February 2008

In this issue:

F`ree to our subscribers!

Conscious Relationship
Tele-Seminar Series
www.ConsciousRelationshipSeminars.com

Conscious Relationship Podcast
www.ConsciousRelationshipPodcast.com

Conscious Relationship Article Bank
www.ConsciousRelationshipArticles.com

David Steele
Founder and CEO,
Relationship Coaching Institute

Frankie Doiron, President
Relationship Coaching Network

Tara Alexandra Kachaturoff
Editor | Partners in Life Couples News
Email

Copyright 2008 by PartnersInLife.org All rights reserved.

Now Available!

Conscious Dating: Finding the Love of Your Life in Today's World

Order a copy today for your single friends and family members at www.ConsciousDating.com

A One-Page Communication System for All Relationships!

Practical, effective, and affordable conflict resolution tool for personal and professional relationships

www.TheCommunicationMap.com

Welcome!
This newsletter is designed especially for YOU if:

• You have met someone and are wondering if s/he is the "Love of Your Life"
• You are about to get married and want to co-create a fulfilling life partnership
• You have a good relationship and want to make it great

Conscious Mating
Audio Programs

Announcing:
Conscious Mating Audio Programs

When dating someone do you ever wonder-
"Is this the right relationship for me?"

Our Conscious Mating Audio Programs provide detailed, comprehensive strategies for dating and mating, addressing all the relationship and decision-making challenges that arise when you're in the pre-commitment stage of a relationship.

These audio programs are recorded from our live tele-seminars and include the MP3 audio file for playing on your computer, MP3 player (iPod or other), or burning onto a CD, AND a complete PDF transcript for following along and making notes.

Program #1- Is This the Right Relationship for Me? Introduction to the Pre-commitment Stage

Program #2- Am I Ready to Be a Couple?

Program #3- Finding Lasting Love by Experiencing Your Experience

Program #4- Should We Live Together?

Program #5- Dealing With Our Baggage

Program #6- Are We Compatible?

Program #7- Sharing Our Vision

Program #8- Deciding "Is This The One?"

Program #9- When We Must Say Goodbye

Check them out at www.ConsciousMatingAudio.com

Ask Our Coaches:
 How Do We Move Towards Marriage?

"He tells me this has been the happiest year of his life .... I want a commitment and a future .... He'd rather end it now than take the big leap..."

This column answers questions submitted by our readers. Submit your questions to Tara@relationshipcoachinginstitute.com who will forward them to our coaches all over the world. Each issue, we'll publish a few answers from our RCI coaches.

Dear Coaches,

I was married in the past and have grown children. I've been dating a man for over a year who has never been involved in a long-term relationship. His whole life has been his work. He has been happy with his independence and had never thought of the "M" word before he met me.

He tells me this has been the happiest year of his life -- that I am the love of his life. He adores me. He loves what we have now and says he can do this forever. We each have separate homes, but he spends all of his time at my home with me when he is not working.

My dilemma is that I want a commitment and a future. I see marriage as a commitment and do not feel secure in a "relationship of convenience." He says that he's afraid we might divorce someday and he'll lose me. He does not feel like he can handle that and he does not want to lose his independence.

He'd rather end it now than take the big leap. He does not believe "faith" or "love" should really play a major role in such a big decision. Do you have any advice that would move him towards marriage?

Barb from Boston

Choosing a man that does not share your values is likely setting yourself up for failure. And, trying to get someone to do what you want them to do rarely works -- if ever. If you coerce him into marrying you, what do you think the long term consequences will be?

Ask yourself how well it would work if he tried to coerce you into giving up your value of marriage. The only really good relationship I have experienced in my life is the one I am in currently. Looking back on my past relationships, I realize this is the only relationship where my partner and I have core values that are completely in alignment with each other. The bigger question here is "Are YOU making the right choice based on your values?" Be THE CHOOSER!

Ron Maddox | 214.528.5426

Hazel responds …

The words you use tell me that he doesn't want a commitment where he feels he will lose his independence. It's not difficult to be happy with someone when you have the safety of "going home." Most men say what they mean and mean what they say! Sometimes people just don't want to change.

It is important to have other values in a relationship; however I would put love very high on the list. I would suggest you ask yourself some very important questions:

• Will you be satisfied being with someone who doesn't see either faith or love playing a big role in a relationship?
• If you decide to compromise and stay, do you think you might eventually resent the fact that he is not willing to trust in a total commitment?
• Do you feel you deserve to have love, faith and total commitment?
• Are you willing to give up what you want?

If this isn't right for you, by letting go, you will open the door to attracting exactly who you want as a partner in life.

Hazel Palache, MFT,MCCht,CNLP | www.TheAstonishingPowerofYou.com 818.972.4415

Brenda responds...

Barb, he can lose you now by not committing or he can commit to you and let go of the fear of "possibly" losing you later to divorce. The first is a sure-fire given because I sense that you can't continue this "relationship of convenience" for much longer and remain happy.

The second loss is only a fear-based speculation on his part. I get a sense that he not only doesn't give much credence to the marriage process, but also he doesn't have much faith in a marriage with you to think that it will end in divorce before it even begins! It would be interesting to know why he leans so strongly against marriage. It would also be interesting to know what "independence" means to him and why he is so fierce about maintaining it.

It sounds like one of your relationship requirements is commitment. While commitment can mean different things to different people, to you the idea of commitment is marriage. You must have that in order for the relationship to work. Is he worth having in your life without YOUR vision of commitment?

While you don't feel secure in this relationship of convenience, he is obviously very content with things the way they are. In order for the relationship to work, both parties need to be on the same page. For you, this is a deal-breaker.

I strongly suggest the two of you work with a relationship coach ASAP! He needs to step up to the plate and move forward in this relationship or leave. You need to be clear about what it is you need to experience in the relationship in order for it work for you, which may include allowing the time and space for him to explore what is holding him back from fully committing to you.

Sure, you can continue the status quo for another year and another -- but let's face it, doing that makes both of you unavailable for what each of you really wants. The coaching process can help you be clear, firm and supported in whatever decision you make. If it's time for him to go or time for him to grow, then now is the time to determine that. Hire a coach, it will be one of the best investments you'll ever make!

Brenda Zeller  | www.VitalLifeCoaching.com
610.966.7947

Feature Article:
Commitment: New Rules for the New Millennium

by Dr. Jackie Black

What may have been true for our parents' generation is not necessarily true for us.
Dr. Jackie Black explains how the new rules of relationships are changing the way we view ourselves and others.

Tara Kachaturoff
Editor

We have a powerful desire to belong and to connect with that special someone. In the U.S., we inherited a model for marriage and relationships that has remained largely unchanged for over 50 years. That traditional model was never intended to integrate our individual needs with the needs of the partnership.

The Old Relationship Model

The traditional way promised physical and financial security, a sense of belonging, continuity and comfort. The old model has been deeply ingrained in all of us by watching our parents and grandparents.

The old rules don't work anymore! We cannot continue to depend on traditional, deeply ingrained beliefs, expectations and assumptions about relationships. We need to stop building the most important relationships of our lives on outdated beliefs, destructive myths, unrealistic expectations, faulty assumptions and un-negotiated roles and responsibilities.

A New Model: Supporting Individuality within the Partnership

Modern partners are concerned with:

• Living their vision
• Love of self
• Deepening emotional intimacy
• Having shared values
• Commitment to living in authenticity, and
• Willingness to honor the fires of passion that burn inside.
  

Couples are demanding more intimacy and insisting on supporting each other to live their best individual life. At the same time, contemporary partners are committed to co-creating deeply meaningful relationships that provide:

• Safe havens to be one's most vulnerable self
• Opportunities to share one's most sacred feelings with their partner and open to the most sacred feelings shared with another, and
• Connections defined by joy and the hopes of a future that will be a lasting testament of their love and commitment.

A big challenge for partners today, in committing to another person, is the potential loss of personal identity and giving up personal hopes and dreams. Those losses would have been a virtual certainty in the old model of marriage and relationships.

Not so today! Contemporary men and women are ready to honor their individual needs and create partnerships that honor their deeper selves. They want to create committed, functional relationships that deepen their emotional intimacy, trust, love, and connection. They also want to develop skills, rituals, and practices for deepening emotional, physical and spiritual connection with each other.

Today, we have more options. We can enlist the help of relationship coaches, read the latest relationship books, and attend experiential seminars and retreats. We are more tuned into ourselves, which naturally makes us more in tuned with others.

Because we have a new model through which to see ourselves and others, we can create relationships that meet our needs, our partner's needs and those of the relationship without leaving behind or setting aside parts of ourselves. We certainly don't need to live through outdated relationship models of yesteryear. The model for the new millennium promises much for couples who want to consciously create fulfilling, deep, and trusted relationships. Remember, only YOU can make it happen!

Copyright Dr. Jackie Black 1999-2008. All rights reserved in all media.

Dr. Jackie Black | www.DrJackieBlack.com
1.866.419.5928

Bonus Article:
The Mystery of Attraction

By Linda Marshall

In his book, Getting the Love You Want, Harville Hendrix cites several research studies around the nature of our attraction to one another from the perspective of several different disciplines.

Biology and Attraction

Biologists notice that we select mates so that our species will survive. Men look for healthy women at the peak of their childbearing years. Women look for "alpha" men who dominate other males and bring home more than their share of the kill. While these attractions were more prominent in our ancient history, there is some truth to this even today.

Social Psychology and Attraction

Social psychologists focus on the "exchange" theory. This is the idea that we select partners more or less our equals in terms of physical appeal, financial status, and social rank, as well as personality traits like kindness, creativity, and a sense of humor. Most of this sizing each other up is unconscious, and we do it with lightening speed. This also moves us beyond mere biology to allow for attraction to someone outside the biological criteria.

Analytical Psychology and Attraction

The field of analytical psychology focuses on the "persona" theory, which maintains that we are attracted to someone who will enhance our self-esteem or our self-image. We put on masks to show our best selves to others, and we don't want to be embarrassed by who we are with. Rather, we want to experience a sense of pride.

Hendrix notes the shortcomings of each of these three theories. What he noticed in his own experience as a relationship and marital therapist was that we all appear to be compulsively searching for a partner with a very particular set of positive and negative personality traits. He points to the unconscious forces in our minds to illuminate the mystery further.

Selecting a Partner: The Role of the Brain

One of the three parts of our brain, our old brain, plays a powerful role in our selection of a partner. One of the characteristics of the old brain is that we are largely unaware of its functioning. Neuroscientists have determined that the major concern of the old brain is self-preservation. It addresses the main question, "Is it safe?" With its hazy awareness of the external world, it scans our environment and gathers data from images, symbols, and thoughts produced in the new brain.

The result is that people are lumped into six basic categories. The brain tries to determine if the person in front us is someone to
1) nurture,
2) be nurtured by,
3) have sex with,
4) run away from,
5) submit to, or
6) attack.

The subtler distinctions like neighbor, relative, parent, or spouse slide right by. Our old brain compares the image of the person before us with other observations from our past and determines if this person is safe and will give us a pleasurable or a threatening experience. This all happens at lightning speed, so we're unconscious of all the scanning and comparing that is going on.

Furthermore, what Hendrix found is that the positive and negative traits we compulsively search for, match the predominant character traits of the people who raised us. The old brain is trying to re-create the environment of our childhood so that we can complete it and return to our original state of wholeness and relaxed joyfulness. The root words for "family" and "familiar" are the same.

We are often looking for the person who provides us with a familiar (seems safe and may not be, depending on our family of origin) experience. The trick is to choose wisely enough that we don't recreate our worst case scenario.

The primary purpose of the Conscious Mating Program, offered by Relationship Coaching Institute Coaches, is to help people who think they may be right for each other to take a more objective look at their relationship. It's designed to take the mystery out of the attraction so that couples can build and enjoy a stronger and more conscious relationship.

Linda A. Marshall | www.radiantrelating.com
937.684.2245

For More Information

PartnersinLife.org, is a resource for couples offered by Relationship Coaching Institute, a worldwide relationship coaching organization dedicated to helping singles 'find the love of your life AND the life that you love'; to helping new couples 'make a wise choice in a life partner'; and to helping any couple 'fine tune and keep their relationship healthy and fulfilling.'

Visit our web site at www.PartnersInLife.org for F`ree:

• How to Be Partners for Life e-Program for Couples
• Relationship Knowledge Bank
• And much more!

• Want to make sure you are making a wise choice in a life partner?
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Get a Relationship Coach!
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Tara Kachaturoff | Editor, PartnersInLife.org Couples News Tara@relationshipcoachinginstitute.com

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