Terry Real: Standing Up to One Another with Love

    —
August 29, 2018

Terry Real: Standing Up to One Another with Love

Terry Real August 29, 2018

Terry Real is a family therapist, public speaker, and the founder of the Relational Life Institute. Terry’s written works include I Don’t Want to Talk About It, How Can I Get Through to You?, and The New Rules of Marriage. With Sounds True, he has created the audio program Fierce Intimacy: Standing Up to One Another with Love. In this episode of Insights at the Edge, Tami Simon speaks with Terry about his somewhat unusual, do-or-divorce approach to couples therapy. They talk about deal breakers in relationships and why they don’t necessarily need to end a partnership. Terry explains what it means to hold a “core negative image” of a partner, why this is all too common, and why recognition of that core image can actually strengthen a relationship. Finally, Terry and Tami discuss what “fierce intimacy” truly entails and why canny relationship skills are the very same qualities that will help the human race rise to meet the challenges of the future. (64 minutes)

TERRY REAL is an internationally recognized family therapist, speaker, and author. He founded the Relational Life Institute (RLI), offering workshops for couples, individuals, and parents around the country along with a professional training program for clinicians wanting to learn his RLT (Relational Life Therapy) methodology. A family therapist and teacher for more than 25 years, Terry is the bestselling author of I Don’t Want to Talk About It: Overcoming the Secret Legacy of Male Depression, the straight-talking How Can I Get Through to You? Reconnecting Men and Women, and The New Rules of Marriage: What You Need to Make Love Work.
 
A senior faculty member of the Family Institute of Cambridge in Massachusetts and a retired clinical fellow of the Meadows Institute in Arizona, Terry has worked with thousands of individuals, couples, and fellow therapists. Through his books, the Institute, and workshops around the country, Terry helps women and men, parents and non-parents to help create the connection they desire in their relationships. His ideas on men’s issues and on couple’s therapy have been celebrated in many venues, including Good Morning America, The Today Show, 20/20, Oprah, and the New York Times. For more, visit terryreal.com.

Author photo © Hans Robertson

600 Podcasts and Counting…

Subscribe to Insights at the Edge to hear all of Tami’s interviews (transcripts available too!), featuring Eckhart Tolle, Caroline Myss, Tara Brach, Jack Kornfield, Adyashanti, and many more.

Meet Your Host: Tami Simon

Founded Sounds True in 1985 as a multimedia publishing house with a mission to disseminate spiritual wisdom. She hosts a popular weekly podcast called Insights at the Edge, where she has interviewed many of today's leading teachers. Tami lives with her wife, Julie M. Kramer, and their two spoodles, Rasberry and Bula, in Boulder, Colorado.

Photo © Jason Elias

Also By Author

Soft Power: Moving from You and Me to Us

In this podcast, Sounds True founder Tami Simon speaks with “the relationship turnaround guy” and bestselling author Terry Real about: the origins of his two-day relationship intervention; the groundbreaking—and rule-breaking—approach of Relational Life Therapy; dealing with shame and grandiosity, and the contempt underlying both; the skill of “joining through the truth”; what healthy self-esteem looks like; why “there’s nothing that harshness does that loving firmness doesn’t do better”; speaking to and from the mature, wise adult instead of the adaptive, wounded child; relational mindfulness; recognizing your tendency toward “fight, flight, freeze, or fix”; our toxic culture of individualism and the shift to “soft power”; why an invitation works a lot better than a complaint; the essential rhythm of relationships: harmony, rupture, and repair; honoring the ecological system of your relationship while having your individual needs met; and more.

Fierce Intimacy

Terry Real is a family therapist, author, and founder of the Relational Life Institute, which hosts workshops on family and relationships throughout the country. He has written several books, including The New Rules of Marriage: What You Need to Know to Make Love Work. With Sounds True, he is the creator of Fierce Intimacy, an audio training in essential communication skills for couples. In this episode of Insights at the Edge, Tami Simon talks to Terry about the inherent challenges of being in relationship and the many approaches to addressing those challenges in couples therapy. Terry discusses how men and women relate to one another in different ways, as well as the steps necessary when couples are badly out of sync. Finally, Terry and Tami speak on the Relational Life approach to therapy and the skills we need to develop in order to take our interpersonal relationships up to “full throttle.”

Terry Real: Standing Up to One Another with Love

Terry Real is a family therapist, public speaker, and the founder of the Relational Life Institute. Terry’s written works include I Don’t Want to Talk About It, How Can I Get Through to You?, and The New Rules of Marriage. With Sounds True, he has created the audio program Fierce Intimacy: Standing Up to One Another with Love. In this episode of Insights at the Edge, Tami Simon speaks with Terry about his somewhat unusual, do-or-divorce approach to couples therapy. They talk about deal breakers in relationships and why they don’t necessarily need to end a partnership. Terry explains what it means to hold a “core negative image” of a partner, why this is all too common, and why recognition of that core image can actually strengthen a relationship. Finally, Terry and Tami discuss what “fierce intimacy” truly entails and why canny relationship skills are the very same qualities that will help the human race rise to meet the challenges of the future. (64 minutes)

You Might Also Enjoy

Elaine Gibson: Learning from Family Systems Theory

How do you view your family of origin? Our family dynamics have a tremendous influence on how we feel about ourselves, show up in the world, and relate to others. When these dynamics are subconscious, we remain bound and encumbered by them. But when we bring them to the surface, we can engage our power to change and grow. 

In this thought-provoking podcast, Tami Simon speaks with marriage and family therapist Elaine Carney Gibson about her new book, Your Family Revealed: A Guide to Decoding the Patterns, Stories, and Belief Systems in Your Family. They discuss family systems that serve each individual, making sacrifices versus being sacrificial, the metaphor of the labyrinth, healing emotional wounds, what a healthy functioning hierarchy looks like, the advice “wear beige and be quiet,” setting and maintaining clear boundaries, using disagreements as a tool for growth and connection, the parentified child, the phenomenon of triangulation in relationships, intergenerational trauma, the future of family therapy, and more.

Liz Goldwyn: Sex, Health, and Consciousness

Our sexuality is an integral part of who we are, yet our understanding of sex has been warped by everything from age-old taboos and religious dogma to a popular culture that views sexuality as transactional. In this “edgier” episode of Insights at the Edge, Tami Simon speaks with Liz Goldwyn about her new book, Sex, Health, and Consciousness, and how we can each reclaim our birthright of pleasure and joy. 

Tune in as they discuss why it’s never too late to experience better sex and more pleasure; the metaphor of the Japanese philosophy of wabi-sabi; a much-needed new vision of sex ed; inquiring into your beliefs about sexuality; how your individual relationship to sexuality is as unique as your fingerprint; bringing discipline, mindfulness, and practice to your sex life; creating a safe and healthy ethos around sex; the concept of aftercare; how bondage can become a healing tool; using sex to fill a void in your life; developing porn literacy; Orgasm Breathing—and a guided practice of its first stage; harnessing our sexual energy; and how the integration of sex, health, and consciousness is critical at this time in our collective lives.

Stretch Your Heart and Say What You Mean

Join Sounds True’s Tami Simon in conversation with author and teacher Oren Jay Sofer, as he shares his innovative method for productive discourse and authentic connection. In “Stretch Your Heart and Say What You Mean,” Tami and Oren explore how contemplative practice is an essential ingredient for healthy conversations and relationships, and vice versa; three foundations for mindful communication; the practice of pausing a conversation; the art of the “do-over”; the power of intention in conversation; curiosity, humility, and kindness; how focusing on what matters transforms reactivity and allows us to speak our truth; the shift from projecting blame to identifying and expressing our needs; the heart of compassion and nonviolence—seeing one another in a deeper way; three layers of needs—physical, relational, and spiritual; freeing our hearts from animosity and hostility, and becoming a force for loving unification; and more.

>
Share via
Copy link
Powered by Social Snap