In Conversation With Don Rosenthal, Part III

by Wanda Waterman
The Voice Magazine, Volume 22 Issue 24 2014-06-13

“The primary cause of unhappiness is not the situation, but your thoughts about it. Be aware of the thoughts you are thinking. Separate them from the situation, which is always neutral, which always is as it is.”
– Eckhart Tolle

“We move through the day with our mind almost continually occupied … While we are thus preoccupied with our thoughts, we are living like a person in a dream: walking through life in an unconscious and mechanical state. Within this dream, we create conflict in our mind, in our home, and in the world.”
– Don Rosenthal in Learning to Love

Don and Marthaare couples therapists and also the authors of a number of books for couples, including the enlightening Learning to Love a marriage manual informed by their own experiences as a couple as well as by their in-depth knowledge of psychology and spirituality.
(You can read the first part of this article here and the second part here.)

What is Mindfulness and How Can it Heal a Hurting Marriage?
I see mindfulness as a state of being present, conscious, aware, and attentive to the full spectrum of life in this moment. Judgment, closing the heart, and even ordinary thought get in the way of the pure sense of being aware of my total consciousness in this moment. I think mindfulness is needed to see clearly enough to gain perspective on my unconscious and heavily conditioned habits of thinking and acting. (Read the rest here.)