MAUDE: Understanding core values and learning what yours are is foundational to the process we teach for creating peaceful harmonious relationships. We differentiate values from wants and needs on a spectrum of ever-increasing importance. This scale starts with wants which …
How to Create Peace in Relationships and Life by Knowing Your Core Values Read more »
PHIL: Use your voice. You have to say it, not just think it. You have to say what you need, not just what you think other people want to hear or what you think will keep you safe. You have …
Use Your Voice and Say What You Want and Need in Your Relationships Read more »
MAUDE: We have been thinking a lot about the importance of play in our lives and in our relationships. We’ve just gotten back from a wonderful road trip, with oodles of time spent relaxing and spontaneously enjoying the sights, smells, …
How Being Playful and Just Being Together Affect Your Relationships Read more »
MAUDE: The heat has been unusually excessive here (yes, climate change) and after a while it leads to everyone feeling a bit cranky. This irritability, something that rarely pops its head up between Phil and me, had us at odds …
How You Solve Disagreements in Your Relationships by Looking at Values Read more »
Your attitude, the position you come from in an exchange, can dramatically change the outcome. In all your relationships, the issue of whether you put your attention toward similarities or differences plays a big part in whether those relationships are …
How Looking at Similarities Rather Than Differences Improves Your Relationships Read more »
You can’t figure out what’s going on in your relationships unless you are paying attention. Sound obvious? Well, maybe so, yet so few people look closely at their relationship behavior that many unnecessary misunderstandings and feelings of misalignment arise. So, …
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MAUDE: The other night we were reminiscing and I had a strong memory of an experience that happened early in our relationship. Not only could I see the visuals of this scene, but I felt the emotions and meaning that …
Why It’s Important to be Open and Share Yourself in Your Relationships Read more »
The other day we sat down to restart a conversation about planning for the future and financial issues. In the past, when approaching this topic, we had discovered what looked like differences in how we wanted to handle things. So …
How to Work Out Solutions for Differing Needs in Your Relationship Read more »
PHIL: When I grasp an idea, it can be like an epiphany. Several of my psychological understandings were like that. The first was reading “I’m OK, You’re OK” as a teenager. It was the first time I learned that we …
How Individuality and a Sense of “We” Can Coexist in a Relationship Read more »
PHIL: I wrote this reply to a comment on last week’s blog: I have for some time been fascinated with the idea that language is a recent addition to our understanding of the world and has been so successful that …
It’s Important to Look at Your Feelings and Find Words for Them Read more »