In relationships, particularly long-standing ones, we tend to fall into patterns of communication with each other. Some of these patterns are playful and part of what helps us bring joy to each other. Often, however, we get stuck in negative rituals of communication that become the source of great pain. These patterns repeat themselves because they are based on deeply rooted psychological traits in ourselves and equally ingrained views we hold of our partners. Unless we learn to overcome both our own traits and our conceptions of other people, we are doomed to repeat the same arguments again and again.
My wife and I have experienced a negative pattern like this to varying degrees throughout our relationship. As may not come as a huge surprise for someone who has the audacity to write a new faith, I consider myself a pretty thoughtful person. My thinking doesn’t just dwell on how death might affect our personhood; however, but also encompasses the mundanities of life. There is no aspect of my life too small, be it my toothbrush, the pen I write with, or the toilet paper with which I wipe my ass that I won’t spend countless hours researching the alternatives on to determine the best fit for me and mine.
As you can imagine, my finely tuned considerations about the details of life aren’t entirely appreciated by my life partner. She, not surprisingly, would occasionally like to make a decision about how our household operates. She’d also like to make said decisions without doing the same obsessive level of due diligence that I might enjoy. She would most certainly like to make such decisions without me glancing askew at her choice should it differ from my deeply considered opinion. To make matters worse, my overbearingness dovetails perfectly with a deeply held insecurity she has of not being heard. As the younger child who had a much more outspoken sister, she grew up feeling like her opinions were never given the weight that they were due. This insecurity followed her into her adult life, and make her particularly sensitive to needing her opinions to be taken seriously.
Together, we’ve worked hard to overcome these character traits and the conflicts they lead to. Although I’m not without the occasional opinion on matters great and small, I’ve changed deeply throughout the years. I’ve learned to better separate opinion from fact. More importantly, I’ve been taught that in spite of my deep respect for the truth, who is right is sometimes more important than what is right. In other words, regardless of how deeply considered an opinion might be, we can’t be a partner with someone if they never get to ultimately make the decisions that define our lives.
My wife, on the other hand, has worked hard to understand that not everyone who expresses an opinion is doing so to negate her own. She’s learned to recognize the voice of fear that leaps into her chest when she feels confronted. She’s learned that sometimes people are just expressing their opinions to participate in a conversation and aren’t trying to control or change her at all.
Recognizing these kinds of habitual behaviors in ourselves isn’t easy and making the necessary changes is even harder, but Thanatism can help. Thanatism helps by undermining the ever-me, so we aren’t so attached to the person we’ve always been. When the ever-me is left unchecked, we identify with it so deeply that we will go to any lengths to defend who we are. We have to defend it, for letting it go is akin to dying for us. As Thanatists, we learn to accept this dying and even to value the loss of what we once were, particularly when that which is born in its place is an evolution of ourselves.
Thanatism also helps us by removing the lenses with which we’ve always viewed the world by breaking us down into our pure essence. As Thanatists, we do this, not only at the moment of our acceptance of our mortality, but daily through the ritual of letting death cleanse of our built-up selves. It helps us step outside of that person and see how we affect others and the world around us. Through this, we can actually see ourselves through the eyes of others.
Finally Thanatism helps us overcome the fears that drive our habitual behavior. Although not being heard may be a legitimate cause of fear, when we compare that fear to our eventual non-existence, it tends to fade away. As a Thanatist, we learn to practice courage as we daily confront our own non-being. There is hardly a fear from our pasts that can match death, and so the courage we develop when confronting it makes quick work of the insecurities that drive conflict in our relationships.
The negative communication patterns that our relationships fall into are some of the greatest destroyers of happiness in our lives. They continue because they are defined by deeply held aspects of our personalities. Thanatism, however, can free us from the ever-me we hold onto so tightly. It helps us see the perspectives of others. It helps us overcome the fears that drive our negative reactions. In so doing, Thanatism can help us undermine negative patterns of communication that left unchecked could destroy the very relationships that we hold most dear, and in the void that remains, we have the opportunity to recreate the love that our habitual interactions have destroyed.