Don’t Look Down!

Surprising Relationship Lesson from a Palm Tree Pruner

It’s not about pruning things away…

My wife, Ellyn, and I recently had a bit of a getaway. It was a lovely time to refocus, reprioritize, and regenerate.

One day on our vacation, on our way back to our room from the beach, we spotted a gardener working on the trees in the area. He deftly climbed to the top of the tall, thin palm trees lining the hotel's pathways to prune the dying branches at the top.

His movements were fearless.

After watching him work on a few trees, my curiosity peaked. How could this man climb so effortlessly? These trees were thin and could often be seen swaying wildly in the wind.

So, I waited for him to finish his latest tree and asked him if he was always fearless about heights.

He said no. He was completely scared when he started.

This sparked my curiosity. So, I asked him, “If you were scared initially, how long did it take you to adjust and become so fearless?”

“Three months.”

I inquired if anyone had taught him how to climb and coached him on how to approach the trees.

“Nope, I learned this myself by doing it.”

I had to know how this man could overcome his fears and grow to be such an accomplished climber.

He told me that when he first began climbing, his legs would shake so hard he couldn’t reach the top as soon as he looked down. But he also learned something from this experience. His legs only started shaking when he looked down at the ground. As long as his eyes were focused up at the target branches at the top, his fear never set in, and his legs didn’t shake.

So, he adjusted his strategy. He’d climb and refuse to give in to the temptation to look back at where he came from and kept his eyes on the sky. After three months, he was able to climb the tallest trees at the hotel, many of which grow over 100 feet and can be severely bent from the strong trade winds that hit the island.

Today, he’s the only tree trimmer at the resort (which is not short on trees) and has been bravely scaling the palm trees for over 35 years!

So what’s the lesson for our marriage?

No, we’re not bragging about our vacation. And no, the lesson isn’t about pruning away the dead branches in your marriage…though maybe we should revisit that idea someday.

Focusing on the tree's top is the marriage equivalent of fixing your eyes on your goals as a couple. By focusing on the positive outcomes you’re seeking for yourself and your partner, you can help keep yourself from being petrified or fixated on the past or your fears of failure in your relationship. Then, you think about what you need to do to create the relationship outcome you’re after.

Shifting your focus to what’s ahead and where you’re going isn’t always natural. Like climbing a tree, we have a tendency to look backward at where we came from, and it takes time to build the new habit of always looking ahead.

Marriage is challenging and we often have this tendency to look “down” and bring up things that happened in the past. We want to believe in some new goal or future together. Still, we hold ourselves back by constantly “looking down” at what happened previously. This petrifies us and makes it so that we can’t climb to the heights we need to reach as a couple.

This shift of focus in your relationship will take time. It took our example tree pruner around three months to establish this new pattern of looking at things. You need to be patient and have forgiveness with yourself and your partner. It’s human nature to look “down” after all. So, be patient with yourself and your partner while learning this new way to climb together.

Once you’re both better at “climbing,” you’ll be able to start beautifying your own relationship landscape while riding the strong gusts of winds that bend and shake the tree.

A Quick Exercise to Help you Refocus

Take an index card or piece of paper and write down 3-4 aspirational qualities that make you a skilled communicator. Qualities that reflect coming from your higher self.

Some of the things you might write down:

> Listen to your partner more than you speak

> Ask questions to clarify and show that you’re interested in what your partner is saying

> Recap what they said to ensure you understood your partner completely

> Speak up confidently without blame, shame, or guilt

> Express areas of agreement instead of focusing only on points of disagreement.

> Take moments to pause and breathe instead of rushing for a response

This list is for you (though you can always eventually share this with your partner).

The goal of writing these things down is setting a target to strive towards for your relationship. We can all benefit from growing in our ability to communicate effectively with others, particularly our partners (who we often take for granted or don’t always give our best, most patient selves).

Revisit the card occasionally to see how you’re doing and check your growth in these areas. Soon you’ll find that by communicating with your partner more effectively, you are more likely to stay focused on the goals in your relationship and not what happened in the past.

It’s also why some people can have success and still experience fear. There is no superhighway between those different regions of the brain.

The above list is ideas about what to do if a conversation is starting to head south. Here’s a quick way to get back on track and become a conversational hero to your mate.

Simply say to yourself: “NEXT.” What do I need to do next to move this conversation forward? And if you have done a little regular mental rehearsal thinking about the above list, you will get an answer about what to do.

You will be looking up to your aspiring conversational goals. You are becoming exceptional in communication skills.

And maybe an expert tree pruner will ask you how you got to be such a skilled conversationalist under pressure.

Good luck.

Peter Pearson

Peter Pearson, Ph.D. coaching entrepreneur couples for over 30 years, co-founded The Couples Institute with his wife, Dr. Ellyn Bader, trains couple therapists in 56 countries, and featured in most major media like the Today Show, CBS Morning Show, NPR, New York Times, Redbook, Business Insider, Oprah, and many other media and podcasts.

P.S. Thought for the day. “ As you go through life, there is no failure if you are pushing yourself.” Peter Pearson.