I facilitated a session today with a couple working to resolve some issues with their relationship. This was a beautiful yogi couple, more in love, then in a fight. At this moment they ran into conflicts which created a lot of tension in their relationship. Relationships are such a complicated phenomena! When two people come together, each represents a multilevel complex system - different characters, genders, personal history, family history and traumas. Culture, race, money status, social position, spirituality. So many roles and polarities! This particular couple comes together with the same view on spirituality, but represents two different cultures and lifestyles – Latin America and Russia. What feels comfortable in a more relaxed and warm-hearted Latin American lifestyle, seems crazy for people from a Western culture. There is a different approach to time management and responsibilities and different standards on what it means to be happy and relaxed. There are no solutions for those types of conflicts in taking one side or the other. A relationship is like the country that two people build together between them. If only one person has the right to make rules in this county, the other one will start a revolution sooner or later. What does work is careful, open minded exploration of this new land in order to map the landscape in detail. And also what works, is a dance between different energies, ideas and life styles. Both partners will watch each other dancing, stay in contact, move and enjoy polarities and diversities. That is how my session ended today. After discussion, exchanging opinions and exploring each other's feelings we moved our research into the movement channel. I asked them to do an exercise where couple danced two dances, as two representations of the energies they bring into their relationship. The two types of movement we found reflected two different approaches to life. One was the more relaxed Latino dance and the other movement was a more conservative and content dance from the Russian side. They taught each other the movements and enjoyed them together. While they were dancing together, they created new ideas and stories about their partnership. “We are together because we care” they told each other. “We are together because we are so different and this is so exciting!" I was deeply touched and my heart expanded, while watching these people growing their scope of awareness through the relationship work! Now I'm excited and waiting for new couples to come to my practice!