No Compromise Couples Therapy
Don't Compromise
No Compromise Couples Therapy
No compromise is not about splitting the difference. It is about maintaining your personal integrity while in relation with others.
Compromise may be the least creative approach for resolving conflict. Each person sacrifices something and is left a little unhappy for the sake of “meeting in the middle.”
If dilemmas are instead approached with curiosity and design mindset, it might be possible to meet seemingly contradictory needs without collapsing into a compromise.
Through mutual understanding there is a way for parties to get needs met in a way that is new, creative, where generative solutions outside of compromise can emerge.
A poem about love and attention
Love is uncompromising attention.
It reaches into the self and out towards the other in the same breath.
Uncompromised by the need to be good, do good.
Uncompromised by expectation.
Uncompromised by fear.
Uncompromised by the wish to be clever.
Uncompromised by the right answer.
Not the right answer, but attention…
Attention
A tension
A stretch towards
A stretch in
Intention
In tension
In care
Love is the gaze that stretches to see all of you.
It doesn’t compromise an inch.
It holds all of your tensions, habits, movements, sounds.
Attention to your voice and how you sound sad even though you said, “happy Tuesday!”
Attention to how I feel when I’m with you, noticing a rage even though we’re calm.
Attention to what topics make you come alive and which ones check you out.
Attention to your stream of consciousness and what emotions beget the next thought, beget the next feeling, beget the next gesture.
Attention to the dance of all of you.
Attention to what’s next!
Some words on love
Interviewer: “So does Eartha fall in love with herself?”
Eartha: “If you want to think about it in terms of analyzing it, yes, I fall in love with myself, and I want someone to share it with me. I want someone to share me with me.”
Eartha Kitt – No Compromise
Hillman: “Just start talking with anyone from the soul, about the soul, about your fear of dying, about a heartbreaking memory, about your funny estrangements, isolation, and right away, love starts happening.”
James Hillman – Love isn’t Personal
Interviewer: “Do you indulge in any form of worship?”
Bowie: “Uh, life. I love life very much indeed.”
David Bowie Interview 1973
I know a woman who keeps buying puzzles chinese puzzles blocks wires pieces that finally fit into some order. she works it out mathmatically she solves all her puzzles lives down by the sea puts sugar out for the ants and believes ultimately in a better world. her hair is white she seldom combs it her teeth are snaggled and she wears loose shapeless coveralls over a body most women would wish they had. for many years she irritated me with what I considered her eccentricities- like soaking eggshells in water to feed the plants so that they'd get calcium but finally when I think of her life and compare it to other lives more dazzling, original and beautiful I realize that she has hurt fewer people than anybody I know and by hurt I simply mean hurt. she has had some terrible times, times when maybe I should have helped her more for she is the mother of my only child and we were once great lovers, but she has come through like I said she has hurt fewer people than anybody I know, and if you look at it like that, well, she has created a better world. she has won. Frances, this poem is for you.
Poem from Love is a Dog from Hell by Charles Bukowski