Read this book if you'd like to improve your relationship and communicate better with your boyfriend, lover, or even your next date! You'll learn how to resolve conflicts instead of escalating or retaliating, enhancing the sense of intimacy and love that brought you together in the first place. "LOVE BETWEEN MEN is a treasure...Isensee condenses years of clinical expertise of working with gay couples and translates this into a volume that is chock-full of enormously helpful and practical ways for men to look at, understand, and improve their relationships. It is bound to become a classic." --Michael Shernoff, ACSW "...a valid guide to establishing closer, more enduring partnerships...fills a gap in the resources available to couples." --K. Orton Williams, San Francisco Sentinel "...there is meat on these bones; material that any person in a relationship, or considering/fearing one, can learn from.... Isensee's insights are solid and his chapter on abusive relationships is the sort of material rarely discussed within the gay community. And his summation chapters, which include the awful thought of 'What If It Doesn't Work Out?,' are astute." --Dale Reynolds, Lambda Book Report "This is a practical, down-to-earth manual for men who live in intimate relationships and want to improve them.... This book does more than help couples solve complicated interpersonal problems--it helps them to avoid them." --Harvey L. Gochros, D.S.W., professor, School of Social Work, University of Hawaii "lsensee explores gay male relationships by examining the difficulty of maintaining successful male-male bondings in a hostile, homophobic society. He discusses problems unique to homosexual relationships.... A helpful book." --Library Journal "A welcome addition to practical gay literature." --Booklist

Shift Your Mood provides an easy and active form of mindfulness to calm reactivity. Rik includes stories from real people’s lives that show how you can soothe anxiety and stress, overcome obsessions, and tame your inner critic. As you release emotional tension, you will naturally shift to the source of your own love and inner wisdom. “Rik Isensee has done a masterful job of integrating scientifically-based yet cutting edge material from psychology, brain science, and spirituality into a comprehensive collection of practical tools you can use every day to feel better, happier, and more loving. Rik's sincerity and warm-heartedness make each page glow. This book is a gem.”—Rick Hanson, Ph.D. Wellspring Institute for Neuroscience and Contemplative Wisdom. Author of Resilient: How to Grow an Unshakable Core of Calm, Strength, and Happiness“Shift Your Mood invites readers straight into the goodness of their own hearts. I particularly enjoyed Rik's playful invitations to experiment with a variety of embodied and mindful exercises. This book will help you navigate the inner pitfalls of your body-mind, as you reclaim the organic vitality of your own life.”Manuela Mischke Reeds, MA, MFT. Co-director, Hakomi Institute of California. Author of Eight Keys to Practicing Mindfulness: Practical Strategies for Emotional Health and Well-being “This is an engaging book that contains lots of good advice about becoming happier. Informed by research findings from the new field of positive psychology as well as venerable strategies from mindfulness meditation, Shift Your Mood presents a balanced and plausible formula for moving beyond where one is.”—Christopher Peterson, Ph.D. Professor of Psychology, University of Michigan. Author of A Primer in Positive Psychology“Using the guided assistance from your book, I quickly realized why I was so triggered, then felt calm and astoundingly clear. It was a triumph!” —Alecia Vultaggio, San Diego