It’s likely you know someone who blames the world for everything. From the disintegration of their fourth marriage to a fender-bender to losing at bridge, nothing is ever their fault. If you want to remain the same, and want to …
How Can We Use the Differences in Our Relationships to Inspire Us? Read more »
PHIL: We’ve written before about how to accept the differences between people, especially in a partnership, but a whole other aspect of differences is the pleasure and richness that they offer. As someone we interviewed said, “It would be so …
How to Greet the Differences in Your Relationships as Blessings Read more »
A reader emailed us about last week’s blog: “It sounds simple but not easy. I certainly haven’t mastered it yet!” We maintain harmony in our relationship the same way a bike stays in balance when being ridden. It happens with …
Why Those Little Differences Needn’t Be a Problem in Your Relationship Read more »
PHIL: The obvious way that you compare things is by looking at how they differ. Which oven is self-cleaning? Does this bank charge overdraft fees? Less obvious is to look at the similarities, because they don’t help you make choices …
How Can You See Differences in Your Relationships as Welcome Additions? Read more »
PHIL: We live in two worlds. One is our life together. Each evening we retire early to watch Netflix, do the New York Times crossword, play word games and chill. We call this our sacred space. Each week we write …
How to Honor Both Closeness and Space in Your Relationship Read more »
PHIL: We have plenty in common, but also plenty of differences. How we connect socially. What we read. What our diets are. Our differences don’t cause us problems, but for many people, they are a perennial battlefield. Maggie Scarf proposed …
How To See Your Differences As Assets Rather Than Causing Arguments Read more »
PHIL: We continually ask ourselves how we live so peacefully. We know that we do; the challenge is to turn that knowledge into reasons and words. One of the most fundamental aspects is the sense that we are each completely …
Why is it Important not to Focus on Relationship Differences? Read more »
MAUDE: When I first came to Santa Barbara, over forty years ago, my husband (at the time) and I had the address of only one person to make contact with. We had been given his address because we shared a …
How to Reach Unity When There Appear to be Two Sides Read more »
PHIL: So, another birthday ran into me and Maude deluged me with cards, in one of which she wrote, “This becomes our only task – live every day, every moment, for all it is, and be all we can be …
For the last three weeks, we’ve been writing about mutuality, union and core values, three foundational aspects of conflict-free peaceful relationships. Know Yourself While these are the critical underpinnings of the type of relationships we describe, there are characteristics that …
What Important Factors Make a Conflict-free Relationship? Read more »