Us: Getting Past You and Me to Build a More Loving Relationship (Goop Press)

The great spiritual teacher Jiddu Krishnamurti once said that true liberation is freedom from our own automatic responses.

Now, notice that if the speaker escalates from incident to trend to character, each move makes things worse. If, by contrast, the listener moves up the ladder, outing himself, each move up feels wonderful to his partner: “I did this. It’s not the first time I’ve done it. It is a character flaw I’m working on.” On a good day I might answer Belinda,

But as anyone who has worked with issues of so-called codependency knows, accommodation, while overtly self-denying, is in fact, also a form of control—trying to “not set him off.” I define codependent behavior as occurring when you back away from perfectly reasonable behavior—like telling the truth—for fear of your partner’s unreasonable response.

Moving beyond you and me consciousness, beyond the Adaptive Child, beyond individualism, means moving beyond centuries of patriarchy—male privilege, racism, white privilege, xenophobia, and homophobia.

harshness. I tell my clients that if they walk away from their sessions with me with just this one concept, they will have spent their therapy money well. Here it is: There is no redeeming value whatsoever in harshness. Harshness does nothing that loving firmness doesn’t do better.

Nowadays, in my field at least, the buzzword du jour is attunement. Parents are admonished to be endlessly attuned to their offspring; marital partners are taught to be exquisite “holding environments” for each other.

Finally, if you want to break up your pattern and get more of something in your relationship, try giving it. Instead of complaining that you no longer have fun, arrange a night out.

Current research shows clearly that it’s determined by our subjective sense of safety or its lack. Remember, far below your conscious awareness, your autonomic nervous system is scanning your body, asking, “Am I safe? Am I safe? Am I safe?” four times a second.

She calls it relational heroism—that moment when every muscle and nerve in your body is screaming to do the same old, but through raised consciousness, insight, discipline, and grace, you lift yourself off your accustomed track and deliberately place yourself on another track.