Connecting with the person you love isn't just about having a companion, or forming a close partnership. Most of us hope for a truly intimate relationship, where the connection between us is direct, unmediated, and heart-to-heart. This book offers a challenging new way for readers to reach just such a higher level inside themselves, where they can experience a relationship that is fresh and unrehearsed. Therapists Marlena Lyons and Jett Psaris show readers that the capacity exists in all of us to love without defenses or qualifications, and to know ourselves so deeply that real intimacy becomes a lifelong expression of our deepest nature. This is the power of undefended love. "Undefended Love" maps a unique journey that turns the problems and conflicts that inevitably arise in relationships into opportunities for deeper connection. Illuminating case studies, guided self-inquiries, and challenging exercises help readers discover how to engage their partner in a deeper dialogue and find ways of expressing the most profound and untamed aspects of their nature.
An inspiring and practical approach to lasting, loving relationships. With clarity and depth, this book guides readers to challenge the emotionally protective barriers of personality so they can become liberated to love from an undefended heart. The writing is crisp, the message is clear, the effect profound.
--Jennifer & John Welwood, author of Journey of the Heart and Love and Awakening
I immediately found myself underlining ideas on almost every page. Psaris and Lyons' methods make so much sense; This book shows exactly how to use our biggest difficulties as the keys to becoming more deeply authentic, in love, and happily commited. A major achievement!
--Carol Adrienne, author of The Celestine Prophesy: An Experiential Guide and The Purpose of Your Life
There is a new paradigm of relationship emerging from the shattered marriages of the past forty years. For the authors the key is a new kind of love, a love that is not burdened by the host of selves that are designed to keep us safe and separate from each other. Most of all, Undefended Love is about a totally new kind of intimacy that is possible when one's heart is opened to the deeper possibilities of conscious relationship.
--Hal & Sidra Stone, co-authors of Embracing Ourselves and Embracing Each Other
"If Intimacy is understood as stripping away you outer, more public ways of being and sharing your inner life with another, the Psaris and Lyons have written the definitive guidebook. Their description of the conditioned self and the journey to authenticity is not only precise and thorough, but extremely readable as well. For anyone on a journey to intimacy, this book will be a great delight to read."
--Susan Page, How One of You Can Bring Two of You Together and The 8 Essential Traits of Couples Who Thrive
This beautifully written work is a stunning breakthrough in the field of books on relationships. Its vision of direct, unmediated love could not be more original. The long-term experience of its authors, two veteran therapists, brings authority and compassion to every page. I was deeply moved by how much 'new' there is to learn about love-of the self as well as others-and how quickly the transformative power of this work takes hold.
--Patricia Holt, former book review editor, San Francisco Chronicle
This is a remarkable book. It is full of warmth and humanity, while also being a wise and insightful work that is obviously the product of real-world experience in healing broken relationships. Best of all, however, is how the authors have placed their work in a spiritual context that compellingly shows how loss of contact with Essence is at the root of our problems being with ourselves and with others. It is one of those rare books that can actually change lives.
--Don Richard Riso & Russ Hudson, The Wisdom of the Enneagram
"Our deep and aching desire for enduring love drives many of us repeatedly into relationships that offer little chance of lasting fulfillment. In Undefended Love, Psaris and Lyons go straight to the heart of what is most important to all of us: how to be in an intimate relationship that nourishes and sustains us and our partner. Undefended Love calls us to an expression of the courage and compassion needed to authentically know who we are and fearlessly share that truth with another person, to come home to ourselves, and experience the powerful joy of truly intimate loving. It is a jewel of a book."
--Mary Manin Morrissey, Building Your Field of Dreams
