by Wanda Waterman

The Voice Magazine, Volume 22 Issue 23 2014-06-06

“To open the closed heart one first focuses on oneself: releasing feelings of unworthiness, accepting that the heart is closed, putting space around judgments, and seeing oneself clearly and honestly.”
– Don Rosenthal in Learning to Love

Don and Martha Rosenthal are the authors of a number of books for couples, including Learning to Love, a marriage manual informed by their own experiences as a couple as well as their copious knowledge of psychology and spirituality.

Don and Martha counsel couples in private practice and conduct weekend retreats in which they encourage couples to explore the roots of any personal pain that might be creating conflict in their relationships. They teach effective means of self-examination and communication methods to resolve problems that could lead to breakup. They also teach partners how to be mindfully present to each other even when the message is hard to hear.

Recently Don Rosenthal took the time to answer Wanda Waterman’s questions about intimate relationships as a spiritual journey.
(You can read the first part of this article [L]here|http://www.voicemagazine.org/articles/columndisplay.php?ART=9700.)

What is Openhearted Listening? (continued)
This isn’t just some psychological tool I’m fond of. It represents what I feel is an indispensable need in a real intimacy: to be able to hear and understand each other’s emotional reality around things we do that may be unconscious or unskillful. Finally, to let in my partner’s feedback about my behaviour without justifying myself, denying, or attacking them back gives me a far richer vision of how I am contributing to whatever is happening between us. (Read the rest here.)