This version of Discipline #7 is only for those who have already done the first version at least once.  This version is much harder and more subtle.

Looking for Glitches: 

The Practical Disciplines are designed to help us build the healthiest possible relationships.  As with intervention into any system which we want to enrich toward its best functioning, we start with addressing the glitches in that system.  Where do we see that the system is functioning poorly.  Where are there dysfunctions?

Because these are human systems, we have the tool of attending to the “ouches” that arise for those in the relationship.  What is bothering to those in it?  This exploration has been done in the Mindfulness Disciplines.  Now we want to gather the practical tools that will help in the reparation or restoration of healthy relationships. 

How we structure our relationships:

We have named three kinds of stable relationships, but in practice, any relationship will, at various points, be fiduciary, reciprocal, and mutual.  Even in the reciprocal relationship you have with your boss [which we sometimes refer to as an authority relationship] there can be moments of mutuality.  All relationships are dynamic systems.

Wounds cause trauma which result in triggers:

Any relationship can be distorted in ways that makes it abusive.  All of us have experienced some level of abuse or neglect in significant interactions with powerful others. This abuse results in trauma which creates wounds and thus triggers which can be activated in other relationships.  It is these triggers that are most visible and easily activated in our most significant relationships.

[Any primary intimate relationships we are able to form will thus necessarily be a context in which we will experience a recapitulation of the wounds of our childhood.  It first of all must be true that we are safe enough in the container of the primary intimate relationship that we will be vulnerable to the triggering.  But additionally, we will be attracted to relationships which have qualities like those of our childhood and thus will be structured such that the abusive dynamics will recur.]

Mutuality as a context for healing:

Our primary intimate relationships are thus contexts in which our wounds will be exposed and our healing can occur.  But it can occur only to the extent that it is a healthy enough container.  We need to each be committed to the relationship, feel safe enough to be fully present, and be able to construct a genuinely mutual process for power sharing and decision-making.

Accountability as form of presence necessary for health:

Having such a relationship is necessary but not sufficient.  We also need to have in that relationship a commitment to full accountability.  The concept of accountability is not one that is well understood, so let’s look at it with more depth.

First of all, what we don’t mean.  Most commonly we hear about accountability in the frame of “holding someone accountable.”  This can be very appropriate and even healing, but far too often this is code for publicly shaming and harming a person who privately harmed someone else.  Revenge does nothing to heal the parties or the relationship itself. 

Also, accountability and responsibility are often used as synonyms, but we make an important distinction between them.  Responsibility, which is also distinguished from blame, is a quality of a person’s actions in a relationship.  We have no power in a relationship if we are not willing to be responsible, that is, to be able to respond.  But accountability is a quality of the relationship itself.  Let’s tease this apart a bit.

For simplicity, let’s consider a relationship formed by just two people.  They are each a separate person but together they create a single relationship.  The relationship they create has dynamic qualities and will change from time to time, but it is a single thing they each contribute to.  This relationship will have its own qualities and will be different from any other relationship that each of the parties form with others.  This relationship is unique.

This relationship may have the same qualities as other relationships… it may have the quality of trust, for example, and there may be other relationships that each person has which are also characterized by trust… but when trust is damaged in this relationship it doesn’t necessarily damage the trust in other relationships.

There are certain qualities of being that only arise in the context of relationships.  For example, intimacy is a quality of a relationship, not of the persons in it.  Each person may be capable of deep intimacy but not choose to create that quality in this relationship.

Accountability is such a quality.  It will only arise if both parties choose to experience it in a given relationship.  Each may individually be fully responsible for themselves and their choices, but may not choose to create accountability for this relationship.

A Healing and Healthy Relationship:

For a relationship to be safe enough to be a context in which we can heal from our traumas, it must be one in which the parties to it are choosing personally to be responsible and collectively to construct accountability.  It helps for it to be as mutual as possible.  Mutuality is an asymptote.  We can move toward it, but never perfectly attain it. 

I can’t imagine a relationship in which the only mode of operation is “mutual.”  Mutuality just takes too much energy.  It is great to be able to be there,  but it can also be exhausting.  It is just too hard to make every decision together.

Details of the Discipline

Injunction [What to do]:

• As you consider your five Most Significant Relationships [MSR’s] identify at least one Persistent Pattern of Conflict [PPC’s] in each. 
• There are ways in which each of these PPC’s are similar and the similarities are from the fact that you are party to them.  See what you can identify as the choices… perhaps unconscious ones… that you are making that help to construct the conflicts.
• Identify specific things that you do in each MSR that contributes to the “ouch.”
• Identify what you will do to address this in each relationship such that you become more accountable.

Rationale [Why do it]:

To improve the health of the relationship, reduce the incidence of conflict, and create more of what you need.

Promises [What it will get you]:

One of the biggest results is that you will be internalizing your locus of control.  You will come to see more and more that you are actually able to change for the better the quality of your relationships.  We mostly feel powerless.  We are not.

Suggestions [How to do it better]:

One thing to watch is that, as you shift what you do so as to reduce the “ouch,” you will be making the relationship more and more mutual.  Indeed, just aiming for greater mutuality can be a strategy.