The Relationship Ride

I just reconnected with a dear friend of mine, someone who recently began a relationship. She reminded me of my vision of relationship, and told me that, carrying that, she has a new sense of what is possible for her and her new love.

For the next few blogs, I’m going to send out excerpts from my new book, The Relationship Ride: A Usable, Unusual, Tranformative Guide, telling you how I view the potential of relationships. I believe this is a completely new paradigm, one where that elusive search for “in-loveness” is actually our search for our very best, most divine selves.

“Here’s the problem: we don’t know that relationship requires the skills of a seasoned mariner. Lured by the siren call of new love, we tend to jump onboard, fully intending to go on a long journey. When the inevitable challenges occur, however—storms, sandbars, perilous rocks, momentous waves, and even a variety of sea monsters slithering to the surface—we decide that we made a huge mistake, that we got on the wrong ship, that we didn’t really mean to choose this particular crew.

Since most of us don’t know what to expect on this wild ride called intimacy, all we can do is hang on. We really do our best in the face of the emotional ups and downs, the intensity of being called to face into the unpredictability of the next moment, the emergence of our own or our partner’s more challenging aspects. Some people actually thrive with these challenges. Many times, however, we get scared, we withdraw, we shut down. The resulting numbness is what we call “falling out of love.” And we find solace in the idea that, really, relationship shouldn’t be so hard. And we prepare to abandon ship.”

Join Kathlyn Hendricks, Ph.D. and Julie Colwell, Ph.D. for Adding the Body, March 4-6. This is an amazing opportunity to immerse yourself in 3 days of intimate co-creativity with two preeminent relationship experts, learning how to “add the body” to your practice. Go here for more information.