Terrence Real - Us: Getting Past You and Me to Build a More Loving Relationship

In his previous books, Terry Real awakened us to the fact that most men are not relational; theyre in their heads and out of their hearts. In Us, he not only elaborates on that thesis but, with the writing of a good novelist, brings his approach to transforming men and couples to life. This book will challenge you to examine how your trauma history and internalized individualism impact your relationships. Share it with your partner and then talk about what it brings up. It may be one of the most painful but also important conversations of your life.

Richard Schwartz, PhD, developer of the Internal Family Systems model of psychotherapy

This world does not belong to us. We belong to one another.

TERRENCE REAL

By my early thirties, Id become aware enough to know, as things stood, Id never have the things I wanted. A full life, a home, a wholeness of being, a companion, and a place in a community of neighbors and friends all seemed beyond my grasp. I didnt have the judgment, the courage, or the skills to bring a real life to fruition. I was one of the most successful musicians on the planet, but work is work, life is life, and they are not the same. Even more frustrating, the things that made me good at my jobmy easy tolerance, even hunger, for the isolation of creativity, my ability to comfortably and deeply reside within myself and put all my energy into my work for days, weeks, years at a timedoomed my personal life to failure. I lived a lonely but seemingly secure existence. Then at thirty-two I hit an emotional wall and realized I was lost in a deep dark forest, largely of my own making, without a map. So began forty years of trying to find my way through the shadowed trees, down to the river of a sustaining life.

With help I realized, in early middle age, that I was subject to a legacy that had been passed down from generation to generation in my Italian-Irish family. A long and stubborn stream of mental illness and dysfunction manifested itself in my life as a deep, recurring depression and an emotional paralysis. I had a fear of exposing my inner life to anyone besides twenty thousand complete strangers at your nearest arena. The eye-to-eye democracy of real adult love struck fear and insecurity deep in my heart. Meanwhile I could feel my life clock ticking on the things I wanted to do and what I wanted to become.

So how do you transform that legacy? How do you break the chain of trauma and illness whose price is compounded with each successive generation? As Terry says, Family pathology is like a fire in the woods taking down all in front of it until someone turns to face the flames. Slowly I began to face those flames, mainly because I couldnt stand the idea of failing my own children, my family, in the manner that I felt Id been failed. And at the end of the day, the way we honor our parents and their efforts is by carrying on their blessings and doing our best to not pass forward their troubles, their faults, to our own children. Our childrens sins should be their own. Its only through the hard work of transformation do those of ours who have come before cease to be the ghosts that haunt us and transform into the ancestors we need and love to walk beside us. Working even a small piece of this into my life took a long time, and Im still a daily work in progress. My children will have plenty of work to do on their own, but we all have to learn and earn our own adulthood.

Looking more broadly, the price we pay as a society for our toxic individualism and patriarchy is our permanent estrangement from one another. If I cant connect to you, I cant connect to us. Whether its racism, class differences, or any of myriad other social plagues, its cost is always the same: a broken and dysfunctional system that prevents us from recognizing and caring for our neighbor with a flawed but full heart. Terrys writing is loving and kind, clever and strong, and hes written a beautiful and important book, particularly for the moment we are in. It helps lead the way to a more powerful and noble society based on the tenets of love, justice, and respect. He has laid out a process by which we can begin to understand our place in our own families and our society.

Ive worked hard, and Ive been lucky. Over the years Ive found some very good guides through that dark forest and down to that river of life. For my wife, Patti, and me, Terrence Real has been one of those guides, and this book is a map through those trees.

Be safe and journey forward,

Bruce Springsteen