you.
To keep this energy field full of life and vitality, you intentionally act for their well-being. This movement is the foundation of your life together. It’s what everything rests on. It’s the engine, the catalyst, the energy that keeps the space between you humming. It’s what you return to again and again.
The arrow moves from you to them while another comes back to you. That’s how the flow starts, that’s how it’s sustained, and that’s how you get it going again when it’s blocked. You’re looking out for their best while they’re looking out for yours.
K: I don’t really enjoy talking on the phone. I’ll blame it on being an introvert. I much prefer face-to-face conversations. Transitions like ending a phone call are hard for me, and that combined with an overdeveloped sense of empathy can leave me feeling stuck for a painfully long time. Once in a while I’ll have to return a difficult call—something socially awkward or a call in which I have to say no to somebody—and it will haunt me all day. I tell you this because one day Rob brought home a jacket he’d just bought.
R: I remember that jacket. I loved that jacket. The salesman loved that jacket. Other people in the store loved that jacket.
K: And he put it on for me, and I immediately said No way.
R: She did. Not the slightest doubt. She just shut that jacket down.
K: It had a weird curve in the stitching on the back that just wasn’t right. It looked like a woman’s jacket.
R: You’re killing me right now.
K: No, I was saving you.
R: I’ve learned over time to trust her instincts; so I was fine taking it back. Except for one thing: I couldn’t face the salesman. He had been so excited about that jacket. This pains me to admit, but I couldn’t take that jacket back because I couldn’t face that salesman. How pathetic is that? So in the heat of the moment, desperate, I offered Kristen a deal.
K: Actually, I offered the deal: I’ll take back the jacket for you if you’ll do a hundred awkward phone calls for me.
R: I took that deal so fast. I still have something like ninety-six to go.
We realize this story is ridiculous.
K: I would have taken that jacket back for him without THE DEAL.
R: And I’ll make an awkward phone call for her anytime.
But we tell this story because there’s a back and forth, a give and take that happens when you zimzum.
You ask, What do you want? What do you need?
They tell you.
They ask you the same questions.
You answer.
They listen.
You talk about it.
You do things for each other.
You make deals, and then you laugh about how absurd it is to make deals because you would have done it anyway.
The arrows take you toward each other, creating a sense of momentum as the energy circulates in the space between you.
K: I was traveling in Europe a number of years ago and spent a few days with a newly married couple from the States who had moved there to work together. At one point I was having a meal with the wife and asked her what she saw herself doing in five years. I was surprised with her response, because she talked about living on a different continent, pursuing a degree in a field totally unrelated to the work they were currently doing. Because I had interacted with her husband before this and had heard some of his hopes and plans, I had the growing impression that they hadn’t talked about any of this with each other. They seemed to have lost the glue, the spark, the fire that brought them together in the first place, and they were headed in different directions.
To act, you first have to know.
You have to know what it looks like for them to thrive; you have to be aware of their goals and dreams; you have to know what they want and what they need and what makes them feel secure and what makes them happy and fulfilled.
It’s amazing how much can change between you when you ask, What do you need?
R: People used to hold up signs at football games that read “JOHN 3:16”—remember those? (The person holding the sign up was usually sitting next to the dude in the rainbow wig.) Those signs were referring to a verse in the Bible about how God loves the world so much that God sent God’s son. The big word in that verse is, of course, that. Divine love is the kind of love that does something.
K: It’s one thing to be in love; it’s another to act because of love. Love is a noun—a feeling you have—and it’s also a verb, something you do.
The space between you is highly responsive because it’s generative space—whatever you put into it multiplies exponentially.
Have you ever had an argument or a fight or an epic blowup and then later, when the dust settled and you talked about it, you realized that the whole thing started with something small?
An off-handed comment, a subtle slight, an expectation that wasn’t met, a job around the house that you kept avoiding—it wasn’t that big of a deal, but it grew and expanded and gained a head of steam as it completely changed the space between you. This is what happens in a generative space—things are magnified beyond their actual size.
One moment your marriage is pure joy, and the next sheer misery, the beautiful friendship and ease you had between you gone; you don’t even want to be in the same room.
This is why marriage can be so difficult and so great: the space that multiplies and magnifies any negativity between you also multiplies and magnifies the generous and kind things you do for each other.
R: We were in a surf shop, and I noticed the tide watch the guy behind the counter was wearing. (A tide watch tells you how high or low the water is, which affects when the waves are best for surfing.) Kristen apparently noticed me noticing his watch, because a few weeks later she gave me the same watch. I’ve been wearing it for years, and to this day, when I check the time, I’m struck by how often I think of her. It’s just a watch. But after twenty years together, it’s way more than just a watch—it’s a sign, a symbol, a reminder that this woman is looking out for me.
This generative space responds to whatever you put into it, magnifying the good things you do for each other as well as the negative things that echo between you. This is true for whatever you bring to the space, including the things that you aren’t aware of.
K: In the summer of 2004 Rob was speaking in California,
