CHAPTER 4

Repacking Your Relationship Bag

We Are All Hadza

In decades of regular “inventure” treks to Tanzania, Richard has had numerous opportunities to live, work, and play with the Hadza, one of the last hunter-gatherer peoples still extant on the planet. The Hadza live essentially as they have for tens of thousands of years, in kin groups of several dozen, hunting and gathering food from their environment. It has been, for time immemorial, a completely sustainable lifestyle, one in which every person has a role and purpose and is supported by the entire group of which they are a part. When Richard and his fellow “inventurers” spend time with the Hadza, they inevitably feel a sense of “coming home” to a way of life that seems remarkably familiar, in spite of how different it is from how we in the contemporary world live our lives.

But, of course, that’s really no surprise. The way the Hadza live is how human beings survived together for almost all of our common history. The bonds they share amongst each other are, to a great extent, “hardwired” into us. We are built, in other words, to form deep and abiding relationships among those close to us that enable us to survive and thrive together in the world. We are defined to a much greater extent than we tend to acknowledge in our busy, 21st century lives, by our “tribe.”

Thus, when we consider our definition of the good life: “living in the place I belong, with people I love, doing the right work, on purpose,” it makes perfect sense, both individually, and in tune with our collective identity, that the relationship component — people I love — is so key to our sense of happiness and fulfillment. We need, to put it simply, our “tribe” in order to feel whole and wholly alive.

The following story illustrates what we mean:

We are a dozen men “of a certain age” on an “Inventure Trek” in Africa led by Richard and his long-time trekking partner, Daudi Peterson. One evening at our camp in northern Tanzania, about 50 kilometers from the Olduvai Gorge where Louis and Mary Leakey made their breakthrough discoveries of hominid evolution, we are joined by a group of about ten Hadza elders. We are all amazed by one in particular, a spry and leathery little elf of a man, named Kampala. He is the oldest and arguably the wisest of the Hadza, pegged by his peers at somewhere between 94 and 98 years of age. He claims that his age doesn’t seem that special to him, although he does admit to being surprised at times that he is “still here.”

We are offered a demonstration of how the Hadza harvest honey from a beehive in a baobab tree, and when the youngster doing the harvesting, Mwapo, throws the honeycomb down from the upper branches to the ground, Kampala is across the grass in a split second to claim his first share. Unabashed in his appetite and desires, Kampala has us all in stitches at his sheer vitality and aliveness.

Later, after nightfall, we receive a vivid illustration of his role among his people and the degree to which his wisdom pervades their shared experience. Kampala, through Daudi as translator, shares with us a long and rambling but endlessly compelling version of the Hadza creation story, a dramatic and complex tale of a young girl, her warrior suitor, and her man-eating giant of a father. The younger Hadza men listening to him have the same rapt look of attention that we have seen in our own children as they watch a Spielberg movie. The details he shares are rich, but in many ways, secondary.

At one point, one of the other elders, Philipo, a man of about 70, interrupts to correct Kampala on a point of fact regarding one of the animals in the story, the black mamba snake. “The black mamba’s tongue is not purple, it’s blue,” he says. Kampala shoots back, “Blue, purple, what’s the difference? I’m telling a story here, and purple works for the story!” The Hadza, young and old, erupt in laughter, and once the interaction is translated for us, we do, too.

After completing his culture’s creation story, Kampala asks that we share ours. Our group, which fortunately includes a physicist, cobbles together a version of the Big Bang and Darwinian evolutionary theory. We make the point that in our creation story, the tribes of the Olduvai Gorge, including the Hadza, are the first people. We all come from the Hadza, and, therefore, in a very real way, are all, at our essence, Hadza, too.

At this, there is a flurry of conversation among Kampala and his fellow hunter-gatherers. We ask Daudi what is being discussed, and eventually it comes out. It turns out that the Hadza are talking about a different creation story they have than the one that Kampala shared with us. It is told only to their own people; rarely, if ever, shared with outsiders. And it begins, Daudi tells us, “In the beginning, the Hadza were baboons …”We are humbled to be made privy to this unique evolutionary story that the Hadza are aware of. This genuine moment of cross-cultural connection floors us all, Westerner and African alike, and leads, in a while, to the Hadza men sharing with us a number of their traditional songs, hauntingly beautiful call-and-response melodies, similar in some ways to Southern spirituals we have heard, a few with dance accompaniment that Kampala leads in.

Afterwards Kampala asks our group to sing a few of our own traditional songs. We offer up “If I Had a Hammer” and “This Little Light of Mine.” When he asks for one with a dance, we scratch our heads a bit, but then eventually settle on the only such tune we all know, the “Hokey-Pokey.” Tentatively, but with increasing verve, we begin, “You put your left leg in, you take your left leg out, you put your left leg in and you shake it all about. You do the hokey-pokey and you turn yourself around, that’s what it’s all about.”

And this, then you have to picture: Some 20 or so men around a campfire in Africa, Americans, Europeans, and Hadza alike, all dancing together doing the hokey-pokey. Kampala rises and joins us, and when we get to the final verse, “You put your whole self in,” leaps in and out with the rest of us, crying “Nzuri sana! (Very fine!)”

And it seems in this moment that it is all there: the authenticity and wholeheartedness, exactly what we have all come to Africa to experience, however fleetingly.

You put your whole self in; that’s what it’s all about.

It was easy for us on the trek to define our “tribe” at that moment. The connections we felt among our group and with our Hadza hosts made the bonds between us self-evident. We “put our whole selves in,” easily and naturally, without holding back. It was obvious to all of us that “that’s what it’s all about.”

Of course, it’s much harder, most of the time, to identify and commit to our “tribe.” Most of us live among intertwining communities at work, in our neighborhoods, and with our families. The good news about this, though, is that it allows us to form deep and meaningful bonds with a number of different “tribes,” even if these tribes are quite small — like just you and a life partner.

It’s just a matter of “putting our whole selves in.”

Traveling Together

One of the challenges along the way to a successful long-term relationship with someone is making it through the “travel test.” You’ve been seeing another person for a while and you come to the point where you decide to take a trip together. Discussing the event afterwards with your closest friend you’ll say one of two things.

Either, “It was great, thank heavens. At least we can travel together.” Or, “It was a nightmare. It’s over — we can’t even travel together.”

Traveling with someone is a great way to get to know them — or wish you didn’t. Little faults and foibles are magnified. Simple choices about where to eat, what to wear, how to spend the evening, turn into major life decisions. If you can navigate through these decisions with your fellow traveler, you’ll feel closer, more connected. If you can’t, you’ll want to go home on the next plane out.

It’s the same thing, if not so obvious, as you journey through life with someone. Your ability to make decisions, solve problems, and in general, travel together successfully, has a lot to do with how enjoyable you’ll find the trip.

Fortunately — or perhaps unfortunately — most people, when the going gets tough, don’t feel they can send their travel partners packing. A few feel inclined to take a hike themselves, but even this is not usually considered an option.

Too often, we just trudge along together with our partner, unable or unwilling to improve things, hoping in the back of our minds that something or someone better will come along and bring us the romance and adventure we feel we’re missing.

If the success of online dating sites is any gauge, millions and millions of people are longing for a soulmate who’ll sweep into their lives and sweep them away emotionally. But how many of those millions are willing to cast free their emotional moorings in order to experience the highest heights of passion? How many are willing to let themselves be fully seen by another person? How many are willing, as we put it, to fully unpack?

Apparently, millions of us are looking for relationships in which all parties involved have their bags fully unpacked. But many of us are too afraid, or too tired, or who-knows-what to let other people see what we’re carrying. In the end we want the overwhelming ecstasy of a once-in-many-lifetimes love relationship, without the messiness and pain that goes along with creating one.

This is perfectly understandable — if not very realistic.

The simple (though incredibly hard to accept) truth is this: in order to have an intense, meaningful, fully alive, and exciting relationship with another person, we have to be willing to unpack our bags. Unfortunately, no Prince Charming is going to ride up and sweep us off our feet to live happily ever after. No beautiful, wealthy models from People magazine are going to appear and whisk us away to their cottage on the beach.

In order to experience our fantasies, we have to create them.

In order to have the kinds of friendships and love relationships we dream of, we have to be the kind of friend and lover that other people dream of as well.

The first step, then, is to get clear about just who we are in our relationships.

Choosing Your Fellow Travelers

Dave says, “When I was in junior high, I came home crying almost every day. There was this group of kids that used to torment me. One day they’d gang up on me in a snowball fight. The next, they’d steal my homework. Another time they’d hold me down and take turns spitting on me.

“Finally, my mom asked me why I kept hanging around with them if they made me so unhappy.

“‘Mom, I have to!’ I cried. ‘They’re my FRIENDS!’

“It wasn’t until years later, when I actually met some people who liked me for who I was, that I realized those junior high kids weren’t really my friends.

“On the other hand, maybe they were, because they taught me a valuable lesson — not everyone is my friend. And more importantly, I don’t have to hang around with people who aren’t.”

As you consider your own life and the people with whom you are surrounded, ask yourself “How many are my friends?” How many of them are what we call “nutritious people”?

Nutritious people are the people in our life who genuinely “feed” our souls. Who nurture the deepest parts of us that need nurturing. They are the good listeners who truly hear what we have to say. Who reflect back to us our innermost thoughts and feelings. Who listen without judging. Whose eyes light up when they see us and whose presence lightens our mood, too.

The most nutritious people for us are those that love us with the fewest plans for our improvement, and that allow us to love them back completely. Such relationships need not (and as often as not, don’t) involve even the slightest hint of sexual or physical intimacy. They are, instead, the close relationships that make us feel seen and heard for who we are; the friends and family members with whom we feel we were meant to travel through life.

The Three Journeys of Intimacy

What we are looking for in our relationships with nutritious people is, quite simply, intimacy. As human beings in the early 21st century, we have a powerful hunger for meaningful connections with other people, but an almost pathological inability to make them. Many of us don’t even know what intimacy means.

Psychologist and author Marilyn Mason defines intimacy as “being connected and close through shared contact in a variety of activities that are informal, deep, and personal.”⁶ She says that it is a process, not static, but active and recurring.

In other words, intimacy is a journey.

With that in mind, we have identified three types of journeys we typically take along the road to greater intimacy with another person. These aren’t necessarily sequential, nor do you have to cross each one off to achieve a deeper level of intimacy.

As Marilyn Mason said, intimacy is a process. As such, it continues to evolve throughout our lives. Each of the three journeys evolve along with us. Nevertheless, you may find it useful to consider them as a means of seeing whether you are on the right road at the right time with the people in your life about whom you care — or want to care — most.

The three journeys are:

• Day Trips

• Weekend Getaways

• Lifetime Journey

As you read about each of these, make a note of where you are with your fellow travelers. Are you on the right journey with the people you want to be with? If not, why not? If so, how can you make the journey even better?

Day Trips

Intimacy begins with a toe in the water. When we first meet someone with whom we feel a kinship, we usually approach cautiously, with great anticipation, walking on eggshells. Human beings are funny this way. The more we like someone, the less we’re willing to let on. Unlike our friends in the animal kingdom, who proudly display feathers or other finery to demonstrate their attractions, we often veil our best qualities when we feel an affinity — particularly an initial affinity — for someone else.

You’ve seen this phenomenon at high school dances; you’ve probably participated in it yourself. The young people most attracted to each other are those least likely to get together. Teenagers find it much easier to talk to someone who’s just “a friend,” than someone with whom they might conceivably be romantically inclined. As adults, looking back on this, it’s charming — we laugh at how silly and scared we were at the time.

But what’s charming at 16 or 17 is downright depressing at 40 or 45 — and yet many, if not most of us, continue to make the same mistake no matter how old we get. What’s pathetic is that we make this mistake — not with a stranger we spy across the dance floor — but with the people in our lives we know and love best.

Think about it. How much easier is it to open up to a stranger on a plane or in a bar than to your “significant other” or close business associates? When was the last time you let someone close to you get really close to you?

Many of us treat our close relationships as if we’re merely on a “day trip” with the person or persons involved. The continuation of the voyage is contingent on the success of each day. If things don’t go well, we’re gone — if not literally, at least from an emotional standpoint. Metaphorically, if not literally, our bags are packed for a quick exit at the first sign of trouble.

You know what this is like. You come home from a party with your longtime partner. It’s been a trying evening and you’re both worn out. Somebody says something and before you know it, you’re embroiled in the mother of all arguments, and accusations are flying faster than either of you can make them up. Soon, you’re wondering why you ever got involved with this person in the first place — thinking how much richer and more exciting your life would be if only you were alone.

Why is it that even our deepest relationships are on such fragile ground? Why does it seem that even the people we’re closest to are only a step away from being on the other side of the planet? Isn’t it odd that two people who can converse all day long, every day, for months, even years on end, can be only a few ill-chosen words away from never wanting to speak to each other again?

And yet this is the human condition. So if we’re serious about moving forward in any significant way, this is where we’ve got to unpack our bags. In order to think at all of establishing and sustaining meaningful long-term relationships with our loved ones, we’ve got to begin at the beginning.

And at this beginning lies what we call the concept of a Day Trip. How do you truly travel with someone else for the course of one day? And how do you unpack and repack to do so?

One Day at a Time

You know how it is when you’re first getting to know someone you like — they can do no wrong. All their little quirks are charming. The way they hold a knife, their choice in music, the way they drive a car, it all seems inspired. You can’t get enough of them and want to see more.

Eventually, as you get to know each other better, your appreciation for some of their characteristics may deepen. Knowing the story of why they cut all their meat before eating it, for example, may make you more accepting of their need to do so. On the other hand, familiarity may breed contempt.

So what has changed? Not them, but you.

This means that if you want to re-acquaint yourself with the person you once cared so much for, you can. Taking a Day Trip is an easy way to begin.

Similarly, if you’re just getting to know someone and are uncertain about how far you want to travel with them, the Day Trip is a good place to start.

Day Trip Itinerary

When we talk about the Day Trip, we’re not just referring to a concept. We’re also talking about an actual journey, complete with places to go, sights to see, things to do, and things to learn about each other along the way. The basic idea of the Day Trip is pretty straightforward. Packing for the Day Trip means considering what aspects of yourself and your partner you’d like to deal with over the course of an eight-hour day.

To develop your Day Trip itinerary, ask yourself the following questions.

• If you had just eight hours to spend with someone, with WHOM would it be?

• In what PLACE would it be?

• What would you DO?

Create a real itinerary for your Day Trip. Consider the places you’d like to go, the issues you’d like to discuss, the things you’d like to do. Make it an “official” itinerary, with times and everything. Then do it! Take the Day Trip.

Weekend Getaways

This is the journey of intimacy on which most people find themselves, even with the people to whom they are closest. The level of commitment we feel is about what you would expect in a situation where you knew you had to spend a weekend with someone. We’re willing to “make nice” or “get along” over certain things, but since we tend to be operating under the assumption that “this too shall pass,” we’re typically unwilling to make any substantive changes in our own behavior or in the situation itself to make things better.

On a weekend trek, you have plenty of time to share ideas. Hopes, dreams, plans for the future — they all trip easily off the tongue. In 48 or 72 hours with someone, you can get to know them really well; you can talk about pretty much everything.

But it’s still talk. Over the course of a weekend you can discuss your hopes and dreams, but you can’t see them realized. You can make plans for the future, but you can’t implement them. There’s a certain theoretical or dream-like quality to all your interactions. It’s like summer camp: things can get fairly intense, but there’s a built-in end point or escape hatch that makes everything just slightly unreal.

This is the essence of what we mean when we talk about “a bag by the door.” Many of us — even in our closest relationships — are packed and ready to leave. Even though we’re present physically, we’ve still got a bag, partially packed, by the door. We’re feel like we’re just one Facebook message away from a long-lost love, one chance meeting with a mysterious stranger; a winning lottery ticket away from picking up our bag and heading out. This is easily understandable and makes perfect sense, given human nature. Historically, in order to survive we’ve needed to be highly flexible and adaptable, and readily willing to attach ourselves to the next stronger, better-looking, or smarter king or queen who came along.

But does this serve us nowadays? How much richer and more fulfilling would our relationships be if we were more fully committed to them? What would it be like if the “bag by the door” were unpacked and put away? How, in other words, can we “fully unpack” with another?

The concept of the Weekend Getaway provides you with a means to consider this question. Because ultimately, what we pack in the “bag by the door” is the same as what we pack for the Weekend Getaway. Thus, examining the “whats” and “whys” of our Weekend Getaway bag enables us to look more clearly into what matters most to us. We get a better sense of what we couldn’t live without, what means most to us, and what most clearly defines for ourselves who and what we are.

In dozens of popular films, a day or two is all it takes for a couple of people to have their lives completely turned upside-down. Strangers meet, bond over some unexpected occurrence, and, as a result, come to a completely new perspective on each other and ultimately themselves. Typically there are laughs and tears along the way, and plenty of misunderstandings, but the eventual result is that both characters have a sort of epiphany in which their understanding for and appreciation of each other grows immensely. In just a few days, or even, in some cases, a few hours, they become, in the complete sense of the term, soulmates. Despite starting out distant from one another emotionally, and even geographically, they end up forming a real bond, one that is deep, abiding, and certain to last through a sequel or two.

The good news is — as is said about successful Hollywood films — this Weekend Getaway “has legs.” Hollywood can do it, and you can, too. The Weekend Getaway concept can help you to establish, re-establish, and maintain deeper relationships with friends, family, and co-workers.

Weekend Getaway Itinerary

Like the Day Trip, the Weekend Getaway is first and foremost, an inward journey. Although you may want to take an actual getaway with your Weekend Getaway partner, it’s not essential that you go away and sequester yourselves somewhere to experience it. Nor do you have to take two whole days to get any value from it (although it’s rarely a bad idea to get away for a while).

To develop your Weekend Getaway itinerary, ask yourself the following questions.

• If you had just 48 hours to spend with someone, with WHOM would it be?

• In what PLACE would it be?

• What would you DO?

Create a real itinerary for your Weekend Getaway. Write down the places you’d like to go, the issues you’d like to discuss, the things you’d like to do. Make it an “official” itinerary, with times and everything. Then do it! Take the Weekend Getaway.

Lifetime Journey

Whenever we read in the newspaper about a couple who are celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary, we tend to experience a mixture of both sentimentality and awe. It seems sweet that the pair has stayed together for so long, but at the same time we’re aghast that any two people could put up with each other for half a century. How have they weathered the changes? Have they managed to grow? Do they still love each other?

There’s certainly plenty of room for debate about whether human beings are “meant” to form life-long bonds through marriage or other social contracts. Certainly it’s not the lifestyle for everyone. But at some level, it’s what we’re all looking for. People want that ongoing, never-ending intimacy. We all want to live happily ever after till death do us part.

How, then, is this sort of lifetime journey possible with someone else, especially given the transient nature of today’s society and the quickly changing needs and expectations of contemporary adults?

Peter Russell says that relationships are contemporary western society’s “yoga.” Yoga, in this case, is used in its original sense, to mean “union,” especially spiritual union. Russell’s point is that we can — and should — use our interpersonal relationships as a form of meditative yoga to improve ourselves and society.⁷

Most of us are most familiar with yoga as physical practice that enhances strength and flexibility. And indeed, we need to nurture both these qualities — mentally and emotionally, as opposed to merely physically — in order to successfully carry on a lifetime journey with another. But historically, yoga is about liberation, from the endless cycle of death and rebirth, ultimately, but, as a practical matter, from the fluctuations of the mind that continually distract us from seeing the essential core of our true being.

If we think of our deepest personal relationships in this way, as a means to more clearly reveal to ourselves who we really are, then it’s likely we’ll be more apt to hang in there for the long haul. This doesn’t mean, of course, that there aren’t occasions and situations that can be toxic and from which the only recourse is to extract ourselves, but it does suggest that it’s in our best interest to recognize that sometimes what we’re experiencing during difficult times are merely those mental and emotional fluctuations, and not an authentic expression of our deepest selves. And that awareness can, perhaps, enable us to carry on together for the lifetime journey.

Conceiving of our interpersonal relationships in terms of a lifetime journey, therefore, may be a particularly effective type of “relationship yoga.” Imagine how things would be if — instead of clinging to the vague notion that somewhere out there, there was someone better for us — we were willing to unpack for an ongoing journey, no matter how long or how far it may take us. Supposedly this is the idea behind traditional marriage, but in practice these days it works out only about half the time. And even in marriages that do stay together, it’s often because the parties involved have totally checked out. They’re living together, but are farther apart than many couples who have had the courage to face up to the differences and separate.

Thus, the Lifetime Journey doesn’t, by definition, require that the parties involved remain in absolute proximity to one another. Successful lifetime journeys can be carried out by people who live miles, even continents, apart. Because the lifetime journey involves a change of perspective as opposed to a change of location, one needn’t rush off to some distant location in order to maintain the connection. We’re talking about the “long haul” here, so it’s only natural that there are times when you and those with whom you are on a lifetime journey are not together.

Nietzsche called marriage a “grand dialogue.” In order to sustain that dialogue, partners in any long-term relationship must engage in an ongoing “courageous conversation.” They must be willing to share their innermost thoughts and feelings in the most radical sense — facing their fears and honoring their differences together.

Too often, people end up tied together instead of moving along the same path. Their ideas about what constitutes the good life are not in alignment, so they’re continually tripping over each other. Instead of supporting one another on the journey, they’re just getting in each other’s way.

The challenge, of course, is to figure out the delicate dance that allows each person a full expression of his or her essential humanity and true nature. And this typically requires that most elusive of feelings for one another: unconditional love. It’s hard enough to grant this feeling to even ourselves; how much more difficult it is to offer such grace to another!

And yet, perhaps surprisingly, many of us regularly practice this sort of full-on emotional openness with and support for another being in our lives: our pets. In some cases, the clearest example of a lifetime journey a person experiences is the unconditional love they feel toward a dog or cat. In which case, it may not be for their lifetime the journey lasts, but only as long as Fluffy or Rex is around. Even so, this shorter version of the lifetime journey can provide a model for something fuller and more complete. Think of it as a map to help prepare a Lifetime Journey Itinerary.

Lifetime Journey Itinerary

The itinerary for a Lifetime Journey becomes a reflection of your deepest feelings about yourself, your journey partner, and how you see your long-term connection ultimately unfolding. Generally, the itinerary for a lifetime journey is less strict than for the shorter trips. It’s apt to be described in terms of purpose and direction as opposed to destination.

Still, it’s useful to engage in the same sort of dialogue for the lifetime journey as you did for the other two. It’s also not a bad idea to regularly repeat this exercise to see if you’re still tracking along with your lifetime journey partners.

The question comes up again and again: Are you still traveling together? If so, how can you continue to do so? If not, how can you get back on track? Ask yourself:

• If you could spend the rest of your life with just one other person, with WHOM would it be?

• In what PLACE would it be?

• What would you DO?

Create a real itinerary for your Lifetime Journey. Write down the places you’d like to go, the issues you’d like to discuss, the things you’d like to do. Make it an “official” itinerary, with times and everything. Then, do it! Take the Lifetime Journey.

Finding Your Repacking Partners

In the earlier editions of Repacking, we made two assumptions that turned out to be inaccurate for many of our readers. First, we assumed that really the sole consideration when it came to relationships for most people had to do with finding their life partner or “soulmate.” And second, we mistakenly figured that those focused on doing so had been successful — that they were already in a deep and meaningful relationship with someone they cared deeply about.

As it turns out, what more and more people are hungry for isn’t necessarily a connection to one other person; rather, we hear more typically that folks are missing out on a sense of belonging to a group of people that share similar hopes and dreams or a sense of purpose in life. What lots of people are seeking, in other words, is a “crew,” or, to put it in anthropological terms, a kin group of sorts, or a small tribe. Again, it’s a harkening back to our hunter-gatherer roots. We’re biologically adapted, if you will, to a sense of connection with a band of several dozen or so that are pursuing a common goal.

In his groundbreaking Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community, Robert Putnam draws on research done with more than half a million people to show how people today have become increasingly disconnected from family, friends, and neighbors. He argues that the solution for this sense of disconnectedness is to invest in “social capital”; in other words, to come together with others to work together for the common good, even in small ways like having neighborhood picnics, or, as is suggested by his title, sharing recreational activities like participation in bowling leagues.

What we’ve heard from our readers accords neatly with Putnam’s observations and advice. And the antidote to this sense of disconnectedness comes back, we believe, to our definition of the good life. The relationship component refers to “the people I love.” Consequently, living the good life doesn’t depend on finding that one special person, but on revealing ourselves and connecting with whoever we are close to. Many of us naturally think that the only person we could possibly connect with at this deepest level would have to be a romantic partner, but that’s not the case. Self-disclosure — the healthy unpacking that reveals who you are to another person — is often most easily done with people who are “just friends.” Very few of us have absolutely no one to talk to, so we needn’t feel left out if we don’t currently have a significant other.

Also, it’s been our experience that unpacking with friends or associates has the effect of drawing other people into our lives. We’ve seen it again and again: when people repack and begin living the good life as they see it, they seem to exude a certain quality that makes meeting people easier, more natural, and more frequent.

The more we’re able to reveal our true selves to others and the more completely we’re able to affirm those connections, the more likely we are to sustain the abiding unity for which we are designed.

It’s the antithesis of what many of us do, which is to hold ourselves at arms’ length, to metaphorically (or even literally) keep a bag packed by the door. Secretly — or not so secretly — we’re waiting for someone better. And should he or she appear, we’re ready to go.

We’ve all seen it: a friend who takes his wedding ring off for trips out of town; another who complains and complains about her husband, but never talks to him about what she feels; couples who see “separate vacations” as the solution to all their problems, real or imagined.

Of course these are the very attitudes and actions that keep people from forming the kinds of relationships for which they yearn. The things we do for love are often the very things that keep us from experiencing it. This is ironic, because most of our actions are driven, in one way or another, by that vital need to connect with someone else in a deep and significant way.

A friend of ours complained that he felt unable to really open up to his wife because she did not have a “rich inner life” like his. Paradoxically, it was his inability to open up that kept him from seeing his wife’s deeper inner life. What he wanted to say to her most is what he feared most to put into words.

These types of cycles feed on each other. Relationships fall into patterns from which neither party seems able to escape. In the extreme these patterns become pathological. But for most of us they just take the form of habit, unspoken expectation, and slowly-but-surely-eroded trust.

Admittedly it’s not always like this, but it happens all too often. Look around — or within — and you’ll find a deep well of despair in the area of human relationships. Here’s an arena in which our hopes and dreams exceed our capabilities. We have the ability to experience these overwhelming emotions, but not the skill to manage them. It’s as if we’ve got the keys to emotional Ferraris, but never learned to drive. Is it any wonder so many of us crash and burn?

If you were to put every one of our motivations — to make money, become famous, conquer the world, whatever — into a big pot and boil them down, they’d all reveal the same essence — we want to be loved. It’s trite, but true. All our jumping about, all our inventing, everything from our first words to our last dying gasp has that same single source.

So we keep packing more and more into our lives, all in a desperate attempt to get friends, families, even perfect strangers to love us. Ironically, we need to do just the opposite.

We need to unpack.

We need to open our hearts and minds, and put into words our innermost thoughts, feelings, hopes, dreams, desires. Only by overcoming our fear of exposure can we truly be seen.

How Do We Fully Unpack?

Sidney Jourard, in his classic book, The Transparent Self, predicted that people who love deeply would live longer. His theory was that if we revealed ourselves to each other, we would live healthier, more vital lives, with less disease, less dis-ease.⁸

Jourard’s hypothesis has been validated by many longitudinal studies. George Vaillant studied a large group of male Harvard alumni over more than 40 years following their graduations from college. Part of the research was designed to determine what factors separated the healthy grads from the unhealthy ones. Who had become diseased or disabled; who had died?

Vaillant disclosed the startling findings in his book, Adaptation to Life. It turned out that neither diet, nor exercise, nor overall fitness was the critical factor — the single most important key to health and well-being was self-disclosure.⁹

Individuals in Vaillant’s healthy group reported the presence in their lives of at least one “nutritious” person — someone with whom they could consistently share their thoughts and feelings openly. For some, it was their spouse, for others (even married), it was a friend or work colleague.

The most common reasons we hear for people “keeping a bag by the door,” include:

• “She’s not interested in what I care about.”

• “He just doesn’t get it. And he’s not interested in listening to me.”

• “She’s too busy — there’s no time.”

• “I feel invisible around him.”

Sidney Jourard claims that each of us has within ourselves the potential for “courageous conversation” — self-disclosure — hundreds of times every day. He supports, as does Vaillant, the benefits of fully unpacking our emotional bags on a regular basis.

All relationships with others mirror our relationship with ourselves. Feelings that are “buried alive” rise from the grave to haunt us with illness and dis-ease. Developing better relationships with friends and loved ones means developing a better relationship with ourselves.

When we keep our emotional bags packed, we lose touch with others and ourselves.

In order to unpack with others, we need to start at square one — unpacking our own bags. So how do you do it? How do you fully unpack?

The Fully Unpacked Relationship

Earlier we discussed how different people tend to focus on different aspects of the good life in different ways and at different times in their lives. Some tend to be preoccupied with Work — the “what?” question. Others turn their attention to Place — the “where?” question. Still others tend to be focused on People — the “who?” question. And again, we’re all likely to find ourselves concentrating more on different good life components at different times in our lives.

So, just because when you were in your thirties, you were highly directed along the Work path, doesn’t mean there won’t come a time later in life when concerns about Place or People take precedence. This awareness has a lot to do with living the good life for your whole life.

It also has a lot to do with developing and sustaining long-term, “fully-unpacked” relationships. In order to really connect with another person, we need to understand and embody transparency. We need to be able to disclose our innermost secrets and reveal our true selves. We need to be willing to see other people for who they are, too. And this means having the courage to not only speak our truths, but to listen, as well.

Being “fully unpacked” with another person means you both are unpacked. If either of you still has a “bag by the door,” then something’s not right. Most people, when they’re less than completely satisfied in a relationship — whether it’s a romance, a friendship, even a business association — think that if only they could get the other person to reveal a little bit more about themselves, then everything would work out. In fact, the only trick — and it’s not really a trick at all — to deeper, more meaningful relationships, is to reveal yourself. The more you can let someone else in, the more they’ll open up to you, as well.

This may sound a little arcane, but it’s a simple fact of life. What trips people up is that, often, they have no courage for self-revelation, and no vocabulary to describe who they are and what they’re looking for in life.

Practicing “courageous conversation” is one way to go about getting these. Developing the habit of authentic dialogue with others can go a long way toward letting them see who you really are and what you need for emotional satisfaction.

Fully Unpacking Postcard Exercise

How open are you? You can use the following postcard exercise to help you review your willingness to unpack your bags with others.

• Who knows you deeply and understands who you really are?

• What would you be unwilling to share with that person? What kinds of things have you been unwilling to share with anyone?

• On the postcard, draw an image or write the name of the person who really knows who you are, who truly sees you.

• Think of the different ways this person allows you to “unpack.” List them next to their name or picture. You might even describe an interaction with this person that was particularly fulfilling. Jot down a “thank you for listening” note.

• Send the postcard to them. Wait a few days and then get in touch to do some mutual “unpacking.”