I Love the Term “Intertwined”

It helps explain the deep satisfaction we get from meaningful dialogues

Ahh … the term intertwined (verb: to link or twist together). One can draw from weaving for examples of overlapping threads, one on top of — or next to — the other.

As a metaphor for ideas in dialogue, intertwined is evocative, as one thread alone never creates shared meanings; rather ideas are woven together, each layer evoking the next, creating something new. And it’s the making of new meanings, the seeing of new patterns as they unfold and cross over each other that creates such satisfaction during and after a good dialogue with a friend.

So what is a conversation — intertwined? What might it look like?

We know what it’s not. Being lectured to, being given advice, being yelled at — those acts of assertion leave only one thread, pulled tight against the speaker. Or they repeat a pattern that does not uncover new insights.

And it’s not kindness or pity or sympathy either — those bare threads, lifeless in their fragility and conventionality, unable to reach the other, except through politeness. [https://readmedium.com/may-we-listen-deeply-e05c56c5ccca describes such road blocks.]

Layers in conversations, you ask? Layers that lead to a meaningful pattern?

Imagine this scenario: Over lunch, Sally tells you that she is concerned; her husband has gotten a DUI. You and Sally have been friends for over a year and the last time you visited over a long lunch, she said something about her husband’s drinking too much and you talked about your alcoholic uncle. You listen as she explains what has just happened — the party, his decision to risk driving after many drinks, the arrest.

What’s the first layer? (Not advice, not sympathy, not praise or condemnation for/about what she’s saying). Rather a layer that will lead the speaker to a next and a next so that a pattern of meaning can emerge that you create together, in this case for Sally, but also for you and the people you know who drink too much. Layers of learning as you converse together. Through intertwining ideas.

You say, “A DUI — whoa. You mentioned last time we met that you were worried about his drinking.” (This first layer builds on a previous statement that Sally shared earlier.)

Sally replies, “Yes, I have been worried. This DUI obviously ups the ante for me. I think that I have to say something to him, but I can’t settle on what.” (A new layer, an action that she proposes to take.)

You reply, “The judge at my uncle’s DUI hearing told him that he would take his driver’s license away the next time it happened. He stopped drinking and driving, but not drinking. So what have you been thinking about saying or doing?” (An invitation to put down more layers.)

Sally replies, with some hesitancy, “Everyone is telling me to go to Al-Anon.” (A layer of meaning that will lead toward a particular course of action.)

You reply, “Yes, my aunt did that, at my mom’s and my urging. So what are you thinking about that option?”

Sally replies, “I guess I could go without telling him and see what the group suggests about talking directly with my husband about his drinking. Probably they have done that multiple times. But part of me thinks that I should just talk to him first and not use the group to gang up on him. His mother got on his case the last time that we were at her house and he got tipsy. He didn’t take it well.” (New layers of meaning are laid down here about the husband and his resistance. Other people see what she sees.)

You reply, “So he gets upset?” (You stay with the new layer.)

Sally replies, “He doesn’t think he has a drinking problem and that it is my problem, I guess. What about your aunt?” (She elaborates the layer of resistance.)

You reply, “Actually, Al-anon really helped my aunt draw boundaries around my uncle’s drinking. What else have you thought about saying?” (Letting her lay out the next layer.)

Sally replies, “He knows I’m angry about the DUI of course and has apologized profusely. But I have thought about trying to be supportive of how he wants to handle the situation, to see if he can come to the realization on his own that he can’t drink so much. So I would say something like, “I believe in you. But I don’t know …”

You reply, “What are your doubts about taking that approach?”

Sally replies, “That he will agree to whatever proposal to limit his drinking we come up with and then he will slowly start drinking too much again.” (A new layer that has to do with her trust in him and his ability to control his drinking.) “Have you ever had to have hard conversations where you feel the outcome could be frightening?”

You reply, “Oh, yes, and not just with my uncle, but with my husband and daughter. I doubted their commitment to change. They could have gone either way — toward change or not. That was scary for me. Is that what you are thinking about?” (A new layer about you and your ability to understand the implications of a course of action.)

Your relationship with your friend is and is not a therapy relationship.

A formal therapy relationship allows you to intertwine your experiences with ideas from a therapist who is helping you reweave your interpretations and beliefs about possible actions. But the layers of meaning are composed from one side — the client’s.

Friendships can be therapeutic when they are two-way, mutually reciprocal relations — that is, Sally can also help layer the conversation for you perhaps by seeking how you are thinking about your own experience in saying difficult things to create boundaries. Your conversations, over time, are equally layered so that you are both learning from the thinking and potential actions of the other. It’s the steady, slow disclosure of thought and possibility that creates insight and the courage to take new courses of action.

Over time, a deep friendship has a rich past history that one can draw on to create new intertwining layers.

Marge Piercy might have described intertwined poetically in “Connections”:

“Keep tangling and interweaving and taking more in, a thicket and bramble wilderness to the outside but to us it is interconnected with rabbit runs and burrows and lairs.”

For those in a dialogue intertwining their ideas, the patterns of meaning might not make sense to someone outside; but for those in the dialogue, connections make sense and provide shelter under which new meanings and possibilities for action can take shape.