Want to Be Heard? Quit Criticizing!

When things don’t go exactly as we hoped, sometimes we go with the flow. Other times, we berate ourselves or others: “This never would have happened if you’d been paying attention,” or, “I’m such a failure!”

This kind of blaming and labeling is not only unkind, but perhaps more importantly, it doesn’t usually yield lasting results.  Maybe we can guilt ourselves into not eating a second piece of chocolate cake, or maybe we can get someone to do something we want in that moment, but will it last? Is it motivating?  Loving? Helpful?  In general, critical language doesn’t accomplish much except to make ourselves or others feel badly. 

I recently attended a workshop on “nonviolent communication”, a process created in the 1960’s by Dr. Marshall Rosenberg and I quickly learned just how damaging judgmental thinking and speaking can be.   As soon as we label, blame or threaten someone (including ourselves), we break the connection with them.  Rather than moving closer to resolution or to having our needs met, we move further into anger, guilt, resentment and pain.

The way Rosenberg explains it is that we tend to classify and analyze the wrongness of others rather than acknowledge what it is we need – and what it is that we are not getting.  His excellent example:  If my partner wants more affection than I’m giving him, then he is “needy and dependent.”  On the other hand, if I want more affection than he’s giving me, then he’s “aloof and insensitive.”   Can you see how criticism of someone else  may actually be a tragic expression of our own values and needs?

What Rosenberg suggests is that since all of us have needs, if we can express them along with how we feel, we can deliver clear, empathetic communication.  Imagine this: I say to my husband, “I feel like I’m married to a wall.”  What’s his response likely to be?

“You’re a wall” is not very directive about what I need. Compare that to, “I’m feeling lonely and would like more emotional contact with you.”   The second approach acknowledges my feelings and needs rather than putting the responsibility for how I feel on someone else. Which statement do you think is more likely to get an empathetic response?

Not that everyone will always willingly give us what we need just because we share!  But this process gets us closer to that possibility by acknowledging responsibility for our own feelings and by giving us a better chance of being heard.  So next time you want to lash out at someone, think about it first. What are you feeling?  What do you want?  Can you express your feelings and needs in an honest and open way?  It takes work and practice (and even a little courage) to be vulnerable, but if you value the relationship with the other person, this approach can be incredibly worthwhile.   Try it on yourself.  When you are about to blame or guilt yourself, take a good look at what you really feel and want and then decide, is there a way to take care of yourself so you actually get what you need?

There is much to share about this rich practice, including its many applications in conflict resolution.  To learn more, check out Rosenberg’s book “Nonviolent Communication” and visit www.cnvc.org . Here’s a short video! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bydhuxilg_A

How to Spot A Cheater

Okay, what’s the deal?  How many sports figures, politicians, holier than thou preachers, stars, and even regular guys and gals are cheating on their marriages or their partner?  While I truly believe that kind, honest communication and respect is the basis for long-term healthy relationships, I also know that sometimes, that is not what you get from your partner.  Because the first step in resolving a problem is to know that there is one, here are some tips to help you figure out if you are being lied to.

According to author and Marriage Counselor M. Gary Neuman, here are the first signs of marital cheating to look for:

• Spending  more time away from home
• Having less sex
• Avoiding contact (e.g., partner doesn’t answer the cell phone)
• Being more critical of partner

If you suspect your partner of cheating, Federal Law Enforcement Officer and author, Janine Driver, who appeared on the Dr. Oz TV show, suggests you can use verbal and non-verbal cues to determine if your suspicions are true.   (Even though Driver specifies “men” in her work, I assume these can be generalized to women as well, but I haven’t been able to substantiate that notion yet.)  Here’s a summary of her Verbal and Non-Verbal Tips to help you Spot a Cheater:

Some Verbal Indicators of Deception – When your partner says….

Liars, Watch Your “Buts”
“I know you’re going to think I’m making this up, BUT…”
“I know you think I’m lying, BUT”
“I know this isn’t going to make sense, BUT…”

Character Testimony
“Just ask my friends they’ll tell you I’d never cheat on you!”

Common Deception Statements
“I knew this was going to happen to me!”
“Are you asking me if I’m cheating on you?”
“What kinds of person do you think I am?”
“I’d have to be stupid to cheat on you!”
“Why would I cheat on you?”

No Versus Never
Liars will often use the word “never” instead of “no” when you confront them. “Nevers” are simply an attempt at trying to convince us that they are telling us the truth.

Pronoun No No’s
When your partner is cheating and you confront him, he may use the pronouns “we” and “us” and if he does consider yourself warned because these pronouns always indicate there is a partnership, such as “We occasionally have lunch together but that’s it, there’s nothing romantic between us.” – BUSTED!

Some Nonverbal Indicators of Deception –When you see your partner….

An Increase in Manipulators
A “manipulator” is any time your man touches one part of his body with another part of his body, i.e., rubs his neck, throat or leg, touches his nose, runs his tongue across the front of his teeth, etc. 

Navel Intelligence
Liars may direct their belly button toward the door once you turn up the heat.  This move is sending the signal that they want to get out of there.

They’ve Got to Move it, Move it
Liars will often adjust their bodies during or after a lie to let off the stress and anxiety.

What next?  That’s the hard part, what to do if you find out your beloved has strayed? There is no easy answer.  There are many variables that go into determining what to do, and only you can know what is right for you.  More on that in future….

 To learn more on body language, read Janine Driver’s book, You Say More Than You Think: A 7-Day Plan For Using the New Body Language to Get What You Want and visit the websites, www.lyintamer.com.

 Watch the segment at http://www.lyintamer.com/flash/dr_oz_show.htm

Love – Gotta Work It!

Guess what? The “seven year itch” isn’t just a myth!   Renowned authors and TV personalities, Dr. Oz and Dr. Roizen say there is biology to love!  In summary, when we fall in love, our emotions trigger hormones like dopamine and oxytocin.   For the first four years of a love relationship, we get a dosage of hormones that helps keep us close and bonding.  However, somewhere between five to seven years, these chemical levels drop off.  After that, couples really need to work to keep the love and sex fresh.  Check out the Roizen-Oz video The Biology of Attraction to learn more practical tips to keep the love light glowing.

Another terrific resource, Dr. John Gottman, researcher, author and Ph.D. psychologist known for his work on marital stability and relationship analysis, wrote a book called The Seven Principles of Making Marriage Work  that suggest  how to keep the marriage going during the tough times. Although I admit I haven’t read the book, I summarized a terrific list from his website:  

• Seek help early. The average couple waits six years before seeking help for marital problems (and keep in mind, half of all marriages that end do so in the first seven years). This means the average couple lives with unhappiness for far too long.
• Edit yourself. Couples who avoid saying every critical thought when discussing touchy topics are consistently the happiest.
• Soften your “start-up.” Bring up problems gently and without blame.  Arguments first “start-up” because a spouse sometimes escalates the conflict from the get-go by making a critical or contemptuous remark in a confrontational tone.
• Accept influence. Because research shows women are already well-practiced at accepting influence from men, and a true partnership only occurs when a husband can do so as well.  A marriage succeeds to the extent that the husband can accept influence from his wife. A husband’s ability to be influenced by his wife (rather than vice-versa) is crucial.
•  Have high standards. The most successful couples are those who, even as newlyweds, refused to accept hurtful behavior from one another. Happy couples have high standards for each other. The lower the level of tolerance for bad behavior in the beginning of a relationship, the happier the couple is down the road.
• Learn to repair and exit the argument. Successful couples know how to exit an argument. Successful repair and exit include: changing the topic to something completely unrelated; using humor; stroking your partner with a caring remark (“I understand that this is hard for you”); making it clear you’re on common ground (“This is our problem”); backing down; and, in general, offering signs of appreciation for your partner and his or her feelings along the way (“I really appreciate and want to thank you for.…”). If an argument gets too heated, take a 20-minute break, and agree to approach the topic again when you are both calm.
• Focus on the bright side. In a happy marriage, while discussing problems, couples make at least five times as many positive statements to and about each other and their relationship as negative ones.  A good marriage must have a rich climate of positivity.

Last but not least, Michael J. Formica, MS, MA, psychotherapist, social scientist, and educator in Westport CT recently posted a blog entry called Ten Elements of Effective Relationships. His post is worth a look, and for me, his conclusion says it all:

 ”Spend time together, speak your truths, respect each other, take care of each other, laugh with — and at — one another…”

Love to hear what has worked for you!

Bring Back that Lovin’ Feeling

If you haven’t read your latest issue of Scientific American, you may miss out on practical exercises for building intimacy.  Robert Epstein, article author, longtime researcher, professor and PhD, has created dozens of exercises based on a distillation of scientific studies of how people learn to love each other. 

The basic concept is that when you increase vulnerability between two people you increase intimacy.  So if you are working on strengthening your love bond with someone close to you, here is a summary of the eight exercises from the article for your consideration  (and don’t worry, you keep your clothes on):

1)      Two as one:  Embrace each other gently and gradually try to synchronize your breathing for a few minutes.  Eventually, you may feel that you are breathing as one person.

2)      Soul Gazing:  Stand or sit about two feet away from each other and look deeply into each other’s eyes for two minutes.  Then talk about what you saw.

3)      Monkey Love: Stand or sit fairly close. One partner should start moving their hands, arms and legs any which way, while the other perfectly imitates the other partner’s movements. 

4)      Falling In Love: This is a trust exercise.  From a standing position, simply let yourself fall backward into the arms of your partner, (make sure that he or she knows what you are doing before you fall!) Then, Trade places several times. Talk about your feelings after you’re done. 

5)      Secret Swap:  Both partners should write a deep secret on a piece of paper.  Then trade papers and talk about what you read.   You can repeat this process over several days until there are no more secrets to tell.

6)      Mind-Reading Game: Write down a thought that you want to convey to your partner.  Then spend a few minutes wordlessly trying to communicate that thought (with your mind) while your partner guesses at what the thought is. If your partner can’t guess, reveal the thought and then switch roles.

7)      Let Me Inside:  Focus on each other while standing about four feet away from one another. Every 10 seconds or so, move a bit close until you are as close as you can get without touching.  (Warning, this exercise might lead to kissing)

8)      Love Aura: Place the palm of your hand as close as possible to your partner’s palm without actually touching. Do this for several minutes to feel heat, and sometimes, other kinds of energy.

 If you want to read more, you will need to get the magazine or visit the makinglovebook site below and look for the link to the article.  Epstein also has a book that looks interesting, called Making Love: How People Learn to Love and How You Can Too (www.makinglovebook.com ). 

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Desire to Improve Valentine’s Day?

For many people, Valentine’s Day is simply a reminder of what they don’t have – the soul mate or partner they’ve been searching for, but who never appears.  Or they may lament being stuck in a “bad” or unsatisfying relationship.  So they pine and they long for something else.  Sadly, focusing on what you “lack” and feeling badly about the situation does nothing to make a good partnership or a better life become a reality. So what can you do instead?

I suggest you focus on possibility. You can begin to change your life by knowing what you really want.  When you have a vision of what you want, you can empower yourself to take inspired action. Here are a few fun exercises you can do to get on the road to knowing and manifesting what you desire. To create these, I borrowed from a concept called Law of Attraction.

My quick and dirty explanation of this Law is that if you can feel the feeling of already having your heart’s desire, you can begin to make it real.  No, it’s not a magic wand, but it’s more energizing (and more fun) than focusing on what you lack.   The exercises below will allow you to try it for yourself.  What do you have to lose?

Start by answering some suggested questions: 

1)    What qualities do I want my perfect mate to have?

• What do I enjoy about being with my lover?
• What are his or her qualities and characteristics?
• How does my partner treat me?
• What values do we share?
• What is most important to them?
• What do they want to achieve before they leave this world?
• What do they really love about their life?

2)    What qualities do I want to have in a relationship with my perfect mate?

• What does my lover enjoy about being with me?
• What qualities and characteristics do I have that my lover especially appreciates?
• How do I treat my perfect mate?
• What fun things do we do together?
• What values are non-negotiable for me?
• What do I love about my life?
• What is most important to me in the world?
• What do I want to achieve before I leave this world?
• What would a perfect week be like when we are together?
• How do I feel when we are together? Can I feel that way right now?

Notice, if you have trouble answering some of these questions about yourself.  If so, you may find it worthwhile to spend some more time being in love with yourself and your life to feel shiny in your own skin. Have you ever noticed how attractive people are when they are living a life they are truly excited about?    

If instead, you are hoping your mate will complete you by filling in your missing blanks –even though it’s okay to feel that way, your life will probably be a lot more fun if you know and love who you are first.   In that way, you can have a fabulous life with or without a partner.  And when you do join your partner, you will have lots of joy to share!

3) To wrap the exercise up

• Write yourself a love letter as if it were from your lover and/or 
• Write your lover a love letter as if he or she lives and breathes and their presence is imminent!
• Once one or more letters are complete, read them to yourself and feel the feelings you wrote about, as if you had it all now: love, joy and passion.  Then, put them away in a safe place.  Feel free to take them out and read them again whenever you want to – or not! And if you do take them out, allow yourself to feel the feelings as if they were happening right now.
• As often as you want, visit what it feels like to have someone in your life to write that kind of letter to.  Feel the presence of your soul mate, not their absence.  

4) Take inspired action

To start to realize your vision about yourself and your lover, what feels good to do next? Did you learn something about yourself that would be beneficial to pursue right now?  If not, no worries; just know and believe that love for yourself and others is always available to you – and then go out and spread some!

How?  Here’s one idea:  To honor the joy of Valentine’s Day, send a message of love and appreciation to everyone you care about.  It’s a great time to share – and you may brighten  someone else’s day who is struggling with this event.

So if it’s appropriate for you, feel free to redefine Valentine’s Day as a time of empowerment: take action to honor and know yourself and what you want, and take action to share your love with others. 

Now that, for me, is a fabulous holiday!

Read more about the Law of Attraction http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Attraction

Thanksgiving with a Side of Family Drama

On Tuesday, a NY Times article about food, kin and tension at Thanksgiving by TARA PARKER-POPE caught my eye.  Pope shares several tales of woe and some insights, including the following:

“As families gather around the country this week to celebrate Thanksgiving, many of them are bracing for the intense emotions of the holiday meal. The combination of food and family often brings out longstanding tensions, criticism and battles for control. Simple issues like cooking with butter or asking for seconds are fraught with family conflict and commentary.”

Sadly, I’ve sat at that table of criticism and felt vulnerable and abused.  So what to do if this sounds like your Thursday?  Three little ideas to keep in your pocket to help get you through the holiday:

1) Create a sense of calm by breathing deeply. Notice that when you breathe in and out for four counts, three or four times in a row, it is hard to be tense.  Find the place of deep relaxation within you through by focusing on your breath.  You know it’s there.  When things get testy, get relaxed.  Take a breathing break.  Maybe the snide remark won’t mean so much to you.

2) Play the grateful game.  Challenge yourself to be grateful for everything for the day. Feel grateful that you have a family and/or friends to share Thanksgiving with, even if they are annoying.  Take a moment to feel grateful for every mouthful of food you consume. Chew slowly, taste every bite.  And, if someone says something snide, you can respond from a grateful place, and maybe invite them to participate.

Here’s a for instance: What if you hear, “Don’t you think you’ve eaten enough dessert Catherine?”  One example of a grateful response you could use (but only if you believe it) is, “I am so grateful that you care about me Aunt Rita and that I’m able to spend this time with you.  In fact, I am really enjoying every single bite of this delicious dessert.”  You can then move on, or ask Aunt Rita, “What are you grateful for today?”

3) Give yourself permission to do whatever is most loving for you.  Allow yourself to act as King or Queen of your own life for this one day. (Wouldn’t it be great if you could do that every day?)  Love and accept whatever choices you make - as long as you are not purposefully seeking to cause pain to yourself or someone else.  Call in sick if you really can’t face the gang, or allow yourself to eat everything on your plate and more if it makes you happy.   If guilt rears its ugly head – remember that you lovingly chose your actions to nurture yourself. If you are truly at peace with your choices, then what others say won’t matter much.  

For a fun idea about using BINGO and to read the  entire NY Times article, click here: http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/23/turkey-with-family-drama-on-the-side/

HAVE A SAFE AND HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Handling Tough Situations Like a Pro

Okay, here comes that angry or disgruntled person in your life:  your spouse, your customer, someone who is ready to give it to you.   While you may want to spin on your heel and run, or knock them out before they get to you, I suggest you consider a few key principals that will diffuse the situation – without bodily harm or long term injury – most of the time.   To me, the crux is empathy: accepting and understanding the other person’s position without judging you or them!  How to get to empathy?  Keep reading!

In his recent article, The Martial Art of Difficult Conversations Peter Bregman, author and consultant, articulates beautifully a little story that illustrates some simple actions to master the difficult situation.  His story spoke to me because I realized that I’ve used his approach countless times and it works very well for me, not only as a corporate staffer, but also as a wife and mom!  Read his wonderful article by clicking on the link above, or if you are short on time, here’s my overview of his key points:

• Ask questions.  Ask open ended, exploratory questions. Who, what, when, where, how, why, etc.  Use questions that clarify what the angry person (“AP”) is saying and feeling, i.e. try to understand and the AP’s perspective.  Hold yourself back from asking loaded questions or using language that may sound antagonistic.
• Actually listen.   This is my favorite item, and for many people, the hardest part:  really pay attention.  Don’t talk.  Hear what is being said and let go of all defensiveness.  Look for what else is going on.  As Bregman says:  Try to hear what isn’t said, but what is implied: the desires, fears, and assumptions that are behind the words.
• Repeat and summarize. Recap what you hear, using as many of the same words as the AP did.  Also summarize what you hear and check with the AP to see if you understood correctly. If you are told that you didn’t get it right, ask what you missed. Once you are told, repeat that part again and ask you got it right this time.

The goal is to get the AP to relax and release some anger.  Then you should be able to talk to each other more constructively about what happened and what to do next, if anything.  To me, Bregman’s process is like an empathy primer:  it gives you what you need to do to understand and accept someone else’s perspective non-judgmentally.

My take on the best next step is to take a corrective action.  That might be to accept responsibility for your wrongdoing, if in fact that is the case.  So, let’s say you really did ruin your boyfriends favorite shirt, you might start with an apology.    On the other hand, if it was the cleaners who did it, you could empathize: ”I can see why you are so angry – let’s talk about what happened and how we can stop this from ever happening again.”

On the other hand, there may not be a clear wrong doing.  Perhaps as a marketer, you approved an ad that some of your constituents didn’t like, but it is a good, defensible ad.   Then you might again, offer authentic empathy, “I can see why that ad made you feel uncomfortable, I hadn’t seen it that way before speaking with you.  Here are the reasons we did it this way – and while I can’t retract the ad at this point, I will certainly consider your perspective in the future.  Is there anything we can do right now to ameliorate the situation for you?”  The conversation might go something like that.

Empathy, for me:  listening, asking questions and really hearing the other person’s perspective has been a powerful tool for working through a tough situation and actually feeling good about it! How about you?