didn’t say anything. I’ll let her tell you the story.

This is what she wrote on his memorial page: Josh and my son Jared have been friends since second grade. We consider the Woodruffs some of the dearest and most admired friends. The week before Josh died, I saw him twice in the grocery store. The first time, he was quite aways away and I thought, oh there’s Josh, he must be home for Christmas, but I didn’t say anything to him because I didn’t want to holler across the store. The same week I saw him again, with a big grin and stocking cap on talking to somebody. He was so much closer and I still didn’t say anything because I had run to the store, quick, with no makeup and I was dressed horrid, just hoping I didn’t see anyone I knew. I thought “Odd that I would see him twice in one week”, so I prayed for his family and their Christmas holiday. When I heard he died, I felt so bad I hadn’t talked to him. I didn’t know that would be the last time. But my last image of him was that huge light up the world smile. Last week I was in Target and I saw friend, Jenny, quite aways away. I started to walk out the door when I remembered Josh. I was in a hurry and I didn’t see any reason to stop and talk and then I thought again of Josh. I turned around and hollered down the aisle, Hey Jenny!…

Mary’s post is an incredible reminder for all of us. Sometimes there is no next time. When your heart speaks-say it. I reached out to Josh’s mom Caren to ask if I could share the story about Josh and she shared a story about Josh with me. Josh was not afraid of other people’s emotions. When he was a teenager my mother was diagnosed with cancer. I knew we were losing her. One day I sat in the family room by myself to think and to cry. Josh came in and asked me what was wrong, and then “eye locked” me. He didn’t look away or fidget. He just sat there and listened. From that day we started moving from just a mother-son to a friend-friend relationship because he took the time to listen to me as a human being. I’m sad that I never got the chance to meet Josh. He sounded like an amazing man. As his mom Caren described him, Josh was the epitome of doing. He took his intentions and acted on them. After his death, we said that he lived life without hesitation. She closed her email to me by attaching a text that Josh had sent to her and her husband on New Year’s Eve, just hours before he was killed. He wrote to his mom and his dad before the night begins, just wanted to say happy new year and that I’m so ridiculously thankful for you, very much pumped to see what 2016 has for us. And his mom wrote back: Happy new year, we are so thankful for you and for the life you bring to us and to our family. Stay safe tonight. I had to say that, I’m the mom. As Caren put it, Josh thought it, he sent it. We’ll treasure it for the rest of our lives. We’ve nothing important unsaid. Just 54321 and say it.