High Calibre Couples: Are You One?
Other times a couple we’ve known for ages might split up and after the initial shock it becomes clear that they really are better off apart.
Some couples fall in with each other in a quiet, side step shimmy. It’s non sensational yet still gorgeous and they live happily and quietly ever after.
Then there are those couples who, like two chemical substances, fuse their united brilliance and cause a small atom bomb in the etheric relationship realm.
It’s this sort of coupling that I want to talk to you about.
When two human beings come together and form a relationship, it’s a little like two separate hands pressing palms.
Each hand arrives with its own set of fingers (bar any that may have come off by mistake). They come with life lines, heart lines, head lines, past dramas, current situations and all that palmistry jazz.
Each hand also comes with a set of unique character traits; strengths, values, ways of being, ways of seeing, ways of doing. It is the fusion of those qualities that can, if the conditions are right, create a dynamic duo, partners in crime, a force to be reckoned with, the ultimate Brangelina, Posh n Becks, Richard and Judy combo.
High performing teams – whether that’s as a husband and wife, best friend, lovers or business partners – do not happen by mistake.
They are created by the combined qualities of the people that are in the relationship.
In the company Deloit, power teams are created from a balance of people who have heightened skills in certain areas. Through personality profiling people are shown whether they are pioneers, visionaries, drivers, motivators or guardians. Teams are then built from a balance of these qualities. Without this conscious coupling of individuals within teams, meetings could be dominated by one Type, eg. visionaries who are all coming up with a ferocious torrent of ideas, but with no one to drive those ideas forward … or motivate … or look after the finer details.
Likewise, high calibre couples tend to have a strong balance of complimentary qualities.
When these qualities are fused and focused towards a common goal or feeling (like lurve), suddenly the two individuals are elevated to a Very Strong One.
As a team, they then can create incredibly good times, incredibly good spaces, incredibly good things, incredibly good holidays, incredibly good books, incredibly good whatever … together.
Whether you are currently “Taken Bacon” or a “Single Pringle” (meaningful relationship labels taught to me by my ten year old); whether you are wrapped in a duvet of loved upness, or pressing shoulders against your beloved of many years; whether you are still looking for your high calibre love match, or you are not looking at all, there is one coupling that we are all working with.
This couple lives in us.
It’s our Inner Artist and Inner Pro.
Throughout India they’re referred to as Shakti and Shiva.
Carl Jung referred to them as Animus and Anima.
Personal development tribe members know them as Left Brain, Right Brain.
Here, at Grow Your Own Gorgeousness, we refer to the Internal Couple as your Inner Artist and Inner Pro.
Combined in an eye-locked, arm linking, heart thumping love affair, these two aspects of our self can take our lives from ordinary to extraordinary. They can come up with mad-cap genius plans, execute those plans, face a challenge, whoop its arse, then come out smelling like roses. They form businesses that boom, parent families that flourish, create projects that change the world and simultaneously dance through life Just Because.
Leaning on each other, yet interdependent, this Internal Super Couple allow us to access the full spectrum of our individual potential.
Your Inner Artist is 100% responsible for your ideas, visions, beliefs (that you will hear yourself tell in stories about your childhood, your life, your world, your parents your strengths, your weakness, your self). She is the one who wants to live life to the full, burst with feeling, experience colour, diversity. She wants to make things and if she’s not making good things, she’ll make drama, conflict and scenes instead. Left unconscious, your Inner Artist’s stories and compulsions will run the script of your life. Made conscious, your Inner Artist has the vision to change your life and the planet.
To the Left, your Inner Pro is the organiser, the structured do-er, the confident “lets get this shit done-er”. The Inner Pro is the director, the producer, the one who will turn your dreams into reality by working out the plan of action and then making it happen. Without your Inner Pro, you’ll be forever dithering and never getting anything done. Without your Inner Artist, your Pro will be about as uplifting as chewing gum stuck under the seat of a derelict bus shelter.
Left to it, these two will tick along in every sense of conventional.
Woken up, stirred up, sent on a few date nights and partnership rekindled, this duo are explosive.
In order to rekindle your Inner Artist and Pro’s partnership, you need to become aware of the dynamic between them. This includes working out which aspect is most dominant in you. Due to the way that our society educates children, kids enter the education system with their Inner Artist and Inner Pro equality in tact. By the time they leave for University, however, the average Inner Artist is looking rather shrivelled whilst the Inner Pro appears to have been on the canteen steroid burgers.
Inner Pro (or left brain) On Steroids works beautifully in a society where individuals need to follow instructions, sit in lines and do what they are told.
It doesn’t work so well if what society requires is a generation of pioneers, leaders and those capable of adapting and surviving in the face of rapidly changing times. Those who are creative are not shown the ways to truly utilise this Inner Artist gift, hence why many young entrepreneurs set out on their own, unqualified and supported and many other young creatives, whilst broad minded, are limited to certain fields and professions such as teaching or illustration. I could go off on one here, but won’t. If you’re interested in more juice though, check out top TED Talk dude, Sir Ted Robinson who I would passionately LOVE to sit and talk with one day.
So, how exactly can you transform your run-of-the-mill, possibly dysfunctional inner spouses into a dynamic super couple whose joint amazingness will spill out into all areas of your life?
Here are four ideas to start with:
If the answer is YES, then go and GOOGLE everything you can on brain balance and people who display it.
Find out everything you can on right and left brain and activities (such as Sudoku) that can help integrate the two.
Whichever one is less developed, make a list of 10 activities that will help your non-dominant aspect grow stronger. For example, if you are more Left Brain / Inner Pro dominant, find ways to make life creative. Take photographs, draw, write, sing, listen to music, make a dress … get a colouring book! Brains are, after all, muscles that need working so if some of yours is looking flabby, get it moving.
Over the coming weeks I’m going to be writing lots of dynamic, effective loveliness around the Inner Artist, Inner Pro, uniting this pair and how YOU can begin bringing your creative gift to the world.
The Inner Artist and Pro series will kick off next Wednesday, when I introduce you to super couple crime writers, Carol and Bob Bridgestock. They are lovely. We ate pork belly and talked murder, novel writing and how to give back to the world. Their way of working perfectly illustrates what I mean by a high calibre couple, whilst also demonstrating how the Inner Pro and Artist can manifest through two people and one joint goal.
AND …. next week (I am very excited to announce) I will also be launching the Grow Your Own Gorgeousness Adult Colouring Book and then later on in the month, the Grow Your Own Gorgeous 2016 Daybook – both of which have been designed especially to synchronise your Inner Artist and Pro whilst also helping you to manifest your most gorgeous 2016.
So, clearly Step 4 is the ultimate POWER up for your inner super couple.
Ooh … I think I can hear them applauding! Hehe.
As always, I’d love to hear your thoughts and ideas about this stuff, so if you’d like to pop in and say “hola” please do come and see me at the Grow Your Own Gorgeousness Facebook Hangout.
