Interpersonal Communication Quotes

He was a man of very few words, and as it was impossible to talk, one had to keep silent. It’s hard work talking to some people, most often males. I have a Theory about it. With age, many men come down with testosterone autism, the symptoms of which are a gradual decline in social intelligence and capacity for interpersonal communication, as well as a reduced ability to formulate thoughts. The Person beset by this Ailment becomes taciturn and appears to be lost in contemplation. He develops an interest in various Tools and machinery, and he’s drawn to the Second World War and the biographies of famous people, mainly politicians and villains. His capacity to read novels almost entirely vanishes; testosterone autism disturbs the character’s psychological understanding.

Never presume to know a person based on the one dimensional window of the internet. A soul can’t be defined by critics, enemies or broken ties with family or friends. Neither can it be explained by posts or blogs that lack facial expressions, tone or insight into the person’s personality and intent. Until people “get that”, we will forever be a society that thinks Beautiful Mind was a spy movie and every stranger is really a friend on Facebook.

One says the things which one feels the need to say, and which the other will not understand: one speaks for oneself alone.

If the way you've been treating me is a mark of fondness, maybe you'd better take a fresh look at your interpersonal communication skills.

But a lot of our thinking is caught up in dwelling on the past, trying to control the future, generating misperceptions, and worrying about what others are thinking.

The internet and online communication is the window into your world - but real life, in person communication / connection is the door.

Home is the place where loneliness disappears. When we’re home, we feel warm, comfortable, safe, fulfilled.

There are many ways to tell the truth. It’s an art.

When you see the suffering inside yourself, you can see the suffering in the other person, and you can see your part, your responsibility, in creating the suffering in yourself and in the other person.

The key to healthy communication is having a willingness to lay aside our defensive tendencies and accept responsibility for our part of the relationship

Speech:       1. Tell the truth. Don’t lie or turn the truth upside down.       2. Don’t exaggerate.       3. Be consistent. This means no double-talk: speaking about something in one way to one person and in an opposite way to another for selfish or manipulative reasons.

Nothing can survive without food. Everything we consume acts either to heal us or to poison us. We tend to think of nourishment only as what we take in through our mouths, but what we consume with our eyes, our ears, our noses, our tongues, and our bodies is also food. The conversations going on around us, and those we participate in, are also food. Are we consuming and creating the kind of food that is healthy for us and helps us grow? When we say something that nourishes us and uplifts the people around us, we are feeding love and compassion. When we speak and act in a way that causes tension and anger, we are nourishing violence and suffering.

Self-understanding is crucial for understanding another person; self-love is crucial for loving others. When you’ve understood your suffering, you suffer less, and you are capable of understanding another person’s suffering much more easily. When you can recognize the suffering in the other person and see how that suffering came about, compassion arises. You no longer have the desire to punish or blame the other person. You can listen deeply, and when you speak there is compassion and understanding in your speech. The person with whom you’re speaking will feel much more comfortable, because there is understanding and love in your voice.

To switch effectively from defense to social engagement strategies, the nervous system must do two things: (1) assess risk, and (2) if the environment looks safe, inhibit the primitive defensive reactions to fight, flight or freeze.

A lotus for you. A Buddha to be.

Communication is an art form that is crafted throughout our lives.

If you think while you walk, you’re not really walking.

What you read and write can help you heal, so be thoughtful about what you consume.

When you produce a thought that is full of understanding, forgiveness, and compassion, that thought will immediately have a healing effect on both your physical and mental health and on those around you. If you think a thought that is full of judgment and anger, that thought will immediately poison your body and mind and the people around you.

In order to see, I have to be willing to be seen.

A key to healthy problem solving is good communication.

Playing nice" comes naturally when our neuroception detects safety and promotes physiological states that support social behavior. However, pro-social behavior will not occur when our neuroception misreads the environmental cues and triggers physiological states that support defensive strategies. After all, "playing nice" is not appropriate or adaptive behavior in dangerous or life-threatening situations. In these situations, humans - like other mammals - react with more primitive neurobiological defense systems. To create relationships, humans must subdue these defensive reactions to engage, attach, and form lasting social bonds. Humans have adaptive neurobehavioral systems for both pro-social and defensive behaviors.

Nonverbal behaviors comprise approximately 60 to 65 percent of all interpersonal communication and, during lovemaking, can constitute 100 percent of communication between partners (Burgoon, 1994, 229–285).

You can’t take the other person out of you. You can’t take yourself out of others. The suffering still continues. So the question is not whether you will stay together or not; the question is whether you can focus on trying to understand each other using compassionate speech and deep listening, no matter what the outcome.

With age, many men come down with testosterone autism, the symptoms of which are a gradual decline in social intelligence and capacity for interpersonal communication, as well as a reduced ability to formulate thoughts.

You cannot love properly and deeply without mindfulness.

Unhealthy relationships are most commonly lacking in the most essential of ingredient: healthy communication.

Love, respect, and friendship all need food to survive.

Family systems theory offers therapists an invaluable way of understanding their clients’ strengths and problems—clarifying the familial rules, roles, myths, communication patterns, and boundary issues that defined their clients’ development.

If you have to be told how you should feel then those feelings are not strong enough to make you feel alive; they become rules that don’t fit your life script. Not every person will place the same importance as you do on one of the six human needs: certainty, variety, significance, connection/love, growth or contributions. When you know what is most important for yourself and learn to recognize what need is the most important to others, then you can begin to unlock the real reason behind conflict.

Communication can be sent or received through verbal or nonverbal cues.

If you put yourself in the emotion that you want from others, you are more likely to receive it.

Relationships are an art form created by two or more individuals who have similar or complementary visions, passions, and ambitions.

Intrapersonal communication is a reflection of your self-esteem.

When you work with your computer for three or four hours, you are totally lost. It’s like eating french fries. You shouldn’t eat french fries all day, and you shouldn’t be on the computer all day.

There are, in fact, no more important communications between one human being and another than those expressed emotionally, and no information more vital for constructing and reconstructing working models of the self and other than information about how each feels towards the other...it is the emotional communication between a patient and his therapist that play the crucial part. John Bowlby

Unless you’re influenced by my uniqueness, I’m not going to be influenced by your advice. So if you want to be really effective in the habit of interpersonal communication, you cannot do it with technique alone. You have to build the skills of empathic listening on a base of character that inspires openness and trust. And you have to build the Emotional Bank Accounts that create a commerce between hearts.

To a degree that we seldom realize, we depend upon the participation of others in our lives, and upon our own participation in the lives of others. Our success and effectiveness as persons is based upon this participation, and upon an ability to maintain a controlling competence in communicating with others.

When we say something that nourishes us and uplifts the people around us, we are feeding love and compassion. When we speak and act in a way that causes tension and anger, we are nourishing violence and suffering.

When your loved one is suffering, your impulse may be to want to do something to fix it, but you don’t need to do much. You just need to be there for him or her. That is true love. True love is made of mindfulness.

Low trust causes friction, whether it is caused by unethical behavior or by ethical but incompetent behavior (because even good intentions can never take the place of bad judgment). Low trust is the greatest cost in life and in organizations, including families. Low trust creates hidden agendas, politics, interpersonal conflict, interdepartmental rivalries, win-lose thinking, defensive and protective communication—all of which reduce the speed of trust. Low trust slows everything—every decision, every communication, and every relationship.

We humans literally want to align our brain patterns through interpersonal communications, and we feel safest and happiest when we’re doing so. You can master group dynamics with your voice, your hands, and your posture.

SHAME-BASED FAMILY RULES Each family system has several categories of rules. There are rules about celebrating and socializing, rules about touching and sexuality, rules about sickness and proper health care, rules about vacations and vocations, rules about household maintenance and the spending of money. Perhaps the most important rules are about feelings, interpersonal communication and parenting. Toxic shame is consciously transferred by means of shaming rules. In shame-based families, the rules consciously shame all the members. Generally, however, the children receive the major brunt of the shame. Power is a cover-up for shame. Power is frequently hierarchical.

The greatest thing I learned while taking classes at Second City was the very first thing they taught: 'Yes, and...'. In improv, you keep scenes alive but accepting whatever you are given and then adding to it or amplifying it. There is no space on stage for 'No,' 'I'm sorry, you're mistaken,' or 'Yes, but...'. Those transitions kill energy, set up interpersonal conflict, engage the ego in a defensive posture, and stymie the flow of conversation onstage.

In this part of the world, the more you are pleased to see a person, the less is he pleased to see you; whereas if you are disagreeable, he will grow pleasant visibly, his countenance expanding into wider amiability the more your own is stiff and sour.

The abuser controls the interpersonal communication and, therefore, the interpersonal reality by refusing to discuss upsetting interactions. The abuser blames the partner for upsetting interactions, and the partner believes him and therefore thinks that they are her fault.

I'm buried beneath an avalanche of papers, I don't understand the language of the country, and what do I do about a kid who calls me "Hi, teach!"? Syl INTRASCHOOL COMMUNICATION FROM: Room 508 TO: Room 304 Nothing. Maybe he calls you Hi, teach! because he likes you. Why not answer Hi, pupe? The clerical work is par for the course. "Keep on file in numerical order" means throw in waste-basket. You'll soon learn the language. "Let it be a challenge to you" means you're stuck with it; "interpersonal relationships" is a fight between kids; "ancillary civic agencies for supportive discipline" means call the cops; "Language Arts Dept." is the English office; "literature based on child's reading level and experiential background" means that's all they've got in the Book Room; "non-academic-minded" is a delinquent; and "It has come to my attention" means you're in trouble.

have a Theory about it. With age, many men come down with testosterone autism, the symptoms of which are a gradual decline in social intelligence and capacity for interpersonal communication, as well as a reduced ability to formulate thoughts. The Person beset by this Ailment becomes taciturn and appears to be lost in contemplation. He develops an interest in various Tools and machinery, and he’s drawn to the Second World War and the biographies of famous people, mainly politicians and villains. His capacity to read novels almost entirely vanishes; testosterone autism disturbs the character’s psychological understanding.

Where I live in Plum Village, every time you meet someone on your way somewhere, you join your palms and bow to him or to her with respect, because you know that there is a Buddha inside that person. Even if that person isn’t looking or acting like a Buddha, the capacity for love and compassion is in him or her. If you know how to bow with respect and freshness, you can help the Buddha in him or her to come out. To join your palms and bow like this isn’t mere ritual. It’s a practice of awakening.

Attuned communication. The ability for attuned communication, indispensable for establishing secure attachment between parent and child (or therapist and patient), rests on our capacity to accurately sense someone else’s state and communicate, nonverbally (most important) and verbally (less important), our felt understanding of their emotional experience.

Communication is a way of life.

Communication is the railway of information linking two intersecting paths together.

Decisions decides your output

Communication is the lifeblood of an organization.

Intrapersonal communication is the communication of what we are saying unto ourselves.

Intrapersonal communication is a reflection of our daily messages.

Effective leadership begins with effective communication.

Involvement requires not only being able to give, but also being able to take from others--there must be [a] willingness to give the other [person] the pleasure of giving to you.

Active communication is the ability to exchange, transmit, or share information.

On reflection now, it seems to me she was already telling me what she needed most--a place to settle in proximity, safety, warmth and quiet because she had none of that as a child.

Your information can be summarized by one big idea. You actually present the big idea. You organize everything under one main message.

What Are the Five Steps to Monroe’s Motivated Sequence? It goes like this: Attention Need Satisfaction Visualization Action

In the action step, your goal is to motivate your audience towards a specific action.

In short, boundaries help us keep the good in and the bad out. They guard our treasures...

Knowing how to handle suffering, you know at the same time how to produce happiness. And if you’re truly happy, we all profit from your happiness. We need happy people in this world.

You think that you’re safe when carrying your phone. But the truth is that mindfulness will do much more than a phone to protect you, to help you suffer less, and to improve your communication.

Enter the problem-solution construction. All it is, is this: “Here’s the problem, and the negative consequences of it. Here’s the best solution, and the positive benefits of this.” It’s that simple.

When we’re still young, many of us are determined to be different from our parents. We say we’ll never make our children suffer. But when we grow up we tend to behave just like our parents, and we make others suffer because, like our ancestors, we don’t know how to handle the energies we’ve inherited. We’ve received many positive and negative seeds from our parents and ancestors. They transmitted their habit to us because they didn’t know how to transform it.

People with impaired social engagement systems are prone to misinterpret safety as a threat and objective danger as safety. Their visceral feedback system fails to protect them, or prevents them from engaging in the fullness of what life has to offer.

With mindful awareness, we can look into the nature of our suffering and find out what kind of food we have been supplying to keep it alive. When we find the source of nourishment for our suffering, we can cut off that supply, and our suffering will fade.

Of course people still feel gnawing anxiety, depression and despair. But these do not trigger religiousness, being increasingly dealt with by 24/7 distraction provided by the mass media, interpersonal communication and quick transportation; any dysphoria (mild depression or otherwise unpleasant feelings) is dealt with by mass medication with tranquillizers and emotionnumbing ‘antidepressants’, ‘antipsychotics’ or ‘mood stabilizers’ (these words are placed in ‘scare quotes’ because they are all marketing terms with negligible scientific or clinical rationale).

With age, many men come down with testosterone autism, the symptoms of which are a gradual decline in social intelligence and capacity for interpersonal communication, as well as a reduced ability to formulate thoughts. The Person beset by this Ailment becomes taciturn and appears to be lost in contemplation. He develops an interest in various Tools and machinery, and he’s drawn to the Second World War and the biographies of famous people, mainly politicians and villains. His capacity to read novels almost entirely vanishes; testosterone autism disturbs the character’s psychological understanding.

Fromm-Reichmann described loneliness as “one of the least satisfactorily conceptualized psychological phenomena, not even mentioned in most psychiatric textbooks”—a state in which the “fact that there were people in one’s past life is more or less forgotten, and the possibility that there may be interpersonal relationships in one’s future life is out of the realm of expectation.” Loneliness was such a deep threat, she wrote, that psychiatrists avoided talking about it, because they feared they’d be contaminated by it, too. The experience was nearly impossible to communicate; it was a kind of “naked existence.

Trust of others is in short supply for many adult survivors, as complex trauma generally involves major relational betrayal. It is, therefore, expectable (although paradoxical) that clients with these histories are predisposed to be mistrustful at the outset of therapy, precisely because of (and in proportion to) the actual trustworthiness of the therapist. When past experiences have thought hard lessons, namely, that one can least afford to trust the people who should be most trustworthy, it stands to reason that confusion about trust results. The therapist must understand and not take offense either personally or professionally and not react judgmentally or defensively. Practically speaking, this involves the therapist being prepared to patiently and empathically respond to active or passive tests or challenges to trustworthiness as legitimate and meaningful communication that deserves a respectful reply in action as well as in words.

In any relationship, you may want to check whether you have understood the other person. If it is a relationship that is harmonious, in which communication is good, then happiness is there. If communication and harmony exist, it means mutual understanding is there. Don’t wait until the other person has left or is full of anger to ask the important question “Do you think I understand you enough?” The other person will tell you if you haven’t understood enough. He will know if you’re able to listen with compassion. You may say, “Please tell me, please help me. Because I know very well that if I don’t understand you, I will make a lot of mistakes.” That is the language of love.

1. Tell the truth. Don’t lie or turn the truth upside down. 2. Don’t exaggerate. 3. Be consistent. This means no double-talk: speaking about something in one way to one person and in an opposite way to another for selfish or manipulative reasons. 4. Use peaceful language. Don’t use insulting or violent words, cruel speech, verbal abuse, or condemnation.

Insecurity not only paralyzes our relationship with the living God but has a devastating effect on interpersonal relationships. It is the starting point of all social estrangement. It breaks down openness, which is the bridge to the existential world of the other. It undermines real communication and causes a kind of rupture in the evolution of authentic personality.

Dr. Brown has the ability to make complex matters easy to understand. His book has taken the topic of communication to a new level. The book is easy to read. The exercises and appendices provide both a practical learning approach and a depth of understanding of the subject..." Alberto DeFeo, Ph.D. (Law) Chief Administrative Officer of Lake Country and Adjunct Professor of University of Northern British Columbia

You may learn that your partner has many wrong perceptions about you and about the situation, but try not to interrupt. Let her speak. Let her have a chance to speak out everything in her so she can feel listened to and understood. As your partner speaks, continue to breathe mindfully. Later on you may find a way to undo her misunderstanding, little by little in a very skillful, loving way, and mutual understanding will grow.

Since we began with a felt sense of safety this day, several neural streams are initially supporting the renewal of our connection. In our midbrain, the energies of the SEEKING system are animating the CARE system, which can both foster the good feelings between us and support offers of repair should we have a rupture (Panksepp & Biven, 2012). Once in connection, our ventral vagal parasympathetic system is affecting the prosody of our voices, our facial mobility, and the attentiveness of our listening, maintaining social engagement (Porges, 2011). Since ventral lateralizes to the right hemisphere, we more easily stay rooted in the right-centric way of attending that keeps us in connection with this moment and with each other (McGilchrist, 2009). In this intimacy, our brains are coupling in many regions, so there is an experience of social emotional engagement and embodied communication as we become a single system in two bodies (Hasson, 2010). Because we are trustworthy partners in this healing process, social baseline theory tells us that our amygdalae are calming just because we are together (Beckes & Coan, 2011). All of this is happening without doing anything, even without saying anything, in microseconds below conscious awareness because of the safe space we have cultivated over time. We can more clearly understand why Porges says, "Safety IS the treatment".

Thinking can push you to do or say things that are destructive, or it can create a lot of love. Every thought will bring a fruit, sometimes right away, sometimes later on. When you produce a thought of hate, anger, or despair, that thought is a poison which will affect your body and your mind. A thought of hatred or anger can lead one person to hurt another. If you commit a violent act, it means you’ve been producing thoughts of hatred, anger, and the desire to punish.

having clients orient to the stimulus on which they are very fixated helps them consciously and directly attend to reminders of past trauma. This provides the opportunity for the reactions to the trauma-related stimulus to change from involuntary and reflexive to reflective awareness and assimilation. The client's sense of control and efficacy is often enhanced, whereas simply orienting to new, neutral, or pleasurable stimuli may not accomplish this (Ford, personal communication, August 12, 2005).

Listening and oral communication Adaptability and creative responses to setbacks and obstacles Personal management, confidence, motivation to work toward goals, a sense of wanting to develop one’s career and take pride in accomplishments Group and interpersonal effectiveness, cooperativeness and teamwork, skills at negotiating disagreements Effectiveness in the organization, wanting to make a contribution, leadership potential10 Of seven desired traits, just one was academic: competence in reading, writing, and math.

Hey Pete. So why the leave from social media? You are an activist, right? It seems like this decision is counterproductive to your message and work." A: The short answer is I’m tired of the endless narcissism inherent to the medium. In the commercial society we have, coupled with the consequential sense of insecurity people feel, as they impulsively “package themselves” for public consumption, the expression most dominant in all of this - is vanity. And I find that disheartening, annoying and dangerous. It is a form of cultural violence in many respects. However, please note the difference - that I work to promote just that – a message/idea – not myself… and I honestly loath people who today just promote themselves for the sake of themselves. A sea of humans who have been conditioned into viewing who they are – as how they are seen online. Think about that for a moment. Social identity theory run amok. People have been conditioned to think “they are” how “others see them”. We live in an increasing fictional reality where people are now not only people – they are digital symbols. And those symbols become more important as a matter of “marketing” than people’s true personality. Now, one could argue that social perception has always had a communicative symbolism, even before the computer age. But nooooooothing like today. Social media has become a social prison and a strong means of social control, in fact. Beyond that, as most know, social media is literally designed like a drug. And it acts like it as people get more and more addicted to being seen and addicted to molding the way they want the world to view them – no matter how false the image (If there is any word that defines peoples’ behavior here – it is pretention). Dopamine fires upon recognition and, coupled with cell phone culture, we now have a sea of people in zombie like trances looking at their phones (literally) thousands of times a day, merging their direct, true interpersonal social reality with a virtual “social media” one. No one can read anymore... they just swipe a stream of 200 character headlines/posts/tweets. understanding the world as an aggregate of those fragmented sentences. Massive loss of comprehension happening, replaced by usually agreeable, "in-bubble" views - hence an actual loss of variety. So again, this isn’t to say non-commercial focused social media doesn’t have positive purposes, such as with activism at times. But, on the whole, it merely amplifies a general value system disorder of a “LOOK AT ME! LOOK AT HOW GREAT I AM!” – rooted in systemic insecurity. People lying to themselves, drawing meaningless satisfaction from superficial responses from a sea of avatars. And it’s no surprise. Market economics demands people self promote shamelessly, coupled with the arbitrary constructs of beauty and success that have also resulted. People see status in certain things and, directly or pathologically, use those things for their own narcissistic advantage. Think of those endless status pics of people rock climbing, or hanging out on a stunning beach or showing off their new trophy girl-friend, etc. It goes on and on and worse the general public generally likes it, seeking to imitate those images/symbols to amplify their own false status. Hence the endless feedback loop of superficiality. And people wonder why youth suicides have risen… a young woman looking at a model of perfection set by her peers, without proper knowledge of the medium, can be made to feel inferior far more dramatically than the typical body image problems associated to traditional advertising. That is just one example of the cultural violence inherent. The entire industry of social media is BASED on narcissistic status promotion and narrow self-interest. That is the emotion/intent that creates the billions and billions in revenue these platforms experience, as they in turn sell off people’s personal data to advertisers and governments. You are the product, of course.

Research on avoidant attachment (a left-hemisphere-dominant form of relating) suggests that a mother's inner state of relative disengagement is reflected in her infant's biological response of needing to go it alone through increased attempts at self-regulation even at one year of age (Hill-Sonderlund et al., 2008). It is as though there is unspoken communication that life is about independence, encouraging mother and baby to move apart into more separate universes--together. For both parent and child, the long-term effects of such isolation are profound, leading to changes in their epigenetic profiles that support increased inflamation, the headwaters of many chronic illnesses (Fredrickson et al. 2013)

Trust at the interpersonal level. Trustworthiness is the foundation of trust. Trust is the emotional bank account between two people that enables them to have a win-win performance agreement. If two people trust each other, based on the trustworthiness of each other, they can then enjoy clear communication, empathy, synergy, and productive interdependency. If one is incompetent, training and development can help. But if one has a character flaw, he or she must make and keep promises to increase internal security, improve skills, and rebuild relationships of trust. Trust—or the lack of it—is at the root of success or failure in relationships and in the bottom-line results of business, industry, education, and government.

When you speak, allow the insight of our collective humanity to speak through you. When you walk, don’t walk for yourself alone; walk for your ancestors and your community. When you breathe, allow the larger world to breathe for you. When you’re angry, allow your anger to be released and to be embraced by the larger community. If you know how to do this for one day, you are already transformed. Be your community and let your community be you. This is true practice. Be like the river when it arrives at the ocean; be like the bees and birds that fly together. See yourself in the community and see the community in you. This is a process of transforming your way of seeing, and it will transform how, and how effectively, you communicate.

As the language areas of the left hemisphere enter their sensitive period during the middle of the second year of life, grammatical language in the left integrates with the interpersonal and prosodic elements of communication already well developed in the right. As the cortical language centers mature, words are joined together to make sentences and can be used to express increasingly complex ideas flavored with emotion. As the frontal cortex continues to expand and connect with more neural networks, memory improves and a sense of time slowly emerges and autobiographical memory begins to connect the self with places and events, within and across time. The emerging narratives begin to organize the nascent sense of self and become the bedrock of our sense of self in interpersonal and physical space

The qualities of a successful military strategist will change from person to person, but there are a central few that all of them need. These include, above all else, strategic judgment, but also stamina, interpersonal skills and a feel for people; an ability to energize, inspire and motivate; the ability to communicate effectively orally and in writing; a degree of personal presence and charisma; a sincere love of servicemen and women; an ability to be tough when needed, but also compassionate when that is appropriate; fortitude in the face of adversity and the capacity to stay calm in the midst of chaos; an ability to deal with setbacks, missteps and mistakes; a sense of what leadership style is required to bring out the best in those immediately below, and also for the organization collectively. A great strategic leader also needs to be able to foresee how a conflict will end.

Distraction leaches the authenticity out of our communications. When we are not emotionally present, we are gliding over the surface of our interactions and we never tangle in the depths where the nuances of our skills are tested and refined. A medical professor describes the easy familiarity with which her digital-native resident students master medical electronic records—but is troubled by the fact that they enter data with their eyes focused on their digital devices, not on the patient in the room with them. Preoccupation with technology acts as a screen between the student and the patient’s real emotion, real fear, and real concern. It may also prevent these residents from noticing physical symptoms that the patient fails to mention. The easy busyness of medical record entry is a way to sidestep the more challenging dynamics of human connection. But experienced physicians know that interpersonal skills are essential to mastering the art and science of medical diagnosis.

We are in uncharted territory" when it comes to sex and the internet, says Justin Garcia, a research scientist at Indiana University’s Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction. "There have been two major transitions" in heterosexual mating, Garcia says, "in the last four million years. The first was around ten to fifteen thousand years ago, in the agricultural revolution, when we became less migratory and more settled," leading to the establishment of marriage as a cultural contract. "And the second major transition is with the rise of the Internet," Garcia says. Suddenly, instead of meeting through proximity, community connections, and family and friends, people could meet each other virtually and engage in amorous activity with the click of a button. Internet meeting is now surpassing every other form. “It’s changing so much about the way we act both romantically and sexually,” Garcia says. “It is unprecedented from an evolutionary standpoint.” And yet this massive shift in our behavior has gone almost completely unexamined, especially given how the internet permeates modern life. While there have been studies about how men and women use social media differently- how they use language and present themselves differently, for example- there's not a lot of research about how they behave sexually online; and there is virtually nothing about how girls and boys do. While there has been concern about the online interaction of children and adults, it's striking that so little attention has been paid to the ways in which the Internet has changed the sexual behavior of girls and boys interacting together. This may be because the behavior has been largely hidden or unknown, or, again, due to the fear of not seeming "sex-positive," mistaking responsibility for judgement. And there are questions to ask, from the standpoint of girls' and boys' physical and emotional health and the ethics of their treatment of each other. Sex on a screen is different from sex that develops in person, this much seems seems self-evident, just as talking on a screen is different from face-to-face communication. And so if talking on a screen reduces one's ability to be empathic, for example, then how does sex on a screen change sexual behavior? Are people more likely to act aggressively or unethically, as in other types of online communication? How do gender roles and sexism play into cybersex? And how does the influence of porn, which became available online at about the same time as social networking, factor in?

If ... we hear ourselves speaking words that convey attunement to the process unfolding in this moment--a felt sense of receiving, cultivating, believing, supporting and trusting--we are more apt to be attending from the right with support from the left. This way of experiencing may also be coupled with attention to felt sense, comfort with being rather than pressure to do, and a respect for the undulating rise and fall of healing that unfolds naturally in the space between. When we are in this mode, we have a tendency to speak more tentatively and to check in with our relational partner about how he or she is receiving what we are offering. This past part is particularly important because it reflects our growing felt-sense awareness that the system of the person we are helping knows more about what needs to happen next than we do. In addition to the humility and respect this engenders, we may also notice that instead of wanting to get rid of some state, we are more apt to acknowledge its meaningfulness and be present to it just as it is. Listening in this way, the so-called negative state may reveal itself as telling an important truth and become an opening toward healing. We may also be aware of the limitation and incompleteness of words, leading us to honor silence as well.

The Naked Truth When the gift-giving meaning of the body is obscured, distorted, or misrepresented, art becomes a lie. This is what happens in pornography. The body—which was created to be a free gift from one person to another—is depersonalized and reduced to an object for lust. This concern for human dignity goes against the grain of “naturalism” in art. The so-called naturalists demand the right to reproduce “everything that is human.” What others call pornography, they defend as a realistic depiction of humanity. But in the end, it is precisely this—the whole truth about man—that is lost when privacy is violated and the body is reduced to an object for lust. In order to speak of true realism in art, the full truth about man as created in the image of God must be considered. In this respect, the principles governing interpersonal relations still apply within the realm of art. The naked human body has a “language.” It expresses the spirit. When given in trust and love, the body is the basis of a communion of persons. Because the naked human body has such importance, it must be depicted with great care to preserve its meaning in art. Only within certain boundaries can the truth about the body be preserved. In film, photography, and mass media, there is a dangerous tendency to separate the body from the person. Reproduced on paper or on screen, the naked body can cease to communicate the person. It often becomes, instead, an anonymous object. Because the glory and beauty of the human body is at stake, we cannot remain indifferent to culture. We do not oppose pornography out of a narrow, puritanical idea of morality. Nor do we oppose it out of a Manichaean fear or hatred of the body, as is often asserted. The exact opposite is true. We oppose pornography out of respect for the dignity of the body.

These are things to have under your belt in order to make and strengthen boundaries: Educate them. To be blunt, narcissists aren’t exactly in tune with their interpersonal or communication skills. Try using incentives or other motivators to get them to pay attention to how their behavior affects others. They may not empathize or seem to get what you’re saying, but at least you can say you tried to look at it from your point of view. Understand your personal rights. In order to demand being treated fairly and with respect, it’s important to know what your rights are. You’re allowed to say no, you have a right to your feelings, you are allowed privacy—and there are no wedding or relationship vows that say you are at the beck and call of your partner. When a person has been abused for a long time, they may lack the confidence or self-esteem to take a stand on their rights. The more power they take back, though, the less the abuser has. Be assertive. This is something that depends on confidence, and will take practice, but it’s worth it. Being assertive means standing up for yourself and exuding pride in who you are. Put your strategies into play. After the information you’ve absorbed so far, you have an advantage in that you are aware of your wants, what the narcissist demands, what you are able to do and those secret tiny areas you may have power over. Tap into these areas to put together your own strategies. Re-set your boundaries. A boundary is an unseen line in the sand. It determines the point you won’t allow others to cross over or they’ll hurt you. These are non-negotiable and others must be aware of them and respect them. But you have to know what those lines are before making them clear to others. Have consequences. As an extension of the above point, if a person tries ignoring your boundaries, make sure you give a consequence. There doesn't need to be a threat, but more saying, “If you ________, we can’t hang out/date/talk/etc.” You’re just saying that crossing the boundary hurts you so if they choose to disregard it, you choose not to accept that treatment. The narcissist will not tolerate you standing up for yourself, but it’s still important. The act of advocating for yourself will increase your self-confidence, self-esteem and self-worth. Then you’ll be ready to recover and heal.

People often talk behind each other’s backs in a smug manner, intending to gain other’s approval or favor. It seems gossip is, unfortunately, part of who we are. But after looking at it closely, I learned that it does not have to be. I believe the tendency to gossip is more environmental than physiological. And we can certainly overcome such environmental influences – but only if we work at it. In this book, we will open up a dialogue about gossip. We will examine why people gossip. We will look at what motivates people to gossip. Most importantly, we will look at the impact of gossip and cover strategies and tips on how to alter that behavior.

Make a statement. Give a related statistic. Give a qualitative example of the statistic.

Questions can gather the time, the information, and the interpersonal connectivity to persuade in ways that simply proclaiming what you believe cannot accomplish.

People, unless they’re paying attention, tend to confuse fanciness with intelligence or authority. For me, I’ve noodled about this a fair amount because a lot of this sort of language afflicts me. My guess is this: officialese, as spoken by officials, is meant to empty the communication of a certain level of humanity. On purpose. If I’m delivering a press release as an official, I’m speaking not as David Wallace. I’m speaking as the deputy assistant commissioner in charge of whatever. I’m speaking with and for some sort of bureaucratic entity. My guess is one of the reasons why we as a people tolerate, or even expect, this officialese is that we associate it with a different form of communication than interpersonal—Dave and Bryan talking together. That the people who are speaking are in many senses speaking not as human beings but as the larynx and tongue of a larger set of people, responsibilities, laws, regulations, whatever.

She taught me the four key skills in DBT. First is mindfulness. It’s the ability to radically accept things as they are and be present in the moment. The second is distress tolerance, which is the ability to tolerate negative emotions instead of trying to escape from them. The third is emotional regulation, which teaches you the ability to manage and change intense and problematic emotions. The fourth is interpersonal effectiveness, which teaches you to communicate with others in a way that is assertive, maintains self-respect, and strengthens relationships.

With age, many men come down with testosterone autism, the symptoms of which are a gradual decline in social intelligence and capacity for interpersonal communication, as well as a reduced ability to formulate thoughts. The Person beset by this Ailment becomes taciturn and appears to be lost in contemplation.