Falling in love is never a straight line to “happily ever after.” Relationships go through seasons of change, renewal, darkness, and light.

So promises long-time therapist and couple’s coach Linda Carroll in Love Skills: The Key to Unlocking Lasting, Wholehearted Love, which offers specific, effective solutions to the most common struggles that couples face. 

We hope you’ll enjoy this interview with Linda about the book.

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Tell us what you mean when you say in Love Skills that, “Love is an inside job.”   

Many of the troubles we experience in relationships emerge from conflicts to which we ourselves contribute, behaviors we simply tolerate that cause silent resentment to build, and unexamined parts of our own psyches. The health of our intimate connections depends on how we deal with our own lingering demons and on our own motivation to grow and change.

What is the difference between love and loving?

Love is a feeling. Loving is a skill set that depends less on how we feel and more on what we do.

You say that a key message of many of the lessons in Love Skills is that “The wave is not the ocean.” What do you mean by that? 

The times that feel the most perfect or intolerable between you and your partner will pass. There will always be another wave, another change. The ocean is made up of millions of individual waves, and a long-term relationship is made up of millions of moments, seasons, and times that are both delightful and painful. None of it is permanent; there will always be another wave.

The heart of Love Skills comes from the Love Cycles model you shared in your previous book, which explains that relationships develop in predictable stages, each of which presents its own challenges. What are the five stages of lasting love? 

The first stage, fueled by a powerful love potion and marked by brain chemistry changes, causes us to become obsessed with the wonder and delight of our new partner. In this stage, we tend to see only the good, the similarities, and the possibilities.

The seductive power of this stage may also cause us to fall in love with an inappropriate partner. With consciousness and effort, we can choose what to do with our feelings. Do we fan the flames of a potentially dangerous fire, or do we control our passion and turn our attention elsewhere?

If we choose to move with our partner into Stage Two, Doubt and Denial, we wake up from the infatuation and begin to wonder whether this relationship is really the best choice. We find that our feelings of love are becoming more conditional, and power struggles are arising. We wonder whether our partner has changed.

During this stage, the spotlight shines on our beloved’s flaws. We now invest a lot of energy into getting our lover to become the partner we thought they would be. We are forced to give up our dream of perfect, unconditional love in which our partner always sees the best in us, says the right thing, never embarrasses us, and reads our mind so that they can please us in every way possible.

As our disappointment escalates, so do our biological responses to stress; we prepare for war, retreat, or don camouflage. Welcome to the third stage: Disillusionment. As differences continue to emerge, our proclivities to defend and preserve ourselves may grow even stronger; we may believe that we’re always in the right. Alternatively, those of us who cannot bear conflict shut our ears to every dissonant chord and pretend that everything is wonderful — or at least tolerable.

The point is that we choose how to respond. In this stage, it is particularly vital to move from reactivity to rationality. When we are calmly present, we are free to act for the good of the relationship rather than out of fear or neediness.

Of course, because we’re thoroughly human, we won’t always respond to our lover from our highest selves. Then what? Can we apologize, make amends, and take responsibility for how we’ve behaved, despite what our partner has done? We have the power to make that choice.

Let’s say that when we reach the fourth stage — Decision — we part ways. Can we wish our former partner the best? If that’s too hard, can we at least not wish them the worst?

If we remain together, we have the opportunity to learn lessons that will help to make us the best person we can be while also giving our relationship the chance to grow and deepen. This is where we enter the fifth stage: Wholehearted Loving. No longer two halves trying to make a whole, we are two complete people learning about love. Passion, safety, and generosity return to the relationship, along with humor and empathy.

You say that there are three magic words when it comes to communicating with our partner. What are they?

We often equate the expression “three magic words” with “I love you.” But there are three other magic words that can allow you to discover important things about your partner (and others) that you’d never have imagined. Just as important, these words will help your partner to feel deeply cared about and seen — and to want to respond to you in kind. The words are, “Tell me more.”

“Tell me more” is a powerful phrase when backed by a genuine willingness to pay attention to the answers. Listening with true presence — that is, taking in what the other is saying without judging, suggesting, or trying to fix — is a gift that we can offer another person.

You encourage couples to pay attention to four transition times throughout their day. What are they, and why are they important?  

It actually takes very little time to feed and nourish a relationship if we do it consistently. Big trips away and long weekends are great, but research clearly shows that it is steady, consistent, and frequent nurturing that makes a real difference. The four transition times are waking up, parting for the day, coming back together at the day’s end, and going to sleep. If we put three minutes’ worth of connection into each of those times, we can have a huge impact on our relationship. 

What is the main message you hope readers will take away from Love Skills? 

Love is a feeling. We call it “FALLING IN LOVE”; it takes no skills, decisions, or mindfulness. Loving is a skill set, and we can all get better at it. I have spent my lifetime teaching the skills to hundreds — actually, thousands — of students. I have studied with the smartest people I could find to learn them; but, most importantly, I have practiced them in my own life — in my relationships with the people who matter most, especially my partner of 35 years. We can all get better at loving, and Love Skills offers a tried and true roadmap for how to do that.

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Linda Carroll is the author of Love Skills and Love Cycles. While she has worked as a therapist and couple’s coach for over three decades and has acquired numerous certificates and degrees along the way, she says that her own thirty-five-year marriage is the primary source of her knowledge when it comes to the cycles of love. Visit her online at https://lindaacarroll.com/.

1. What is a conscious relationship?

A relationship where both parties understand that the primary purpose of their relationship is to identify, illuminate and transform everything that is NOT love within themselves.  As fear, trauma and unhelpful beliefs are transformed then each individual becomes more complete unto themselves. They are then more able to unconditionally love each other more deeply and purely rather than splashing around in the shallows of the largely accepted co-dependent relationship that is currently the norm in our society.

2. What are the challenges and gifts of conscious relationship?

The key gift is that there is potential to come home to yourself by transcending the ego and evolve from a fragmented egoic personality to a whole, loving being who is at peace with the beauty and pain of this human experience.  Conscious relationship can be a tool for spiritual awakening. The key challenges (especially if you have a history of trauma) are remembering that whatever the other triggers in us is ultimately not about what they have said or done in the moment but what meaning we attach to their words or actions.  The ego always wants to make it about the other but the higher view is that the other has simply activated some old unexpressed emotions that were trapped in the body from a time when one was not able to fully express and feel the emotions. For example when my partner shuts down and refuses to communicate this triggers emotions of fear connected to my mother dying and feeling abandoned when I was an infant. The challenge is to stay with the feeling that has been elicited while knowing that this has nothing to do with the current scenario but rather it is purging an old emotional wound. Instead of blaming the other we thank them and take full responsibility for what we are feeling.

3. Why do you think so many struggle with relationships?

Fundamentally because we are taught very little about the truth of relationships in our society.  It seems that popular romantic movies, songs and books suggest that the purpose of relationship with another is to complete us.  We are always taught to look outside of ourselves for the keys to peace and love and contentment when actually we need to give primacy to our relationship with ourselves.  In this way a ‘successful’ relationship becomes an added bonus to one who is already having a loving relationship with themselves. Also our avoidance and denial of many emotions has a huge detrimental effect on our ability to communicate and relate authentically and vulnerably.

4. What is one of the most important thing to be aware of to have a successful relationship?

That the success of a relationship is not dependent on its longevity but how much each individual learnt, grew, healed and enhanced their relationship with themselves through the course of the relationship with another.

5. What advice would you give to someone who struggles with relationships?

Stop looking externally for another to save you etc.  We can only love another to the extent that we love ourselves.  Work on your relationship to yourself primarily. Learn to look within and heal your own wounds which will invariably have their roots in your childhood and will be associated with your relationship to your mother and father as you were growing up. And schedule a Sacred Masculine Healing session with me and I will cast some light to help you find your way home!!

6. What role do children and being parents play in the challenges and gifts of a conscious relationship?

Well, as a parent a prime motivation for me to learn to love and honour myself is so that I pass this on to my children because our children learn from us through absorption.  I have made a decision not to pass on the ancestral wounding that I inherited on to my sons, as best I can.  Being a parent is the prime motivation for doing our own inner work because we are here for such a short time but we live on through our children and loving parents only want the best for their children.  Everything I do is for my children and all children because I believe that this is how I put love into action and contribute to making a more beautiful world for the generations to come.  Relationships are the foundations of life.  When children are born from loving conscious parents the world will be transformed and there will be heaven on earth.

7. Did you experience any serendipity or synchronicity in writing the book?

When the idea to write the book found me I knew that I did not have a choice.  I could not, not write it!  I knew that the world was ready for such a book and that it would play an important part in humanities journey back to love.  Also, I follow and honour the Celtic seasonal celebrations and began writing on Winter Solstice and many key landmarks in the books birthing coincided with other Celtic celebrations of the seasons.  Also the book was responsible for my twin flame and I reuniting a couple of times after we had parted company and many synchronicities and serendipitous events are recorded in the story.

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You can read an excerpt of Bring Him Home here:
https://www.migueldean.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Bring-Him-Home-Excerpt.pdf

For your paperback or EBook from Amazon-
The U.S. link is:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1945026545/ref=sr_1_fkmrnull_1?keywords=bring+him+
home+miguel+dean&qid=1556842828&s=books&sr=1-1-fkmrnull

The U.K. link is:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1945026545/ref=sr_1_fkmrnull_2?keywords=bring+hi
m+home+miguel+dean&qid=1556843003&s=gateway&sr=8-2-fkmrnull

Author’s website:  https://www.migueldean.net

Or connect on Face Book here:

https://www.facebook.com/migueldeanauthor/?modal=admin_todo_tour

If you are interested in a consolation with the author you can visit:
https://calendly.com/loveinaction/30min

1. How did your work helping victims of tragedies, such as 9/11 and the Columbine and Sandy Hook school shootings, lead you to study how we grapple with aging?

Having worked directly with bereaved individuals, families, and communities on the front lines and in the trenches over the past 40 plus years; having written, lectured, trained, taught Grief Literacy across the US (including the Harvard School of Public Health, Navy Seals Foundation, etc.); and having lost my 21-year-old daughter in an accident while studying abroad, I understand a great deal about loss. Much like healing, healthy aging is affected by the manner and extent to which we grieve the loss of our younger selves. A person who is looking backward at their past lives misses out on their present and future life.

2. Your new book is called “Raising an Aging Parent.” Why did you use the word “raising” rather than “caring for”?

Many adult children become increasingly involved in the support, caregiving, and lifestyle management of their mothers and fathers as they get older. Much as it’s their job to raise rather than diminish their children as they grow up, it’s their job to raise up rather than diminish their parents as they grow older.

3. We usually think of family as what happens in the first half of life with our family of origin. How is that changing dramatically today?

As our population ages, there are equally important changes, challenges, and opportunities that exist in the second half of life. How and whether we address them has a lasting and profound effect on the quality and character of our lives and the lives of our families.

4. Some of us are caring for aging parents while raising a family of our own. What are the biggest challenges facing the “Sandwich Generation”?

Being “squeezed” between caregiving for aging parents and growing children, the biggest challenges are maintaining some semblance of balance in our own lives and preventing burnout. Most SanGens, as I refer to them, have yet to acquire the self-care skills necessary to manage this level of stress. Along with recognizing the dangers of burning the candle at both ends and working ourselves into a state of depletion, we need to acquire the self-care skills to prevent it.

5. You have a “Self-Care Checklist” for those of us who are caring for an aging parent. What is your advice to

Three essentials that need to be on your Self-Care Checklist are:

1. Taking time to come up for air and do things that replenish your energy.

2. Surrounding yourself with support from other caregivers.

3. Communicating in loving, respectful tones with your parents and eliciting their cooperation (to whatever extent this is possible).

6. Your book contains a lot of practical advice for adult sons and daughters caring for aging parents, as well as how to face their first holidays without an aging parent. What do you say to them?

I am so sorry for your loss. Grieving is as natural as bleeding when you’re cut. Allow the sorrow that comes with losing a beloved parent. Give yourself permission to go through a period of mourning. Rising up out of the ashes of a loss of this magnitude will probably take newfound strength, courage, faith, and self-compassion. Be kind, patient, and accepting of your condition.

7. Caring for and coping with the challenges of aging parents brings out a lot of feelings about our own lives. What are some of those feelings, and how should we deal with them?

Watching our parents get older can afford us a sneak preview into the future of our own lives, and force us to face the inevitable. What we do with all this is up to us — whether we live in fear and dread; shrivel up and get smaller; or live in adventure, curiosity, and gratitude, expanding our horizons and making peace.

8. We live in a culture that is obsessed with youth, dreads aging, and avoids discussions of mortality. Do you see that changing and if so how?

Outgrowing our obsession with youth, summoning newfound courage to counter fear and avoidance as we get older, and making peace with our impermanence are tall orders. The opportunities for us, individually and as a society, to become the better version of ourselves and grow spiritually have never been better. And the benefits are limitless.

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Author BIO: Dr. Ken Druck is an international authority on healthy aging and author of the new book “Raising an Aging Parent.” He has spent four decades helping people grow into the more courageous, compassionate, and resilient version of themselves by transforming adversities and losses of every kind into opportunities. Learn more at www.kendruck.com.

What is the Same Moon about and why did you write it?

At its most basic, The Same Moon is a journey toward redemption. While learning a new language and culture in Japan, I learn to accept my own fallibility and to forgive myself for it.

I wrote it to share this story, which I hope brings comfort to others who have struggled, and also to offer a glimpse into the culture of small-town Japan. (The town I lived in had fewer than 7,500 people scattered among several villages.)

The nutshell of the story is this: After marrying young and quickly divorcing at age twenty-four, I ran away from the disappointments and embarrassment of my Minnesota life to teach English in Japan. I had spent a magical summer there as a high school exchange student, and the Japan of my memories had become my “happy place.”

My plan was to spend a quiet year reflecting, healing and figuring out what to do with my wrecked life while enjoying the culture of Japan.

Instead, I was drawn into serving tea to my male coworkers, performing with the local koto (zither) group, advocating for my female students and colleagues, and embarking on a controversial romance with a local salaryman.

It wasn’t the Japan I was seeking, but it turned out to be the Japan I needed.

I wrote pieces of the story when I was living in Japan in 1994-96, and they became the project I needed to complete a master’s in mass communication/print journalism that I had left unfinished. My adviser suggested I turn them into a book, but then life happened, as it does.

About five years later, I entered a master of fine arts program in creative writing/nonfiction. Again I needed a topic. This time I went back in time and focused on the summer I had spent as an exchange student—and juxtaposed the development of my cultural understanding with the evolution of the Japanese art of woodblock printing.

After finishing my MFA, I continued growing my thesis for a few years before realizing it wasn’t the story I really wanted to tell. Although ukiyo-e gets some cameos in The Same Moon, it is now only a small piece of the whole book.

What sort of cross-cultural challenges did you face in Japan?

When I was teaching English in Japan in the mid 1990s, my biggest cross-cultural struggle had to do with the way women were treated. It pained me to see my colleagues cast in what I regarded as subservient roles, simply because they were women. (In our conversations, they shared that they saw things differently—different roles for different people.)

The activity that made me craziest—probably because of its regularity—was tea serving. In one of my offices, the women set aside their work to serve tea at least four times a day. The men would either keep working or would take a break. Although no one ever asked me to help, I believed that to fit in as a woman I needed to assist … although my tea service contained touches of rebellion, which I describe in The Same Moon.

From my experience, I found that breaking up my day in this way was a distraction. I was less productive for being interrupted just when I got into a project. I couldn’t help but think this adversely impacted my female colleagues’ work as well.

More than that, though, because I was working with young people—primarily with junior high school students—I became concerned that my female students would feel limited in what they could do with their lives. Their names were put at the bottom of class lists, they walked last through the graduation ceremony … and of course they observed their female role models serving tea all the time.

The heart of the challenge for me became, how can I be respectful of the culture that is hosting me while being true to my own beliefs and encouraging others around me?

How did you find a new purpose for your life?

Once I got my feet on the ground and was able to look past my own frustrations with tea serving and other cross-cultural challenges, I really began to consider the future of my female students and my colleagues. Having recently been through a divorce and having experienced feelings of powerlessness, I began seeking ways to help the women and girls around me feel empowered to make their own choices.

When I created lesson plans and sample sentences, I made sure the female characters were working high-powered jobs or having exciting adventures.

When I taught, I called on the girls more than the boys.

When girls reacted with shyness—characteristic of that age and in that culture—I waited the extra time it would take them to overcome their shyness or embarrassment and answer the question.

When I was getting ready to leave Japan, and many local groups invited me to speak, I took the opportunity to create a platform. I wrote a standard speech about what I had observed and experienced, addressing my concerns that my female colleagues and students were being held back. I also shared my dream that they would feel empowered to choose whatever future they were called to, regardless of gender.

This issue gave me the opportunity to look beyond myself and plant seeds to encourage change, if not for my generation, for the next generation.

What effect has divorce had on your relationships and perspective in life?

Divorce is a very complicated experience.

It would be easy to say, “I wouldn’t wish divorce on anyone.” But I am thankful for mine, because in my marriage, I couldn’t see a way forward. We simply didn’t fit. The phrase “unequally yoked” echoed through my mind at the time, and in some ways it summed up our situation. We were like two oxen pulling in different directions. He had his, I had mine, and neither of us felt called to follow the other. We couldn’t make forward progress.

Going through the experience of divorce taught me lessons I might not have learned any other way. Most importantly, it brought me the gift of compassion. Growing up, I was the kid who did things right. Life came pretty easily to me overall—I had a good group of friends, I followed the rules, mostly, and I found success: piano performance, writing and academic awards, study abroad opportunities, scholarships, leadership roles and so on.

Then, just a year out of college, I found myself in a situation that didn’t fit. I felt as if I’d lost my life. Although it had begun with great excitement and fun, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t make the relationship work in the long-term.

It was my wakeup call. I had seen personal disasters happen to other people on many occasions and had thought, “How did she get into that situation?” Or “How did he not see that coming?”

Now I knew. Sometimes we simply can’t see past our headlights. And all of a sudden we’re on some back road, buried up to our axles in mud.

So there I was, the young woman who had always done things “right,” who now had failed—in my mind—in a spectacular way. After saying vows to stay with this man forever, and saying them in front of God and everyone—scores of family and friends, many of whom had traveled far to witness this event—I came to the realization that I needed to break them. I believed it was what I needed to do to live the life God had set before me.

It was one of the most humbling moments of my life. And one of the most illuminating. It opened me up to better love those who make mistakes and to forgive those who have hurt me.

I have never been the same since, and for that I am thankful.

Do you have any examples of Serendipity or Divine Providence in your journey?

My sense is that God is popping into our lives all the time, whether he is turning our gaze in a new direction or sending an angel to speak to us. I think often we’re just too distracted to notice.

I describe one example in The Same Moon:

We were in the midst of our marital discord when I visited the university student health service. As often happens to me when things get stressful in my life, I start believing things are going wrong with my body. This time, I was worried I was getting skin cancer.

Although it’s been more than a quarter century, I can still picture the lovely red-haired nurse who arrived in my exam room. In the course of examining my moles, she said everything I needed to hear, speaking with calm authority:

“You need to keep your focus, because no one is going to live your life but you. People will always want to take pieces of you, but you must maintain your priorities and be true to who you need to be. Don’t worry whether everyone understands what you need to do, as long as you know why you are doing it.”

I listened, rapt. Who was this woman?

At the end of the appointment, she opened the door to leave the exam room but, before exiting, stopped and turned back to face me. “You are making excellent progress,” she said, and then closed the door.

Alone in the silent room, I knew I had received an important message—advice and encouragement. I had a sense I had been in the presence of an angel.

Another example took place when I was beginning to send The Same Moon manuscript to agents and publishers. I had applied for a job teaching college English in Minnesota—it was my dream job, the one I had imagined since I was a young child. On my flight from Portland, Oregon, I was in the middle seat, and I noticed the passenger beside the window had pulled a thick manuscript out of his bag.

“Are you a writer?” I asked him, thinking we’d talk shop.

“No,” he said, “I’m an editor at a publishing house. Are you a writer?”

I was stunned. What would I learn from this man?

He introduced himself as David Kopp, and in our conversation I learned that he was in charge of Crown Publishing, the Christian imprint of Penguin Random House. He invited me to send my manuscript his way—a dream come true! He also sent me a few of the books his publishing house had recently released.

I could see that my manuscript was a different genre—very little of my faith was included in that earlier version of The Same Moon—and, not surprisingly, he wrote back wishing me luck, explaining that my book was not a fit for his imprint.

But the conversation was an “aha!” moment for me. I couldn’t stop wondering why I had left my faith out of my story. As a result of that conversation, I realized it was a mistake. I had focused too much on making my book palatable for a secular audience and, in the process, had denied part of my story and, in fact, a very important part of my identity. I went back and wove the thread of my faith into the story.

I didn’t get the dream job, but in retrospect it seems the reason for that journey was to meet someone who would help me become a more genuine writer, a more fully integrated human.