Falling Back in Love: 7 Steps to Saving Your Relationship
Indie Best Writers Contest 2014 winner (in the Relationship Writer category), Dr. David Stevens brings experiences from a 50-year marriage (so far), and 40 years counselling or teaching others into the creation of this book. Speaker and author, deep-thinking spiritual leader... are only a few words that describe this man.
I've known him for about a year now via a weekly writers group we both attend, and I've had the honour of having him as a guest on my blog for an author interview. David Stevens, he's the man with the golden, soothing voice - if you ever get a chance to hear him read live, or speak somewhere I highly recommend it. I ordered both of his books on Amazon, and am thrilled to be able to support him by writing this review.
The music lover in me was pleased to read the story of David taking a proactive step in reducing his stress. You see, he was arriving home from work with a high stress level, so he decided to pause at the school music rooms for an hour to just play and have fun. The drive home was quite pleasant because the rush hour was over, and so he arrived home in a totally different frame of mind. Such a simple technique and so do-able, and underlies the importance of being proactive.
 |
https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B0793R2V9G |
In just 94 pages he is able to share multiple examples of real couples helping to bring his points home. I especially connected with "it really is the thought that counts". Having been married 33 years, (April 2023), I can tell you first thing that a loving cuddle and "a happy birthday my love" means more to me than any tangible object on the planet. This gentle book reminds us to watch our anger, our tendency to blame, to remember and cherish, and be tender the one we love. There's even a story from his wife's own words in there as well.
"The best way to keep love alive
is to feed it!
Anything allowed to starve
will die"
~ Dr. David Stevens: Falling Back In Love Again
His humorous, engaging advice that is so very real, cuts through the fluff and provides insight into the people around us.
Falling Back In Love Again: 12 Steps To Saving Your Relationship
 |
| https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07PS4JY34 |
In this updated version of Falling Back In Love David offers extra space for taking notes - which is great idea because as we are reading it we can make a note of how that topic applies to our relationship and points that might be raised or discussed or thought about later on.
"Healthy thoughts will generally produce healthy actions"
To me this means that we have to feel worthy of love, strong enough to be vulnerable and we need to want this love. If we are not in a place where this is happening, than we need to take some time and work on ourselves so that we are able to work on the relationship.
Truly understanding what the other person is interested in, delving into their passions from hockey to volunteering, from shopping to eating donuts. Whatever it is we need to embrace that part of them, show them we appreciate all of them and stop criticizing, badgering, blaming. Rehashing old material, repeating old dialogue is walking a destructive path.
We cannot expect positive change if we keep doing destructive things. And so one of my take-away's from this book is that we have to be willing to not only look at ourselves and address our own issues, but we have to broaden our perspective, reframe our mind-set, and be willing to move forward. In order to do that, we have to stop looking back.
For me, true love is unconditional love, without restraining bars. But ... that actually takes work. His discussion on mid-life crisis definitely impacted me: that pressing, sometimes desperate feeling - a driving concern for happiness and unfulfilled dreams, and facing that marching clock.
David advises that when we are ready to listen, that we listen to their heart, not their words.
* Both editions are available on Amazon !!!
Comments
Post a Comment
Thank you for your comment!
http://www.twitter.com/brummet
http://www.facebook.com/lillian.brummet
http://www.linkedin.com/in/ldbrummet