How I Know What I Know


 What made me obsessive about how relationships work?

·      The need to survive.

·      The need to be safe and protect myself.

 How did I learn about my hard wiring?

·      Failure at relationship.

·      Need to understand life’s meaning.

·      Seeing others fail at relationship.

·      Seeing the difficulty others had in relationships.

·      Hearing through music that universally everyone

·      knew that love (being seen, understood, accepted, chosen and valued) was possible.

 What did I learn?

·      Know one I talked to or observed could help others

·      beyond their own HW model of relationship.

·      Everyone believed that people were who their behavior

·      showed them to be.

What questions did I ask?

·      What’s Missing?

·      Why do good people hurt others?

·      “Why do well educated, experienced, mature leaders sometimes communicate in ways that have an unproductive, negative effect on their co-workers?”

·      “Why, when a leader’s intentions are to inspire, inform, correct, re-align or acknowledge employees, they are often baffled  by seeing the opposite result?”

·      “Why are good intentions to help often received as criticism?”

 

Why people show a responsive, neutral, questioning or reactive demeanor towards specific behaviors of co-workers, family, friends and strangers. 

Why these four behaviors are automatic, unconscious and recurring patterns.

Why we generalized personalities of others and miss the essence of how they see themselves.

Why others misunderstand our intentions, behaviors, and communications.

How we can get others attention, yet may be unable to be understood.

Why we override common sense in favor of our beliefs.

How discussions can accelerate to misunderstandings.

Why we prefer to be right rather than mutually productive.


The Convergent Relationship Model resolves the:

Struggle new work teams experience due to differences in management style, cultural belief, lifestyle, experience, maturity, gender, and commitment.

Loss of productivity, time and resources when communications break down.

Misunderstandings when attempting to communicate to others.

Compulsive, reactive, and unconscious behavior that does not produce the effect or results we intended.

‘Out of Options’ syndrome that limits our communication with others.

 

After thirty years of public speaking and counseling individuals and groups, and nearly two decades of that time as a practicing Executive Development Consultant, I continue to hear daily stories about misunderstandings in relationships or individuals that have given up hope of being in one.  Rather than using my word BEING in a relationship, people who tell me their problems often ask, “How do I FIND a good relationship?” 

FINDING a good relationship is like picking a beautiful flower, enjoying the colors and fragrance, until it begins to wilt.  Then the flower is no longer what it first seemed to be.  The flower has disappointed and is cast off.  The person is off to find a flower that won’t disappoint, a flower that will be what is seems to be, and never being different than the first impression it made.  FINDING a flower is a lot of work and energy and will always disappoint when it fades from its first beauty.

BEING in a good relationship is like digging up a beautiful flower, getting hands around the dirt and lifting it out of the ground, roots and all.  Armed with the experience of what it takes to BE with a flower, the person locates a suitable pot and plants it.  He or she then adds mixture of nutritious dirt, and some sand for good drainage.  The flower is placed in appropriate light; given water regularly and over time it is enjoyed through consistent tending.  The original flower will die and transform into another flower.  Always new, yet so much like the first.  Being in relationship requires beginnings, growth, and endings, transforming into another flower, but they are content with the process and the long time they have spent learning to change and creating a history together.  BEING with a flower takes a lot of time & energy and it does not disappoint when all is said and done.  Memories of the good times, fading of the painful growth times, and gratitude for the fate that brought two lives together.

In FINDING a relationship, it is usually involves attracting someone to replace “What’s Missing” inside us. FINDING implies a second step of possessing and subduing another person, requiring them fit a mold of what we need to feel OK.  They must act, dress, talk and think a prescribed way.  To FIND someone who feels that it is ‘normal’ to be either needy or needed.  Academic degrees, career success, consumer goods, and temporary highs are stressed as important, or put down as irrelevant.  “I am what I say I am, regardless of other’s feedback!”

In BEING with someone, requires the desire to mirror and be mirrored by the other person.  Mirroring the good and the bad feelings, attitudes, opinions, preferences and relationship behavior.  Models that were learned from our caregivers and other authority figures are open for discussion and improvement.  BEING means to become less dependent on each other to feel OK and developing more individual strength as time goes on.  Learning the skills to get seen, understood and valued becomes a proactive process. “I am what my relationships are!”

Acquaintances, friends and corporate client’s ask, “Why do my intentions and behaviors sometimes results in others reacting negatively?” 

The process has made me look into and uncover what was missing within my relationships. 

I have attended many self-help seminars over the years, read hundreds of books, received degrees in complimentary subjects and in the 1970’s entered three monasteries in order to find answers to life’s big questions.  For me they are:

Where did we come from?

Why are we here?

Is there an individual and group purpose?

Where are we going when we loose the body?

Why are relationships complicated & difficult?

For the first four big questions solidified around the age of thirty-five. This was preceded by being raised in an alcoholic family; being hit in the head and rendered unconscious for a long period of time (resulting in a major change in consciousness); one year of college; three years in the army; one year in Viet Nam; and followed by a decade of intense searching for the purpose of life.  This search led me through seven religions and living in three monasteries. I was quite convinced that the monastic life would suit me well.  It was in the last of these monasteries that I became aware that this life was too easy for me.  A real challenge would be to take what I had learned and bring it into the world at large.  Could I survive in the world out there and not loose my self? However, were best for a religious to try out his wings than within the heart of humanity.  So, over the bridge of life I went, from the serenity of monk hood to the hustle of life in the world of big business.  What better place for me to bring the big questions, than to the corporation and the people who run them.

On the other side of the bridge I realized that most non-profit religious organizations were high on life’s meaning and low on how to manifest the Fruits of the Earth – money, equipment, buildings and such.  On the other side, for-profit corporate folks were experts on manifesting and low on Fruits of the Spirit and the meaning of long hours worked.  Could I bridge the two?

When I returned to the world, I realized it would be up to me to draw my conclusions about the first four big questions.  Within several years time, I began to construct a model of life that I could experience in daily life.  I would see it in all the people around me.  It explained heartbreak, horror and man’s inhumanity to his/her fellows.  At the same time, my model of the human experience allowed me to grow, change and give & get comfort when needed.  I was free from the “search for meaning” and could get on to the fifth big question regarding relationships.

My background around the question of  “Why are relationships complicated & difficult?” had its genesis at around the age of fourteen.  Like any young teenager, I listened to music, watched movies and TV.  I was always perplexed by how different real relationships were from the love song lyrics of Johnny Mathis, Nat King Cole and others.  Movies and sitcoms showed lovers and families relating in ways I never observed in real life.  I had no idea at that time that it would take another thirty-one years to find my wife Patty. 

From fourteen to twenty I was driven by testosterone to find sex outlets.  From twenty to thirty-five I was driven by spirit, psychology, philosophy and self-analysis to find a mate.  The next ten years, thirty-five to forty-five, I was old enough to look more deeply into the habitual patterns that had not worked in finding a true partner.  I asked the question over and over again, “What is missing in me that does not allow relationship?”  I began dating women who were not my perfect image of the anima (the inner feminine).  I embraced their flaws as unique aspects of their nature.  I enjoyed good boundaries and honesty.  I finally gave up the quest to be married if that was the way life turned out.  I was free to just be and love my life to the fullest, just the way it was today.

I learned about the deeper meanings in story, mythology, faith, and hope.  These led me to workshops in family addictive-compulsive behavior, men’s work, and relationships.  People like David Kyle, Robert Bly, James Hillman, Michael Meade and Robert Moore graced my life.  I began the accent from my Viet Nam delayed stress syndrome cave deep under the ground, and broke surface.  For the first time I could see myself as part of humanity, not someone separate, standing far away, watching humankind march on to oblivion. 

As a consultant, I continued to work with some of the most amazing corporate clients.  My race to find a relationship began to slow down.  These clients gave me a rich cast of characters through which I could see my own life.  Stories about their relationships began to take on distinct patterns.  Around forty years of age I broke the code of dysfunction in relationships and could finally see the cause of the difficulties in both our personal and professional lives.  Now, could I articulate it in such a way that others would be able to understand and apply it in their interactions with others?


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© Scott Taylor 2020