Fighting For the Family!

How can two people who love and care for each other, with a 15-year history and two young children, be so close to splitting up?

It was an experience Tony encountered at a DATE WITH DESTINY seminar when a man named Paul stood up and declared he was thinking about leaving his wife, but he was concerned that if he did, he would lose his sense of identity. Suddenly, the man’s wife, Jen, got up and stood tearfully at his side. Here were two people who obviously loved each other but who were bracing themselves for divorce. How does this happen?

Tony realized that the couples’ challenge resided in the way they met their needs. The basis of Human Needs Psychology is that we all have six primary needs—certainty, uncertainty, significance, connection, growth, and contribution—that must be met, whether in good or harmful ways.

In our busy lives, it is often easy to look beyond our family and spouse in order to meet these needs. We develop habits in our work, networks of friends, interests, and hobbies. Along the way, this can get out of balance. In Paul and Jen’s case, both had developed ways of meeting their personal needs outside of the relationship—through extended family, their children, and work—so that their love for each other became secondary.

Tony took Paul and Jen through a process that helped them develop a way to serve each other more deeply and lovingly. They made commitments to each other and completely changed their lives. Today, they are passionately in love, feeling the deep fulfillment of meeting each other’s most important needs.

Below is a link to the 8-minute clip from “Return From the Edge: Creating Everlasting Love,” the soon-to-be-released film from the Robbins-Madanes Center for Strategic Intervention. It begins from the moment Paul stands up with his problem. The process can help apply the six needs in your own life and how you can use them to build upon the relationship with your family and loved ones.

The Robbins-Madanes Center for Strategic Intervention is dedicated to promoting greater harmony and effectiveness in social systems ranging from families to corporations, and to government and nongovernmental organizations. Anthony Robbins and Cloé Madanes have joined forces in their effort to find solutions to interpersonal conflicts, to prevent violence and to contribute to the creation of a more cohesive and civil community. Their vision is to develop the field of Strategic Intervention integrating elements from a variety of social science, business and political perspectives, in order to form a unified field of strategic practice.

 - by Tony Robbins