Conscious Relationships

Choose Her Every Day (Or Leave Her)

♦◊♦ I spent 5 years hurting a good woman by staying with her but never fully choosing her. I did want to be with this one. I really wanted to choose her. She was an exquisite woman, brilliant and funny and sexy and sensual. She could make my whole body laugh with her quick, dark

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3 Steps to a Life-Changing Apology

Apologies are easy. It’s swallowing that jagged little pill of pride that’s hard. A genuine apology (with no sneaky agenda) can transform the dynamic in any relationship from a charged adversarial stand-off into the elegant dance of partnership. A wonderful karma-fixer, an apology can avert years of upset and disconnection. Too often, though, excuses deny

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The Hope and Hopelessness of Modern Romance

♦◊♦ We are deeply disoriented. Our intimate relationships routinely fluctuate between ecstatic and infuriating. We mostly don’t want to live without an intimate partner, yet we can’t seem to learn how to really love one either. We are stuck in a perpetual uncertainty between hope and hopelessness, like monkeys with our hands caught in a

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Who Should Pay For Dinner?

♦◊♦ Have you ever puzzled over who should pay for dinner on a first date? Back when I was living mostly in the land of 50/50 love, what author David Deida called Stage 2 Intimacy, I wanted my romantic dates to at least pretend they were willing to foot half the dinner bill. Especially on

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The 3 Stages of Love (Where Are You?)

♦◊♦ I’m a huge fan of disillusionment. Having an illusion ripped away from us can be profoundly liberating. Dorothy had to discover the Wizard of Oz was just a conman before she could discover she already had the power to get herself home. When it comes to love, disillusionment is essential, if also profoundly painful.

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Why Every Couple Should Break-Up

♦◊♦ I recently experienced the most beautiful breakup. It happened inside a tiny bathroom in a rental cabin my girlfriend (now ex) and I were staying in near Tahoe, California. Well into a severe drought, this normally thriving winter playground had little snow. Which could be a metaphor for our relationship, because it had stopped

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Why Great Sex Is Never Enough

♦◊♦ Have you ever been in a relationship where the sex was amazing, but most everything else sucked? You know … as long as you were physically stuck together, everything was great. Meanwhile outside the bedroom you couldn’t agree on much (unless it was to have sex outside the bedroom). I broiled in the fire

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The Value of Disconnecting From Phones (And Sex)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LuVsf_hE7gM Last week I discovered this funny new Super Bowl commercial in which Planet Earth unravels like a glitchy video game: gravity reverses, there’s a blizzard in Africa and a tsunami in Paris, a tree spontaneously combusts, priests loot an electronic store and dogs start walking people (don’t dogs do that now?). The big reveal

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How To Get Anyone To Fall In Love With You

♦◊♦ Once when I was in college … … a close male friend and I were surveying a group of attractive young women at a party when he leaned towards me and quietly whispered with an unforgettable air of smug confidence, “Bryan, don’t you feel sometimes like you could make any woman in the world

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The Third Truth to Beat Jealousy

Recently, I started dating an incredible woman who attracts men to her like bees to a sunlit sunflower. She is an absolute light in this world, radiant from the inside and gorgeous all over the outside. She’s kind to strangers and shares her sunshine smile freely. I’d be dumb as a lap dog if I

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