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 »
Life has been particularly full and interesting lately. We’ve been working (and playing) to create and shape the workshop that we are offering in a few weeks. As is often the case when we create something together, we are also …
How to Make the Differences in your Relationship be Assets Read more »
PHIL: Some writings have seared themselves into my brain. One was Games People Play. It was the first time I had met the idea of unconscious motivations, and also of being direct with people. Another was Be Here Now, the …
Relationship Differences Can Be Valuable and Important Read more »
A core aspect of our relationship is the “We”. And yet we are each separate individuals. Herein lies a paradox we referred to in last week’s blog about seeing differences as an asset. As well as making the “we” central …
The Truth of the “We” at the Core of Relationships Read more »
This morning we were at our local breakfast nook working on blog topics. We each shared ideas about a possible topic, and some tensions arose unexpectedly. Maude wanted to continue last week’s theme of peace, and Phil wanted a different …
How to Solve Differences From a Place of Mutuality Read more »