Synopses & Reviews
Paul Pearsall's research shows that individual success and the solitary pursuit of happiness may be hazardous to one's health. Although many self-help books champion the singular approach to success and personal power as the path to well-being, Partners in Pleasure challenges this "singularity" by presenting new research and ancient cultural lessons regarding collective and connective ways to fulfillment and wellness. Drawing in part on 2,000-year-old Polynesian wisdom, this book shows how to go beyond self-fulfillment to shared pleasure.
Synopsis
Learning to look at life with four eyes and two hearts joined into one soulContinuing his transmission of 2,000-year-old Polynesian wisdom that began with The Pleasure Prescription, Paul Pearsall introduces in this new book what be calls "naupaka love" or aloha kakou--love shared, profound companionship, surrendering to a relationship in all its dimensions and embracing it as a lifelong mission of discovery and mutual pleasure.
Our society tells us that individual success and self-fulfillment are the keys to happiness. This book asks, If that is true, why do so many of us--even those who are in a relationship--feel unhappy and alone? And it answers that there
is no joy if there is no one to share it with. As a poet said long ago, "No man is an island .... "
A uniquely warm combination of oral wisdom and current research, Partners in Pleasure is nothing less than a re-visioning of marriage. It offers eight lessons in mahele (sharing)--eight pleasure prescriptions for partners, from dreaming die same dream to becoming one body. Woven throughout are partnering tests; relationship lessons from Hawai i's foremost kupuna (elders) and kahuna (healers or priests); and insights from Dr. Pearsall's own work and seminars.
Partners in Pleasure shows couples how they can come together to face the challenges of life--conflict, sexual compatibility, child-rearing, career setbacks and getting old--and grow ever stronger together, united in heart.