The Mindful Couple: Learning to Live & Love More Effectively
Hi Everyone! It’s been far too long again since I’ve posted and part of the reason for this is that I’ve been hard at work on some new things that I’ll be sharing in January! The first of these is a new group that I am developing with two of my colleagues at The Family Institute called The Mindful Couple: Learning to Live and Love More Effectively. The group will actually be more like a class for couples to attend together and each week we will explore and practice a different set of skills designed to help you be more in tune with yourself so that you can communicate more accurately with your partner what you are thinking, feeling, and needing, and be more in tune with your partner and the ways in which your happiness and well-being are connected with theirs.We will also be teaching some ways to practice mindfulness meditation – short and simple exercises that can easily be added to your everyday life, as well as a practice called Insight Dialogue that is a way of practicing mindfulness with your partner in conversation.
And last but not least, the group will be fun! There is a quote that comes to mind as I think about this group, funnily enough, from a 16th century samurai warrior, who I am sure saw quite a bit of conflict in his time! The samurai was named Yamamoto Tsunetomo, and he said, “Matters of great concern should be treated lightly”. There are a many ways to interpret this quote, but one way is the notion that a serious matter should be studied and understood so that when we encounter this matter in our everyday lives, we are able to trust our own wisdom about what to do and can move “lightly” or effectively to deal with it. Another interpretation is that paradoxically, matters of great concern, if approached with humor and and an attitude of openness and curiosity, can be managed much more effectively than approaching them with heaviness and gravity. The main goals of this group are in line with both interpretations! The group is designed to help couples treat the serious matter of their relationship lightly by practicing key communication and mindfulness skills so that wisdom about how to handle areas of disagreement will develop and unfold, and to help couples normalize and humanize the struggles they encounter together so they can approach these areas with humor and compassion for themselves and each other.The group is scheduled to begin at The Family Institute on January 8th!
For more information, please click here: http://www.family-institute.org/images/mindful_couple.pdf