In the next few weeks I am going to be examining my new book The Relationship Coach Your playbook for unlocking the combination to a successful relationship. (Hopefully, it will be available next month!) I introduce the book with: “My real goal in writing this book is for you, the reader, especially if you are experiencing difficulties in your relationship, to come away knowing that you are not crazy and that there is hope.” (ix) . As I have said on my business card for years: “The tools are available in today’s world to have the relationship of your dreams.”
Coach vs. Therapist or Counsellor
I prefer the term coach to therapist or counsellor, as the connotation around those words is that there is something wrong with the person, whereas as a coach, there is nothing wrong with my players, but sometimes what they are doing is not working. I believe the same is true of relationships. Often what people are doing is not working as well as they would like. Just as I didn’t invent hockey, but I can coach it, I didn’t invent Imago Relationship Therapy but I can coach it.
Chapters Outlining a Successful Relationship
I use the analogy of a combination lock and a team’s playbook. Obviously, if you know the combination to a lock it is much easier to open it, and I want all the players on my teams using the same plays. The book, then, is a coaching manual exploring the four key elements or pieces to unlock the combination to a successful relationship.
Chapter 1: The Space Between
Chapter 1, borrowing from quantum theory, examines the Space-Between. Typically when we think of a relationship we think of two people, you and you. I am challenging readers to think of their relationship as the two of them plus the space between them. It is a real energy field and you can tell, can’t you, when there is tension in the Space-Between? It is either tension free or it is not; there is no middle ground.
Chapter 2: The Importance of Safety in Relationship
Chapter 2 explores the importance of Safety in any relationship. I focus on the fact that we all have a part of our brain, the oldest part from an evolutionary standpoint, whose main function is to keep us alive. It asks the question: is it safe or is it dangerous? and if dangerous, will defend itself. That oldest part of our brain, the reptilian or lizard brain, has a 500 million year old track record, you are not going to change it.
Chapter 3: The Safe Conversation Process
Chapter 3 teaches the Safe Conversation Process. There will always be things to talk about in any relationship and the Safe Conversation Process gives couples a structured way to discuss anything, but in a safe way. It is the structure of the Process that ensures safety.
Chapter 4: Imago Relationship Therapy
Chapter 4 gives a brief explanation of Imago Relationship Therapy. Harville Hendrix and his wife, Helen LaKelly Hunt are the experts. They have trained over 3000 of us practicing Imago Relationship Therapy in 61 countries. IRT has proven to be helpful for a lot of folks over the years. Let me be your coach.
My Own Experience
You might ask, how can I promise a successful relationship, given the statistics on divorce? I would answer – with my own experience! For me, this is very personal, it is not just theory. Thirty four years ago now, my wife and I separated after 15 years of marriage. It was over.
Then, my wife came across Harville and Helen’s book Getting the Love You Want: A Guide for Couples (1988). What caught her attention was their assertion that what often happens is, we get rid of our partner, but we keep the problem and take it into the next relationship.
Our Journey in Imago
That made sense to both of us, so we decided, “Let’s not waste those fifteen years; let’s try and use them to figure out what didn’t work before either of us gets into a second relationship.” Well, four months later, we were back together, and two months after that, we went to a Getting the Love You Want workshop that Harville was giving in Chicago.
At that time we were introduced to the system, Imago Relationship Therapy, and were taught the same four key elements I will share in this book. We are celebrating our forty-ninth anniversary this year. If we can do it, hopefully, you can too.
What We All Want
What do we all want in our relationship? There are at least three key markers. We all want:
- To feel safe. Certainly, we want physical safety, but I am thinking more of psychological and emotional safety; we need to know that there are no arrows coming, that we are not going to get zinged.
- To feel connected. We want to know that we can just hang out with our partner and be comfortable.
- To feel fully alive. This includes fun, intimacy, passion, joy, and laughter. It is what small children exhibit, as we all did, when we first arrived on Planet Earth.
In the book I ask couples to rate their relationship, in those three areas, on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the best and 1 not so good. I believe you can be at a nine or ten consistently. If you rated your relationship below a nine, I hope you find this coaching playbook helpful in creating the kind of relationship you truly want and deserve.
Next week I’ll begin with the first piece of the combination lock – the Space-Between.
