It's been almost two years since my partner and I spent several days staying at Sky Meadow and working with Miles. It's easy to see now that those days, which came after 20 years of marriage, constituted a turning point in our relationship. The peacefulness and beauty of Sky Meadow was mirrored in the remarkable space of openness and safety Miles offered us. With firm persistence, and yet extraordinary gentleness, he guided us to face our greatest difficulties as a couple, and press through the darkness towards love, clear boundaries and strong connection.

         Miles’ work is entirely principle-based, and he makes those principles transparent, which places the power in the hands of his clients. He is thus a teacher as well as a counselor, and as such he models compassion, honesty and courage. We left Sky Meadow having not only attained a new intimacy in our relationship, but with concrete and valuable tools to help us remain there.   (or, I should say, to keep finding it anew).
                                           Amnon Buchbinder, Associate Professor, York University, Toronto

                                       ----------------------------------------------------

           Miles, you touch so many people with your compassion, so I don't know if you are aware of how much you impacted our lives,with those few sessions back in September.  After years of my own personal journey through therapy and of running around in a restless attempt to find emotional stability, I came to Sky Meadow to simply find some quiet time, away from my hectic life in NYC. Honestly, I thought that talking with you would be just a way to show that I was giving a chance to our relationship, at that point still so shaken from the burden of our recent divorces. I thought that those sessions would be beneficial mainly to my partner, as I thought he was too confused to sort things out on his own...
           I came wounded and armed like the warrior I thought I was supposed to be... and I left for the first time in my life embracing my own vulnerability, open to jump back in our relationship that I described to you as a "beautiful pond that I know full of sharks", only because you helped me realize that all ponds are full of them, but the power of swimming and enjoying the beauty of them without getting too hurt is entirely on me..
           You helped us finding strength and clarity for our individual journeys as well as a couple... You created such a safe space for sharing our pain and fears, allowing us to really listen to each other and for the first time really look at each other with compassion... It's hard to know what would have happened if we didn't meet you.. but I know for a fact that those few days at Sky Meadow had been a turning point for us, to the extent that we are now able to truly put that dark time behind, no matter how often the memory of it keeps coming back, and we finally feel brave enough to commit to a long journey together...

                                                    Laura Lo Forti  -  Journalist  -  New York City

                            Conscious Coupling
                                                                                              By    Miles Sherts                

Primary partnerships often come apart because of power struggles and the intense emotions that surface when we become intimate with another person.   The traditional social roles and expectations that kept these deeper feelings and needs from arising, and kept couples together in the past, are crumbling in this time of changing values and beliefs.  And many of us are left feeling lost and helpless to maintain stability in our relationships, because we have out grown the old model of traditional family structure, and have not found a new way to be together.

               Being in a couple can seem impossibly difficult in these times, and often has painful consequences, because most of us don’t know how to proceed.  We are in new territory when it comes to primary relationships, and there are not many reliable maps to follow. This is also a time of great opportunity, as we are being challenged to become more conscious of how relationships work, and to create a whole new model for partnership.   A key to finding our way is having a clear understanding of the purpose of an intimate relationship, and learning skills that serve that end.

            Marriage and family has largely been an unconscious habit, following the pattern set by our parents generation.   Most of us were never encouraged to have an intention for marriage beyond the comfort of intimacy and the stability and continuity of family and society.  And we were not taught any skills for coupling, or even given the idea that skills were necessary.   Now that the familiar patterns are collapsing, we are being challenged to make the process of coupling more conscious, and pay attention to how it works.  

The Intention of Partnership

          Most of us seek a primary partner because we feel alone, and long for intimacy and companionship.  At first, romantic relationships fill us with a euphoric sense of fulfillment, because our lives are joined with another person.  Yet this feeling is temporary, and usually wears off, as we spend more time together and try to get our basic needs met.  The sense of connection that once seemed to soothe our deepest fears, can turn into a struggle to be recognized for who we are, and to maintain our individual identity in the face of another person who can appear to threaten our very being.   And we are often left confused or frightened about where the unconditional love and acceptance went, and who our partner really is.
 
       Romantic partnerships inevitably bring to the surface any hidden negativity or emotional wounds that we have been avoiding in our life.  This is the most predictable aspect of this kind of relationship.  The closer we get to another person, the less we are able to hide.  The safer we feel with another person, the more we expose parts of our self that we do not like, and have been trying to deny.   This often looks like yelling, talking negatively about our partner, or hurting them in ways that shock both of us.

         Being exposed is usually experienced as frightening or painful, and we often go to great lengths to avoid it.  When it happens in a relationship, we frequently blame it on our partner, because it looks like they are the cause of our discomfort.  Finding fault in them  means we do not have to look at our self honestly, and our wounds can remain hidden in our subconscious.  Unfortunately this means we cannot heal these wounds or grow beyond them.  And so, we remain stuck in old unconscious habits, which often are the real cause of our unhappiness.

        Coupling provides an opportunity for us to recognize where we are most sensitive, and bring these hurt places we carry within us out into the open.   Intimate relationships serve this intention well because the surfacing of intense emotions occurs so frequently.  When there is conflict in a relationship it means there are uncomfortable emotions rising to the surface.  The closer we feel to someone, the more they tend to trigger these strong feelings in us.  In this light, a good relationship is one where we stimulate each other’s wounds, and these hidden emotional charges are allowed out in the open, often for the first time in our adult life.

            Yet, for many of us, this is the point where things become difficult and the relationship turns negative.  We simply have no preparation for dealing with the amount of negativity that can arise from ourselves or our partner.  Often the only response we know to conflict is to blame the other person, and either attack them, or withdraw. And, when we follow this pattern, it is easy for a relationship to become stuck in a destructive struggle, and never find its way out.  

Learning How to be Happy

Many of us believe that our happiness depends on something outside of our self. We tend to expect other people, especially our primary partner, to meet many of our basic needs.  And, when they do not, we often feel hurt, angry, and resentful, and try to manipulate them.  Unfortunately, this common strategy for getting what we want usually makes the situation worse.  Attacking our partner, or withdrawing from them, creates tension and distance between us, and quickly destroys the sense of safety and intimacy that was the foundation of the relationship.

          When a partnership becomes stuck in attempts to defer responsibility for our well being to the other person, the situation can feel hopeless, negative, and unsafe.  Conscious coupling begins with creating a new base of safety and sanity within the relationship by separating our individual emotions and needs.  Each partner is supported in taking responsibility for their own reactions, discovering their own needs, and using the self awareness that arises in the relationship to begin to change habits that are making them unhappy.

            Basic skills are introduced that allow you to hear your partners’ emotions, and better understand their needs, without taking responsibility for them.   You also learn how to express our own feelings and needs without blaming or attacking your partner.  And you learn how to assume responsibility for your own emotions and address your own needs more effectively.  This often involves asking your partner for help, with clear requests that are not demands or expectations.  

If we challenge the assumption that other people are responsible for our happiness, we can begin to take control of our own well being.  The most difficult part of this process is simply taking the focus off the other person, and becoming aware of what is happening inside of our self.  Once we are willing to be aware of our own emotions, and learn how they reveal our basic needs, we can begin to better take care of our self.  

Relieving our Old Hurts

            This process starts with gently transforming our intention for intimacy, from simply comfort and safety, to the desire to become aware of those negative parts of our self we have been hiding.   Instead of focusing on the psychology or family history behind each negative pattern or reaction, this work allows the emotions associated with old wounds to simply arise within a container of safety and acceptance. 

In this work, we acknowledge the emotion, the event that triggered it, and the underlying need that it may be signaling within us, without judgment or blame, and often without the need for detailed understanding or explanation.  Once an unconscious emotion or wound is brought into our awareness, it usually begins to release and heal automatically, and can no longer cripple us, or damage our relationships, as it has in the past.

        Ironically, it is our insistence on keeping these negative shadows hidden within us, for fear of exposing them to other peoples’ judgment, that gives them their power to hurt us.   We mistakenly believe that if we expose them we will be rejected, and that hiding them is the only way we have to safely deal with them.  In reality, hiding our emotional charges increases them, and they inevitably come out indirectly in ways that are often destructive.  It is only by becoming aware of them our self, and being willing to expose them in a non-blaming way to our partner, that we allow our old wounds to be healed, and become free of them and their negative effects on our life.

Conscious coupling is about learning to accept and validate your own emotions, and those of your partner, and creatively explore the basic needs underneath them that are not being met.  You will find that the emotions release themselves once you accept them as yours.  When you relax instead of tighten around a difficult feeling, it simply passes, and reveals a natural joy and happiness inside of you.  And, as you learn how to do this for yourself, you also learn how to support your partner in doing this for themselves.  

      This couples work can offer you an experience of the release that occurs, and the relief and joy that is felt, when these old buried wounds are brought into awareness and healed.   Once this new pattern and new skills become familiar, the relationship has less opportunity to fall into the downward spiral of negativity, accompanied by blame and struggles for recognition from your partner.  Then there is a chance to help each other become more complete and happy, and thereby strengthen the love and intimacy between you.   Your relationship naturally grows closer as you learn to stop being adversaries unconsciously re-wounding each other, and become allies for each others well being instead.