Helpmate or Counterweight
Read the story first: Helpmate or Counterweight.
Nugget of Wisdom
The harness does not care how big you are. It only knows whether you are pulling.
SOP
Sit facing each other. If comfortable, hold hands. Close your eyes and remove distractions. Let your thoughts go to a row in your life that had to be plowed. A season of bills, a sick parent, a child in trouble, a business going under, a deployment. Who was in the harness with you? Were you the mule, the pony, or the one sitting down in the dirt? Focus on the feeling of that row, not the facts of it. After reflecting, share your story with each other. When finished, come together as a group and discuss what you experienced.
Questions
- Name the row. What was the field that had to be plowed, and how long was it?
- When the pony sat down in your story, was it you or was it them? Be honest.
- There is a difference between a pony that is hurt and a pony that has quit. Most mules will gladly pull the one and cannot bear the other. Has your partner ever been hurt, and you treated it like quitting? Or quit, and called it hurt?
- As you listened, where did you hear “I,” and where did you hear “we”?
- What is one load in your house right now that one of you is dragging alone?
Closing Reflection
I have told this story more times than I can count, and I always end it the same way. Once you hook into the yoke together, it is very hard to unhook. That is not a threat. That is the design. When we become we, then I is no longer the center. The harness changes. The purpose changes. And the load is meant to be pulled together.
Mission for the Week
Get a rope. Any rope, ten feet of it from the hardware store. Tie a loop in each end. Once this week, put one loop around each of your waists and go do something together that takes both of you moving the same direction. Walk to the mailbox. Carry the groceries in. Rake the yard. You will find out fast who leads, who lags, and who sits down. Laugh about it. That is allowed.
Then, before the week is out, name one load one of you has been dragging alone, and hook into it together. Pay the bills at the same table. Make the hard phone call with both of you on the line. Sit up with the sick child in shifts.
The rope is not the point. The point is finding out what happens to a load when two shoulders go into the harness instead of one.
Drafted for review — not yet approved by Ron.