Making Sense of Marriage - NEW course starts in January

REFLECTIONS FROM GORDON ON THE MYSTERY OF COUPLING

GORDON NEUFELD

Editor’s note: These reflections from Gordon are in the context of the upcoming course, Making Sense of Marriage, being offered in January 2023. See Scheduled Online Classes below for details.

We’ve been coupling forever it would seem. Some of us started rather early in life – much earlier than our parents would have liked or even without our parents’ knowledge. Despite how common the phenomenon and how universal the drive, there still seems to be a vast cloud of confusion surrounding it. Coupling can be a source of unbearable suffering or significant fulfillment or both. Coupling can cripple or transform, suffocate or emancipate, isolate or liberate. Coupling can bring out the best in us or the worst in us. The exclusiveness in coupling can be a source of security or set the stage for deep insecurities and wounding. Coupling affects us profoundly in one way or another, whether in or out, whether young or old, whether fulfilled or unfulfilled, whether invited or resisted, whether intact or coming apart, whether facing life or facing death. Couples can generate an abundance of caring that can nurture many others, or actually drain the care of those around them.

No wonder that we are preoccupied with coupling. The vagaries of coupling have long been the primary inspiration for art – whether in the form of stories or song, drama or dancing. When it comes to science however, it still stutters when it tries to study love.

So how can we make sense of coupling?... CLICK HERE TO READ THE REST OF GORDON'S REFLECTIONS

NEW EDITORIAL

COMING ALONGSIDE

OUR ADOLESCENTS

BY CELENA KRAHN

Oh my … how a heart can stretch when it gets to love something. When it really, excruciatingly loves, in a nonsensical, absolutely unreasonable kind of way. There are other ways to find it of course, but our children are especially magical at evoking this particular breed of love. It’s the kind that is needed to survive the previously unimaginable, unendurable combination of a screaming babe and endless sleepless nights, and the wild contrary toddler stage, and the first time that you look at your little kid (now not quite so small) and realize that you can’t solve all of his problems anymore.

And when he starts nearing adolescence, and you’ve made it through all of the skinned knees and the heartbreaks of losing a pet, or a friend, and he starts to talk with you about his ideas, or the way he saw this situation or that flower, and you take a deep breath and sigh and think, we have arrived. And you think, foolishly, because he’s your first child, that this explosion of consciousness will make life so much simpler. Because his dependence is blossoming into independence before your eyes, and that must make things easier, right? It must.

Foolish indeed.

CLICK HERE TO READ THE REST OF CELENA'S EDITORIAL...

Editor’s note: Are you looking for ways to come alongside your adolescent? We’re offering Making Sense of Adolescence Part I: Seven Rites of Passage, as a Scheduled Online Class in January 2023. See below for details.

What's included with a Scheduled Online Class registration?

In addition to a weekly live class with a Neufeld faculty member, you receive a 4-month study pass (or 8 months for Intensive courses) to our Virtual Campus featuring Dr. Neufeld's video material, discussion forums, study guides, supplementary resources, and much more. Participants view Dr. Neufeld's recorded presentations prior to the scheduled support session with a faculty member.

Class recordings

Not able to attend the live class due to a scheduling conflict? No problem! Classes are recorded so you can catch up later in the week when it works best for you.