Hanging on to yourself

Picked up a book on my shelf that I hadn’t read in awhile.  An incredible primer on re-connecting sexually with your partner. A must read for anyone working with couples, and individuals wanting to re-connect between the sheets.  It’s called Resurrecting Sex, by Dr. David Schnarch. Here’s his site. I once did a seminar with the esteemed Dr. David Schnarch, the marriage therapist guru from Evergreen, Colorado, and author.  He was in Ottawa for a Planned Parenthood workshop, and I spent a few days training with him back in the early 90’s. I role played in a "fake marriage" for hours, and really got what he called "hanging onto yourself" and quieting yourself down during times of anxiety and anger in your marriage. He says that "the difference between an adult and a child is that the adult accepts that the only real choice in life is between productive anxieties and useless ones." He claims that by "holding onto yourself in the face of your anxiety, you actively create the world you want to live in."

As I work daily in my own marriage and a try and help some people through the pain of their’s I thought I would reflect a little on what hanging onto yourself -while everything else quiets down – may be just what the Dr. Schnarch ordered.  Pick it up if you are struggling – it makes sense.