Forgive me if this seems a bit personal, but what is the POINT of your relationship?

I agree with you… because you love them, because they deal with your crap, because you want to have a family or they look like they’d make a nice baby or two…

I personally believe that the primary reason we enter committed partnership with another person is to grow as an individual! Now that may be hidden beneath the obvious reasons, unconscious to many of us, but have you noticed that the person you love is also the person who seems to get under your skin sometimes?

There’s no coincidence there, and no, this does not mean you are with the wrong person! We choose the person to commit to who pushes our buttons so we have an opportunity to grow and learn about ourselves. Otherwise, when everything is just smooth sailing for the rest of your life together, never a wave or a sudden storm, then you might have a very NICE life, but I have to say, it might not just be boring, it might even be disappointing because you really don’t find yourself challenged to assess yourself and possibly shift some of your behaviors.

Now, many couples don’t like to hear this, but I am very clear that while it is a huge part of relationship to do nice things for your partner, you can not expect your partner to do anything for you. I had a couple on my couch recently and the woman said, “well what’s the point of being married if he’s not going to take out the garbage when I tell him to?” If you fall into this camp, I hate to tell you that you are sailing into a tsunami, not a few little waves.

When my partner does something sweet for me or vice versa, it is a gift, not an obligation. As soon as we feel we have to, we resent it. We all have needs, and we have every right to express those needs to our partners. We just can’t expect them to do anything about them.

Every couple has issues. We all have a problem or two in our relationships however this does not mean we are with the wrong person! However, without a solid, healthy process, i.e. a healthy way of communicating with one another, we find ourselves in trouble. Without a healthy way of speaking and hearing what the other is really saying our problems become the heart of our relationship rather than our process, and that can lead to extraordinary challenges!

So remember, it is the process, not the problems that matter!

A mood of universal destruction and renewal…has set its mark on our age. This mood makes itself felt everywhere, politically, socially, and philosophically. We are living in what the Greeks called the kairos—the right moment—for a “metamorphosis of the gods,” of the fundamental principles and symbols. This peculiarity of our time, which is certainly not of our conscious choosing, is the expression of the unconscious human within us who is changing. Coming generations will have to take account of this momentous transformation if humanity is not to destroy itself through the might of its own technology and science…. So much is at stake and so much depends on the psychological constitution of the modern human. — Carl Gustav Jung

In 1925, Carl Gustav Jung, one of the most brilliant psychologists in our field’s brief history, took a trip to New Mexico. In fact, his experience in Taos with a group of Native Americans is considered to be one of the most significant contributions to the development of his unique approach to psychology and more importantly, his perception of human behavior. Jung noted that at the core of his discoveries at Taos Pueblo was the notion that humans “need a sense of their individual and cultural significance to be psychologically healthy.”

In his book Memories, Dreams and Reflections (which happens to be one of my very favorite books, ever) Jung suggested that his experience in New Mexico made him aware of his imprisonment “in the cultural consciousness of the white man.” As a man living in Chicago this week, I have to say that I feel somewhat imprisoned by some cultural consciousness as well.

For the past several days, client after client has walked into my office and somewhere during the hour uttered the words, “Bears, Packers?!?” Sometimes it comes across as a question, sometimes as a simple fact. “Did you see the game?” “Where will you watch it on Sunday?” “So, who are you for, Bears…Packers?” As a man who has historically maintained precious little interest in football, it is a fascinating experience to suddenly feel swept into a Midwestern whirlwind of rivalry and vigor, longing and lasciviousness.

Women and men alike, care about this game on Sunday. Folks who were born and raised in the streets of Chicago care. Transplants from other countries and states, care. Political conservatives and wacky liberals know it matters who wins and they have opinions. Homosexuals are weighing in and heterosexuals, too. Women who cheat and men who hide their real feelings have a lot to say about Bears/Packers…

The Taos Pueblo is separated into two tiny, mud cities by a modest river that weaves down into the valley beneath a great mountain. One of the details that Dr. Jung found particularly significant was the fact that the pueblo’s natural separation by the river had created an ever so slight variation between the two sides of the village. In fact, when it came to engaging in rituals, hunting and even sporting events, the gentle designation of the two distinct teams created a friendly rivalry and competition that served as a projection for interpersonal tensions and aggression. Jung noted that as a result of this sometimes heated team rivalry, there was considerably less aggression, hostility and strife in people’s homes and in the whole tribal community.

I don’t really care who wins the game this Sunday. I’d like to believe that the not always so friendly rivalry between Bears and Packers fans is a healthy projection of aggressive energy away from real people and real issues onto something like an NFL rivalry. At the same time, I continue to be amazed by the number of men and women who use their feelings about sporting events, wins and losses, as springboards for dealing with their own hopes and dreams, perceived successes and failures. Either way, I just might succumb to the local cultural consciousness and watch the game..