January 10, 2016

Life is a touchingly brief opportunity to taste just about anything your heart might desire.  Love is an opportunity to savor what you taste.

But real love takes courage.  In my work with couples who come in for pre-marital counseling, we often explore the idea that the only things that actually need to be talked about before the ceremony are the things that they believe they can’t talk about.

When that happens in a safe environment, when they decide to take the leap into telling each other the truth of who they really are, that’s when emotional intimacy and real trust begin to develop.

Adrienne Rich, one of the most influential poets of the twentieth century, wrote this:

“An honorable human relationship — that is, one in which two people have the right to use the word “love” — is a process, delicate, violent, often terrifying to both persons involved, a process of refining the truths they can tell each other.  It is important to do this because it breaks down human self-delusion and isolation.  It is important to do this because in doing so we do justice to our own complexity.  It is important to do this because we can count on so few people to go that hard way with us”.

So this leaves us with questions.  Do I have the courage to love?  Am I willing to go the hard way even if it means breaking down my self-delusion and comfy isolation?  Dare I really show up as me?

I’m working on it.  I hope we meet each other there.

Much love,