Dear Volker, dear Claudia,
Your Couples Project has accompanied my life for three and a half years now. Three and a half years in which I go to you once a month for four hours each time, together with my wife, to the Couples Project group session. My initial curiosity has quickly turned into amazement at how I can see and perceive myself, how I can see others and how I can see the world around me with your many offers of knowledge and especially your offers of experience. My old previous view seems to me today to be exceedingly simple-minded. All the dozens of months you have been a cornucopia of inspirations for me, which have shifted my horizon one after the other further and further. Your knowledge about the connections between body, soul and heart, but also your knowledge about the connections between thoughts, feelings and emotions have been new territory for me in endless places. What have I learned with you, with you, through you? Today I can't believe myself what I didn't know about myself and my fellow human beings, and what I didn't see. And how rarely I have shown my core to others.
With your Couples Project you officially address the two topics "Sexuality and Mindfulness in Partner Relationships". But in fact there are much more than these two colors on your color palette. There are also terms in the room such as. character; closeness and distance; leading and following; need for relationship and need for autonomy; consciously saying yes and consciously saying no; slowing down one's being, creating time, creating silence; perception and action; body and emotions; tension and relaxation; feelings as travelogues; nakedness versus clothing and other masks; partner touch and feelings; non-violent communication in the relationship; arguing, but properly; monkeymind or "crazy monkeys in the brain that do what they want"; resilience and other circumstances; slow sex, relationships and being different from the other; making invitations clear, making intentions clear, being clear; enduring the other's norm; control and power; 2 people 2 truths; escape abortion separation; seeking ways healing; seeing and protecting the inner child; demanding and over demanding; feelings and its messages; anger is a hotel with many inhabitants; space; ...
In my list there are three times as many terms and words and contents. I cannot even mention them all here.
Here are only three of these endlessly many topics a little more illuminated:
To which questions have I found answers?
Character. What makes my character, which facets determine it? Why does my character make sense? Why am I good the way I am? Why do feelings arise in me? What feelings arise in me, and what emotions? What is the difference between feelings and emotions and who is responsible for my feelings and my emotions? To what disturbances from outside do I react? Why do I govern and how do I react to disturbances and what do these disturbances do to me? What is the character essence, what are soul protectors, what are soul strategies, what are soul managers and soul firefighters and why do they all exist in me and what are their tasks, their intentions? When do they help, when do they harm? Why is the development of one's own personality so important for one's own happiness? How do I show myself to other people and why is that? How do other people see me? How do I see other people? Why do I appear the way I do to other people? Alone to this seemingly shore-less topic "character" you have offered me an ocean full of knowledge, so that my few words here only inadequately touch the surface. Through you I have understood that finally the own character has practically more influence on the own luck and the own bad luck than anything else in the universe.
Mindfulness. What is mindfulness and what constitutes mindfulness? How can I practice mindfulness? What does curiosity have to do with mindfulness? What does observing have to do with it? Why is non-judgmental observation so important? Why does every session start with a round of sensitivities and what do these rounds do to me? Why does almost every person on this planet think they are mindful, when this view alone contains the core of unawareness? How can I give my senses and their perceptions more space to touch me and my core consciously? How can I be more aware of myself and others? How can I calibrate my senses, or are their perceptions always the truth, always a mirror of reality? How can I increase my empathy? Why is mindfulness important in the first place? With your knowledge on mindfulness, I understood why mindfulness and also inattentiveness are so significant. Again, I can only touch on this topic here, the subject is as big as the sky above our heads, you can only approach it. Enlightenment can only be aspired to here, but not achieved.
Sexuality. What actually is sex, what is sexuality? What influences female sexuality and what influences male sexuality? How does social space valorize and devalue male sexuality and how female sexuality? Why is there pleasure and why is there displeasure? Why is pleasure often so unequally distributed? Why is sex often a difficult topic of conversation? What does my character have to do with my sex? And what does mindfulness have to do with sex anyway? Why do I have time for sex, why don't I have time for sex? What does sexuality have to do with intimacy? Why does sexuality have such great power, why is it such a powerful energy? It's unbelievable how big this subject is, too!
We participants have done countless partner exercises on all these topics, very sensitively guided by you, and many different meditations, and occasionally, whoever wanted to, completely wacky rituals, which I don't want to and can't describe here, otherwise I'll blush. As for me, gladly more rituals! In the sessions we did not debate much, because it is not about convictions and words with you. The partner exercises were about very practical body experiences and very practical soul experiences. For each exercise there was an intensive and always exciting exchange of words about the experiences we had just had. I can say with full conviction that I was not bored at any moment during these countless hours. Sometimes it even took my breath away. In many an exercise my body or soul reacted in a way that I had never noticed before.
Yes, why am I writing this letter to you? Because I am infinitely grateful for all that I have received from you! I can't say it any other way, but you and your couple project have changed my life for the better. I am divorced twice. My reflex used to be when things got tough in a relationship to just vamoose. Today my third marriage is going amazingly well and happily since I've been with you guys. Not only the sex is nice and wild and slow, also the daily togetherness is characterized by a lot of constructive liveliness. We talk to each other a lot, exchange our thoughts and feelings, hug each other often, just like that. We treat each other with respect. And if one of us is offended by a word or a tone, the other one doesn't immediately pull out the gun and start shooting, but can let the emotional tsunami energy flow through him in an appropriate and constructive way. Thanks to you and Claudia.
Even professionally, in my many IT projects, there are significantly fewer emotional overkill situations in my daily dealings with team colleagues with the knowledge and experience gained from you! I cannot emphasize strongly enough what this alone means to me! Today, I can constructively "manage" even the most difficult human situations and the most striking personalities in my teams. That alone would be a reason to attend your group sessions. With my soft-skill, which has been shaped by you, I now have a unique selling point in my profession as a freelance IT consultant compared to my competitors, which allows me to be competitive today more than ever. I can calmly take on IT projects that no one else wants because the customer is considered "difficult".
Going into your couple project, it was never a sprint, it was always a marathon. I didn't realize that right away in the beginning, it took me my time, arrogance is a very powerful inner protector, or preventer. Being with you is running a marathon with no one stopping the time. And it is not limited to about 42 kilometers, it is probably a lifelong journey. Each participant decides for himself how to deal with the offered knowledge and experience, how much of it he will let in or discard for himself. Or how much of his own knowledge and experience he brings into the group, that is also possible. My wish is that I may participate in your couple project for many years to come.
Yes, and in all this you have never acted as a grandmaster, spiritual leader or even a guru. You love and cultivate the quiet tones, you were always grounded, at eye level with your participants, never loud, never pushy, always unagitated, always human. Love, humanism and philanthropy, helping people to a better form of existence, these are your things, your motives.
For me you are my heroes, with huge hearts and a lot of courage! Thank you very much for everything!
Peter Kramer, industrial management consultant from Karlsruhe, Germany
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