Excavating Joy in Relationships

Let's say you're meeting with a friend for lunch and updating each other on what's been happening in your lives.

Somebody's frustrated about X. Somebody had a letdown around Y. Somebody is celebrating a success around Z. So-and-so's kid is doing A or B in school. And so on.

In such a lunch share and catch-up chat, it's easy to get lost in the content of what you're talking about. It's easy to get lost in your own reactions and your own agendas. It's easy to start comparing. “Well, if they're doing this, how am I doing?”

Owners of relationship moments don’t take the easy route of stress reactions or personalized validation grabs; instead, they excavate the joy that's available in that moment of friendship.

What do I mean by excavation? It's not about going and digging into the past, making a big deal out of something, staging some elaborate reveal, or giving a massive gift. It's about owning that moment of interaction and savoring that moment the way your friend willingly shows up to engage and share a moment of their life with you. Being curious about your friend’s experiences, her joys and letdowns, the way she laughs when telling a funny story, or seems sad when she talks about work.

Joy with others is right there in moments to be discovered

Source: Imgorthand from Getty Images Signature

Of the certainly limited moments your friend has in life, they’re choosing to share this one with you. Pausing to own this fact, is you choosing to show up to the verb of friend-ing at this moment of interaction. The real, here-and-now verb form of dropping possessive “me” agendas of getting validation strokes such that you can uncover moments of joy.

This moment with your friend is a precious gift. At this moment, you can let go and be:

• Without any agenda, any self-conscious, comparing, accumulating, claiming aspect.
• Without all of that and noticing this “we” of the friendship. In so noticing, things are richer, things are more valuable. You can now touch the experience, the feeling, of how rare these moments are rare.

It is like being an archaeologist who has just dusted off the tip of Alexander the Great’s sarcophagus, which has yet to be discovered if it still exists. Imagine being that archaeologist in the moment of seeing this great find, that moment of recognition. How amazed and filled up would you be with wonder and awe? Of pure joy? There are moments to be excavated on this earth without digging. They are there in the moment with your friend, with whomever you might be owning joy with.

The "shovel," the tool for the excavation, is the noticing itself, of the letting go of agenda or fixation on expectation, and it’s the intention of dwelling in and savoring this moment of friendship. The joy is what arises on its own in the we-space between you.

Try This Practice: Indiana Jones-ing

1. Call to mind a recent interaction with a friend. Review the ways you angled for attention, elbowed your points forward for acknowledgment, or dropped not-so-subtle hints of your desire for support or feeling felt.

2. "OWN" them here and now as they show themselves in memory. Pay attention to what arrives in only this moment of memory, without believing yourself a bad friend, or them somehow either better or less-than, noticing, noticing, and noticing some more of what you are feeling, what they might have been feeling, and what's possible to do.

3. Notice how precious moments with this friend are and how few there may be remaining. Listen to your heart’s reaction to these beautiful, rare opportunities to be present with what matters, connects, and soars between you. Look closely at all that’s vivid that you’ve uncovered. All the specific aspects, small or large. It’s all right there, even now, in your imagination.

4. Let joy lead you to take action toward that person. Reach out and let the person know what you’ve excavated, even if it’s a mere recognition of how you’re looking forward to seeing them soon and missing less of what matters in the friendship.