Relationship Savvy Dialogues

Emerging from the Dark

Have you ever had the feeling of being hungry, but you don’t know what you want? Maybe you open the cupboard or the refrigerator and look at what’s on the shelves, hoping to see something and say, “That’s it, I’ll have that!” But, you don’t find anything you really want to eat.

That’s how I have been about writing this blog post. I am hungry to communicate with you and let you know what’s been going on, yet I hardly know where to begin. Each time over the last several weeks that I have started something, I end up deleting it with the judgment that it’s just too trite or pedestrian for you to bother reading.

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written by Paul Cutright \\ tags: A Course in Miracles, change, doubt, fear, healing, heart failure, learning, lessons, transformation, trust

Choices are not always “either/or”, sometimes they are “both/and”. It often takes great wisdom and lots of experience to be impeccably discerning.

Following on last post we were reminded of this set of distinctions written by a friend and colleague back in 1980. Perhaps they are relevant and worthy of reflection today as we go through any kind of life changes or upheaval. We hope you find them thought provoking and helpful in some way.

And thank you, one and all, who took your precious time to respond with such love, wisdom and care to our last post. We were overwhelmed with such a generous and thoughtful outpouring of love, care and support. Our hearts are full and that, in itself, is healing.

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written by Paul Cutright \\ tags: balance, choices, learning, mastery, Relationships, spiritual growth

“The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge.”
Daniel J. Boorstin, PhD – Author, Historian, Attorney

Unlike learning to drive a car, which you were not born knowing how to do, relationship success seems like it should just come naturally. After all, you were born into relationship and were raised in relationships. You’ve been in relationships of one kind or another your entire life. What could be more natural?

Unfortunately, what comes naturally to many people is not always the wisest choice. For most of us our relationships school was watching how the grownups did it. We modeled our parents for good or ill and our childhood modeling is a force to be reckoned with if we choose to learn to consciously create our own version of happily ever after.

Some of you may not know we still have a private practice. We’ve had a private practice for 30 years and it’s still one of the most satisfying parts of our professional life together. We work with young couples just starting out in life who want to learn what it takes to create a fulfilling relationship. And we work with couples in trouble who have tried everything, and yet the same old problems keep recycling themselves with slight variations.

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written by Paul and Layne \\ tags: coaching, conscious incompetence, growth, learning, Relationships, unconscious incompetence

Learning to Drive

 Do you remember when you first learned to drive? 

How you could hardly wait to get your driver’s license?  Before that, driving a car did not interest you at all.

Sure, you rode in the car with your father or mother driving, but that happened without you being concerned in any way with what was involved in the activity of driving. You just got in the car with them and ended up wherever they were going without any awareness at all of the process of driving the car to get there.

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written by Paul and Layne \\ tags: conscious competence, conscious incompetence, learning, Relationships, stages of learning, unconscious competence, unconscious incompetence