A Service of Dr. Val Karan - 596 Anderson Avenue - Cliffside Park, N.J. 07010 - (201) 943-2726 -http;//karan4u-info.blogspot.com/ - Karan4U@aol.

com - April 2017

KARAN 4U NEWSLETTER
Reflections on Marriage Jubilee
It's hard to believe: when April 16, 2017 rolls around, An- The physical activity is a great stress reliever and the
nette and I will have been married for 50 years. According positive feelings about the shared experience make
to Google, only 5-6 percent of marriages last that long. By couples excited to carve out alone time.
anyones calculations, its a long time. Think about it.
Thats half a century!

On our Silver Anniversary, I wrote about my first fateful

meeting with Annette Kagan. She was, and still is, the most
spectacularly beautiful person I have ever met. We went to
a college basketball game on our first date. She had a lo-
quacious, effervescent quality that I especially loved. An-
nette and I were both from the Midwest, both from father-
less homes, both committed to similar values, and even both
Kohanim or from the priestly clan in Judaism (indeed, the
name Karan originally derived from Kagan which means
"priest"). But, oh, how different we were! Bottom line: she
and I were as polar opposite as two people can be.

The psychologist John Gray has written that men are from
Mars and women are from Venus; I think if he were de-
scribing our marriage, he would say that I am from one
universe and Annette is from another! Is it possible to find
two people who are more opposite? Possibly, but I doubt it.

So although our differences were and still are monumental

whether it be taste in music, taste in food, traveling styles,
you name itour marriage has survived and, I believe,
thrived. Longevity in relationships, it seems to me, has lit-
tle to do with things we don't have in common and more to
do with the desire we have to find shared interests, to make
the relationship work, in short, to dance in step and in love.

What, you ask, is the secret to a long and happy marriage,

particularly of opposites? What were the steps we took to
avoid constant conflict? Luckily, we found an activity that
involved couples moving in opposite directions yet deriving
pleasure with each other. That activity is(drum
roll)...dancing! You see, over the years Annette and I have
discovered that dancing is actually one of the few activities
that we both enjoy doing together. Make no mistake, we
are far from accomplished dancers; when it comes to the
light fantastic, weve had our share of trips and falls! In
fact, Annettes compound fracture at a friends retirement
party and my broken ankle at a synagogue dinner fur-
loughed our dancing for many years. So while age and in-
firmity have weakened our joints, they have not diminished
our joint devotion to dancing. What better way to celebrate
our Jubilee Celebration, we agreed, than to have a dance
partyfeaturing ballroom and Jewish danceswith our
family and closest friends?
Health Benefits of Dancing
If that is not enough, consider this: psychological and medi-
cal research has revealed that dancing can do wonders for
your mental, physical, and emotional health; it also im-
proves your brain function on many different levels.
Studies have shown that dance can decrease anxiety
and boost mood more than other physical outlets.
Dancing greatly improves your balance and relieves
the fear of falling. Professional dancers are able to
suppress the signals from the balance organs within
the inner ear linked to the cerebellum. This is why
ballet dancers dont get dizzy while performing pirou-
ettes. Dance practice can dramatically soothe feelings
of dizziness that affects many people at some point in
their lives.
For those suffering from mild bouts of sadness and
depression, dancing regularly and getting out among
others can boost mental and physical energy, lift the
spirits and build confidence and self-esteem.
A major study added to the growing evidence that
stimulating one's mind by dancing can ward off Alz-
heimer's disease and other dementia, much as physi-
cal exercise can keep the body fit. Dancing also in-
creases cognitive acuity at all ages.
Dance as Metaphor for Life
Harriet Goldhor Lerner is one of my favorite writers and
thinkers in my field. Dance, she says, is an appropriate
metaphor for all relationships. At their core, relationships
are an energetic dance between you and your partner.
A Service of Dr. Val Karan - 596 Anderson Avenue - Cliffside Park, N.J. 07010 - (201) 943-2726 - Karan4U@aol.com -
When you connect well together, you experience the joy of the
dance of love. Not surprisingly, Lerner has written several
best sellers on how to improve interactions, most with the
word Dance in the title: Dance of Anger, Dance of Inti-
macy, Dance of Connection, Dance of Fear, and Dance
of Deception.
What is the beautiful paradox of dance? You have two very
different people who are cheek-to-cheek or usually facing
each other in a closed stance. The partners do not need to
hold on tightly: the heavy hand, the clinging arm, only arrest
the pattern and freeze the movement, checking the endless
flow of communication. Dancing is, in the main, two people,
with different roles, moving to the same rhythm, poised on
the beat, living in the moment, leaning in toward each other.
Is there a better description for what happens in life?
As I did when I proposed to Annette, at the outset we pick
our partner with hopes of synchronizing and having a good
time. But as time goes on, and lifes demands increase, the
dance gets harder. There are different needs for space and
closeness. The steps become more complicated. Couples be-
come stuck in ineffective patterns: for example, the behavior
of one partner, who either over-functions, overreacts, or pur-
sues, only provokes the other partner to do more of the same
undesired behavior, such as under-functioning, under-
reacting, or distancing. Efforts focused on trying to change
the other achieve nothing and can even make things worse.
We end up stepping all over each others toes with self-
defeating moves and unchecked insecurities. We even dis-
cover that other dance partners look better, stronger, safer,
and more appealing. In short, just like in a dance, if you move
ahead faster than your partner, or go slower than him or her,
you will end up struggling with each other or dancing alone.
What advice does Dr. Lerner and other counselors, myself
included, offer to couples in distress? Above all, never fear
those moments of tension in your marriage. Rather, see them
as doorways that lead you to a deeper connection. In the
dance of love, the good times bring you close, but the tough
times can bring you even closer.
What We Can Learn from Dance
You see, each dance is a new start, a chance to adapt yourself
and find a new beginning. If you see your partner cant keep
up with you or has a different interpretation of the song, you
need to adjust. So although you cant change another person,
you can, nonetheless, influence your partner. Fundamentally,
you are dancing for yourself. But your response affects how a
conflict plays out, whether for better or worse.
As a metaphor for life, dance helps you enlarge your reper-
toire of moves in a relationship. Often in different ballroom
dances, there are different styles and different ways to hold
each other. Dance allows you to use choreographed sequences
but there are also plenty of opportunities for lots of improvi-
sation. Dances such as rumba, bachata, tango teach us to use
sexy steps, light touch, gestures, twists, flirtatious and pro-
vocative moves and hips swaying to engage our partner and
keep him or her in step with us. Remember, there is no script
to follow: you just have to go with the flow of the music and
with the space thats available to you on the dance
floor. Throughout it all, theres no talking or analyzing;
theres no bossiness, rigidity, manipulation or force. As a
famous choreographer once said, To touch, to move, to in-
spire. This is the true gift of dance.
You can also use different dances to reflect changes in mood,
different stages in a relationship, special occasions. Although
Jewish tradition generally frowns upon mixed dancing, ex-
April 2017
cept for married couples, dancing before the bride at a
wedding is a mitzvah. At Jewish weddings, sometimes peo-
ple stand facing each other in two lines, and then run to-
ward each other and meet in the middle, and then run
backward to their original places, only to do it all over
again. This dance symbolizes the rhythm of a healthy rela-
tionship. In any loving relationship, a couple experiences
moments of closeness and love, as well as moments of dis-
tance and tension. The Hora or circle dance is another
feature of Jewish gatherings: as such, it represents our
never ending and collective desire for equality and har-
mony. The circle is the past and it also is the future. Any-
one who has experienced it can attest there is huge power
generated by a group dancing with a unified purpose.
Negative Effects of Dancing
To be sure, there can be unhealthy patterns in dancing as
well; some people have a propensity for choosing narcissis-
tic, codependent partners who are dysfunctional, control-
ling and harmful. When your main concern in the dance is
forcing others to dance the way you dance, seeking ap-
proval of others, pretending to enjoy the dance, but really
harboring feelings of anger and sadness, or trying to be a
perfect dancer, then you are missing the joy of dancing.
Dancing can also be cognitively overloading, it can chal-
lenge your range of physical movement, it can remind you
how your body has aged and it can sometimes make you
feel foolish!
Ill take all the bad and the good that comes with dancing.
You see, Im the luckiest man: I found the ideal dance
partner in my Dearest Annette. I reiterate, without exag-
geration, that 1 would not be the type of man I am today
without Annette's influence and support. I might have
meandered through a multitude of career paths without
sustained success. Annette's charisma and booming oper-
atic voice gave me the courage to venture forth from the
cozy, secure world of academia into the riskier, more in-
teractive realms of private psychological practice and pub-
lic speaking and writing. The words and the ideas were, I
firmly believe, always there within me; Annette helped
bring them to the fore. Similarly, I am her "composer"
and "lyricist," helping her channel her energy, her elec-
tricity into mellower melodies.
As different as we are, we have found the way to dance in
step and in love for 50 years!