Issue 1: February 2006

Welcome to the first edition of our Imago monthly e-newsletter, designed to keep your relationship in tune!

Each issue will feature an Imago therapist talking about the work, profile a couple talking about their relationship journey, and give you a relationTip.

We're glad you have taken this step to stay connected with us. We would love to hear from you about what we can do to help support your relationship, or to connect you with follow-up groups for workshop attendees. And please do send us your relationship stories to Linda@imagorelationships.org.

Watch Harville and Helen
short video of our co-founders describing Imago

Hear Alanis Morissette
when her relationship works, her whole life works

What Is Love?

Harville Hendrix PhD, and Helen LaKelly Hunt, PhD are partners in life who co-created Imago

For Harville and Helen, Love is a verb, and its practice can help us create a better world.

Love, in Imago, is a verb, not a noun.  It is created or destroyed minute by minute by our actions.  Love is an act that is accompanied by a feeling, but it is not a feeling itself.  Love is the behavioral commitment to another's physical, emotional, mental and spiritual potential and welfare that is equal to if not greater than the same commitment to oneself. Love is free from negative judgement; it is the full acceptance of another as they are, not as one wishes them to be.  Love accepts and honors difference. It is the hyphen between the I and the Thou.

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Imago Helps Rekindle First Love's Flame

Years after high-school, Darrell pops the question

Nevin Valentine and Darrell Holdaway
Presidents, Imago Couples International
www.imagocouples.org

Darrell and I were high school sweethearts. The passion of first love was strong, and equally powerful was our penchant for pushing each other's buttons. My diary from those days is filled with accounts of hurt feelings and break-ups. Eventually, we drifted apart, without a clear understanding of why.

After three decades, we reunited. It was like coming home. Determined to create a relationship with a happy ending, we attended a "Getting the Love You Want" workshop in Truckee, California led by Imago therapist Rolf Godon and his partner Tanzy Maxfield. That weekend Darrell was able to imagine me as a wounded child, and I was able to see how much I project my childhood difficulties on him. Darrell's highs and lows brought out my fears of moodiness which I experienced as a child. Learning and practicing the Imago Dialogue became the key to overcoming this frustrating dynamic.

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RelationTip

Love is Friendship on Fire!

February is the month some of us traditionally celebrate our LOVE. This Valentine's Week, how about re-committing to your ideals of Love? Resolve to surprise your partner with at least two caring behaviors a week -- "random special deliveries" as Harville Hendrix would say. Discover from your partner what would feel caring to them, and make every week a Valentine's Week by gifting them.

Love is friendship on fire!

Invite your friends to share their relationship stories with us, and watch for our next Monthly Newsletter, coming March 14, 2006