Slippery Conversations

LaShelle Charde

Have you ever been doing your best to be heard, repeating and clarifying and still the conversation slips away from you and you don't feel heard?

Often what is missing is simple turn taking.  Let's take an example with Jonah and Alexis.  Alexis expresses clearly her observation, feeling, need, and then asks Jonah to say back what he heard.  Jonah really wants to meet Alexis' need to be heard, but is feeling vulnerable and needing understanding so he mixes what he heard with what he wants to say.

For example, Alexis offers this neutral observation along with her feelings and needs: "When you left around 7 that evening and didn't return until after 1am, I felt . . . ."  Instead of giving back the neutral observation, Jonah says, "When I left that evening to comfort my friend  whose mother had died".  He begins to tell his story here without first hearing his partner.  He goes on and little bits of his story appear in the midst of otherwise clear reflection of what Alexis said.  She feels confused with this.  She wants to honor that he did get much of what she said and at the same time has a sense that he didn't.  Mixing his story with her experience doesn't make space for her experience to stand alone and be valid.

There are several ways to avoid this trap.

1.  Ask to be heard and then reassure your partner that you want to hear their experience too.

2.  Start with the clarity that you want your experience to be heard rather than argue a memory of what really happened.

3.  Own the fact that all experience is subjective by using phrases like:  "As I remember it",  "It seemed to me",  "My perception was".  "I told myself the story that", "My interpretation was" , etc.

4.  Set up regular and intentional conversations in which you take turns giving and receiving empathy.

5.  Use a talking stick to remind each other who the speaker is.  The person without the talking stick can offer empathy and ask clarifying questions, but doesn't express any of their experience until holding the stick.

This week practice reflecting back someone's experience to them and notice if you start to tell your own story before checking to see if they feel heard.

Say it like it is

LaShelle Charde

Say It Like It Is

Some of the most confusing suffering comes from shame or embarrassment about the basics of how you thrive and don't thrive in relationship.  Shame or embarrassment arises when you have some set of rules about what you are allowed to need and you aren't allowed to need in intimate relationship.  As you compare your actual experience to this set of rules, you inevitably feel discouraged and may fall into a puddle of self-criticism.

For example, you may have a rule that says:  "In a healthy relationship you should be satisfied with connecting with your partner on the weekend and not want anything more if you don't connect during the week".  But the fact is, it's pretty hard for you to feel secure in relationship.  You could reflect on your childhood, read about attachment theory, or consult your horoscope to explain it and yet even with more understanding, the fact remains:  to thrive in relationship you really benefit from multiple connection points in a given week or given day with your partner.  This is just the way it is for you right now.  It doesn't mean that you aren't doing your personal work and growing and changing.  It simply is the way your system works right now.  You have typically learned about what doesn't work for you the hard way, through resulting reactivity.

Sometimes it helps to gain acceptance about what truly works for you, by imagining that before you were born, you were handed some "karmic packages" (e.g., patterns of reactivity, unique challenges & strengths, types of wounding, etc.) and told that these are for you to unwrap and work with.  These  karmic packages are NOT who you are; understanding this allows you to find equanimity in your relationship to them.  Part of being responsible for your packages is being honest about what they are and how they work, understanding of course that they shift as you work with them.

When you are caught in shame or embarrassment about your "karmic packages", the result is usually confusing arguments, sudden hurts or outbursts, shut down, and sometimes manipulation or keeping secrets.  It takes self-awareness, courage, and responsibility to be honest with your partner (or anyone close to you) about how you really thrive in relationship.  Often you will find that your honesty and courage inspires others to meet you and share equally.  Sometimes though, you find out that not everyone can meet you at that level of vulnerability.  Regardless of how grounded and skillful you are another may still hear demands and expectations rather than vulnerable sharing.  In this case a relationship may need to end.  While this is painful, it may save you months or years of investing in a relationship that doesn't work.  

When another can receive your honesty and then share honestly about how much they can offer and with what they are willing to work, new doors of creativity and collaboration open up.  You may be able to negotiate and find new and creative ways to build a sense of security even when your partner doesn't show up in the way you are asking.  The tragic thing is that you won't be able to get to this creative collaboration without honesty about the way it is for you and hearing back from your partner what they can truly offer from the generosity of their autonomous heart.

Saying it like it is, is important in the beginning of a relationship to help you both enter into a commitment with honesty and mutual respect.  And since you are an ever changing flow of life energy, saying it like it is, is really an ongoing practice of self-reflection and honest communication that arises out of a compassionate and equanimous relationship to one's experiences, including one's karmic packages.

Practice

Take a moment to check in with something you would like in your relationship, that you haven't yet shared with your partner.  Follow these steps for reflection:  Name clearly the feeling, need, and request that goes along with what you would like, name any shame or embarrassment that comes up.  Breath through your heart, offer yourself reassurance that's it okay to experience what's present.  Allow yourself to rest there for a couple of minutes, just being with in compassion.

Achieve Radical Love

Gala Darling

In a world where self-hatred is a multibillion-dollar industry, loving yourself is a revolutionary act. Choosing to disconnect from the messaging that tells us we can never be too thin, white, or wealthy can completely change our lives.

Best of all, by making the decision to live as your fully embodied, entirely realized, unapologetic self, you embolden others to do the same. You let other people know that it's safe for them to be who they really are. You don't even know how massive a change this can be. By living as your whole self, you can literally tear the fabric of reality and create a new paradigm for yourself and the people around you.

"Stop acting so small. You are the universe in ecstatic motion." —Rumi

How do we move this theory out of the intellectual and into the practical? It's easier than we think. You don't need to move to Bali and meditate on the meaning of life every day! You can learn to love yourself in the suburbs in Australia, on the gritty streets of New York City, or on a farm in Belgium. Here are a few suggestions to get you started:

1. Stop running away from your feelings.

Many of us use sugar, alcohol, drugs, television, or compulsive shopping to suppress any unpleasant emotions that we experience. It works for a little while — there's no denying that the high from sipping hot chocolate or purchasing a new pair of kicks can be thrilling.

But eventually, this temporary ecstasy fades, and we're left alone with our feelings again. After all, whatever we resist persists. Those uncomfortable feelings will keep cropping up until we finally take a deep breath and deal with 'em.

Next time you start to experience the tingling of an unpleasant feeling, pause before indulging in your vice of choice (whether it’s eating a piece of candy, browsing through a gossip magazine, or shopping online).

It only takes a second to disrupt those old habits that don't serve us. Instead, allow your feelings to wash over you. Rather than denying and repressing how you feel, say "yes" in your mind. Surrender to the emotion. This simple act can be massively powerful: when you no longer hide from your feelings and instead greet them at the door, they are much less frightening.

Now play detective with your feelings. Use your intuition and memory to dig out the root cause of your discomfort. Here's a hint: most discomfort or pain is a result of fear. What are you really afraid of? Once you know the answer to that, you can look at the situations in your past that echoed this experience.

For example, perhaps you feel jealous when your lover talks to other women. What is the root of your jealousy? It might be a fear that you're not good enough or that your lover is going to reject you. If this is your fear, it’s likely that you’ve experienced rejection or the feeling of not being good enough in your past.

Knowledge is power. Once you know the root of your feelings, you can deal with them. I love tapping for dismantling old, limiting beliefs and taking the sting out of a story. You could also try journaling, talk therapy, hypnosis, or simply having a frank conversation with your partner about why you feel the way you do.

2. Burn your fears.

An incredibly cathartic way to release negative feelings or obsessive thoughts is to literally set them on fire. In pride of place on my hot pink altar sits a miniature cauldron — I call it my "travel cauldron"— since I have taken it all over the world with me. I buy magic paper which sparkles and sizzles as it burns, tear it into small strips and write down the things I want to release. Then I crumple them up, drop them into my cauldron, and set 'em alight. There's something primal and wonderful about watching your fears literally go up in smoke.

3. Keep your best qualities on file.

Have you ever noticed how easy it is to forget a compliment? On the other hand, that critique you got in 1992 still echoes in your head today. So frustrating, right? It's not your fault: we all have a negativity bias that makes the insults stick out while the praise shrinks into the background. Oh, humans. We're so complicated!

You can get around it, though. When you're just getting started with radical self-love, it can be hard to see yourself as the magnificent, cosmic miracle you are. Sometimes it's easier to see yourself through someone else's eyes.

I want you to start keeping a list of the compliments you receive, and keep the list where you’ll see it every day. Read them aloud to yourself as often as you can. With a little time, you'll start to believe the beautiful things other people say about you, and you'll be able to accept them gracefully.

4. Stop putting off your passions.

Your time on this incredible planet is unbelievably limited. You are going to die one day, and nobody knows how much longer they have. Why waste your time doing things that you don't care about?

You absolutely must carve out time to do the things that light you up from the inside and make your heart chirp like a baby bird. No one else is going to help you make time for these things. Guard your schedule aggressively and make space to write, or dance, or invent, or whatever it is you adore.

Here's the truth: nothing will make you feel better than working on something meaningful. Pouring energy into your passions makes you vibrate at a higher frequency, and it is so life-affirming. When's the last time you spoke to someone who was truly passionate about something? Didn't it make you feel alive? Make it one of your goals to become one of those people.

5. Count your blessings.

There's a lot of chat about the importance of gratitude. It can seem like it couldn't possibly be that easy to be happy, so we overlook it. Ultimately, it's just like anything in life: You can only infer so much from thinking about something. Transformation occurs when we actually TRY things.

If you're unable to appreciate what you have now, it doesn't matter what happens to you in the future: it will never be enough. Cultivating a daily gratitude practice helps you to be in the moment and to see the joy in everything. 

You could also rope your family and friends into it! Every morning and evening, ask the people you're with to list the five things they're most thankful for. Encourage them to be specific. "Having a job" is generic gratitude, but "The coffee shop was playing Al Green this morning" is deep gratitude. That means you have to really think about it. The benefits of being specific are massive and to be encouraged. This extremely simple practice can truly change your life. Try it and see for yourself!

There are so many ways to fall in love with your life — these barely scratch the surface.

7 signs you're with the wrong partner

Margaret Paul

You have to start with knowing why you want to be in a relationship, and when it comes down to it, there are only two reasons people do this:

1. To get love, security, validation, and safety, or to have a child. Someone to complete you — to fill your emptiness and make you feel adequate and worthy.

2. To share love and companionship, and to grow emotionally and spiritually.

You need to BE the right partner before you can know if you're with the right partner. That means you need to learn to love yourself, define your own worth, and fill yourself with love to share, rather than pursuing external validation. Ask yourself, "Am I filled with love to share, or am I needy and desperate to get love?”

If your intent is to get love rather than share love, then it's likely that no relationship will ultimately be right for you. You have some internal work to do before anyone will be the right partner for you.

You don't need to be "perfect" at loving yourself, but you do need to be working on learning to take responsibility for your own feelings of worth, adequacy, and safety.

If you fall into the second category (wanting to be in a relationship to give love and to grow), then ask yourself the following questions:

1. Is the person you're with open to learning about themselves and about you?

Being open to learning how to love yourself and others — rather than being closed and defensive — is essential for sustaining a loving relationship. Partners cannot resolve conflict without being open to learning. The question to ask yourself is, "What does this person do in conflict?"

Some people can appear to be open and loving until a conflict occurs and then they get angry, withdrawn, resistant, or overly compliant. If they do close up, how long does it take them to open again? Obviously, if they get emotionally or physically abusive, they are not the right partner for you.

Being open to lovingly resolving conflict is essential for perpetuating a loving relationship.

2. Is your partner capable of caring, compassion, empathy, and acceptance for who you are?

If you find that your partner is incapable of feeling empathy, then he or she isn't the right partner for you. A lack of empathy is one of the signs of narcissism.

3. Do you feel a basic spark of attraction? Do you like to be near this person? Do you like their smell?

If you do not feel physically attracted to this person within the first six months of the relationship, it's likely an attraction will not develop. This person might be a good friend but not a romantic partner.

4. Does this person have a compulsion to win and be right?

This is the opposite of being open to learning and does not bode well for a relationship.

5. Do you share interests?

Can you do certain things together, or is there no overlap in what you like to spend your time doing?

6. Do you have common religious and political values?

Do you agree on topics like spending, parenting, eating, fitness, neatness, and punctuality?

7. Does this person have any addictions that you find intolerable?

Alcohol? Prescription or recreational drugs? Food? Sex addiction and/or porn? Gambling? Shopping or spending? TV, Internet, or video games?

When we love someone deeply, we love their essence — who they really are. But we all have an ego-wounded self, and the worst version of your partner needs to be tolerable to you. Don't expect them to change. You get what you see.

If, when you go through this list, you find there are things that are not tolerable but you keep hoping they'll change, you're not with the right partner. You need to accept or leave. Expecting change will only lead to heartbreak.

Remember, you need to be the right partner to find the right partner. We attract at our common level of emotional well-being — self-abandonment or self-love. The better you are at loving yourself, the better your chance of attracting and sustaining a loving relationship.

Responding to manipulation

LaShelle Lowe Charde

Responding to Manipulation

You get kind of a sticky tense feeling and know something isn't right.  Someone's words aren't matching their action or their emotion.  On the surface they are focusing on one thing, but underneath it is about something totally different.  It seems that they are intentionally deceiving you in order to meet their needs at the cost of yours. This is how you might describe manipulation.

When you realize manipulation is afoot you likely get angry or begin to withdraw.  With anger you have thoughts like, "He should be direct and just ask for what he wants!"  Withdrawing you may simply feel fuzzy headed and have the instinct to move away from someone you don't trust is authentic.   Unfortunately neither response helps you if you value the relationship and want to move towards honesty.

The first effective thing you can do in the face of manipulation is stay with yourself.  Keep your attention on the sticky tense feeling.  Disconnect from the other person for a moment so that you don't slip into their confusion.  A gem reader, we'll call her Marketa, gave this example.

"My husband and I are separated.  He dropped by one day to pick up some things.  I decided to bring up an issue that had been on my mind and our conversation quickly escalated into a confrontation.  In the midst of this he said,  'I came over to have a peaceful discussion with you about our relationship and now that's impossible.'  He had not previously mentioned wanting to talk."

Marketa got that sticky tense feeling and for a moment was disoriented.  Her husband tried to express his feelings and needs by subtly blaming her while simultaneously putting himself in a positive light.

As soon as she notices these feelings, Marketa tells herself to take a breath and focus inward.  If she responds immediately to his comment, she will likely get caught in a swirl of confusing communication.  Instead, she takes time to feel her feelings and ask herself "what just happened?"  Marketa names for herself that her husband just communicated in a manipulative way.  She knows that any response to the content of a manipulative comment will go nowhere fast.

If she wants to stay connected, she has at least three choices, self-empathy, empathy or honest expression.  For continued self-empathy she may end the interaction at that point and take space to be alone and connect with her own experience.  Expressing herself honestly she might say, "Hearing you say that, I feel disconnected.  Would you be willing to say what's going on for you in another way?"

Responding with empathy she might say, "I am guessing you are feeling frustrated and wish we could just get along.  Is that right?"

Of course, responding in either of these ways is pretty much impossible if Marketa is making her husband wrong for his comment.  She has to have at least one foot in the consciousness that says her husband is doing the absolute best he can in the moment.

Manipulation is a strategy or set of strategies that people learn in their struggle to take care of their hearts.  If they knew and trusted a better strategy, they would be using it.  Have this kind of faith in the core goodness of people allows you to stay compassionate with yourself and others.

Responding to manipulation with an anger storm or withdrawing adds to the cycle of suffering.  You can prepare yourself to meet manipulation by naming for yourself how you will recognize it, how you will ground yourself in the midst of it, and how you would like to either set a boundary or create more direct communication in the moment.

Practice
Take time now to reflect on the last time you encountered what you perceived as manipulation.  Name all the symptoms in yourself and in the other person that had you label the interaction as manipulative.  How did you or would you have liked to stay grounded in that moment?  How would you have like to move forward with setting a boundary or with an attempt to connect?
 

The argument that keeps coming back

Lashelle Lowe Charde

The Argument that Keeps Coming Back

Any relationship no matter how harmonious is likely to have a consistent point of tension that shows up again and again.  It might show up with different superficial content as the trigger, but some part of you knows it's that old familiar issue wearing different clothes.

When you get hooked by reactivity around this old tension, you find yourself angry and despairing about something mundane, like how the laundry gets done.  Suddenly the laundry becomes a giant unresolvable issue.  Of course, there is some very practical and simple solution to any mundane conflict, but you aren't really trying to solve the laundry issue, you are hooked on the reactive idea that you must find resolution for this deeper issue that keeps coming back.  This is suffering.

You can shift your relationship to arguments that keep coming back in two ways:  cultivating a clear and compassionate relationship to them and taking small steps over time to meet the underlying needs. Let's start with the first one.  

These arguments usually revolve around one or two core needs and greatly differing strategies about how those needs are met.  This might get referred to commonly as "we have different styles", or "s/he just doesn't get that part of me".  For example, perhaps you have a tenderness around being included and your partner enjoys meeting needs for discovery by spontaneously jumping into something without inviting you.  Or perhaps your partner has a tenderness around autonomy and hears your desire to be included as you "trying to control everything".

To develop a more clear and compassionate relationship to the argument that keeps coming back it's helpful to identify the following core elements of it:

• primary emotions (one or two)
• Universal needs (one or two)
• The way you prefer to meet that need.
• The "filter" or limiting core belief that is usually present and triggering more reactivity.  Here are some examples limiting beliefs along with the related need:
  • Safety:  "The world is a harsh place.", "Emotions are dangerous.", "You can't trust others to be kind."

• Autonomy:  "S/he is bossy.", "I never get to choose.", "I'll get subsumed by your needs and lose myself."

• Intimacy:  "I'm not lovable.", "I will be abandoned.", "I'm all alone."

• Support:  "I have to do it myself.", "People will always let you down.", "No one supports me.", "There's not enough."

• Being seen/heard:  "I don't matter.", "I'm invisible.", "I have to work hard to get your attention.", "I have to earn your love."

By just being able to name these elements each time they come up you will have more freedom from reactive hooks.  You will be able to say, "Oh, we are in this familiar place, I don't have follow the same painful script.  I can pause here, breath and let it go."

When you are not in the midst of the argument, you can take extra steps to meet the tender needs from that repetitive argument.  Perhaps you and your partner can brainstorm together creative little ways to meet those needs even if the larger circumstances aren't going to change for now.

A key part of any practice with a difficult situation is asking yourself to put your attention on it without pushing or pulling; just noticing and being with the discomfort allows wise action to arise of its own accord.

Practice

Take a moment now to reflect on a repetitive argument and identify the core elements of it: emotion, needs, preferred strategy to meet the need, and limiting or reactive belief.

Teaching others your love language

LaShelle Charde

3 Principles for Teaching Others Your Love Language

There is a certain way that you most easily receive love.  Gary Chapman speaks about this phenomena in a clear and accessible way in his book, "The Five Love Languages"*.  Of course, this doesn't just apply to love, you have a preferred strategy for meeting each of your needs.  You have a particular preference around how you want to be supported, what activities meet your need for play, what builds trust for you, etc.  Meeting the need for love is simply one of the key needs in close relationships.  

When things are going well and there are no big challenges, exchanges of love in any form are often enough to sustain connection.  However, when you are facing big challenges in life, you are likely looking for that deep sense of love and support that you only experience with your preferred strategy.  For example, when things are going well you know that your friend shows her love and support by cooking meals for you and giving you a ride to the airport when you need one (Dr. Chapman would call this love language "acts of service").  You appreciate this even though it is not your love language.  Then, you have a few rough months, your partner breaks up with you, there is conflict at work, and a close family member dies.  You don't have much resource, you just want to be met in the "right" way!  Suddenly the acts of service from your friend aren't enough and you have thoughts that she doesn't really care and isn't a supportive friend.  You think, "She should know that when I am struggling I need words of encouragement and verbal empathy.  Afterall we have known each other for twenty years!"

Unfortunately, no amount of time teaches your partner or close friends how to best support you in a time of great need.  Only you can teach them how to love you by communicating clearly and with great respect for their choice and ability.  Perhaps for you, words comes easily so it may be hard to imagine how the other person could really just not know what to say.  But if you can't accept these kinds of differences, then you will find yourself harboring resentful expectations that leak out in abrasive comments or a gradual pulling away.  

So the first principle of teaching someone your love language is respect for differences.  Subsumed under this principle is the very important consciousness called "giving others the benefit of the doubt" or "assuming good intent".  When you learn to see and appreciate others' good intentions even when their actions don't meet you in your preferred way, you can make requests with kindness and respect.

The second principle is self-responsibility.  If you have unhealed wounding around not being loved and supported in the way you needed most, you may have a reactive pattern of thought that says others should just know.  That's the voice of an angry and hurting child (reactive pattern) that still longs for that original experience being loved fully without having to do anything.  While holding the childlike part of you tenderly on your lap, you can gently let yourself know that you can still have the experience of being loved fully even if you do ask for it in a direct and detailed way.  To do otherwise, would be leaving something as important as love to chance, forever waiting for the "right person" to come along and fulfill that wish.

Self-responsibility not only means that you are willing to ask directly for what you want (which of course means that you have cultivated a certain depth of self-awareness), but also that you recognize that responsibility for meeting your needs rests with you.  Thus, when others say yes to your request it is a gift rather than fulfillment of an expectation.

The third principle is immediacy and repetition.  Immediacy and repetition is nothing new in the world of learning theory.  Applying a skill in the moment it is relevant and having the opportunity to do that many times over with corrective feedback, is how we learn.  Somehow when emotions get involved, you can sometimes imagine that your partner or friend should be able to learn something as complex as loving you with one example and request, not so.  

Let's go back to our example of your friend who offers acts of service when your love language is really about words of encouragement and empathy.  You share something vulnerable and your friend sits quietly.  You remember you want to be self-responsible and let her know what you need.  You make a request, "Sharing just now, it would really help me to feel supported just to hear what you're understanding about my situation.  Would you be willing to say?"

Later in the evening, the exact same situation occurs.  You think to yourself, "Now surely she knows what I am looking for here, I just told her forty minutes ago."  Here's the thing, if there is a loving intention and your friend isn't speaking your love language, then she doesn't know how yet.  It is that simple.  It is up to you to immediately make the request again with respect and kindness.  Acting in the moment keeps resentment from building which enables the other person to receive your request without a sense of demand or criticism.  When your friend or partner is spontaneously "speaking" your love language you will know they have learned it.  This may take days, months, years, or decades.  Learning curves are diverse. :)

Here are some ways to contribute to a sense of ease and connection around teaching your love language to another:

• Learn the other person's love language and stretch yourself to "speak" it.
• Find as many ways as you can to show respect for choice and differences.
• Acknowledge and celebrate good intentions.
• Acknowledge and celebrate all expressions of love.
• Highlight and share the depth of impact on you when the other person does offer love in your love language.

Practice

What are the ways you feel most loved?  Take a few moments now to reflect on a time you felt most loved.  What were the key elements of that experience?  What were others offering and what were you doing to receive?  Do you know how the people closest to you best receive love?  Take a moment to make some guesses in your heart.

*The five love languages named by Gary Chapman are:  words of affirmation, acts of service, receiving gifts, quality time, physical touch.