Conversation Is Important In A Relationship Quotes

The most important thing in all human relationships is conversation, but people don’t talk anymore, they don’t sit down to talk and listen. They go to the theater, the cinema, watch television, listen to the radio, read books, but they almost never talk. If we want to change the world, we have to go back to a time when warriors would gather around a fire and tell stories.

Look at the stars. It won't fix the economy. It won't stop wars. It won't give you flat abs, or even help you figure out your relationship. But it's important. It helps you to remember that you and your problems are both infinitesimally small and conversely, that you are a piece of an amazing and vast universe.

The most important thing in human relationship is conversation.but people don't talk anymore,they don't sit down to talk and listen.They go to theatre,the cinema,watch television,listen to the radio,read books but they almost never talk.(pg114)

Our work, our relationships, and our lives succeed or fail one conversation at a time. While no single conversation is guaranteed to transform a company, a relationship, or a life, any single conversation can. Speak and listen as if this is the most important conversation you will ever have with this person. It could be. Participate as if it matters. It does.

Maybe every couple lived in the gaps between conversations, unable to say the important things for fear they had already been said, or couldn't be said; maybe every relationship started over every time two people came together.

Look at the stars. It won't fix the economy. It won't stop wars. It won't give you flat abs, or better sex or even help you figure out your relationship and what you want to do with your life. But it's important. It helps you remember that you and your problems are both infinitesimally small and conversely, that you are a piece of an amazing and vast universe.

I had to teach myself that love was very much like a painting. The negative space between people was just as important as the positive space we occupy. The air between our resting bodies, and the breath in our conversations, were all like the white of the canvas, and the rest our relationship- the laughter and the memories- were the brushstroke applied over time.

In any important relationship, we must always ask should we stay or leave. Perchance the correct answer exits in the reason for hanging on and the reason for finally moving on. Perchance self-sacrifice is required. Conversely, perhaps selfishness is called for as an act of self-preservation.

Of course, adult life is not always so simple. Some issues need to be revisited—not dropped—and talk is essential to this process. We need words to begin to heal betrayals, inequalities, and ruptured connections. Our need for language, conversation, and definition goes beyond the wish to put things right. Through words we come to know the other person—and to be known. This knowing is at the heart of our deepest longings for intimacy and connection with others. How relationships unfold with the most important people in our lives depends on courage and clarity in finding voice. This is equally true for our relationship with our self.

As you got older, you realized that the qualities you valued in the people you slept with or dated weren’t necessarily the ones you wanted to live with, or be with, or plod through your days with. If you were smart, and if you were lucky, you learned this and accepted this. You figured out what was most important to you and you looked for it, and you learned to be realistic. They all chose differently: Roman had chosen beauty, sweetness, pliability; Malcolm, he thought, had chosen reliability, and competence (Sophie was intimidatingly efficient), and aesthetic compatibility. And he? He had chosen friendship. Conversation. Kindness. Intelligence. When he was in his thirties, he had looked at certain people’s relationships and asked the question that had (and continued to) fuel countless dinner-party conversations: What’s going on there? Now, though, as an almost-forty-eight-year-old, he saw people’s relationships as reflections of their keenest yet most inarticulable desires, their hopes and insecurities taking shape physically, in the form of another person. Now

It’s important to remember that others’ ways of talking to you are partly a reaction to your style, just as your style with them is partly a reaction to their style—with you.

It is much more important to cultivate the    quiet, inward space of a constant listening than to always be approaching God for specific direction.

She said, ‘The most important thing in all human relationships is conversation, but people don’t talk anymore, they don’t sit down to talk and listen. They go to the theater, the cinema, watch television, listen to the radio, read books, but they almost never talk. If we want to change the world, we have to go back to a time when warriors would gather around a fire and tell stories.

The acquisition of knowledge from books provides an experience different from the Internet. Reading is relatively time-consuming; to ease the process, style is important. Because it is not possible to read all books on a given subject, much less the totality of all books, or to organize easily everything one has read, learning from books places a premium on conceptual thinking—the ability to recognize comparable data and events and project patterns into the future. And style propels the reader into a relationship with the author, or with the subject matter, by fusing substance and aesthetics. Traditionally, another way of acquiring knowledge has been through personal conversations. The discussion and exchange of ideas has for millennia provided an emotional and psychological dimension in addition to the factual content of the information exchanged. It supplies intangibles of conviction and personality. Now the culture of texting produces a curious reluctance to engage in face-to-face interaction, especially on a one-to-one basis.

Relationships never provide you with everything. They provide you with some things. You take all the things you want from a person - sexual chemistry, let's say, or good conversation, or financial support, or intellectual compatibility, or niceness, or loyalty - and you get to pick three of those things. Three - that's it. Maybe four, if you're very lucky. The rest you have to look for elsewhere. It's only in the movies that you find someone who gives you all of those things. But this isn't the movies. In the real world, you have to identify which three qualities you want to spend the rest of your life with, and then you look for those qualities in another person. That's real life. Don't you see it's a trap? If you keep trying to find everything, you'll wind up with nothing.' ...At the time, he hadn't believed these words, because at the time, everything really did seem possible: he was twenty-three, and everyone was young and attractive and smart and glamorous. Everyone thought they would be friends for decades, forever. But for most people, of course, that hadn't happened. As you got older, you realized that the qualities you valued in the people you slept with or dated weren't necessarily the ones you wanted to live with, or be with, or plod through your days with. If you were smart, and if you were lucky, you learned this and accepted this. You figured out what was most important to you and you looked for it, and you learned to be realistic. They all chose differently: Roman had chosen beauty, sweetness, pliability; Malcolm, he thought, had chosen reliability, and competence...and aesthetic compatibility. And he? He had chosen friendship. Conversation. Kindness, Intelligence. When he was in his thirties, he had looked at certain people's relationships and asked the question that had (and continued to) fuel countless dinner-party conversations: What's going on there? Now, though, as an almost-forty-eight-year-old, he saw people's relationships as reflections of their keenest yet most inarticulable desires, their hopes and insecurities taking shape physically, in the form of another person. Now he looked at couples - in restaurants, on the street, at parties - and wondered: Why are you together? What did you identify as essential to you? What's missing in you that you want someone else to provide? He now viewed a successful relationship as one in which both people had recognized the best of what the other person had of offer and had chosen to value it as well.

It's far more important why is being said, than what.

Mattis and Gary Cohn had several quiet conversations about The Big Problem: The president did not understand the importance of allies overseas, the value of diplomacy or the relationship between the military, the economy and intelligence partnerships with foreign governments.

My friend Mark Rabkin shared a tip with me that I love: strive for all your one-on-one meetings to feel a little awkward.3 Why? Because the most important and meaningful conversations have that characteristic. It isn’t easy to discuss mistakes, confront tensions, or talk about deep fears or secret hopes, but no strong relationship can be built on superficial pleasantries alone.

He knew very well that the great majority of human conversation is meaningless. A man can get through most of his days on stock answers to stock questions, he thought. Once he catches onto the game, he can manage with an assortment of grunts. This would not be so if people listened to each other, but they don't. They know that no one is going to say anything moving and important to them at that very moment. Anything important will be announced in the newspapers and reprinted for those who missed it. No one really wants to know how his neighbor is feeling, but he asks him anyway, because it is polite, and because he knows that his neighbor certainly will not tell him how he feels. What this woman and I say to each other is not important. It is the simple making of sounds that pleases us.

The more you experience love, the more full of it you should be. But the opposite sometimes happens, because you fear the loss of life. You fear the vulnerability that can take the goodness of it away. This might have happened because when i was just a kid, i had the sense that your whole life can change with a death in the family. It's like they say - at least i say - It's the loss of money that leads to the love of it. You know, the people who care about money are never the people who made a lot. They're the people who have lost a lot. And I think that might be true in relationships, when if you've lost somebody important to you early on, you live in fear of that the rest of your life. I suppose that's one of the things that I would fear, and that might explain the rage you referred to earlier, which is real in me, at some point, it really is. An odd thing to own up to, but I do know it's true.

At the critical juncture in all human relationships, there is only one question: What would love do now? No other question is relevant, no other question is meaningful, no other question has any importance to your soul.

Small talk is incredibly important when building new relationships and is necessary to do when networking, provided it is not small minded... Small talk helps to provide a bridge from saying "hello" to the substantive part of the conversation.

The general public have a warped view of the speed at which an investigation proceeds. They like to imagine tense conversations going on behind the venetian blinds and unshaven, but ruggedly handsome, detectives working themselves with single-minded devotion into the bottle and marital breakdown. The truth is that at the end of the day, unless you've generated some sort of lead, you go home and get on with the important things in life - like drinking and sleeping, and if you're lucky, a relationship with the gender and sexual orientation of your choice.

It is natural in interaction to assume that what you feel in reaction to others is what they wanted to make you feel. If you feel dominated, it’s because someone is dominating you. If you can’t find a way to get into a conversation, then someone is deliberately locking you out. Conversational style means that this may not be true. The most important lesson to be learned is not to jump to conclusions about others in terms of evaluations like “dominating” and “manipulative.

Perfect and bulletproof are seductive, but they don’t exist in the human experience. We must walk into the arena, whatever it may be—a new relationship, an important meeting, our creative process, or a difficult family conversation—with courage and the willingness to engage. Rather than sitting on the sidelines and hurling judgment and advice, we must dare to show up and let ourselves be seen. This is vulnerability. This is daring greatly.

The important thing, she explained, was not to make the ‘right’ or ‘best’ decision, but ‘to closely bind yourself to whatever you’re living’. She said, ‘You make your life meaningful by applying meaning to it – it’s not just inevitably meaningful as a result of the choices you’ve made.’ We were discussing this in the context of choice, but I think it applies to circumstance too. The romantic relationship or family I wanted would not make my life meaningful; only I could.

I knew that asking my father’s name was a disguised attempt at finding out my caste, which I could not help them with. I had never known it, nor did I care. But in India it is important to establish certain facets early on in a conversation, as it sets the dynamics for the ensuing relationship. To most visitors to India, this is just the Indian way of making conversation, in the way that the English cannot resist discussing the weather, or Americans discussing themselves.

Few of us have so much time on our hands that we can simply have conversations, sex, recreation, family time, or even fights whenever we feel like it—mundane reality has a tendency to get in the way of such important stuff. And yes, we do think fighting is important and necessary—we’ll talk more about the hows and whys in chapter 16, “Embracing Conflict.” If scheduling a fight seems a little bit absurd, just imagine the results of letting the tension build for several days because you haven’t made time to argue.

Whether it is in a sales situation, love at first sight, a husband and wife having an important conversation, a parent disciplining a child, or a teacher instructing her students, eye contact is a powerful body language for enriching engagement, focus, and communication.

Sometimes, it's not so bad to listen to some one talk about weapons or horses - or medicine. Honestly, when someone is trying to talk to you about those things, the important thing they're always saying is that they care enough about what you think to try to share themselves with you.

It is an important and popular fact that things are not always what they seem. For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much—the wheel, New York, wars and so on—while all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man—for precisely the same reasons. Curiously enough, the dolphins had long known of the impending destruction of the planet Earth and had made many attempts to alert mankind to the danger; but most of their communications were misinterpreted as amusing attempts to punch footballs or whistle for tidbits, so they eventually gave up and left the Earth by their own means shortly before the Vogons arrived. The last ever dolphin message was misinterpreted as a surprisingly sophisticated attempt to do a double-backward somersault through a hoop while whistling the “Star-Spangled Banner,” but in fact the message was this: So long and thanks for all the fish. In fact there was only one species on the planet more intelligent than dolphins, and they spent a lot of their time in behavioral research laboratories running round inside wheels and conducting frighteningly elegant and subtle experiments on man. The fact that once again man completely misinterpreted this relationship was entirely according to these creatures’ plans.

He always knew the exact second it was time to rescue my heart from the heaviness of life. He could swim deep with me for long minutes, delving into important conversations on humanity and relationships, then draw me back up to skim the sun-dappled surface when my thoughts became too heavy.

If you are reading this book, a clear betrayal has probably happened in your life. Chances are that you have also bonded with the person or persons who have let you down. Now here is the important part: You will never mend the wound without dealing with the betrayal bond. Like gravity, you may defy it for a while, but ultimately it will pull you back. You cannot walk away from it. Time will not heal it. Burying yourself in compulsive and addictive behaviors will bring no relief, just more pain. Being crazy will not make it better. No amount of therapy, long-term or short-term, will help without confronting it. Your ability to have a spiritual experience will be impaired. Any form of conversion or starting over only postpones the inevitable. And there is no credit for feeling sorry for yourself. You must acknowledge, understand and come to terms with the relationship.

In family conversation, much of the work is done as children learn they are in a place they can come back to, tomorrow and tomorrow. When digital media encourage us to edit ourselves until we have said the “right thing,” we can lose sight of the important thing: Relationships deepen not because we necessarily say anything in particular but because we are invested enough to show up for another conversation. In family conversations, children learn that what can matter most is not the information shared but the relationships sustained. It is hard to sustain those relationships if you are on your phone.

what happens when a baby doesn’t get those positive, nurturing responses? Say, if a mom is on her own with no help, or depressed, or in a violent relationship? She may really want to be a loving, responsive parent, but is that possible under those circumstances? Dr. Perry: This is one of the central problems in our society; we have too many parents caring for children with inadequate supports. The result is what you would expect. An overwhelmed, exhausted, dysregulated parent will have a hard time regulating a child consistently and predictably. This can impact the child in two really important ways. First, it affects the development of the child’s stress-response systems (see Figure 3). If the hungry, cold, scared infant is inconsistently responded to—and regulated—by the overwhelmed caregiver, this creates an inconsistent, prolonged, and unpredictable activation of the child’s stress-response systems. The result is a sensitization of these important systems.

But speaking of decisions and choices, I want to turn to a question that baffles so many of us. Why is it that people who are victims of trauma are so often drawn to abusive relationships? Let me broaden the question, because it is so important in understanding not just abuse but all behavior. The key point is that all of us tend to gravitate to the familiar, even when the familiar is unhealthy or destructive. We are drawn to what we were raised with. As I’ve said before, when we are young and our brain is beginning to make sense of our experiences, it creates our ‘working model’ of the world. The brain organizes around the tone and tension of our first experiences. So if, early on, you have safe, nurturing care, you think that people are essentially good….But if a child experienced chaos, threat, or trauma, your brain organizes according to a view that the world is not safe and people cannot be trusted. Think about James. He didn’t feel ‘safe’ when he was close to people. Intimacy made him feel threatened. Here is the confusing part: James felt most comfortable when the world was in line with his worldview. Being rejected or treated poorly validated this view. The most destabilizing thing for anyone is to have their core beliefs challenged….Good or bad, we are attracted to things that are familiar.

my friends have treated me with more kindness than a romantic partner has. And it’s so important to spend your life with people who not only see the goodness in you, but bring it out too. I know I need to get better at being open to a romantic relationship, but I feel that building and investing in healthy, loving, joyful friendships is just as important.

Barry was a nice guy. But I realized we weren’t connecting. What I had thought was a relationship was actually auditory masturbation; I served as an audience to Barry’s conversation with himself. What an empty experience! If unsafe people are self-centered, safe people are relationship-centered. And that priority shows itself in the all-important action of empathy.

Amid the tragedies and failures, I feared I was losing sight of the singular importance of human relationships, not between patients and their families but between doctor and patient. Technical excellence was not enough. As a resident, my highest ideal was not saving lives—everyone dies eventually—but guiding a patient or family to an understanding of death or illness. When a patient comes in with a fatal head bleed, that first conversation with a neurosurgeon may forever color how the family remembers the death, from a peaceful letting go (“Maybe it was his time”) to an open sore of regret (“Those doctors didn’t listen! They didn’t even try to save him!”). When there’s no place for the scalpel, words are the surgeon’s only tool. For amid that unique suffering invoked by

I would be unfair to myself if I said I did not try. I did, even if desultorily. But desire is a curious thing. If it does not exist it does not exist and there is nothing you can do to conjure it up. Worse still, as I discovered, when desire begins to sink, like a capsizing ship it takes down a lot with it.   In our case it took down the conversation, the laughter, the sharing, the concern, the dreams and nearly - the most important thing, the most important thing - and nearly the affection too. Soon my sinking desire had taken everything else down with it to the floor of the sea, and only affection remained like the bobbing hand of a drowning man, poised perilously between life and death.   More than once she tried to seize the moment and open up the issue. She did it with a hard face and a soft face; she did it when I was idling on the terrace and when I was in the thick of my works; first thing in the morning and last thing at night.   We need to talk. Yes. Do you want to talk? Sure. What's happening? I don't know. Is there someone else? No. Is it something I did? Oh no. Then what the hell's happening? I don't know. Is there anything you want to talk to me about? I don't know. What do you mean you don't know? I don't know. What do you mean you don't know? I don't know. That's what I mean - I don't know. Toc toc toc.   All the while I tried to save that bobbing hand - of affection - from vanishing. I felt somehow that if it drowned there would not be a single pointer on the wide stormy surface to show me where our great love had once stood. That bobbing hand of affection was a marker, a buoy, holding out the hope that one day we could salvage the sunken ship. If it drowned, our coordinates would be completely lost and we would not know where to even begin looking.   Even in my weird state, it was an image of such desolation that it made my heart lurch wildly.   ***   For a long time, with her immense pride in herself - in us - she did not turn to anyone for help. Not friends, not family. For simply too long she imagined this was a passing phase, but then, as the weeks rolled by, through slow accretion the awful truth began to settle on her. By then she had run through all the plays of a relationship: withdrawal, sulking, anger, seduction, inquisition, affection, threat.   Logic, love, lust. Now the epitaph was beginning to creep up on her. Acceptance. 

Daisuke was of course equipped with conversation that, even if they went further, would allow him to retreat as if nothing had happened. He had always wondered at the conversations recorded in Western novels, for to him they were too bald, too self indulgent, and moreover, too unsubtly rich. However they read in the original, he thought they reflected a taste that could not be translated into Japanese. Therefore, he had not the slightest intention of using imported phrases to develop his relationship with Michiyo. Between the two of them at least, ordinary words sufficed perfectly well. But the danger was of slipping from point A to point B without realizing it. Daisuke managed to stand his ground only by a hair's breadth. When he left, Michiyo saw him to the entranceway and said, "Do come again, please? It's so lonely.

the fact is, our relationships to these corporations are not unambiguous. some memebers of negativland genuinely liked pepsi products. mca grew up loving star wars and didn't mind having his work sent all over the united states to all the "cool, underground magazines" they were marketing to--why would he? sam gould had a spiritual moment in the shower listening to a cd created, according to sophie wong, so that he would talk about tylenol with his independent artist friends--and he did. many of my friends' daughters will be getting american girl dolls and books as gifts well into the foreseeable future. some skateboarders in washington, dc, were asked to create an ad campaign for the east coast summer tour, and they all love minor threat--why not use its famous album cover? how about shilling for converse? i would have been happy to ten years ago. so what's really changed? the answer is that two important things have changed: who is ultimately accountable for veiled corporate campaigns that occasionally strive to obsfucate their sponsorship and who is requesting our participation in such campaigns. behind converse and nike sb is nike, a company that uses shit-poor labor policies and predatory marketing that effectively glosses over their shit-poor labor policies, even to an audience that used to know better. behind team ouch! was an underground-savvy brainreservist on the payroll of big pharma; behind the recent wave of street art in hip urban areas near you was omd worldwide on behalf of sony; behind your cool hand-stenciled vader shirt was lucasfilm; and behind a recent cool crafting event was toyota. no matter how you participated in these events, whether as a contributor, cultural producer, viewer, or even critic, these are the companies that profited from your attention.

The effective, identity-safe practices "avoid cues that might instantiate a sense of stereotype threat in students and are, instead, aimed at making everyone in the class feel...as valued and contributive...regardless of their ethnic group or gender." [Dorothy Steele] ...The cohering principle is straightforward: they foster a threat-mitigating narrative about one's susceptibility to being stereotyped in the schooling context. And though no single, one-size-fits-all strategy has evolved, the research offers an expanding set of strategies for doing this: establishing trust through demanding but supportive relationships, fostering hopeful narratives about belonging in the setting, arranging informal cross-group conversations to reveal that one's identity is not the sole cause of one's negative experiences in the setting, representing critical abilities as learnable, and using child-centered teaching techniques. More will be known in the years ahead. But what we know now can make a life-affecting difference for many people in many important places.

Our challenge as adults is to develop a strong voice that is uniquely our own, a voice that reflects our deepest values and convictions. Once we are comfortable within that voice, we can bring it to our most important relationships. We can choose to move to the center of a difficult conversation--or we can let it go. We can speak--or decide not to. Whatever we choose, we can head back to the sandbox with clarity, wisdom, and intention. By doing so, we can strengthen the self and our connections, and have the best chance of achieving happiness during our time with each other.

8 Ways to Shine a Positive Light on Others 1. Let the other person appear smart. The person who desperately tries to be the smartest person in the room inevitably comes off as the least. 2. Don’t bring attention to anything which may embarrass another person. Whether your conversation partner has poor grammar, a pimple on his chin, or lacks social grace, a discreet person does not say or do anything which would make another feel ashamed, embarrassed, or humiliated. Allow the other person to maintain his own grace and dignity. 3. Ask their opinions, seek their advice, ask them inquiring questions. By allowing them to reveal their opinions and knowledge, you will demonstrate respect and make them feel important. 4. Practice patience. Sometimes it takes a person a moment to gather her thoughts, process information, or respond appropriately. Your patience is respectful and appreciated. 5. Maintain your calm. Rather than react with anger or defensiveness, regulate your response and shift the energy into a more positive direction. 6. Put your ego aside. Allow another to triumph and enjoy the spotlight. 7. Be aware and concerned for the feelings of others. 8. Purposely seek ways to put others at ease and make them feel comfortable.

If observing Trump’s schoolboy act in relationship to North Korea felt like watching a disaster movie, then witnessing his Greenland bid and subsequent tantrum was more like seeing a guest at a fancy dinner party blow his nose in an embroidered napkin and proceed to use a silver fork to scratch his foot under the table. But not only did most journalists cover the debacle with restraint—many also provided historical and political context. Explanations of the strategic and economic importance of the Arctic proliferated; many media outlets noted that President Harry S Truman had also wanted to buy Greenland. Washington Post columnist Anne Applebaum, a consistent Trump critic, tried the opposite approach and wrote a piece explaining why the United States needs a tiny country like Denmark to be its ally. The media were doing what media should do—providing context, organizing relevant information, creating narrative—and this too had a normalizing effect, simply by helping media consumers to absorb the unabsorbable. It was as though the other dinner guests had carried on with their polite conversation and even handed the disruptive, deranged visitor a clean fork so that he wouldn’t have to eat dessert with the utensil he had stuck in his shoe.

What has stripped their conversation of its richness and enjoyments? First, despite the apparent success of their numerous discussions, they may have arrived at the solutions to family problems at a great cost to the relationship. In many relationships, a whole sequence of little kinks gradually adds up to produce stress. These kinks may also be a sign of important differences between the partners in their outlook and values—differences that their surface agreements never resolve. Thus, the free flow of conversation is inhibited by the threat of intrusions of unresolved conflicts. Perfectly tuned conversations are interrupted by signals of possible discord that introduce static into the communications. Second, although the partners may get along when they are dealing with practical problems, their conversation may be devoid of references to the more pleasurable aspects of the relationship. The partners have not learned to demarcate problem-solving discussions from pleasant conversations. Thus when one partner starts a conversation with a loving comment, the other may decide that this is a good time to bring up some conflict. As a result, there is a dearth of conversation that revolves simply around expressions of caring, sharing, and loving.

It is relatively easy for a person to lie. Saying “I love you” takes little or no effort. However, demonstrating love requires involvement, participation, and action. If your relationship doesn’t have any involvement, participation, and action, then you can assume it also has very little love. Conversely, if a partner shows his or her love in a variety of physical ways—asking if you want something from the kitchen, doing household chores without prodding, buying little gifts when they’re not expected, et cetera—then the words “I love you” become less important. They’re nice to hear, but they become the icing on the cake when a person’s love is demonstrated regularly. Stop and Consider: Does your partner demonstrate his or her love?

When you talk to a woman you want, you should make it clear that you are interested in a romantic or sexual relationship, not friendship. You do this best by creating sexual tension that is not found between friends, by letting her know your intentions while keeping her desires in mind: You have to convey that you are interested in the woman sexually, that you are sexually attracted to her, and why you are, while also keeping in mind what is important to her. However, you still need to let her get to know you somewhat by opening up and expressing your thoughts and feelings freely so that she trusts you enough to know you will not hurt her once the two of you are alone. But keep the extent of your getting-to-know-you conversation to just becoming comfortable enough to be alone and naked with each other, not to become best friends.

I was just bouncing back and forth all over the place with no sense of groundedness at all. I loved growing up in the church-- that's the thing-- growing up in the church hasn't been this traumatic, horrible experience for me. I hadn't gone to one of those scary churches that was overtly mean or hostile. My church puton this face of "we love everyody and we're all about grace". That was always the message. But when I started conffessing to people in my church that I'm dealing with this right now and it's realy hard for me, I don't know what to do, the only thing they could seem to think to do was how to convert me back to their way of thinking. "Well you're wrong. Because we already know the answer." Nobody was like, "Okay, let's just talk through this because it's you're life, and whatever you decide, we'll still care about you." The only thing they cared about in the conversation was giving me the answer; making sure they got me back on the right path; treating the whole thing like a debate instead of a conversation. I realized this community's ideology is more important to them than anything else. It's more important than people; it's more important than keeping their relationships with one another in tact. The ideology is the only thing that matters here. I guess on some level I knew that they would respond that way. But there was a part of me that was like, "But surely, I had grown up in this church. All these people care about me; surely they're not going to react that way to ~me. When they did, I felt like, other than being a person who comes to their church and believes their right thins, do I have any value to these people? If I stop believing all the right things, then do I stop having value to them?

A while back, when Dick and Barry and I agreed that what really matters is what you like, not what you are like, Barry proposed the idea of a questionnaire for prospective partners, a two-or three-page multiple-choice document that covered all the music/film/TV/book bases. It was intended a) to dispense with awkward conversation, and b) to prevent a chap from leaping into bed with someone who might, at a later date, turn out to have every Julio Iglesias record ever made. It amused us at the time, although Barry, being Barry, went one stage further: he compiled the questionnaire and presented it to some poor woman he was interested in, and she hit him with it. But there was an important and essential truth contained in the idea, and the truth was that these things matter, and it’s no good pretending that any relationship has a future if your record collections disagree violently, or if your favorite films wouldn’t even speak to each other if they met at a party.

Having a TV—which gives you the ability to receive information—fails to establish any capacity for sending information in the opposite direction. And the odd one-way nature of the primary connection Americans now have to our national conversation has a profound impact on their basic attitude toward democracy itself. If you can receive but not send, what does that do to your basic feelings about the nature of your connection to American self-government? “Attachment theory” is an interesting new branch of developmental psychology that sheds light on the importance of consistent, appropriate, and responsive two-way communication—and why it is essential for an individual’s feeling empowered. First developed by John Bowlby, a British psychiatrist, in 1958, attachment theory was further developed by his protégée Mary Ainsworth and other experts studying the psychological development of infants. Although it applies to individuals, attachment theory is, in my view, a metaphor that illuminates the significance of authentic free-flowing communication in any relationship that requires trust. By using this new approach, psychologists were able to discover that every infant learns a crucial and existential lesson during the first year of life about his or her fundamental relationship to the rest of the world. An infant develops an attachment pathway based on different patterns of care and, according to this theory, learns to adopt one of three basic postures toward the universe: In the best case, the infant learns that he or she has the inherent ability to exert a powerful influence on the world and evoke consistent, appropriate responses by communicating signals of hunger or discomfort, happiness or distress. If the caregiver—more often than not the mother—responds to most signals from the infant consistently and appropriately, the infant begins to assume that he or she has inherent power to affect the world. If the primary caregiver responds inappropriately and/or inconsistently, the infant learns to assume that he or she is powerless to affect the larger world and that his or her signals have no intrinsic significance where the universe is concerned. A child who receives really erratic and inconsistent responses from a primary caregiver, even if those responses are occasionally warm and sensitive, develops “anxious resistant attachment.” This pathway creates children who feature anxiety, dependence, and easy victimization. They are easily manipulated and exploited later in life. In the worst case, infants who receive no emotional response from the person or persons responsible for them are at high risk of learning a deep existential rage that makes them prone to violence and antisocial behavior as they grow up. Chronic unresponsiveness leads to what is called “anxious avoidance attachment,” a life pattern that features unquenchable anger, frustration, and aggressive, violent behavior.

Our language for nature is now such that the things around us do not talk back to us in ways that they might. As we have enhanced our power to determine nature, so we have rendered it less able to converse with us. We find it hard to imagine nature outside a use-value framework. We have become experts in analysing what nature can do for us, but lack a language to evoke what it can do to us. The former is important; the latter is vital. Martin Heidegger identified a version of this trend in 1954, observing that the rise of technology and the technological imagination had converted what he called ‘the whole universe of beings’ into an undifferentiated ‘standing reserve’ (Bestand) of energy, available for any use to which humans choose to put it. The rise of ‘standing reserve’ as a concept has bequeathed to us an inadequate and unsatisfying relationship with the natural world, and with ourselves too, because we have to encounter ourselves and our thoughts as mysteries before we encounter them as service providers. We require things to have their own lives if they are to enrich ours. But allegory as a mode has settled inside us, and thrived: fungibility has replaced particularity.

As you got older, you realized that the qualities you valued in the people you slept with or dated weren't necessarily the ones you wanted to live with, or be with, or plod through your days with. if you were smart, and if you were lucky, you learned this and accepted this. You figured out what was most important to you and you looked for it, and you learned to be realistic. They all chose differently: Roman had chosen beauty, sweetness, pliability; Malcolm he thought, had chosen reliability and competence (sophie was intimidatingly efficient), and aesthetic compatibility. And he? He had chosen friendship. Conversation. Kindness. Intelligence. When he was in his thirties, he had looked at certain people's relationships and asked the question that had (and continued to) fuel countless dinner-party conversations: What's going on there? Now, though, as an almost 48 year old, he saw people's relationships as reflections of their keenest yet most inarticulable desires, their hopes and insecurities taking shape physically, in the form of another person. Now he looked at couples-in restaurants, on the street, at parties-and wondered: Why are you together? What did you identify as essential to you? What's missing in you that you want someone else to provide? he now viewed a successful relationship as one in which both people had recognized the best of what the other person had to offer and had chosen to value it as well.

It's important to remember that having a conversation about us (LGBT) without us will usually be a recycling or preconceived ideas and misconceptions. Can you imagine a group of male church leaders discussing the role of women in the church without females present. We would call that misogyny. Or church leadership discussing indigenous issues without ever consulting with indigenous people themselves to get insight into what their life experience is really all about. We would call that white supremacy/racism/elitism. The church has done a great deal of talking about us but rarely has spoken with us. So when church leaders discuss LGBT people, relationships and the community without speaking with or spending time getting to know LGBT people it does beg the question why. What is there to fear? Why the exclusion? Is this another evidence of homophobia? It's time for the church to invite LGBT people into the conversation. For some this is a conversation about their thoughts and beliefs but for us it is about who we are. You can ask questions. What was it like to sit in church and hear the word abomination to describe your orientation. What was it like to get to the point of coming out knowing you might be rejected by those you've loved and a church you've served.? How did you find resolution of your Christian beliefs and your sexuality? In listening you will learn. That's why it's so important to remember. No conversation about us, without us.

This is a new idea you might want to write down. Having your own life is authentically irresistible because it keeps you (and him) from losing yourselves in the relationship. If you imagine that people are like rechargeable batteries, having your own life keeps you fully charged. When you focus all your time and attention only on him, there’s no possibility for you to get naturally recharged by life—by other friends, activities, adventures, nature, the universe. Your energy depletes; this is apparent in how you look and feel. You start pulling on him for all of your energy, and he feels exhausted and resentful. The conversations get dull. You begin to nitpick and nag. “What do you want to do?” and “I don’t care—whatever you want to do” is all you ever seem to say to each other. When you devote all of your time, energy, and attention only to each other, it drains both of you and slowly erodes what could be an otherwise wonderful relationship. Having your own life is a natural way to keep yourself centered so you have more to contribute to your partner and the other important people in and aspects of your life. Let’s be honest. Success is sexy. When you live an inspired and energized life, men naturally find you irresistible because you are irresistible. Invest in your health, create community, make a difference, learn new skills, have fun, and share yourself with others. This is what will keep him wanting more, more, more. Men are no different from women in this respect. They want to be with someone who is expressive, engaged, and active in life. They want a woman who can introduce them to new things and is both interested and interesting.

I do not know the substance of the considerations and recommendations which Dr. Szilárd proposes to submit to you,” Einstein wrote. “The terms of secrecy under which Dr. Szilárd is working at present do not permit him to give me information about his work; however, I understand that he now is greatly concerned about the lack of adequate contact between scientists who are doing this work and those members of your Cabinet who are responsible for formulating policy.”34 Roosevelt never read the letter. It was found in his office after he died on April 12 and was passed on to Harry Truman, who in turn gave it to his designated secretary of state, James Byrnes. The result was a meeting between Szilárd and Byrnes in South Carolina, but Byrnes was neither moved nor impressed. The atom bomb was dropped, with little high-level debate, on August 6, 1945, on the city of Hiroshima. Einstein was at the cottage he rented that summer on Saranac Lake in the Adirondacks, taking an afternoon nap. Helen Dukas informed him when he came down for tea. “Oh, my God,” is all he said.35 Three days later, the bomb was used again, this time on Nagasaki. The following day, officials in Washington released a long history, compiled by Princeton physics professor Henry DeWolf Smyth, of the secret endeavor to build the weapon. The Smyth report, much to Einstein’s lasting discomfort, assigned great historic weight for the launch of the project to the 1939 letter he had written to Roosevelt. Between the influence imputed to that letter and the underlying relationship between energy and mass that he had formulated forty years earlier, Einstein became associated in the popular imagination with the making of the atom bomb, even though his involvement was marginal. Time put him on its cover, with a portrait showing a mushroom cloud erupting behind him with E=mc2 emblazoned on it. In a story that was overseen by an editor named Whittaker Chambers, the magazine noted with its typical prose flair from the period: Through the incomparable blast and flame that will follow, there will be dimly discernible, to those who are interested in cause & effect in history, the features of a shy, almost saintly, childlike little man with the soft brown eyes, the drooping facial lines of a world-weary hound, and hair like an aurora borealis… Albert Einstein did not work directly on the atom bomb. But Einstein was the father of the bomb in two important ways: 1) it was his initiative which started U.S. bomb research; 2) it was his equation (E = mc2) which made the atomic bomb theoretically possible.36 It was a perception that plagued him. When Newsweek did a cover on him, with the headline “The Man Who Started It All,” Einstein offered a memorable lament. “Had I known that the Germans would not succeed in producing an atomic bomb,” he said, “I never would have lifted a finger.”37 Of course, neither he nor Szilárd nor any of their friends involved with the bomb-building effort, many of them refugees from Hitler’s horrors, could know that the brilliant scientists they had left behind in Berlin, such as Heisenberg, would fail to unlock the secrets. “Perhaps I can be forgiven,” Einstein said a few months before his death in a conversation with Linus Pauling, “because we all felt that there was a high probability that the Germans were working on this problem and they might succeed and use the atomic bomb and become the master race.”38

Whatever happened between you and Keefe yesterday—and I know something happened, so there’s no point trying to deny it—are you going to talk to him about it? And I mean really talk to him and tell him how you feel?” Sophie twisted free. “I don’t—” “Yes, you do,” Edaline insisted. “You don’t even know what I was going to say!” Edaline smiled. “Pretty sure I can guess. And I understand the instinct to hide these kinds of feelings—sometimes even from ourselves. But… I know they’re there. And not just for you.” She pointed to Sophie’s new stuffed elf as evidence—and Sophie could’ve sworn its little smile turned a bit smug. “I’m definitely not trying to tell you what to do or who to choose or put any pressure on you in any way,” Edaline assured her. “I also know that what I’m asking you to do isn’t easy. Having an open conversation about feelings with someone can be really scary. Especially when they’re also your friend. It’s natural to be afraid of getting hurt—or of ruining all the good things you already have. And I can’t guarantee that won’t happen. But”—she reached for Sophie’s arms again—“it’s still super important to have that conversation. Because it’s way too easy to jump to the wrong conclusion. So just… talk to him, okay? I’m not saying right this moment. But don’t let it go too long, either. And I know you’re going to tell me you have all these huge things going on and you need to focus on them, but… this is important. I can tell Keefe is important to you. So just… do what you always do when you’re getting ready to face some epic showdown with the Neverseen.” “You’re comparing this to a battle?” Sophie had to ask. “Why not? Sometimes relationships feel like that. So put your shields up if you need to. But don’t let that stop you from charging headfirst into the unknown. Be bold. Be brave. Be honest. And be you. You’re Sophie Foster. I know you can do this!

Mattis and Gary Cohn had several quiet conversations about The Big Problem: The president did not understand the importance of allies overseas, the value of diplomacy or the relationship between the military, the economy and intelligence partnerships with foreign governments. They met for lunch at the Pentagon to develop an action plan. One cause of the problem was the president’s fervent belief that annual trade deficits of about $500 billion harmed the American economy. He was on a crusade to impose tariffs and quotas despite Cohn’s best efforts to educate him about the benefits of free trade. How could they convince and, in their frank view, educate the president? Cohn and Mattis realized they were nowhere close to persuading him. The Groundhog Day–like meetings on trade continued and the acrimony only grew. “Let’s get him over here to the Tank,” Mattis proposed. The Tank is the Pentagon’s secure meeting room for the Joint Chiefs of Staff. It might focus him. “Great idea,” Cohn said. “Let’s get him out of the White House.” No press; no TVs; no Madeleine Westerhout, Trump’s personal secretary, who worked within shouting distance of the Oval Office. There wouldn’t even be any looking out the window, because there were no windows in the Tank. Getting Trump out of his natural environment could do the trick. The idea was straight from the corporate playbook—a retreat or off-site meeting. They would get Trump to the Tank with his key national security and economic team to discuss worldwide strategic relations. Mattis and Cohn agreed. Together they would fight Trump on this. Trade wars or disruptions in the global markets could savage and undermine the precarious stability in the world. The threat could spill over to the military and intelligence community. Mattis couldn’t understand why the U.S. would want to pick a fight with allies, whether it was NATO, or friends in the Middle East, or Japan—or particularly with South Korea.

Treating Abuse Today 3(4) pp. 26-33 TAT: I want to move back to an area that I'm not real comfortable asking you about, but I'm going to, because I think it's germane to this discussion. When we began our discussion [see "A Conversation with Pamela Freyd, Ph.D., Part 1", Treating Abuse Today, 3(3), P. 25-39] we spoke a bit about how your interest in this issue intersected your own family situation. You have admitted writing about it in your widely disseminated "Jane Doe" article. I think wave been able to cover legitimate ground in our discussion without talking about that, but I am going to return to it briefly because there lingers an important issue there. I want to know how you react to people who say that the Foundation is basically an outgrowth of an unresolved family matter in your own family and that some of the initial members of your Scientific Advisory Board have had dual professional relationships with you and your family, and are not simply scientifically attached to the Foundation and its founders. Freyd: People can say whatever they want to say. The fact of the matter is, day after day, people are calling to say that something very wrong has taken place. They're telling us that somebody they know and love very much, has acquired memories in some kind of situation, that they're sure are false, but that there has been no way to even try to resolve the issues -- now, it's 3,600 families. TAT: That's kind of side-stepping the question. My question -- Freyd: -- People can say whatever they want. But you know -- TAT: -- But, isn't it true that some of the people on your scientific advisory have a professional reputation that is to some extent now dependent upon some findings in your own family? Freyd: Oh, I don't think so. A professional reputation dependent upon findings in my family? TAT: In the sense that they may have been consulted professionally first about a matter in your own family. Is that not true? Freyd: What difference does that make? TAT: It would bring into question their objectivity. It would also bring into question the possibility of this being a folie à deux --

Handling Abusive or Disrespectful Behavior Decide what you want to say before the interaction. What are your goals? Are there particular points that you want to make sure you make? Write out the two or three most important things you want to say. If you’re particularly nervous, practice saying them out loud. Have an exit plan. How will you get off the phone or away from the interaction if it starts to head south? Consider prefacing the conversation with some ground rules if prior interactions have gone poorly. Say something like “I know these conversations haven’t gone very well when we’ve had them in the past, so let’s both make a good effort to keep it calm and reasonable, okay? Maybe you should tell me what you’d like to get out of the conversation and I’ll tell you what I’d like to get. How does that sound?” Express good intentions. “I really do want to understand what you’re saying. I would like to have a closer relationship with you.” Or “I’m sure these interactions haven’t felt very good to you in the past, either.” Start by expressing a belief in the child’s good intentions even if you don’t like how he or she is saying it. “I think that you’re telling me something that you really want me to understand. Something that you think is very important.” Describe your perception of your child’s dilemma that is causing them to talk to you in a disrespectful manner. “You must feel like I’m not going to understand unless you beat me over the head with it.” Describe your dilemma. “While I want to understand what you’re saying, it’s hard to focus on it when you’re yelling at me or calling me names. I’m sure you can understand that.” Ask for different behavior. “Do you think you could try to tell that to me in a calmer way so I can focus on what you’re telling me? It’s actually hard for me to hear what you want me to hear when you talk to me like that.” Give an example of appropriate behavior. “You can tell me you’re furious with me or even tell me that you hate my guts if you like, but you can’t scream at me and you can’t call me names.” Stay calm. Take deep breaths. Count to ten. Set limits. “If you can’t talk to me in a more respectful tone, I’m getting off the phone.

Enjoy Your Friends’ Criticism A man’s capacity to receive another man’s direct criticism is a measure of his capacity to receive masculine energy. If he doesn’t have a good relationship to masculine energy (e.g., his father), then he will act like a woman and be hurt or defensive rather than make use of other men’s criticism. About once a week, you should sit down with your closest men friends and discuss what you are doing in your life and what you are afraid of doing. The conversation should be short and simple. You should state where you are at. Then, your friends should give you a behavioral experiment, something you can do that will reveal something to you, or grant more freedom in your life. “I want to have an affair with Denise, but I don’t want to hurt my wife. I’m afraid of her finding out,” you might say. “You’ve been talking about Denise now for six months. You are wasting your life energy on this fantasy. You should either have sex with her by tomorrow night, or drop the whole thing and never talk about it again,” your friends might say, challenging your hesitation and mediocrity. “OK. I know I’m not going to do it. I see now that I am too afraid of ruining my marriage to have an affair with Denise. My marriage is more important than my desire for Denise. I’ll drop it and refocus on the priorities in my life. Thanks.” Your close men friends should be willing to challenge your mediocrity by suggesting a concrete action you can perform that will pop you out of your rut, one way or the other. And you must be willing to offer them your brutal honesty, in the same way, if you are all to grow. Good friends should not tolerate mediocrity in one another. If you are at your edge, your men friends should respect that, but not let you off the hook. They should honor your fears, and, in love, continue to goad you beyond them, without pushing you. If you merely want support from your men friends without challenge, it bespeaks an unresolved issue you may have with your father, whether he is alive or dead. The father force is the force of loving challenge and guidance. Without this masculine force in your life, your direction becomes unchecked, and you are liable to meander in the mush of your own ambiguity and indecision. Your close men friends can provide the stark light of love—uncompromised by a fearful Mr. Nice act—by which you can see the direction you really want to go. Choose men friends who themselves are living at their edge, facing their fears and living just beyond them. Men of this kind can love you without protecting you from the necessary confrontation with reality that your life involves. You should be able to trust that these friends will tell you about your life as they see it, offer you a specific action which will shed light on your own position, and give you the support necessary to live in the freedom just beyond your edge, which is not always, or even usually, comfortable.

I’m first up, love,” Arion says as he starts invading my space again. “I thought the only thing holding you back was your fear. Clearly the fear is absent if you’re willing to turn yourself over to the very darkest part of me. It’s amazing you’re in one piece, so clearly you played submissive very well, Violet. It’s because you were ready for me to save you and overcame your fear of me. Now we can be together.” When I say nothing and simply stare at him like he’s forever losing his mind more and more when we speak, he frowns like he’s genuinely perplexed. “Arion, no matter what you did, I couldn’t have endured another second of those cries. And you were at Abby’s mercy while in that state. You ripped my throat out and told me to put on some healing potion so you could sit down and watch the fight.” Apparently, I guess right, because his pupils widen marginally. “I held your hand when you finished,” he says like he’s defending himself. “So you could watch the fight.” “Vance was focused. It’s been ages since he focused. Thing of beauty while it happens,” he says as if that’s important information. I gesture between us. “That’s sort of the problem. I feel like the conduit for your feelings for them because you have heterosexual body parts with a homosexual mentality. I’m not sure I’m okay with simply being a conduit,” I carefully explain, causing his eyes to widen a little more, as several muffled sounds of amusement spring from somewhere else in the room. “I’m sorry, love, but you’ve really lost me,” Arion says very seriously, brow crinkling. “You want this to be a thing between you and me, even though Idun is returning, because you want them back. It looks like you’re getting that without me, so we can be friends,” I suggest, completely rambling. I don’t think I’m explaining this very well, since they’re all muffling laughter down the hall. Even Vance makes a choked sound of amusement. Or they’re just really immature about these things… That’s definitely possible. Arion scrubs a hand over his face, as someone struggles to cover a surprise laugh with a cough. “I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t be having this conversation right now. It’s inappropriate to do with an audience,” I babble. “But you’re really intense. And I’ve just survived an apocalyptic wolf storm with your mostly naked beta, whose threads are still in my bra because one set of clothes ended up being enough.” The look of frustrated confusion on his face doubles. “I could use a small break before we discuss curses, some really confusing relationship statuses, and the somewhat terrifying woman you’ve all loved rising very soon. And those wolves stole my oranges, so I need to go back and get all of them.” “I’ve already returned them to your cellar,” Emit says from somewhere behind Arion. “Then I need to go start using them while they’re useable,” I say as I quickly disentangle myself from Arion and attempt to escape. “I’ll return the shirt.” “Keep it,” he says quietly from behind me, as I finally take in the other three all standing somewhat close together, smirking at me. “I’ll drive you home,” Damien says with a slow grin. “I’m not talking to you, and if you’re a smart man, you’ll figure out why,” I state firmly. “Only when you figure it out will we discuss it.” “I’ll take you—” “I don’t want to talk to you right now, because I need to get my cool back,” I tell Emit, whose eyes immediately flick away, as his jaw tics. He’s had multiple opportunities to explain to me why he told Damien I was a monster, and yet didn’t even bother telling me what I was. All this time, I’ve been patiently waiting, refusing to get too angry. Now…I’m getting sort of freaking angry, because he still hasn’t said one word about it. “Guess that just leaves me,” Vance says as he puts his hand at the small of my back and starts guiding me out.

• No matter how open we as a society are about formerly private matters, the stigma around our emotional struggles remains formidable. We will talk about almost anyone about our physical health, even our sex lives, but bring depression, anxiety or grief , and the expression on the other person would probably be "get me out of this conversation" • We can distract our feelings with too much wine, food or surfing the internet, • Therapy is far from one-sided; it happens in a parallel process. Everyday patients are opening up questions that we have to think about for ourselves, • "The only way out is through" the only way to get out of the tunnel is to go through, not around it • Study after study shows that the most important factor in the success of your treatment is your relationship with the therapist, your experience of "feeling felt" • Attachment styles are formed early in childhood based on our interactions with our caregivers. Attachment styles are significant because they play out in peoples relationships too, influencing the kind of partners they pick, (stable or less stable), how they behave in a relationship (needy, distant, or volatile) and how the relationship tend to end (wistfully, amiably, or with an explosion) • The presenting problem, the issue somebody comes with, is often just one aspect of a larger problem, if not a red herring entirely. • "Help me understand more about the relationship" Here, here's trying to establish what’s known as a therapeutic alliance, trust that has to develop before any work can get done. • In early sessions is always more important for patients to feel understood than it is for them to gain any insight or make changes. • We can complain for free with a friend or family member, People make faulty narratives to make themselves feel better or look better in the moment, even thought it makes them feel worse over time, and that sometimes they need somebody else to read between the lines. • Here-and-now, it is when we work on what’s happening in the room, rather than focusing on patient's stories. • She didn't call him on his bullshit, which this makes patients feel unsafe, like children's whose parent's don’t hold them accountable • What is this going to feel like to the person I’m speaking to? • Neuroscientists discovered that humans have brain cells called mirror neurons, that cause them to mimic others, and when people are in a heightened state of emotion, a soothing voice can calm their nervous system and help them stay present • Don’t judge your feelings; notice them. Use them as your map. Don’t be afraid of the truth. • The things we protest against the most are often the very things we need to look at • How easy it is, I thought, to break someone’s heart, even when you take great care not to. • The purpose on inquiring about people's parent s is not to join them in blaming, judging or criticizing their parents. In fact it is not about their parents at all. It is solely about understanding how their early experiences informed who they are as adults so that they can separate the past from the present (and not wear psychological clothing that no longer fits) • But personality disorders lie on a spectrum. People with borderline personality disorder are terrified of abandonment, but for some that might mean feeling anxious when their partners don’t respond to texts right away; for others that may mean choosing to stay in volatile, dysfunctional relationships rather than being alone. • In therapy we aim for self compassion (am I a human?) versus self esteem (Am I good or bad: a judgment) • The techniques we use are a bit like the type of brain surgery in which the patient remains awake throughout the procedure, as the surgeons operate, they keep checking in with the patient: can you feel this? can you say this words? They are constantly calibrating how close they are to sensitive regions of the brain, and if they hit one, they back up so as not to damage it.

Only once in your life, I truly believe, you find someone who can completely turn your world around. You tell them things that you’ve never shared with another soul and they absorb everything you say and actually want to hear more. You share hopes for the future, dreams that will never come true, goals that were never achieved and the many disappointments life has thrown at you. When something wonderful happens, you can’t wait to tell them about it, knowing they will share in your excitement. They are not embarrassed to cry with you when you are hurting or laugh with you when you make a fool of yourself. Never do they hurt your feelings or make you feel like you are not good enough, but rather they build you up and show you the things about yourself that make you special and even beautiful. There is never any pressure, jealousy or competition but only a quiet calmness when they are around. You can be yourself and not worry about what they will think of you because they love you for who you are. The things that seem insignificant to most people such as a note, song or walk become invaluable treasures kept safe in your heart to cherish forever. Memories of your childhood come back and are so clear and vivid it’s like being young again. Colours seem brighter and more brilliant. Laughter seems part of daily life where before it was infrequent or didn’t exist at all. A phone call or two during the day helps to get you through a long day’s work and always brings a smile to your face. In their presence, there’s no need for continuous conversation, but you find you’re quite content in just having them nearby. Things that never interested you before become fascinating because you know they are important to this person who is so special to you. You think of this person on every occasion and in everything you do. Simple things bring them to mind like a pale blue sky, gentle wind or even a storm cloud on the horizon. You open your heart knowing that there’s a chance it may be broken one day and in opening your heart, you experience a love and joy that you never dreamed possible. You find that being vulnerable is the only way to allow your heart to feel true pleasure that’s so real it scares you. You find strength in knowing you have a true friend and possibly a soul mate who will remain loyal to the end. Life seems completely different, exciting and worthwhile. Your only hope and security is in knowing that they are a part of your life.

Protein and the Story of the AGEs Advanced glycation end-products (AGEs) can do some serious damage, especially over time. An article in The Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology makes several important points about protein and its relationship to many of the diseases of aging: • Human studies indicate that excess dietary protein promotes progressive kidney damage by increasing the AGE burden. • A prudent approach is to recommend that people with chronic kidney disease achieve the recommended dietary allowance of protein—0.8 g/kg per day, or about 10 percent of total caloric intake— with an emphasis on high-quality protein, low in AGEs. • Conversely, very low dietary protein intake may lead to malnutrition, especially in those with advanced chronic kidney disease. • The dietary AGE load can be minimized by consuming nonmeat proteins. • There are several culinary methods that reduce AGE formation during cooking—steaming, poaching, boiling, and stewing. Frying, broiling, or grilling should be avoided, as they promote AGE formation. • Limitation of dietary AGEs seems prudent in those with obesity, diabetes, and other risk factors for chronic kidney disease.i With the gradual onset of kidney failure, acidosis again ensues and will lead to all types of inflammation and metabolic abnormalities. The preceding recommendations for how to avoid turning a meal into AGEs should become a major agingmanagement technology for Baby Boomers everywhere. — Leonard Smith, M.D.

Company Team Buildingis a tool that can help inside inspiring a team for that satisfaction associated with organizational objectives. Today?azines multi-cultural society calls for working in a harmonious relationship with assorted personas, particularly in global as well as multi-location companies. Business team building events strategies is a way by which team members tend to be met towards the requirements of the firm. They help achieve objectives together instead of working on their particular. Which are the benefits of company team building events? Team building events methods enhance conversation among co-workers. The huge benefits include improved upon morality as well as management skills, capacity to handle difficulties, and much better understanding of work environment. Additional positive aspects would be the improvements inside conversation, concentration, decision making, party problem-solving, and also reducing stress. What are the usual signs that reveal the need for team building? The common signs consist of discord or even hostility between people, elevated competitors organizations between staff, lack of function involvement, poor decision making abilities, lowered efficiency, as well as poor quality associated with customer care. Describe different methods of business team development? Company team development experts as well as person programs on ?working collaboratively? can supply different ways of business team building. An important method of business team building is actually enjoyment routines that want communication between the members. The favored activities are fly-fishing, sailing regattas, highway rallies, snow boarding, interactive workshops, polls, puzzle game titles, and so forth. Each one of these routines would help workers be competitive and hone their own side considering abilities. Just what services are offered by the team building events trainers? The majority of the coaches offer you enjoyable functions, coming from accommodation to be able to dishes and much more. The actual packages include holiday packages, rope courses, on-going business office video games, and also ice-breakers. Coaching fees would depend on location, number of downline, classes, and sophistication periods. Special discounts are available for long-term deals of course, if the quantity of associates will be higher. Name some well-known corporate team development event providers within the U.Utes. Several well-liked companies are Accel-Team, Encounter Based Studying Inc, Performance Supervision Organization, Team development Productions, The education Haven Incorporated, Enterprise Upwards, Group Contractors In addition, and Team development USA.If you want to find out more details, make sure you Clicking Here

It's important to remember that having a conversation about us (LGBT) without us will usually be a recycling or preconceived ideas and misconceptions. Can you imagine a group of male church leaders discussing the role of women in the church without females present. We would call that misogyny. Or church leadership discussing indigenous issues without ever consulting with indigenous people themselves to get insight into what their life experience is really all about. We would call that white supremacy/racism/elitism. The church has done a great deal of talking about us but rarely has spoken with us. So when church leaders discuss LGBT people, relationships and the community without speaking with or spending time getting to know LGBT people it does beg the question why. What is there to fear? Why the exclusion? Is this another evidence of homophobia? It's time for the church to invite LGBT people into the conversation. For some this is a conversation about their thoughts and beliefs but for us it is about who we are. You can ask questions. What was it like to sit in church and hear the word abomination to describe your orientation. What was it like to get to the point of coming out knowing you might be rejected by those you've loved and a church you've served.? How did you find resolution of your Christian beliefs and your sexuality? In listening you will learn. That's why it's so important to remember. No conversation about us, without us.

But in order to survive in this foreign world, I had to teach myself that love was very much like a painting. The negative space between people was just as important as the positive space we occupy. The air between our resting bodies, and the breath in between our conversations, were all like the white of the canvas, and the rest our relationship—the laughter and the memories—were the brushstrokes applied over time.

Talk to Your Best Friend God is faithful, who has called you into fellowship with his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. 1 CORINTHIANS 1:9 NIV When do you pray? How often do you call on God? Where do you talk to Him? Just as we converse with our spouse or best friend about what’s happening in our lives, the Lord expects and anticipates conversations with us, too. Yes, He knows all about us, but He desires our fellowship one-on-one. Jesus chose twelve disciples with whom to fellowship, teach, and carry His Gospel to every nation. They lived and ate with Jesus; they knew Him personally; they were His best friends. In the same manner, God gives us the divine privilege to know Him on a personal level through our relationship with Christ. When, where, or how we talk to God is of little importance to the Savior. We can converse with the Lord while driving down the street, walking through the park, or standing at the kitchen sink. We can ask for His help in the seemingly insignificant or in bigger decisions. Our concerns are His concerns, too, and He desires for us to share our heartfelt thoughts with Him. Fellowshipping with God is talking to our best Friend, knowing He understands and provides help and wisdom along life’s journey. It’s demonstrating our faith and trust in the One who knows us better than anyone. Lord, remind me to talk to You anytime, anywhere. I know that as I pray, You will talk to me, too. Amen.

Negotiate success. Because no other single relationship is more important, you need to figure out how to build a productive working relationship with your new boss (or bosses) and manage her expectations. This means carefully planning for a series of critical conversations about the situation, expectations, working style, resources, and your personal development. Crucially, it means developing and gaining consensus on your 90-day plan.

Learn That Your Feelings Are as Important as Theirs. Some of us can’t see our own feelings because we have learned somewhere along the way that other people’s feelings are more important than ours. For example, it was always assumed that your father would move in with your family when his health began to fail. But now that he has, his constant demands and crankiness are beginning to take a toll, especially on top of managing his medications and frequent doctor’s visits. You are exhausted and frustrated, and wonder why your brother isn’t willing to do his share. Yet you don’t raise it with parent or sibling. “It’s hard, but it’s not that hard,” you reason. “Besides, I don’t want to rock the boat.” Your girlfriend calls and says she can’t have dinner on Friday after all. She’s wondering whether Saturday is okay. She says a friend of hers is in town and wants to see a movie on Friday. You say, “Sure, if that’s better for you.” Although you said yes, Saturday is actually not as good for you, because you had planned to go to a baseball game. Still, you’d rather see your girlfriend, so you give your ticket away. In each of these situations, you’ve chosen to put someone else’s feelings ahead of your own. Does this make sense? Is your father’s frustration or your brother’s peace of mind more important than yours? Is your girlfriend’s desire to see a movie with her friend more important than your desire to see a baseball game? Why is it that they express their feelings and preferences, but you cope with yours privately? There are several reasons why you may choose to honor others’ feelings even when it means dishonoring your own. The implicit rule you are following is that you should put other people’s happiness before your own. If your friends or loved ones or colleagues don’t get their way, they’ll feel bad, and then you’ll have to deal with the consequences. That may be true, but it’s unfair to you. Their anger is no better or worse than yours. “Well, it’s just easier not to rock the boat,” you think. “I don’t like it when they’re mad at me.” If you’re thinking this, then you are undervaluing your own feelings and interests. Friends, neighbors, and bosses will recognize this and begin to see you as someone they can manipulate. When you are more concerned about others’ feelings than your own, you teach others to ignore your feelings too. And beware: one of the reasons you haven’t raised the issue is that you don’t want to jeopardize the relationship. Yet by not raising it, the resentment you feel will grow and slowly erode the relationship anyway.

Is God egotistical for desiring love and worship and sacrifice? Not at all, because he is worthy of them. Would we say that a wife is being egotistical for wanting her husband to love her and the kids more than football and alcohol? Absolutely not. She just wants him to live in accordance with the truth. The truth is that his family is much more important than those other things. To live contrary to reality simply doesn’t work. It leads to nothing but trouble, like trying to run your gasoline-powered car with nothing but water in the fuel tank. This is how we need to understand God’s desire for sacrifice and worship. He did not create people in order to have his ego pumped up. He created us in order to have a reciprocal loving relationship with him. He wants to love and be loved. God is not an arbitrary egomaniac for desiring people to value him above all else. The simple fact is that God is worth more than anything else. To keep our relationship with him in tune with reality, we need to ascribe more worth to him than anything else. To not do so is to turn reality on its head, which always causes problems. The

The women discussed the details of their relationships, trying to reduce their problems to a single word. I had explained the importance of specificity, and the ladies clung to my words. The conversations were sad, and amusing, and strangely hopeful all at the same time. The relentlessness with which these women tried to repair their relationships was foreign to me; I didn't understand why they didn't simply give up.

In a relationship, commitment is a choice we make every single day, over and over again. We choose it even when we are tired and overworked and stressed out. We choose it no matter what attractive person crosses our path. We also choose it every time our partner makes a bid for attention and we put down our book, or look away from the television, or up from our smartphone, or stop whatever it is we’re occupied with to acknowledge their importance in our life. This acknowledgement may call for just a smile or for a conversation, but whatever it calls for, we authentically try to deliver. When we make our relationship a priority by showing that it’s a priority, we build trust and demonstrate our loyalty far beyond any words we say in our wedding vows. What the Love Lab found is that it is the small, positive things done often that make the most difference and build that cocoon of trust and safety in our relationships.

Public disclosure supports an organization’s values and strengthens the organization itself. An organization should consider making personnel decisions more public. When people are dismissed or specifically not promoted because of bad behavior, it should be more public. There is a value to having public signals when behavior is not acceptable. Conversely, culture carriers, those that represent the values, even if they may not be the firm’s biggest revenue producers, must be promoted as a signal of what’s important.11 Generating dissonance or perplexing situations that provoke innovative inquiry can create competitive advantages and improve performance. Having some sort of interdependence should help create an environment that supports discussion and debate. Complementing this debate is balance between groups. Getting the input of leaders from different areas or regions, who have worked together and have good working relationships, is also important in encouraging dissonance. At the board level, in many situations, an independent lead director or independent chairman can add to dissonance. A sense of higher purpose, beyond making money in a materialistic society, can help people make sense of their roles. A firm needs to give employees a clear understanding of its values, its social purpose, and its sense of responsibility. However, leaders need to be conscious of not using the good works of their employees or of the firm to rationalize behavior that is inconsistent with its principles. An organization’s culture is transmitted from one generation to the next as new group members become acculturated or socialized. It is crucial to recruit people who have the same values and socialize them into the firm’s culture. Even if this restricts growth in the short run, it is important not to undervalue recruiting, interviewing, training, mentoring, and socializing. This is also very important in international

Step 5: Problem-Solving • Invent options that meet each side’s most important concerns and interests. • Look to standards for what should happen. Keep in mind the standard of mutual caretaking; relationships that always go one way rarely last. • Talk about how to keep communication open as you go forward.

It was my father and I that were inseparable. His darling girl; that's what he called me. He understood me- his bright, easily bored, passionate, underdog-defending, in-need-of-large-doses-of-physical-activity-and-changes-of-scenery daughter. And more important than understanding me, he liked me. He was most proud when I took the road less traveled by. It wouldn't be exaggerating to say I lived for the look of delight and surprise in his eyes when I accomplished something out of the ordinary. Beating him at chess. Reading the unabridged version of Anna Karenina when I was ten. Starting a campfire with nothing but a flint and a knife. But now it seemed our father and daughter skins were growing too small. I still craved his attention and approval, but he gave it more sparingly. Our long, rambling conversations about everything and anything- the speed of light, the Cuban missile crisis, how many minutes on each side to grill a perfect medium-rare steak- had petered out, replaced with the most quotidian of inquiries: Is Gunsmoke on tonight? Is it supposed to snow tomorrow? When's the last time the grass was cut?

Perfect and bulletproof are seductive, but they don’t exist in the human experience. We must walk into the arena, whatever it may be—a new relationship, an important meeting, our creative process, or a difficult family conversation—with courage and the willingness to engage.

In his book-length review of the executive functions, Dr. Russell Barkley (2012) explored the reasons that these skills evolved in humans in the first place. He makes the compelling case that it was the selection pressures associated with humans living in larger groups of genetically unrelated individuals, which made it selectively advantageous to have good self-regulation skills. That is, these abilities became more important to survival as humans became more interdependent with and reliant on dealings with people who were not family. Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and executive dysfunction continue to have effects on the myriad relationships and social interactions in daily life. These connections include romantic and committed relationships/marriage, relationships with parents, siblings, children, and other relatives, friendships, and interactions with employers, coworkers, and customers. The executive functions in relationships also figure in the capacity for empathy and tracking social debt, that is, the balance of favors you owe others and favors owed to you. The ability to effectively organize behavior across time in goal-directed activities gains you “social collateral.” That is, the more you deliver on promises and projects, the more that you will be sought out by others and maintain bonds with them. Some of the common manifestations of ADHD and executive dysfunction that may create problems in relationships include: • Distractibility during conversations • Forgetfulness about matters relevant to another person • Verbal impulsivity—talking over someone else • Verbal impulsivity—saying the “wrong thing” • Breaking promises (acts of commission, e.g., making an expensive purchase despite agreeing to stay within a household budget) • Poor follow-through on promises (acts of omission, e.g., forget to pick up dry cleaning) • Disregarding the effects of one’s behavior on others (e.g., building up excessive debt on a shared credit card account) • Poor frustration tolerance, anger (e.g., overreacting to children’s behavior) • Lying to cover up mistakes • Impulsive behaviors that reduce trust (e.g., romantic infidelity)

To a narcissist they always take the lead, they want to dominate the conversation and make things about themselves. Their sense of importance makes them think that as their partner, you are there to serve them and whatever they do to you and for you is in line with finding their satisfaction.

It can be hard. It can be awkward. It’s really important to know that actually, especially for men, you don’t have to be perfect and you don’t have to know all the answers and you don’t have to know all the questions and you don’t have to have the perfect relationship yourself. But that in having these conversations with your son over time, you’re building a better relationship and you’re building a more authentic relationship between the two of you, in addition to everything else, which is what you hope to have when he is an adult so that you have that relationship where you can talk to one another, the kind of relationship that you wish you could have with men in your lives.

I believe this particular part of 1 Corinthians 7 is an important practical resource. Each partner in marriage is to be most concerned not with getting sexual pleasure but with giving it. In short, the greatest sexual pleasure should be the pleasure of seeing your spouse getting pleasure. When you get to the place where giving arousal is the most arousing thing, you are practicing this principle. When I was doing research for this chapter, I found some old talks that Kathy and I did together. I had forgotten some of the struggles we had in our early days, and some of the notes reminded me that in those years we started to dread having sex. Kathy, in those remarks, said that if she didn’t experience an orgasm during lovemaking, we both felt like failures. If I asked her, “How was that?” and she said, “It just hurt,” I felt devastated, and she did, too. We had a great deal of trouble until we started to see something. As Kathy said in her notes:   We came to realize that orgasm is great, especially climaxing together. But the awe, the wonder, the safety, and the joy of just being one is stirring and stunning even without that. And when we stopped trying to perform and just started trying to simply love one another in sex, things started to move ahead. We stopped worrying about our performance. And we stopped worrying about what we were getting and started to say, “Well, what can we do just to give something to the other?” This concept also has implications for a typical problem that many couples experience in their marital relationship—namely, that one person wants sex more often than the other. If your main purpose in sex is giving pleasure, not getting pleasure, then a person who doesn’t have as much of a sex drive physically can give to the other person as a gift. This is a legitimate act of love, and it shouldn’t be denigrated by saying, “Oh, no, no. Unless you’re going to be all passionate, don’t do it.” Do it as a gift. Related to this are the differences that many spouses experience over what is the most satisfying context for sex. While I am not saying this is universal, I will share that, as a male, context means very little to me. That means, to be blunt, pretty much anytime, anywhere. However, I came to see that that meant I was being oblivious to something that was very important to my wife. Context? Oh, you mean candles or something? And, of course, Kathy, like so many women, did not mean “candles or something.” She meant preparing for sex emotionally. She meant warmth and conversation and things like that. I learned this, but slowly. And so we learned to be very patient with each other when it came to sex. It took years for us to be good at sexually satisfying one another. But the patience paid off. Sex

Turning Rejection Around What if your friendly, hopeful conversation starter is not met with signals of approval or interest? If the person you approach is fidgety, avoids eye contact, appears uneasy, and exhibits none of the signals of welcome, chances are he or she is not interested in interaction—at least not at that moment. The first thing to do is slow down. Be patient, and give the person time to relax with you. If you present yourself as relaxed and open to whatever develops (whether a good conversation, a valuable working relationship, even friendship or romance), your companion may in time relax too. Use your verbal skills to create an interesting conversation and a sense of ease to break the tension. Don’t pressure yourself to be able to define a relationship from the first meeting. Keep your expectations general, and remember the playfulness factor. Enjoy someone’s company with no strings attached. Don’t fabricate obligations where none exist. It may take several conversations for a relationship to develop. If you had hoped for romance but the feelings appear not to be reciprocated, switch your interest to friendship, which has its own rich rewards. What if you are outright rejected? Rejection at any point—at first meeting, during a date, or well into a relationship—can be painful and difficult for most of us. But there are ways to prevent it from being an all-out failure. One thing I like to tell my clients is that the Chinese word for failure can be interpreted to mean “opportunity.” And opportunities, after all, are there for the taking. It all depends on how you perceive things. There is a technique you can borrow from salespeople to counter your feelings of rejection. High-earning salespeople know that you can’t succeed without being turned down at least occasionally. Some even look forward to rejection, because they know that being turned down this time brings them that much closer to succeeding next time around. They may even learn something in the process. So keep this in mind as you experiment with your new, social self: Hearing a no now may actually bring you closer to the bigger and better yes that is soon to happen! Apply this idea as you practice interacting: Being turned down at any point in the process helps you to learn a little more—about how to approach a stranger, have a conversation, make plans, go on a date, or move toward intimacy. If you learn something positive from the experience, you can bring that with you into your next social situation. Just as in sales, the payoff in either romance or friendship is worth far more than the possible downfall or minor setback of being turned down. A note on self-esteem: Rejection can hurt, but it certainly does not have to be devastating. It’s okay to feel disappointed when we do not get the reaction we want. But all too often, people overemphasize the importance or meaning of rejection—especially where fairly superficial interactions such as a first meeting or casual date are concerned. Here are some tips to keep rejection in perspective: -Don’t overthink it. Overanalysis will only increase your anxiety. -Keep the feelings of disappointment specific to the rejection situation at hand. Don’t say, “No one ever wants to talk to me.” Say, “Too bad the chemistry wasn’t right for both of us.” -Learn from the experience. Ask yourself what you might have done differently, if anything, but then move on. Don’t beat yourself up about it. If those thoughts start, use your thought-stopping techniques (p. 138) to control them. -Use your “Adult” to look objectively at what happened. Remember, rejecting your offer of conversation or an evening out does not mean rejecting your whole “being.” You must continue to believe that you have something to offer, and that there are open, available people who would like to get to know you.

10 Conversation Bridge Builders 1. Simply say hello with a smile. 2. Ask them what they love about their work. 3. Ask natural questions out of genuine curiosity. 4. Get a person talking about what’s important to them. 5. Compliment something positive which you’ve noticed. 6. Engage them with questions which are easy to answer. 7. Introduce them to someone whom you think they’ll enjoy meeting. 8. Ask them if they have any trips or vacations planned. 9. Look for something you may have in common so that the conversation begins with shared interests. 10. Think of questions that begin with how, what, when, why and where.

By your practice of active listening, everyone involved benefits because you . . . • are more engaged and engaging; • demonstrate that you are interested in others and what they have to say; • make others feel important, respected, understood, and appreciated; • improve your memory and retention; • affirm to others that you are an authentic, caring, and compassionate person; make a great first and last impression

The process of attentive listening makes the other person feel important, valued, and heard. For Nick, listening was, and still is, love. I've never forgotten that precious moment—and the lesson!

Active listening is the ultimate "Golden Rule" for sensational customer service. Just as the important people in your life will feel more valued and appreciated when you actively listen, so will your customers.

ASK YOURSELF: How can you utilize active listening to provide sensational customer service? How will this help resolve complaints from unhappy customers? • Give them your full attention and listen without interruption or defensiveness. • Thank them for bringing the issue to your attention. • Take their concerns seriously and share their sense of urgency to resolve the problem quickly. • Ask questions and focus on what they are really saying. • Listen to their words, tone of voice, body language, and most importantly, how they feel. • Beware of making assumptions or rushing to conclusions before you hear their concern fully. • Explain, guide, educate, assist, and do what’s necessary to help them reach the resolution. • Treat them with respect and empathy. When you do an amazing job of resolving an unhappy customer’s problem, you may end up impressing them more than if the problem had never occurred. You may have just earned their loyalty . . . forever!

We all need to talk and we all need to listen, not just about the easy things, but about the hard things, too. About the state of our communities, the state of policing, and the state of our relationships. These conversations will be bumpy and difficult. Because people are challenging. And perspectives can be difficult to change.

Susan RoAne is the bestselling author of How to Work a Room: The Ultimate Guide to Making Lasting Connections in Person and Online. She is known worldwide as the Mingling Maven and is a respected expert, author, and keynote speaker on networking, connecting, and conversations. In her book, she shares the roadblocks and remedies to help people become savvy socializers and succeed at networking. She recently shared with me that putting labels on personality styles can sometimes create bias and limitations. She said, “We've spent so much time crystallizing our differences that it can be to our detriment. It is more important to simply engage with people on a respectful and authentic level.

We must walk into the arena, whatever it may be—a new relationship, an important meeting, our creative process, or a difficult family conversation—with courage and the willingness to engage. Rather than sitting on the sidelines and hurling judgment and advice, we must dare to show up and let ourselves be seen.

Why is it that people who are victims of trauma are so often drawn to abusive relationships? Dr. Perry: Let me broaden the question, because it is so important in understanding not just abuse but all behavior. The key point is that all of us tend to gravitate to the familiar, even when the familiar is unhealthy or destructive. We are drawn to what we were raised with.

Let’s start with young children. We’ve talked repeatedly about the important role of early-life relationships in the development of the stress-response systems and the capacity to form future healthy relationships. We know that when children experience distress and trauma—including poverty, homelessness, domestic violence, maltreatment—they will have some disruptions in development. Frequently the result is a “splintering” of the maturation of specific skills, as we talked about in Chapter 6 in relation to neglect. So, a five-year-old child may have only developed the language skills of a typical two-year-old and the self-regulation capabilities of a typical four-year-old. Along with this fragmented development, the child will have an overactive and overly reactive stress response (see Figures 3 and 5

It’s important to clarify that most people who are abused don’t go on to abuse others in the same way. On the other hand, it is becoming clear that it’s the very rare person who has been abused who doesn’t have some form of adaptation that impacts how they deal with people. It doesn’t have to be a “pathology,” but it can influence the ways in which you form and maintain relationships.

But by the time he got there, he’d learned the importance of character. “I used to scoff at it, when I first took the job in Boston,” Epstein said, referring to a focus on character. “I just felt like, You know how we’re going to win? By getting guys who get on base more than the other team, and by getting pitchers who miss bats and get ground balls. Talent wins. But . . . it’s like every year I did the job, I just developed a greater appreciation for how much the human element matters and how much more you can achieve as a team when you have players who care about winning, care about each other, develop those relationships, have those conversations. It creates an environment where the sum is greater than the parts.”20

Throughout the day, partners would make requests for connection, what Gottman calls “bids.” For example, say that the husband is a bird enthusiast and notices a goldfinch fly across the yard. He might say to his wife, “Look at that beautiful bird outside!” He’s not just commenting on the bird here: He’s requesting a response from his wife—a sign of interest or support—hoping they’ll connect, however momentarily, over the bird. The wife now has a choice. She can respond by either “turning toward” or “turning away” from her husband, as Gottman puts it. Though the bird-bid might seem minor and silly, it can actually reveal a lot about the health of the relationship. The husband thought the bird was important enough to bring it up in conversation and the question is whether his wife recognizes and respects that. People who turned toward their partners in the study responded by engaging the bidder, showing interest and support in the bid. Those who didn’t—those who turned away—would not respond or respond minimally and continue doing whatever they were doing, like watching TV or reading the paper. Sometimes they would respond with overt hostility, saying something like, “Stop interrupting me, I’m reading.” These bidding interactions had profound effects on marital well-being. Couples who had divorced after a six-year follow-up had “turn-toward bids” 33 percent of the time. Only three in 10 of their bids for emotional connection were met with intimacy. The couples who were still together after six years had “turn-toward bids” 87 percent of the time. Nine times out of 10, they were meeting their partner’s emotional needs.

approach it. Knowing that option is available puts me at ease for any tough conversations we might need to have in the future. Words can attach themselves to us and onto others, so be mindful of the words that flow from your mouth. It is important to know how you and your MIL choose to communicate and equally important to think about what you are saying. “Death and life are in the power of the tongue” (Prov. 18:21 NASB). Don’t allow fear to take over or keep you from addressing what needs attention. God has equipped you with all you need to approach a difficult conversation. James 1:27 warns us to observe the power words can hold. A word out of your mouth may seem of no account, but it has the power to accomplish nearly anything

You may need to have difficult conversations with your partner about what you need to get a good night's sleep. This may include sleeping in different rooms if snoring or tossing and turning is waking you up. It may also include agreements not to argue or discuss difficult topics before bedtime. You should also talk about sex and try to agree on what time of day is best for both of you to get more sleep—this doesn’t sound that romantic but for a healthy, stable relationship, it’s incredibly important.

REACH” PRINCIPLES • Respect for the unknown • Ethics in our use of precognition • Accuracy of our precognitive skills • Compassion for ourselves and others • Honesty in all our dealings How to truly practise the REACH principles How can James or anyone in an unsupportive environment practise the REACH principles? It’s an important question to ask – not just for James, but for anyone who has already run into disorientation or destabilization as a result of their spontaneous precognitive abilities. We have heard from some of these people, and they tend to be desperate to control their abilities so they do not feel like “freaks” at the mercy of their gift. As we explore what James could do, we are also exploring what anyone could do to turn their relationship with precognition in a positive direction if they feel it has become disorientating for them. The first change would be to take a thorough inventory of your relationships – are they supportive of who you are and the gifts you have to offer? If not, the first change you need to make is to find one or two people whom you trust, and talk with them in confidence about your practice of controlled precognition. Tell them about your intention to be a Positive Precog and share with them what that means to you. Tell them why it is important to you to try out your gifts in this area. This will be a different conversation for each person, but the basic idea is that you need a few people in your life who accept and love you for who you are, especially when who you are is someone who has something controversial to offer. If precognition is a big part of your life, you need to tell them about that. You can expect three responses – scepticism (from science-minded people who haven’t read the literature about precognition or don’t believe it), concern (from people who fear you are messing with things you don’t understand), and support (from people who are open enough to support what you are interested in). Dealing with scepticism is easy – don’t try to convince anyone. Just let them know that controlled precognition is important to you, you feel that it is likely to be real, and you would like their support in trying this out. If they don’t support you, move on to the next person. Concern is a little tricky, because anyone concerned about you is already in your corner, so that’s a start. But if their concern is so great that they can’t be supportive, consider thanking them and moving on to the next person. Your goal is not to find someone who agrees with you about precognition, but someone who is supportive of you pursuing controlled precognition responsibly.