wisewords Gay Hendricks on
Nurturing Love in Midlife
Why Growing Up Can Mean Loving Better by S. Alison Chabonais
G
ay Hendricks and his wife, Kathlyn, have
discovered through working on their own relationship and coun- seling hundreds of other couples that the time from midlife onward of- fers the greatest oppor- tunity of any other pe- riod to grow love. At a mutual low point, they made the life-changing decision to rebirth their marriage, tapping into a new source of energy and rejuvenation that’s producing extensive and surprising benefits. The Ojai, California-based couple,
they founded annu- ally offers workshops and seminars in North America, Europe and Asia. Their nonprofit Foundation for Con- scious Living funds research, films and scholarships related to relationship well-being.
Gay Hendricks and his wife, Kathlyn
Why do you say the best relation- ships are possible in the second half of life, including the greatest sex?
both with Ph.D. degrees, co-authored their first trailblazing bestseller, Con- scious Loving, more than 20 years ago and have published 30 other books, including their latest, Conscious Loving Ever After. The Hendricks Institute that
Childrearing responsibilities often decrease in our 40s and 50s, affording more time and resources to invest in the quality of the relationship. Psy- chological and spiritual maturity also comes into play—the more deeply we know ourselves, the more able we are to communicate meaningfully with our partner.
Probably the biggest factor is that people in the second half of life tend to be open to learning and trying new things, such as adopting our practice of scheduling two, 10-minute conversa- tions a week to take care of relationship business: one covers “stuff talk”, the other is “heart talk”. Often, it only takes a few minutes of trying out a brand- new activity to spark a major rebirth of intimacy.
How pivotal is self-love, a tough concept for many, in se- curing a healthy relationship? You can only love another person to the extent that you love yourself. After we take people through a process de- signed to give them a clear experience of loving themselves unconditionally, they often tell us that the experience changed everything in their relation- ship. It’s powerful because so many of us enter a relationship in an attempt to get the other person to love some part of ourselves that we don’t know how to love, which never works. Learning to love ourselves is an inside job.
What would you say is the biggest challenge for midlife couples in a long- term relationship? It’s vital to get out of the rut of recycling conflicts and predictable routines in or- der to liberate a new creativity. Creativ- ity doesn’t have to be complicated or expensive. It might be a matter of giving a new way to communicate a whirl or taking a walk together instead of watching TV. Ultimately, relationships only thrive when both people make
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NaturalAwakeningsMag.com
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