Arielle Ford - Wabi Sabi Love: The Ancient Art of Finding Perfect Love in Imperfect Relationships

WABI SABI LOVE

The Ancient Art of Finding Perfect Love in Imperfect Relationships

Arielle Ford

For Sheila, my bold, beautiful, and brilliant mother, who first showed me how not to do marriage, and then the second time around modeled soulmate love at its highest.

Wabi Sabi is the ancient Japanese art form that finds beauty and perfection in imperfection. Wabi Sabi honors that which is imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete. It finds beauty in things modest, humble, and unconventional.

Wabi Sabi Love is the art and practice of loving the imperfections in ourselves and in our partners. It is not mere acceptance or denial of the things that may annoy us or even drive us crazy but rather a deep and profound appreciation for the uniqueness of each other.

Imagine standing in front of a four-foot-tall vase with a long jagged crack down the middle. You might be tempted to immediately pass judgment on the vase as ugly or a piece of junk and walk right by. But those who practice Wabi Sabi might place the vase on a pedestal and honor the history and the beauty of its imperfection by shining a spotlight right on the crack.

As with the cracked urn, fissures are a part of ourselves that cannot be changed. Wabi Sabi Love allows us to love and accept the cracks in ourselves and in our partners. Its the hidden beauty that dances right before our eyes, illuminating our uniqueness, calling forth our humanity, and bonding us to each other.

Contents

It is with pleasure that I introduce you to a genuinely useful book on a subject of timeless importance: how to create and nurture lasting love. Arielle Ford is a dear friend and has been a trusted colleague of mine for many years. Im pleased that she has gifted us with this heart-opening and mind-expanding book. My pleasure is multiplied because I know this book will enlighten and change the lives of many people.

As the poet Torquato Tasso said, Any time not spent on love is wasted. In Wabi Sabi Love , Arielle Ford does not waste a moment of your time. She goes directly to the heart of what it takes to make love grow and thrive over time. At the center of this book is a profound insight about how to flow with your experiences in a close relationship. In Wabi Sabi Love , you will learn how to embrace and love imperfection: your own and your partners. Since youre likely to encounter your fair share of imperfection as you proceed along the pathways of love, it helps to get good at dancing with it. This book is a true treasure trove of inspiration and information on how not only to live with imperfection but also to thrive from it.

There are many nuggets to be found in this book, but there is one Id like to share with you here. As Arielle puts it, Early on in our relationship we decided that our union would be our number one priority. We promised each other that our choices would be based not on what Arielle wanted, or on what Brian wanted, but on what was ultimately best for our relationship. When I read this passage, I found myself wondering: Why dont we get wisdom like this taught to us in elementary and high school? Imagine the mistakes we might avoid and the love we might harvest if we knew a few simple principles like the ones Arielle shares in Wabi Sabi Love .

Arielle has a major credential in the area of relationships, and it happens to be the only one that really counts: she has thrived for many years in a wonderful relationship with her husband, Brian Hilliard. Kathlyn and I have been with Arielle and Brian on dozens of occasions, and we can testify that her relationship is a living example of what she teaches.

Relationships of the quality that Arielle and Brian enjoy do not thrive over time by chance or even by good karma. Theyre the result of the dedicated application of good ideas and good skills. Wabi Sabi Love has an abundance of both, and for that reason, as well as many others, I recommend it to you highly.

GAY HENDRICKS , Ph.D., author of Five Wishes and The Big Leap ; coauthor (with Kathlyn Hendricks, Ph.D.) of Conscious Loving and The Conscious Heart

We come to love not by finding a perfect person, but by learning to see an imperfect person perfectly.

Sam Keen

Love. Its right up there with air, food, and water as one of the most vital ingredients for existence. Love nourishes our souls and arouses our deepest desires. And yet, for many people, its the hardest thing to find. Even harder still is sustaining that love once youve found it.

When it comes to making love last, the reality is pretty unsettling. Right now, 50 percent of first marriages, 67 percent of second marriages, and 74 percent of third marriages end in divorce. But however grim the statistics, there is hope for keeping love alive. A new paradigm is on the horizon, one that has the power to shift your focus from all that seems wrong to all that is right.

Even if youre blessed to be with someone who is compatible with you on a physical, emotional, or spiritual level, its highly likely that there is one thing, or perhaps a handful of things, about him or her that you wish were just a little different. Maybe you wish your partner were a more passionate lover or a better listener, didnt leave piles of clothes all over the house, or shared more of your creative interests. If youve ever woken up to that feeling of if only things were different, youre not alone.

The fact is our culture has conditioned us to expect perfection from ourselves and others, and this expectation often leads us into a perpetual state of frustration and dissatisfaction. The human mind can be a fault-finding machine uniquely equipped to focus with laserlike precision on the few things that are lacking, rather than on the bigger picture of all that we have in abundance. If, like so many, youve lost sight of the forest of your deeper love for your partner through the trees of his or her imperfections, the tools and skills you will learn in this book will allow you to see yourself and your partner in an entirely new light, strengthen the bond that brought you together in the first place, and take your relationship to a whole new level.

This book is firmly rooted in the belief that how you choose to see things informs the way they appear for you. For anyone in a long-term relationship, you know how quickly a little quirk and idiosyncrasy can progress from a rub to a burn. How often do you find yourselves arguing over the same little things? But what if, instead of focusing your attention on trying to change that one thing about your partner, you had the ability to actually change the way you look at that one thing? Suddenly, the focus of everything in your relationship would shift.

How will you get to that seemingly unreachable place? You will learn to apply the timeless principles of Wabi Sabi. Based on the ancient Japanese aesthetic of finding beauty in imperfection, Wabi Sabi Love applies this concept to love relationships. It is the art of loving your partners imperfections rather than indulging in the fantasy that your relationship can fire on all cylinders only when both people are acting perfectly and behaving in ways that are acceptable to the other.

Just imagine the possibilities that would open up in your relationship if you could learn to accept, embrace, and even find the gift in your partners imperfections. It is not just about tolerating our partners so-called flaws, but actually finding the perfection in all that is imperfect about them. By learning to live Wabi Sabi Love , you will create a heartfelt, loving, long-lasting, committed, joyful relationship that lights you up as a couple, knowing that you are greater together than apart and that your bond will be forever stronger, deeper, and more meaningful as a result of embracing these practices.