Welcome to the happiness podcast. I'm Dr. Robert Puff. Over the years, because I live in California, and the Grand Canyon is only one state away,

I've had many wonderful trips to visit the Grand Canyon. If you haven't been there, what happens

is you're driving or walking along and it's just normal flat ground. And then you see before you this huge vast canyon that seems to go on for miles and

when you walk right up to the cliff it kind of takes your breath away. It can be actually scary because it's just

straight down and if you fall over that cliff you're not going to survive it. One of the most remarkable things about it is,

it's just like I said, it's just so flat all around it,

just normal ground wherever any of us live.

And then all of a sudden is this vast canyon. of us

canyon.

I mean if you think about mountains, there's the foothills and then there's the slopes

going upward and then there's the peaks.

It's like there's stages going up to the top.

With the canyon, it's like this gigantic hole that just drops. There's no warning,

there isn't anything telling you it's coming.

It's just you're walking along.

And there it is.

Well, for me, the Grand Canyon is a metaphor.

A metaphor for one of the things I've discovered about life, which I call the cliff.

Let me start with an example to illustrate what I mean by the cliff.

Over the years, I've worked with many couples who come to me because

they want to save their marriage. But this is what I often see and I've talked to other therapists

and they've experienced the exact same thing. So what it is is this, two people fall in love, they get married, and along the way for whatever reasons they begin to have problems.

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