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Relationships: The Art of Listening

  • Posted on July 1, 2009 at 10:12 pm

In 1974, Dr. Virginia Satir presented the concept of mirroring in her groundbreaking book, “Conjoint Family Therapy.”

In 1975 Dr. Thomas Gordon wrote a best-selling book called “Parent Effectiveness Training.” In the book he taught parents to “active listen,” which means to reflect back to the speaker the feelings and information they are trying to convey.

Mirroring, or active listening, is a powerful tool, but whether or not it works depends upon your intent.

If you are active listening to another with an agenda to get them to see what they are doing wrong, or to get them to listen to you after you listen to them, then your intent in listening is to control. The person you are listening to can easily pick up the energy of control and will get angry or go into resistance. Listening with the intention to control backfires and just creates confusion in communication.

However, active listening from a true desire to understand another’s feelings and point of view can be magical. When you listen to learn and understand, rather than to control, you give the other person a great gift.

We all want to be heard and understood. While it is our responsibility to hear and understand ourselves – our own feelings and needs – and take loving action for ourselves, it also feels wonderful when someone we care about hears and understands us. This is the basis of emotional intimacy.

When I work with couples, I teach them that there are only two healthy ways of dealing with conflict:

1. Move into an intent to learn
2. Speak your truth and lovingly disengage

MOVING INTO AN INTENT TO LEARN

When you really desire to understand another, you move into an intent to learn – both about yourself and about them. Actively listening to the other is a major aspect of learning. When you really want to deeply know another, you listen carefully and mirror back to them what you hear them saying and feeling. It is not a matter of agreeing with them, but of understanding them. It is not about changing them or changing yourself, but about really hearing them and attempting to see the world through their eyes – understanding the good reasons they have for feeling and behaving as they do.

For example:

Your partner: “I’m still angry at you for being late and not calling me when you know I worry about you.”

You: “I hear you saying that it’s really unsetting to you when I don’t call when I’m going to be late. You feel I don’t care about the fact that you worry.”

Your partner: “Right. If you really cared about me, you wouldn’t want me to worry.”

You: “I understand. It hurts your heart when you know that I know you worry and I don’t seem to care about that.”

Partner: “Yes, that’s exactly right. So if you understand this, are you going to start to call me when you are late?”

You: It sounds like you believe that if I understand you, then I will change – that I have no good reasons for not calling, is that right?

This dialogue can go on until it feels complete to both of you.

Your partner may or may not want to hear why you were late without calling, and you need to let go of getting him or her to hear you. That’s the hard part!

SPEAKING YOUR TRUTH AND LOVINGLY DISENGAGING

There are times when, even if you are open to learning and really want to understand another, the other is just intent on attacking and blaming you. When this is the case, you might want to speak your truth and lovingly disengage. This looks like saying something like: “I’d love to talk with you about this when you stop being angry,” and then walking away, keeping your heart open. This means that you are not withdrawing in anger or blame. You are staying in compassion for yourself and the other person so that when he or she opens, you have no residue because you have taken full responsibility for yourself.

Once the other person is no longer angry and blaming, you might want to again open to learning and active listening to them – with no agenda that he or she listens to you. True listening is an act of giving with no expectation of anything in return. It is a kind and loving way to interact with someone you care about. It is a great gift.

Margaret Paul, Ph.D. is a best-selling author of 8 books, relationship expert, and co-creator of the powerful Inner Bonding® healing process. Are you are ready to discover real love and intimacy? Learn Inner Bonding now! Click here for a FREE Inner Bonding Course, and visit our website for more articles and help.

Article Source: Relationships: The Art of Listening

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Targets of Opportunity

  • Posted on July 1, 2009 at 7:56 pm

What are targets of opportunity? This is a term which is familiar to those who have spent time in the army, the targets being persons of the enemy who happen to be just where you happen to be looking. Yesterday I was talking to a surgeon who had also been in the war and he used this term “targets of opportunity” to describe polyps in the bowel. His use of this term in such a different context grasped my attention, and I later found myself wondering how many people miss out on opportunities in life.

I don’t mean this merely in the sense of bowel polyps being identified and removed; I’m referring now to opportunities which present themselves to us every day of our lives. Our lives offer infinite possibilities and yet many of us do not even realize that these opportunities are there. We tend to live our lives in accordance with preconceived ideas and expectations. Whatever we perceive now, today, is made sense of through our beliefs and past knowledge and expectations. Hence the surgeon I mentioned before using his army terminology to describe a completely different context. His pattern match relating to “targets of opportunity” was a very empowering one. I for one would definitely want him as my surgeon if I had bowel polyps – he saw them as his own personal enemies to be eliminated with immediate effect! He was at war with these bowel polyps.

How many of us have this focus, this intensity of focus upon out goals? The majority of us have work related goals which we either set for ourselves or they are set for us. But do we give equal attention to the setting of goals with regards to our relationships, or happiness in general, or our spirituality? This leads to the question of which is more important to you and have you got your priorities right?

If you do not set goals it is likely that the targets of opportunity which present themselves to you will be ignored. In fact, you will probably not even see them, let alone give yourself the opportunity to ignore them. So many people wonder what they did wrong in their day to day life, or in their relationship. They ask themselves these questions after the event of course, when it is too late to make any changes. The fact is that if you do not focus upon what you want you will miss out on opportunities because you will be blind to them. Whatever you focus upon you attract into your reality.

Have you given any time to intentionally seeking happiness? Most people set more minor goals, with the idea in our minds that “if I lose weight I will be happy” or “if I make a million dollars I will be happy” and so on. Achieving these goals will not necessarily lead to happiness; in fact I very much doubt that any of these types of goals will lead to happiness, because happiness is a state of mind that you feel “in the now”. Happiness is a state which you experience at this moment in time, and it involves acceptance of where you are, and enjoyment of the moment. Happiness is not conditional. Happiness just is.

Happiness in itself leads to fulfillment and success. If you choose to enjoy each moment, to be in the now, you will necessarily be more aware, and those targets of opportunity will not slip by unnoticed.

Many of us are so used to living life on a tread-mill, that we have almost forgotten how to be in the moment, and enjoy being in the now. But this state is in actual fact the nearest state to bliss that you can experience and the human mind hungers after this. You can learn how to relax and be in the now with the help of hypnosis downloads. Hypnosis is a state of relaxation. You feel good in hypnosis. It also allows access to your subconscious mind and so you can easily change habitual thoughts and behaviors with the help of hypnosis.

If you want to be happy, to be in the now, and to not miss your targets of opportunity, then you will find that you can refocus your mind quickly and easily simply by listening to hypnosis downloads.

Roseanna Leaton, specialist in hypnosis downloads for happiness, success and well-being.

With a degree in psychology and qualifications in hypnotherapy, NLP and sports psychology, Roseanna Leaton is one of the leading practitioners of self-improvement. You can get a free hypnosis download from http://www.RoseannaLeaton.com and peruse her extensive library of hypnosis downloads .

Article Source: Targets of Opportunity

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Self Improvement Solutions – 5 Tips For Maintaining Your Self Esteem

  • Posted on July 1, 2009 at 7:56 pm

Self esteem can be very hard to build and once you have it, it can be a burden to maintain. Everyday life will test your self-esteem; see how much you can take before it finally gets through to you. Never let it get the best of you and never let it destroy you because once you lose all self esteem, you’re back to square one and the journey will be long to regain you esteem. In this article discover 5 things you should avoid to keep your esteem high.

1 – Negative Environment
This is the place where non – appreciative people thrive. Everyone will have one of these in their life may it be work, school or even at home. Any work you do is not appreciated even if you worked yourself to the bone. This environment will have you feeling bad so avoid it at all costs as it will ruin your self-esteem.

2 – Other People’s Behaviour
If someone is in a bad mood leave them alone. People who are in bad moods are most likely to attack if provoked. Anyone that sends out a bad vibe you should immediately back off from as it may affect you too or they could attack (verbally) denting your esteem.

3 – Changing Environment
This isn’t avoidable but it is something you should look out for. Sometime in your life you will experience a change may that be house, school, job or even relationships. Changes will be hard to adjust to and some big changes can seriously hurt your self-esteem (a change to a lower paid job because you weren’t as good at your last one) but remember that with change you can easily adapt to it.

4 – Past Experience
This is a major self-esteem crusher. Some things happen in the past and every now and then we will rethink these events and some will even cry. A good example and probably most common past experience that would crush you would be a divorce from your parent (you feel you caused it) or your parents leaving you for adoption. Sure the past can come back to haunt us, but the past is the past and you have to put that behind you and think about the future.

5 – Negative World View
The world is full of negativity; war, famine, poverty…All this can hurt you as you know you can’t do anything to help but you can. You may donate clothes, food or even money to help people who need it more and you are guaranteed to get a major boost of esteem.

Don’t get knocked on your feet by people who are trying to pull you down. We are given our options and it is us who choose which one =s to take. Follow this guide to make sure that you don’t get pulled down by the world and so that you can keep on top.

Need more self-improvement help? Then check out: http://www.squidoo.com/s3lfimprovement

Article Source: Self Improvement Solutions – 5 Tips For Maintaining Your Self Esteem

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The Truth About Anticipating Grief

  • Posted on July 1, 2009 at 7:36 pm

The thought and feeling that our loved one is going to die is never a consoling fact. Hence, anticipating grief is not an easy thing to do for everyone else involved. Anticipating grief is the period during which a family member or a patient is expected to die. This sorrow is somewhat the same to the after-effects of losing someone you love. The emotions felt are the same feeling of loss and it just hurts as bad. It is no less different than when one has gone through a sudden or tragic death of a loved one. It comes with some of the similar emotions of shock, denial and guilt and is related with social and cultural reactions regarding the loss.

And because some people are still in a state of denial they may not go through anticipatory grief. Their grief will happen after the loss of their beloved. The grief experienced before the demise doesn’t shorten the grief after the demise. It’s still the same sorrowful grieving process and it does not make any better way to endure. The only distinction between anticipating grief and coping with a sudden loss is that it gives the entire clan some time to talk and spend the remaining time with the person as well as accepting and coming to terms in the reality of their demise.

There is still time left to talk about things that were kept as secrets. There is still time left to make any amends to the existing relationships. There is still time left to finally forgive any faults or mistakes in the past. And there is till time left to hear and carry out the last dying wishes of a parting loved one. This grief in anticipating the demise of someone we love builds a great concern for the dying person, painful and sorrowful preparation of the departure of the loved one, and making the necessary adjustments in living without our dearest beloved.

When somebody dies suddenly and so tragically, the pain that goes with it could be more overwhelming than that of anticipatory grief because of the shock and trauma. There is not even a warning signal or no more time left to reminisce the past with the person. This puts the bereaved in a corner to confront the unexpected which could minimize the coping capacities of that person and make normalcy seem so far away. The impact of that great loss might be hard to imagine and may not be realized right away. Thus, acceptance seems barely discernible. Learning to accept the possibility of the passing of a loved one would leave you feeling that you are slowly abandoning that person.

Expecting the death might only build more emotional attachment to the dying person even stronger which doesn’t make it any way easier to accept the future. The dying person on the other hand also undergoes pain for leaving everyone and makes it more painful and unbearable for everybody involved. No matter how our loved one dies, it all depends on each person and how much they cope with grief in their lives.

The author of this article Amy Twain is a Self Improvement Coach who has been successfully coaching and guiding clients for many years. Amy just published a new home study course on how to boost your Self Esteem overnight. More info about this “Quick-Action Plan for A More Confident You” is available at http://www.FabulousSelfEsteem.com.

Article Source: The Truth About Anticipating Grief

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