Sometimes you connect in a relationship, and at other times you don’t. If you understand the law of “you get what you think about” and that thoughts “snowball” it can help you understand what is going on between you & another person.
Last night my girlfriend and I decided to go out for a drink at a local bar. Poor Jill, I know I have had a one track mind about my solo CD and career. All I have been doing is stuff like re-recording tracks, mastering, paying for licenses, poking around on myspace, and so on.
Jill is working as the assistant dean at a prestigious college here in NYC. She is getting very busy as the school year is revving up.
So, I decide to myself before going out to meet her that I do not want to talk about my stuff. I’d rather be a good listener tonight.
We meet, and I ask her how work went.
I hear all about the personalities, the responsibilities which are unfolding, the madness of it all. And while streams of story-lines shift I am doing my best to follow, but it is hard. First off I don’t know the people, and I am trying to NOT think about my stuff for once. Of course that’s like saying don’t think about a pink elephant.
At one point Jill (who has been doing all the talking) says “I feel like you are not listening”. Uh oh, here we go. Men are from Mars….get ready!!!!
I reply “I’ve been listening the whole time”. I see the argument coming I have had 1000 times with other people and past girlfriends, and I have been on both sides of it. I have felt “not understood” or like “so and so does not care, but only cares about her own stuff”.
We all like to feel connected, we like that honeymoon stage we were once in when all we could think about was how awesome the other person is.
I thought to myself, “What is really going on here? How can I grasp this problem of what is happening – she’s talking about work & her stuff, I am thinking about my stuff, but really trying to think about her stuff, and we are in 2 different universes right now. She feels it and so do I.”
The answer lies in the Law of Attraction, believe it or not.
I had spent days on music here at my house. Recording, mixing, editing, licensing, talking, practicing, teaching. And – the more you think about something, the more you get it – so music and guitar are like this 10 ton locomotive that can’t just come to a screeching halt, due to the momentum of thoughts.
Likewise, she’s been updating the school website, organizing, learning what new tasks lay ahead when dazed & confused freshmen walk in – immersed in that situation for hours. These thoughts have gained such momentum that she can’t stop thinking and talking about it. To her, my talking about music feels like a splash of cold water that has nothing to do with her thoughts at the time. That’s why I simply wanted to be a good listener.
Out of desperation (this was so cute) Jill says to me at the bar “okay, I won’t talk about work and you don’t talk about music. (pregnant pause). What the hell is there to talk about? We have nothing to talk about (panic)”. This was so cute and so funny. I love her!!
So I told her “Honey, see what is happening here and don’t worry. Your thoughts have snowballed due to the attention you have given to certain subjects, and mine have too. We have momentum of thoughts that are rolling in different right now. That’s normal and okay. No crisis here!”
I continued, in my wise, long winded, know-it-all fashion, “I guarantee that as we hang out tomorrow and build up a new immediate past (interesting way of describing the present), and pay attention to being together at the beach, we’ll feel in-snyc soon enough.”
“No need to block out thoughts and force other thoughts. Be gentle about it.”
Get it?
I know now (but sort of always did on a gut level) that it takes a little time to get momentum of thoughts, but once you do – secrets reveal themselves and realizations pop up out of the unknown. Practicing music for hours gives you momentum. Building a habit of exercise gives a momentum. Computer programming gives a momentum – in fact when I learned to program PERL, I’d spend hours and then be dreaming about it!
Relationships are no different. Being in a relationship also has a certain momentum, and that’s why you have to put in time with a relationship just like anything else.
Until tomorrow, my little blog-puppies!!
P.S. I forgot who made the following quote but I love it and laugh at myself as I have bombarded my inner circle of friends and family with my new musical projects – “But enough about me. Tell me what YOU think about me.” 🙂
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Very nice, I think you have articulated something that many couples (especially couples in which one is an artist of some kind and the other isn’t) go through. Relating ideas like relationships, thoughts, concerns, temporary obsessions, etc. to momentum, I think, is a good and valid analogy. It’s important to understand that it takes time for that momentum of thought to build up and it equally takes time for it to slow down to the point that a new energy can focused in a different direction. Thanks for the blogs.
By the way, I seem to remember a similar quote coming from an episode of “Cheers.” Sam was on a date with a woman, and after an evening of relentless self-promotion, Sam says to his date, “but enough about me let’s talk about you. What do you think of me.” Or something like that.