Dyad Practice for Couples
Dyad practices are a powerful mindfulness-based way to connect as partners. It’s one of many mindfulness activities for couples that we do ourselves and can strongly recommend. I’ll cover the basics of this practice, why it’s useful, and share a video showing how it’s done.
I do recommend watching the video down below to understand what this actually looks like in practice. And if you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out! You can find my email and WhatsApp on my contact page. You can also check out our page Couples Meditations: Building a Conscious, Connected Relationship for more practices and guided meditations for couples.
What are Dyads?
Dyads are a mindfulness-based communication practice involving two people. They can of course be adapted to three or four people, but for the sake of clarity we’re going to just talk about dyads here. The practice is a structured conversation involving either repeated questions or open questions (more on this in the section on practice instructions).
How it works is simple. One partner asks a question and the other answers. When you are answering, you answer with what comes to mind. When you are asking/listening, you just listen. This is a practice in many things: mindful presence, mindful listening, mindful communication, honesty, and vulnerability.
We generally use the structure of three questions per session. Each partner gets a turn to ask and to answer.
Preparation
To do dyads, you’ll need to decide three things before starting. First, what questions will you use? I share a few sample questions below, and you can download my PDF of more questions as well. Before going into the practice, you should know what questions you’re working with.
The second thing you need to set ahead of time is the time. Each partner will share for this amount of time. If you are new to dyads, I recommend starting with 90 seconds each. This is enough time to really dig in, but not so much that it becomes too uncomfortable. If you do three questions each, 90-second rounds will end up being just under ten minutes.
And finally, you need to choose who is going first! Both will have a chance to share. We do dyads weekly, and we generally go back and forth with who begins. The experience of going first or second can be slightly different, so it is good to switch. You’ll also want to choose whether you’re doing open questions or repeated questions at this time.
Practice Instructions
Now that you’re all prepared, sit facing one another. Ideally you can sit fairly close and at eye level. If you’d like, you can start with a few minutes of a settling meditation. We often start with five minutes of silent sitting before starting, but even one minute can give both of you time to settle into the present moment.
Set your timer for the agreed-upon time, and get going! If you’re doing repeated questions, partner A will ask the question and partner B will answer. Once partner B answers, partner A will say, “thank you,” and repeat the question. This repeats until the time is up, and then you switch roles with the same question.
To do the open questioning, partner A will ask the question and partner B will have the floor to speak until the timer runs out. Partner A’s only job is to listen during this time. When time runs out, you switch!
Move like this through the three questions whether you’re doing repeated questioning or open questioning. When you have completed all three questions, you might pause for a moment of settling once again, or hug!
Sample Questions
Generally, questions center on one topic. I’ll offer two different sets of questions that are good for first-timers. You can download our full list of questions below.
What is present for you right now in the body?
What can you notice in the body that you often overlook?
Where in the body do you feel ease (or tension)?
What are you struggling with right now?
What pain do you wish I understood more?
How can I best support you?
Things to Remember
Finally, I just want to offer a few tips. These are things we have found in our own practice together as a couple, and in working with many couples around the world.
Mindful Listening
First, it is important to understand that the partner who is listening is to listen mindfully. Try not to offer any feedback verbally or visually. I know this can be hard. In our video you can see us responding with our faces. It happens. But as much as possible, really try to be present for your partner. Whatever thoughts arise, leave them be and return to this present-time experience.
Honesty and Vulnerability
I encourage you to be as honest and vulnerable as possible. Especially at first, this can be hard. You don’t need to dig for anything deep, but if something arises, watch any tendency to push it down. Ideally, this practice should be the safest of safe spaces. My recommendation is to try to be just a bit more honest and vulnerable than you are normally.
What Happens in Dyads…
What do we do with things that arise that might need further discussion? As part of the practice is just mindfully listening, we don’t really have space for it in the practice. We use the 24-hour rule. We don’t talk about anything said during dyads for the first 24 hours after the practice.
If after a day something is still on your mind, it might be time to bring it up. I recommend communicating between yourselves ahead of time about this. The 24-hour rule helps us because we sometimes want to address something, only to find over the next day that we wanted to react, not respond. But sometimes something is said that needs addressing, and there’s nothing wrong with that.
Running Out of Things to Say
If it is your turn to talk, and you run out of things to say, don’t worry! Repeat something you already said, or say that you don’t know. You can also just remain silent until something comes to mind. The idea with the space and time is that we are offered an opportunity to dig deeper. Use the not knowing as a cue to dig a little bit!
Consistency
Finally, much like other meditation practices, consistency helps greatly with dyads. The more often you do it, the more open you become. It suddenly is normal to be this vulnerable with your partner, and might even seep out into your daily interactions. For this reason, it’s something we do frequently in our mindful couples counseling sessions.
My recommendation is to do dyads or another mindfulness-based couples practice weekly. We do ours on Wednesday nights, every week. If we miss it because of a sick kid or school event or whatever comes up, we make a point to do it another night. This consistency makes it normal, and it becomes a part of your routine.
Finally, we do have a course called Meditations for Two: Mindfulness and Compassion for Couples. This is the revamped version of our Practice for Two course that first came out in 2015! We’ve been updating it with new practices and thoughts we’ve learned over the last ten years, and are very excited to offer it. You can enter your email below to receive updates about the course!
Matthew Sockolov is a Buddhist meditation teacher who trained at Spirit Rock Meditation Center in Woodacre, California. Completing the Dharma Leader training program in 2017, Matthew was given power to teach in the Insight Meditation tradition by Jack Kornfield, Kittisaro, Thanissara, and others. You can learn more about Matthew here.