Nearly every primary intimate relationship will get to a point where we decide we have to “work on our relationship.” Things are just not working out like we hoped. We negotiate with each other to make some changes so that the relationship works better. This can be a trick bag.
It sometimes happens that our fear that the relationship is not going to sustain us prompts us to make concessions to the other. We compromise. We agree to both lose equally.
This is not a stable agreement. No one wins unless we both win. If we each lose equally, we both lose. We need to construct a set of agreements in which we both win.
This means we have to change what we are doing. The reason for us to change is not because what we are doing is bad or wrong. The reason to change is because what we do doesn’t create what we need. What we are currently doing isn’t serving us.
While these changes are structurally simple, they can be very hard to do. They are not easy. They will take work. They will take discipline.
The course 10 Disciplines for Healthy Relationships is not about how to get others to change. And it is only tangentially about getting the relationship to change. It is primarily about figuring out what changes we can make in ourselves to create what we need in the context of the relationship.
Over the course of ten weeks we will take one discipline a week and practice a set of mostly simple practices that we result in us being more mindful and more skilled at showing up in our relationships in safe and satisfying ways.
[A full list of the ten can be found at http://www.creativeconflictresolution.org/jc/disciplines.html]
The class will have not more than eight students. There will be lots of conversation and personal feedback. It will be hard work but what you will learn will improve your relationship with yourself and with others for the rest of your life.