[UUPoly-L] Walls

["Christine Heinsohn" <kb4wyr@fhrd.net>]

One the ideas I have held as an ideal to strive for in my long term
partnership with my life partner David, is transparency between us.  I want
us to know each other so well that it's almost as if we can read each
other's minds.  I want us to behave in a manner that we nurture closer and
closer ties and bonds versus repelling each other.  This transparency would
not require either of us to give up self but rather it would require us to
be so comfortable and in tune with self that the revealing of all we are to
the other creates no shame but demonstrates  profound trust.  

That's what I see as the potential for our relationship but we have a ways
to go.

When I build a wall to protect myself from hurt in our relationship, it
almost immediately results in a wall being built by David.  I see the new
wall, and I build a strong more defensible wall.  David sees the stronger
construction and reinforces his wall..the cycle continues..until one of us
calls a halt to the building process and says something to the effect of "Is
this really the way we want to live?" and we examine and the walls come
down.  

My description makes the wall building seem so intentional and conscious, it
isn't.  It's almost an autonomic response.  I want very much to more aware
of the walls I construct between him and me.  I want to be much more aware
when he is building a wall as now, I almost take his walls as a given,
especially around other relationships.

Walls in a relationship restrict energy flow, prohibit the expressions of
joy, and deter connection between beings.  With David, I don't want that to
happen.

So, what is your experience with wall building?  How do you detect the
purpose of walls you find in your relationships with others?  How do you
deal with walls?

Christine Heinsohn
Cooking Blog:  http://momshearth.livejournal.com/