Free Unbreakable: A Navy SEAL’s Way of Life by Thom Shea Page B

reconnecting by phone and Internet weeks later was the similarity in our points of view. I had never met a woman who so openly embraced and expressed a desire to be a mom, while supporting a physical and naturally violent man. The connectionwas electric. Not hiding part of me in order to have love and connection felt good. She gave me space to be me, and, in turn, she got space to be Stacy. So, we both created a new Internal Dialogue, saying simply, “I need you.” Our new Internal Dialogue gave us tons of room to have a relationship.
    I think most people, when searching for God, do not realize He has faults. And, let’s just say the search for God in relationships isn’t viewed as a matter of service. Service is truly the state of mind that works in relationships … it is
all
about them.
    Service is about treating the other person as if they were God. In point of fact, however, God has faults, and what most people do with those faults is deal with them instead of giving a ton of space to those faults. I noticed Stacy and I gave each other’s faults tons of space. In effect, we didn’t deal with or try to reason with the faults. Instead, we dealt with each other as if the other were God. We dealt only with what we were creating the other person to be.
    That mindset, and consequently, those actions of giving space to the bad things and dealing only with the greatness, allowed even more greatness to come out in the other person. Stacy got access to being a great woman, a great mom, and a stunning wife by me not dealing with her
oh, shits
and bad ways. In effect, the things causing her to fail in other relationships most certainly came up during our courtship and marriage, but I gave them
space
and dealt with the greatness in her.
    Stacy, in turn, gave tons of space to my failings, my indiscretions—my smelly feet, as it were—and dealt with what made me powerful. She fully embraced and supported me as a violent warrior. I bring that up because current society and politically minded people never talk about it. The Spartan Wife is a cliché or even a bad word. The current trend is to equate the phrase Spartan Wife with the N-word for black people. I hold Stacy, my Spartan Wife, equal to God, and am not ashamed of it. Don’t you ever be ashamed of it, either.
    In turn, all the space given to fail, to make mistakes, caused many to go away or even die. I know this is truly counterintuitive. Giving space to the bad and dealing with the good springs from the grace of an Internal Dialogue of
need
to be
needed.
Dealing only with the things in others that make them powerful, while giving space to their weaknesses, literallyreshapes the other person. Changing the other person never occurs to you. Dealing with greatness signals to the other person they are great, so why not be great?
    How does this work in reality? I know words on paper are fun to read and make sense, but in the back of your mind, you may not see a way to make it work. That’s why, in my opinion, self-help books don’t resoundingly make a difference to anyone. Love thy neighbor as thyself gets lost because you try it, and the neighbor shits on you, then you deal with the shit and give space to others’ greatness. You spend every waking minute dealing with shit from others, and you move away from them. Instead, what works is the opposite. The neighbor shits on you, and you give it space. Acknowledge the shit, then give it space. Deal with what is powerful. For instance, Stacy had to give space to my going to war and being alone with two children who were not hers to begin with. She then dealt with me being aggressive and violent, and embraced and promoted those traits. She dealt with being a mom to our kids and embraced it full throttle.
    Need
to be
needed
works in combat as a rallying point—even for the hardest of men in the worst conditions. Men who survive when others fail have a
need
to be
needed.
The
need
to be
needed
by a woman is paramount for the