Do You Want A More Fulfilling Marriage & Lifelong Love Affair?
Wouldn’t you like to know — quickly, easily and succinctly — what the very best of science tells us about how to have amazing, life-changing relationships, intimacy and sex?
Loving Completely is your guide.
In Dr. Keith Witt’s new book, Loving Completely: A Five Star Practice for Creating Great Relationships, we explore the five most critical strategies to make your relationships as healthy and fulfilling as possible, and discover new depths of connection, intimacy, and attraction.
Learn How to Love More Completely
Loving Completely is an absolutely essential addition to your integral library. Get your copy today!
Order now!“Why is it that 40 percent of U.S. adults report chronic loneliness and over 60 percent of self-reported lonely people are married and live with a spouse? Why is it that 37 percent of U.S. adults answered, ‘Yes,’ to ‘Has marriage not worked out for most people you know?’
The answer is that satisfying modern relationships are complicated and demanding in ways that are regularly difficult to understand and deal with.
That’s why this is a different kind of relationship book. Not only do I explain why we know so much about intimacy and still have to struggle so hard to be consistently fulfilled, but I’ll tell you what to do about it when the inevitable problems arise.” —Dr. Keith Witt
This is a different kind of relationship book. Acclaimed relationship therapist Dr. Keith Witt presents five key questions that serve as a baseline for understanding why we know so much about intimacy, yet still have to struggle so hard to be consistently fulfilled.
In an intriguing, conversational journey based on real-life experiences of his own life and the many couples he has successfully counseled, he offers clarity and exercises for dealing with the inevitable problems arise in all the common areas such as, sex, choosing superior partners, self-care, communication, dealing with crises, parenting, managing finances with another person, balancing personal passions and purpose with the demands of intimacy, and spirituality.
Learn How to Love More Completely
Loving Completely is an absolutely essential addition to your integral library. Get your copy today!
Order now!Previous Episodes of Witt & Wisdom
Mastery, Collaboration, and Finding Your Unique Healing Style
What Makes Us Happy? Growing Toward Anti-Fragility
How Self-Hatred Can Lead to Self Transformation
About Keith Witt
Dr. Keith Witt is a Licensed Psychologist, teacher, and author who has lived and worked in Santa Barbara, CA. for over forty years. Dr. Witt is also the founder of The School of Love.
About Corey deVos
Corey W. deVos is Editor-in-Chief of Integral Life, as well as Managing Editor of KenWilber.com. He has worked for Integral Institute/Integal Life since Spring of 2003, and has been a student of integral theory and practice since 1996. Corey is also a professional woodworker, and many of his artworks can be found in his VisionLogix art gallery.
I’m 13 minutes into Witt’s video on loving completely and, no doubt, he offers good advice. And while it’s understood that the five star questions need to be thought out with care and undivided attention, who is going to do it and live up to them? We have self help books up to our eye balls and women are the ones most likely to read them but the question arises, are they proactive in the advice given in these books? If so, to what degree and for Christ sake, where are they?
As much as I hate to admit it, but I’ve been an involuntary celibate for 12 years. Why? Because it’s impossible to find women who are genuinely interested in cultivating a healthy relationship. Even the highly educated are as emotionally illiterate and even stupid as the common man on the street when it comes to gaining a greater understanding of love. You would think that reading the many personal profiles from women at midlife, they would have gained greater maturity from life and especially from their previous amorous relationships. Unfortunately, what they have to say is utterly demoralizing to read. It’s rare to find a woman who can say she’s emotionally matured from her past by making its presence felt in her profile. It seems as if it’s asking too much of women- and even men- to take their emotional lives seriously by picking up a book like Witt’s. Or how about the many videos on youtube from eminent psychologist Dr. Esther Perel, who is truly exceptional in revealing the deep seated problems that arises in relationships. Or how about Alain De Bottom’s brilliant talk at the Sidney Opera house on Romanticism where he reveals the many ways in which the narratives of love that we were born into are actually harmful. I listened to Alain’s talk 4 times because all that he said resonated with my own experience and he confirmed that we can’t go on like this because it’s making us dumb and stupid and what’s worse is that far too many people are still under the spell of romantic love spoon fed into us by the novel and film industry. People die, kill, and get depressed for love. How can that possibly be love? But the masses think of it as normal. Unlike them, I woke up from this spell and I never thought it would be a lonely place since women don’t understand me. In addition, it seems that most people are not interested in learning to love better despite continued suffering from ignorance and lack of self awareness. That I would find a woman who has at least a modicum of interest in what Witt has to say, would be tantamount to winning the lottery.
By actually believing this, you put yourself in a very passive role. You can’t do anything about it because you think the problem is completely external. So you are basically a helpless victim that is fully dependent on other people to „fix“ this issue. Now, if you continue to believe this story that you have telling yourself for probably a long time, very likely nothing will change.
So instead, you could change your statement as follows:
With this small change you put yourself back in an active role which is the first step in the right direction…
I’ve made a game out of this. I love to watch shows and movies and then spot the unhealthy behaviors, lines, and underlying beliefs at play which create an interesting story. I think one of the best indicators of a truly good story (and good writing) is once the unhealthy beliefs are exposed there’s still an interesting story to tell. This is very rare, as so many writers rely on dysfunctional relationships to drive the story.
I really enjoyed One Mississippi, which shows characters with unhealthy beliefs and conditioning that limits their perspective and behaviors, but which also shows those characters growing out of those limitations.
Have you heard of polyamory? Some (but definitely not all) of those folks no longer prescribe to traditional romantic notions of love, and have grown to be able to maintain multiple healthy intimate relationships. There are a lot of folks who can’t manage a single healthy relationship yet (often using polyamory as a crutch), too, but they are usually pretty easy to differentiate after a little bit of conversation about relationships. I see it as a way of identifying and acknowledging that healthy relationship is when autonomous persons come together in interrelationship that benefits all parties, whereas traditional notions of romantic love usually involve dominance/submission roles rather then equally shared power.
I think this approach is an awesome way to grow and build healthier relationship skills, without needing an intimate relationship to practice on. As I’ve learned and become more aware of my unhealthy relationship patterns (mostly from my childhood programming), I’ve been able to reform some of my family relationships and help my family members grow past their original childhood programming. I’ve felt more satisfied with and grateful for these relationships as well.
It’s true, LaWanna. All who replied were very tolerant with me and I appreciate it. In retrospect, what got me riled up was the title of Keith’s book, Loving Completely, because I felt it was too idyllic. Even so, I should have been more considerate as Corey said. I admit too that when I wrote my post, I was not in the best mood. Yes, your comments have been immeasurably helpful to me and so I’ll be around. Thank you.
I think that is a common experience that we think we are alone and nobody to talk to with whom it would be fun. That’s why we organise video chats peer to peer and if you are interested to join, you are welcome. Integral Zoom Meetings