Are You Ready for 'Relationships 3.0'?!?

A new wave of understanding is coming to our relationships! 

Relationships are one of the most impactful factors on our mental and even physical health.  A good relationship can make you extremely resilient, but a hard one can completely sap your reserves!

It seems that for much of human history, good relationships for most people have been a matter of luck, but very gradually over the last many decades we have started to get a handle on what makes relationships thrive.

I call this  initial upgrade the jump to 'Relationships 2.0'!  

Relationships 1.0 was all about convenience or obligation.  You fall into the situation that happens to be there - it's either great or miserable, or you somehow "make it work".  Or sometimes you've got the truly medieval:  where you're coupling out of obligation, based on expectations of family or the like - just like the old feudal political marriages.

When we jump to Relationships 2.0, we start to recognize individual agency.  Historically, it's a revolution to even think that you have a right to be happy!  It's not all about obligations, you can have a vision of the life you want and you can use practical tools to bring it about.

Relationships 2.0 is revolutionary, but we still have farther to go.  This era of thinking involves some great tools like going to couples therapy or individual therapy, using specified communication tools, scheduling time for intimacy in our busy lives, and more.  The problem is, sometimes we do all these tools and our relationships still end up unhappy or mediocre.

That's where Relationships 3.0 comes in because what's missing is a Systems understanding.  Here, we're not just talking about the magic bullets that plague our magazine covers "Try this one trick to fix your love life!", instead we're delving into the realm of nuance and complexity.

This is a newly emerging field of understanding.  The explosion of insights into things like Attachment Styles, and the Trauma-Informed revolution now underway can give us keys to understand the art and science of human intimacy more deeply than ever before!

So, do you want to take your understanding deeper and be an early adopter of Relationships 3.0?  Here are three steps you can take to ignite this interpersonal revolution within your life!  

1. Give up "Have Tos".  This gets you out of the cycle of obligation.  Understand that you have the power of choice.  This also helps dispel the urge to settle - the urge for convenience.  When we frame our relationships as choosing, we exorcise the myth of powerlessness.

2. Use the tools of Relationships 2.0 while understanding that they'll work best with a systems understanding.  This can be things like applying Nonviolent Communication techniques like making healthy boundaries - but also understanding that there may be an entire personal history influencing how well your partner can actually hear you!

3. Begin to cultivate your understanding of the complex systems that influence how we connect (or not connect).  These can be things like your and your partner's attachment styles, trauma history, and even our neurological "type" - including things like diffuse vs focused attention, introversion vs extraversion, and more.

Obviously, the best way to catalyze the evolution toward a new and improved way of being in relationship is to attend our upcoming course 'Conscious Relationship Essentials'. 

In this class we'll be taking everything you need to have a truly aware, thriving, and loving relationship, and boiling it all down to three essential practices.  We're meeting on Thursday evenings in July, and the video is archived in case the time doesn't work for you.  You'll not only be introduced to the theory, but will be given practical exercises to try out between each class, AND there will be time to get your questions answered and focus on specific scenarios that are most important to you!

We're also offering a FREE talk this Thursday eve on the Three Keys to Better Relationships. 

I hope you'll come and tell all your friends to too - because our world is ready to make the leap to a whole new understanding of how to connect!