Ebook: Riding the Passionate Edge : Converting Tension into Emotional Intimacy

Riding the Passionate Edge is about learning how to risk our most vulnerable selves in the relationships we value most, reaching for a far greater experience of aliveness in ourselves and in those relationships. This book challenges the idea that emotional tension is inconsistent with emotional intimacy. Instead, it makes a powerful case that engaging tension directly and skillfully will bring new life to our loving, and restore lost spontaneity. It seeks to deepen our capacities for empathetic listening, straight talk, compassion and forgiveness - healing the damage caused by unresolved emotional wounds. The "passionate edge" is the place where individuals in a relationship (often couples, but not necessarily couples) experience the unavoidable tension inherent in being two different people. This edge can cut in two directions. It can open the relationship, releasing positive energy and emotional intimacy. Or that same edge can cut us off from another person, damaging the emotional intimacy in the relationship. This edge is called "conflict," and most of us want to flee from it. Riding the Passionate Edge shows how to stand our ground and successfully engage conflict rather than dodge it - reaping rich emotional rewards as a result. As the book says, "When we no longer measure our words for fear of setting off a bomb, because we now trust that bombs can be successfully diffused, a new spontaneity can emerge. And with it comes a fresh sense of freedom: freedom to laugh at ourselves anew . . . to once again take emotional risks that we may have long ago stopped taking." Riding the Passionate Edge is written in a conversational, informal style, by a married pair of long-time counselors. It will nourish any reader seeking a concrete approach to intimate relationships that is direct, engaging, and inspiring.