This is an exercise based off of a ritual taught by Sarah and Peter Sandhill at their couple’s workshops that I found especially powerful.
You can use just parts 1, 2 and 5 together as a shorter exercise in awakening and feeling your connection. This shorter version can be completed in 10 minutes, and is a lovely ritual to use when you reunite after the work day, or as part of a bedtime routine. It may be particularly helpful as a bedtime routine when one partner goes to sleep earlier than the other. Sleep is a form of separation and when partners don’t fall asleep together, it can be subconsciously experienced by either or both as a sort of abandonment. This ritual of connection can help with the transition into the separate space of sleep.
Expect to take 60-90 minutes to complete the full-length exercise, especially in the beginning. Once you are practiced and if you make the exercise a regular part of your relationship maintenance, you may complete it more quickly. Once you’ve had some practice with the three questions at the heart of the exercise, you might sometimes choose to open the door to all three at once by instead asking a question like “is there anything about what it’s been like to be you in this relationship that you’d like to share with me, so that I can know and care about it?”
Part One: Waking up the connection
The exercise begins with settling into your connection and waking up the attachment system with one to two minutes of eye-gazing. We naturally share this close, face-to-face, loving gaze with babies, and with our lovers in the beginning of our relationships, but as we become more familiar to each other (and more defended with each other), we can lose this valuable pathway to connection.
It can be difficult to look in both eyes at once, so rest your gaze on your partner’s left eye. If you find this uncomfortable, be kindly curious about that. What comes up for you? Is there anxiety? An instinct to hide? Does your partner’s gaze feel intrusive? Is there something you don’t want to see? Is there some way you don’t want to be seen? On the other hand, perhaps it feels relaxing or reassuring to share this gaze.
Part Two: Creating safety
Each person places their left hand on their partner’s heart, and then takes their right hand and places it over their partner’s hand and their own heart. From this place of physical connection of each person to both hearts, each partner offers those most crucial and basic of assurances: I respect you as you are, and I choose you as my person.
As the Sandhills teach the exercise, the concept of “I respect you as you are” is conveyed by a mutual Namaste, and the words “I honor your heart, your body, and your soul’s journey.” Other ways of conveying this might be: “I want to see and accept you, just as you are” or “I respect you as a separate, and whole person.” Find words that feel genuine for you.
As the Sandhills teach the exercise, the concept of “I choose you as my person” is expressed as “you are my lover, my beloved, you are special, and I choose you.” Again, find words that feel genuine to you to convey that you want to be here, in this relationship, with this person.
Part Three: Finding what needs some love
This part of the exercise is a vulnerable and revealing exchange that brings content up to the surface that most of us stuff down only to have it later leak out in distorted or intensified ways. These are places where we need to be witnessed and cared about in our hurt, our fears, and our contributions. This is purposely placed after the steps of waking up the connection and the reminder that we get to be ourselves and be chosen at the same time.
Each partner will have a turn asking the other person the 3 questions. When it is your turn, you ask all three questions.
Question 1: What would you like me to apologize for?
It is crucial to understand that this question is not asked in a framework of blame or critique. You are not offering to feel blame, shame, that you are wrong or bad or not enough, too much, or “not doing it right.” What you are offering (and you can use these words instead or others that feel genuine to you) is an invitation for your partner to let you know about anything connected to you that has been painful for them. Where have they suffered? This is so both of you can bear witness to the suffering and show that you care about it.
Having this information may influence you to make changes, and that can be great if the changes are freely chosen, but that is not the agenda of the exercise. In fact, the apology can be for something that you can’t or won’t change, or can’t change yet. And that’s okay, because this is not a problem-solving conversation. You are not sharing with an agenda of getting the other person to be different. You are sharing for the purpose of being known in your subjective experience, whatever that actually is.
What a person wants an apology for is more information about them (their wants, desires, and wounds) than anyone else. The agenda of the exercise is to encourage you see each other.
If you find it difficult to offer a sincere apology, or difficult to genuinely say “I care about your suffering,” then the odds are high that there is some way in which it is seeming to you that caring more would have to involve making yourself feel bad or wrong. What would help you remove the thread of blame/shame that has crept in?
Question 2: What would you like me to forgive you for?
In a way, the tables have turned. If I am being asked the questions, I may have just been considering what is hard for me about my partner’s choices or incapacities. Now, I may consider what is hard for my partner about mine. Is there anything I feel guilt or shame about? Anything I fear or worry I will be judged for? Anything I’ve been feeling I have to hide?
And now, the person who has just received an apology is being asked to offer forgiveness. What if you cannot find it within you to freely give it? Offer kind curiosity to your resistance and see what is there. Is there some way you have not yet been witnessed enough in your suffering about this thing you’re being asked to forgive? Is there some way that forgiveness feels like erasing your own experience, blaming yourself or excusing behavior you object to? Forgiveness doesn’t require any of those things. It is about letting go of resentment and “payback,” and holding compassion alongside acknowledgment of pain.
Question 3: What would you like me to appreciate you for?
Now the person who has just revealed something they wanted forgiveness for, gets to ask for an appreciation, and thus has the opportunity to inquire within themselves about something they feel good about (or would like to feel good about) and would like to know their partner sees and values. It could be something you’ve done, some quality you like in yourself, or some place you are stretching and growing.
After the first person has asked all three questions, accepted an apology and offered forgiveness and appreciation, the second person takes their turn.
Part 4: Gratitude and tenderness
Hug and thank each other for participating in this process. Each partner gives the other gentle kisses on their face. This is a lovely way of communicating that being brave and vulnerable, talking about things we are not proud of, and admitting where we would like recognition, praise or approval, does not jeopardize love and connection. We get to be ourselves and be loved at the same time.
Part 5: Basking in connection
As the last part of the exercise, the partners give each other’s bodies a further dose of the felt sense of the connection. Take turns as the receiver and the giver of affectionate caresses, a loving gaze, and words of affection that feel natural to you. Then, settle in with one partner spooning up behind the other. The person in the back places one hand over their partner’s heart and the other at the top of their head. Then the partners synchronize breathing, with the partner in back following the lead of the person in front, taking gentle, full breaths. Do this for at least a few minutes, and for as long as you’d like.
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