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Are You a Slow Learner?

5/29/2014

Are You a Slow Learner?

I am. I know I am because life has to repeat messages and I fail a lesson and then have to retake it. It can be pretty annoying.

I am grateful I get to retake it until I get it right, though.

Someone talked about how we have a wonderful universe because we attract what we need to learn. We call forth these lessons to ensure we learn. If we do not learn, the volume simply gets louder until it gets our attention. I learned this lesson in high school. I did not pay attention to the pain and the pain grew and grew until I could no longer ignore it. I wish I was a quicker learner.

Today, I had a great conversation and he said, “You must want this because it is here in your life right now.” There is something about the situation in your life right now that is going to benefit you greatly, that is why you called it into being. Ask yourself what part of the present situation is your creation. Take credit/responsibility for what you have created. Pay close attention to lessons that you have to take over and over in different areas in your life.

It is sometimes easier to see in your dream life. You create the scenes, the characters as well as the script in your dreams. You then play the movie for yourself and it appears as if dreams come from a source outside ourselves.

When I develop characters in my dreams, they are helping me to see my world from a host of different perspectives. When I can see the whole menu of possibilities, my life opens.

In the big classroom that we call life- What lessons are you learning? Every day there is a new lesson or series of lessons if we pay attention.

Didn’t quite get the lesson today? No worries; it will become clearer tomorrow.

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Look at The World From Their Reality

5/22/2014

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In counseling couples, I often challenge them to enter one another’s emotional reality (empathy). Do not be yourself walking in their shoes- because then it is still about you. Look at the world from their reality. It is a profoundly different experience. If you cannot get into their world, or rush it, you may not be able to connect right now. Once you spend the time to get to know their world, experience how it is different from yours.

Now, you have a basis for connecting with them.

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Let Your Light Shine

5/15/2014

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Today's experiment: Get out of the way and observe how powerful you are. Enjoy

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As Soon as You Think You Know, You Don't

5/7/2014

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Be like a child when seeing your significant other- experience them each time as if it were the first time. They have changed since you have last seen them.

They are constantly refreshing themselves, are you constantly refreshing your view? Begin afresh, every time.

Free yourself from your theories, your ideas about your significant other and actually experience them as a dynamic person.

As my professors told me, “The minute we think we know them, we are mistaken.”

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Emotional Connection

5/1/2014

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Emotional Connection

Tuning into the environment helps you connect. The same exact behaviors that worked an hour ago might be ineffective right now, depending on the context. The same actions that demonstrated manners and politeness might be disrespectful, depending on the situation. We have to adapt to our surroundings instead of having preconceived notions.

How do I relate to the person in front of me right now? That is my relationship. Am I present and available? Am I able to be in the moment with them or have I “rehearsed my role?”

I tend to focus on “doing the right thing.” The difficulty with that is that I assume there is a right way to do things and I have preconceived notions about how it should look. I am focusing on my behavior instead of engaging the situation, the other person and just being with them.

“Be in touch with what we are doing while we are doing it,” says Lief, the author of Making Friends with Death.

“…bring ourselves back to present experience and the person in front of us,” she wrote. Over the next few pages she lovingly suggests, “Come back to what is happening, allow room for doubt and confusion, room for mistakes, slow yourself down, tune in to your preconceived notions and check in with yourself and the situation at hand, have an appreciation for the unexpected, and not being in control, allowing time for things to develop...establish an atmosphere in which no one needs to prove anything. Slowing down can open up possibilities that speed and busyness cannot. When we slow down enough, it can be feel threatening because we feel what is going on.” I see this as the basis of emotional connection- first being in touch with emotion in me.

This is harder to do when we ourselves are depleted. Take care of your needs to help yourself and to help others better. Pay attention to how you try too hard and how you hold yourself back, when it comes to connecting with others.

“dealing with a situation we would rather avoid…takes tremendous energy…just because we refuse to deal with something, does not mean it does not exist,” Lief continues “…we still resist relating to situations we wish were not happening…We create a small zone of comfort removed from the demands of the world around us…when required to deal with difficult or demanding situations, we feel pressured, even attacked, and we respond by strategizing our retreat, as if we were on a battlefield…bolstering our sense of being cut off from the world around us…When we just jump in, or find ourselves thrust in to the middle of things, exertion is a natural response to the immediate of whatever we are facing-the wisdom of no escape.”

Just to reiterate, we are asking you to face difficult things, not unlike going to the Dentist. Not necessarily a fun thing to do, but a better idea than avoiding the Dentist altogether. When you do not have enough energy to face, we are not asking you to keep pushing. Again, be real, be honest with yourself- when you need to rest, rest. When you need to prod yourself to face the difficulty, prod. You can stop and restart as often as you need in order to stay in the moment and connected. My mistake would be to wait until all the stars align, until I know “the right” thing to do. Instead, work spontaneously with whatever you find there.

Many of us find it really challenging to just be with one another, no chore, no words, no music or TV etc., just being. “Our sense of presence is the most powerful gift we can offer,” Lief wrote, “sit still and be with another person without pretense. Speech is only one form of communication and a rather limited one at that. Mindless talk disconnects us. Being present is not rocket science, it is simply connecting with our body first...we can learn to get across what we have to say in a few well-chosen words or gestures. ” She furthers that we do not simply give up and allow whatever happens to happen. We are engaged with one another and if problem solving is required, we do that from an engaged perspective rather than from an emotional distance.

Again, this is emotional connection.

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Are You a Slow Learner?

Look at The World From Their Reality

Let Your Light Shine

As Soon as You Think You Know, You Don't

Emotional Connection

Don Boice
Don Boice, LCSW-R, specializes in gender communication with couples in conflict.

Archives

Categories

Are You a Slow Learner?

Look at The World From Their Reality

Let Your Light Shine

As Soon as You Think You Know, You Don't

Emotional Connection

Don BoiceDon Boice, LCSW-R, specializes in gender communication with couples in conflict.

Archives

Categories

Don Boice
Don Boice, LCSW-R, specializes in gender communication with couples in conflict.