In the many years I've worked with couples, I've come to realize that most people are not equipped for the demands of modern marriage. While the biggest complaint is, "we don't communicate", there are a few fundamental underlying problems that communication alone won't solve. I designed this course to address those foundational issues, as well as provide the key communication skills most couples need to improve their connection and satisfaction with their relationship.

Often our ideas get in the way of effective actions or behavior, particularly in relationships where we gradually automate each other based on our expectations and memories, rather than being fully present with each other. Part of the reason for creating the Essential Skills for Couples was to connect useful concepts with practical action and skills to boost your relationship satisfaction and mastery.

Habits exist in our bodies, not just our minds. We can’t think or will our way to change; we literally have to change the body, right down to growing new connections between neurons in our brain and body. One small change practiced over and over is much more likely to snowball into transformation than a big dramatic effort that isn’t repeated often enough for the body (including the brain) to master, and automate, the new pattern.

Although we think of relationships as separate from politics, modern relationships are more democratic. No longer do we have the rigid gender-based roles and rules that defined couples’ relationships in the past. Without these external structures, we need to be able to collaborate, negotiate, and communicate more skillfully than was necessary in the past.

Close intimate relationships require a great deal of give and take, compromise, and kindness both towards yourself and the other person. When those behaviors fade, the relationship is in peril. I like to tell my clients that relationships are like a potted plant (sounds strange but bear with me). That plant is sitting between you. If only half of the plant gets watered, it will not receive enough water and die. Care and attention to the other person is what fuels a relationship. You give to get.

Partners in a couple are like the proverbial blind men and the elephant. One may have a grip on the tail of reality, the other a leg. They argue over their view of a reality that is larger than either can see. The more they argue, the more the brain automates their arguments, and their negative story of the other person becomes “real”. The generosity, interest, and curiosity that may have launched the relationship becomes lost in a battle for control.

Ever get in an argument with yourself? Maybe between the part of you that wants to eat that piece of chocolate cake, and the part that knows it’s not so good for you? It may seem like there are two of you, mind and tastebuds discussing that inviting treat, but that’s an illusion.

What makes someone a master at what they do? A star basketball player or top gymnast? A so-called "super shrink" who is effective at helping people change? Even someone who is a really good friend? What enables someone to continue to develop and to excel at what they do? When we founded the Human Systems Institute in 1999, we were seeking to foster excellence in facilitating systemic constellations, so this question has interested me for a long time.

Many years ago when I was working in corporate America, I came across the idea of continuous improvement. I met this idea in the form of the Japanese total quality control paradigm. The idea of continuous improvement by attending to and improving the small details that added up to mastery stuck with me.

There is a common saying, “one thing led to another, and then before we knew it…” something big has changed. One of the common cognitive errors we humans make is that we project the present onto the future. It’s hard for us to imagine beyond what we know. Modern history is rife with disruptive inventions like the automobile that overturned entire ways of life. Currently the threat is that Artificial Intelligence will be one of those world-turning inventions. (So far, it's just me writing these articles, not a computer based AI.)

To quote the title of a Taylor Swift song, have you ever been in a situation that felt, well, delicate? You may have had an idea where you wanted to go, but any movement felt precarious, as if all your efforts to that point might come tumbling down?

STORY

I once worked with a venture capitalist whose company had bought a machine parts company that struggled in the 2008 banking crisis. The relationship between the VC, his team, and the original founders and owners of the company had deteriorated to the point that it looked like the company might fail. He was frustrated and angry with the founders, who were hurt and feeling as misunderstood as he was. I set up a constellation for him and it gradually became clear that the most valuable thing the company owned was the deep love and understanding the founders had for their customers,and the customers response to them.

Role-based, rule-bound frameworks that held social relationships together are shifting like dry sand on a windy beach in the forces of modern life. Without these external frameworks to organize our relationships, we are required to develop a set of social skills to manage these peer-to-peer relationships, skills that many of us were never taught nor have seen modeled well.

Power has different dimensions. We can talk about physical power, the strength or skill one person or group of persons can exert on another. Power can also take the form of command of necessary resources for physical survival. Withholding clean water, for instance, is a form of power over others. Power can be shared through consensus or collaborative processes or used to dominate others.

Perception is tricky. We think we live in the same world, that what appears in our mind is the same as what appears to others. This is not so. Many couples have fought their way into court arguing over whose perception was correct. This is foolish. As researcher Anil Seth explains here, our brains are always selecting certain details, omitting others, and constructing our experience of “reality” moment by moment. There is no “absolute” reality. All of our experience as humans is subjective.

When we’re having a conversation with someone, there is a cognitive exchange, the words or content being discussed. And there is another exchange: soma with soma - the experience that is created between us out of our interaction. Meaning-making (also important) happens later when the mind re-views experience and tries to predict what will happen next. The experience in the moment, the resonance, the sense of “feeling felt’ by another living soma, of being “in synch” is vital to our well-being. Yet surprisingly, this is increasingly harder to come by in our modern world.

We learn about ourselves and the world through our interactions with people and objects in our daily environment. Over time we build up an understanding or body map of the world and can predict largely how the objects in our world behave. Happily, many of the objects in our world don’t change much. Once we learn their characteristics and placements, we don’t have to expend much more energy tending to them. For instance, we learn that the chair in our living room aren’t likely to jump up and run around the room when we aren’t looking, so our brain can automate the placement of the chair and not really pay much more attention to that chair. Unless someone moves it a little when we aren’t there, then we can stub a toe.

If as an infant, your caregiver said, “Aww, is baby sad?” when you cried, and made a sad face, your state was reflected to you. Our initial sense of self arises in these short interchanges with our primary caregiver. The more our caregiver is comfortable with and can reflect our feelings, the more we learn it is okay to feel. If my caregiver is upset by my anger or neediness as an infant, that shapes the envelope of emotion I can safely express. Infants don’t have language yet, and do understand attuned caring responses. This goes on with different stages of growing independence and sense of “I am” as we grow older. I know I am because you reflect me back to myself.

How is it some people just put us at ease? We open up to them and feel comfortable and safe sharing our stories? What is the gift behind that art? What are the ingredients of listening so that people feel heard? In such a divisive time, listening well so that another person feels heard, feels your care, and feels connected to you, is a more important skill than ever. In this short article, I offer some questions to ask yourself. Are you a good listener?

I've been really interested in this idea of a knowing field since I first heard the term. I know of electrical fields and gravitational fields (which are also still mysterious). When I heard the term "knowing field," I wanted to know, what is it? How does it work? Am I using it properly? Once I "know" what it is, i.e., I can call it a knowing field, then I can have a relationship with it. I can have a relationship with a thing I conjured up with language.

I want to explore how clients make meaning of their experiences. Humans use language and stories to make sense of our experiences. To create our identities, to know who we are, what we should do. When we're doing constellation work, I'm sure many of you know, images can show up on the floor or the table that challenge clients ways of making sense of themselves or their families or even their work teams in sometimes significant ways. Sometimes this goes really well, and sometimes it doesn't. I believe that we often don't give enough attention to the meaning making process. At the end of a session, I walk away from the issue. It's not mine. I go home and leave it there. But my client takes this home. They have to integrate this experience into their understanding of who they are in their system, and how what they've seen is going to affect their relationships.

Are you having a problem staying focused? Reading through a long article? Finishing a project? Me, too. These days I find myself more easily distracted, vanishing down the rabbit holes of an interesting headline or video. It seems harder and harder to stay focused. While there is a lot of concern about the use of cell phones among youth, it seems us older folks are more challenged these days too. Which is why, when I saw the title of Johan Hari’s latest book, Stolen Focus I knew I had to read it (ironically requiring a long stretch of focused attention!)