Navigating the Dark Night of Relationships

For this episode, I’m doing something a bit different. I’m featuring five chapters from the audiobook Fierce Intimacy by Terry Real. What you will hear in this episode will help you identify both your and your partner’s losing strategies in relationships, and help you move from disharmony to repair. Terry is the creator of Relational Life Therapy, or RLT, which underpins all his books, courses, and teachings and equips people with the powerful relational skills they need to make love work. He is also the author of five books, including the New York Times bestseller Us: Getting Past You and Me to Build a More Loving Relationship. 

And if you’d like an extra dose of calm, I recommend checking out Henry Shukman, a past podcast guest and one of only a few dozen masters in the world authorized to teach Sanbo Zen. Henry’s app, The Way, has changed my life. I’ve been using it daily, often twice a day, and it’s lowered my anxiety more than I thought possible. For 30 free sessions, just visit thewayapp.com/tim. No credit card required.

Excerpted from Fierce Intimacy: Standing Up to One Another with LOVE by Terry Real (Sounds True, 2018.). Used with permission.

[00:00:00] Who is Terry Real?

[00:03:11] Harmony, disharmony, and repair: The rhythm of all intimate human relationships.

[00:06:27] Harmony: Love without knowledge.

[00:07:01] Disharmony: Knowledge without love.

[00:10:01] Repair: Knowing love.

[00:10:35] Stay or go? A relational reckoning.

[00:12:04] Five losing strategies for getting from disharmony to repair.

[00:13:21] Being right: Objective reality has no place in personal relationships.

[00:16:35] Trying to control your partner: No one likes being controlled.

[00:21:35] Unbridled self-expression: The barf bag approach to intimacy.

[00:27:33] Retaliation: Offending from the victim position.

[00:32:13] Withdrawal: Provacative distance-taking.

[00:35:58] Shaking hands with your adaptive child — your losing strategy profile (LSP).

[00:38:08] Lessons learned by comparing your partner’s LSP with your own.

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Past guests on The Tim Ferriss Show include Jerry Seinfeld, Hugh Jackman, Dr. Jane Goodall, LeBron James, Kevin Hart, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Jamie Foxx, Matthew McConaughey, Esther Perel, Elizabeth Gilbert, Terry Crews, Sia, Yuval Noah Harari, Malcolm Gladwell, Madeleine Albright, Cheryl Strayed, Jim Collins, Mary Karr, Maria Popova, Sam Harris, Michael Phelps, Bob Iger, Edward Norton, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Neil Strauss, Ken Burns, Maria Sharapova, Marc Andreessen, Neil Gaiman, Neil de Grasse Tyson, Jocko Willink, Daniel Ek, Kelly Slater, Dr. Peter Attia, Seth Godin, Howard Marks, Dr. Brené Brown, Eric Schmidt, Michael Lewis, Joe Gebbia, Michael Pollan, Dr. Jordan Peterson, Vince Vaughn, Brian Koppelman, Ramit Sethi, Dax Shepard, Tony Robbins, Jim Dethmer, Dan Harris, Ray Dalio, Naval Ravikant, Vitalik Buterin, Elizabeth Lesser, Amanda Palmer, Katie Haun, Sir Richard Branson, Chuck Palahniuk, Arianna Huffington, Reid Hoffman, Bill Burr, Whitney Cummings, Rick Rubin, Dr. Vivek Murthy, Darren Aronofsky, Margaret Atwood, Mark Zuckerberg, Peter Thiel, Dr. Gabor Maté, Anne Lamott, Sarah Silverman, Dr. Andrew Huberman, and many more.

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