No Compromise Couples Therapy
No Compromise Couples Therapy
No compromise is not about splitting the difference. It is about maintaining your personal integrity while in relation with others.
Compromise may be the least creative approach for resolving conflict. Each person sacrifices something and is left a little unhappy for the sake of “meeting in the middle.”
If dilemmas are instead approached with curiosity and design mindset, it might be possible to meet seemingly contradictory needs without collapsing into a compromise.
Through mutual understanding there is a way for parties to get needs met in a way that is new, creative, where generative solutions outside of compromise can emerge.
A poem about love and attention
Love is uncompromising attention.
It reaches into the self and out towards the other in the same breath.
Uncompromised by the need to be good, do good.
Uncompromised by expectation.
Uncompromised by fear.
Uncompromised by the wish to be clever.
Uncompromised by the right answer.
Not the right answer, but attention…
Attention
A tension
A stretch towards
A stretch in
Intention
In tension
In care
Love is the gaze that stretches to see all of you.
It doesn’t compromise an inch.
It holds all of your tensions, habits, movements, sounds.
Attention to your voice and how you sound sad even though you said, “happy Tuesday!”
Attention to how I feel when I’m with you, noticing a rage even though we’re calm.
Attention to what topics make you come alive and which ones check you out.
Attention to your stream of consciousness and what emotions beget the next thought, beget the next feeling, beget the next gesture.
Attention to the dance of all of you.
Attention to what’s next!
Some words on love
Interviewer: “So does Eartha fall in love with herself?”
Eartha: “If you want to think about it in terms of analyzing it, yes, I fall in love with myself, and I want someone to share it with me. I want someone to share me with me.”
Hillman: “Just start talking with anyone from the soul, about the soul, about your fear of dying, about a heartbreaking memory, about your funny estrangements, isolation, and right away, love starts happening.”
James Hillman - Love isn’t Personal
Interviewer: “Do you indulge in any form of worship?”
Bowie: “Uh, life. I love life very much indeed.”
Bukowski:
I know a woman
who keeps buying puzzles
chinese
puzzles
blocks
wires
pieces that finally fit
into some order.
she works it out
mathmatically
she solves all her
puzzles
lives down by the sea
puts sugar out for the ants
and believes
ultimately
in a better world.
her hair is white
she seldom combs it
her teeth are snaggled
and she wears loose shapeless
coveralls over a body most
women would wish they had.
for many years she irritated me
with what I considered her
eccentricities-
like soaking eggshells in water
to feed the plants so that
they'd get calcium
but finally when I think of her
life
and compare it to other lives
more dazzling, original
and beautiful
I realize that she has hurt fewer
people than anybody I know
and by hurt I simply mean hurt.
she has had some terrible times,
times when maybe I should have
helped her more
for she is the mother of my only
child
and we were once great lovers,
but she has come through
like I said
she has hurt fewer people than
anybody I know,
and if you look at it like that,
well,
she has created a better world.
she has won.
Frances, this poem is for you.
Poem from Love is a Dog from Hell by Charles Bukowski