befraxis blog

What is Chemical Romance? It’s a scientific approach to seduction that reveals how to unleash the natural chemicals in the body. Have you ever felt an instant connection with someone you just met? Have you ever fallen in love at first sight?

If yes, then you have experienced the powerful effects of chemical romance. When you are in a heightened state of arousal your body releases powerful chemicals that produce a state of euphoria.

The three most potent chemicals produced are oxytocin, it makes you feel intense desire for the person you’re with. Phenylethylamine, gives you a sense of total satisfaction and endorphins produces feelings of heightened pleasure.

Here are the six secrets to chemical romance-now is the time to unleash the sensuality of your lover.

Secret One: Use sensual scents-fill the room with the sweet smell of your lover’s favorite fragrance. Appealing to your lover’s sense of smell is a sure-fire way of stimulating the chemicals of romance.

Secret Two: Use erotic foods like chocolate that appeals to your lover’s sense of taste. Chocolate has an ingredient that releases endorphins in the brain causing a sense of pure pleasure. Feeding your lover pieces of chocolate is a powerful way of getting those chemicals flowing.

Secret Three: Use seductive lighting, appeal to your lover’s sense of sight. A romantic experience is greatly enhanced with the right lighting. A candlelit room or a room with the lights down-low conveys a warmth and softness that is perfect for romance.

Secret Four: Use romantic music, appeal to your lover’s sense of hearing. Cuddle with soft music playing in the background. Playing your lover’s favorite love song will greatly enhance the romantic mood.

Secret Five: Intimate conversation is vital to chemical romance. Stimulate your lover with mental imagery. Whisper words of love between sensual kisses. This is a powerful way to instantly set romantic feelings ablaze.

Secret Six: Use silk fabrics, appeal to your lover’s sense of touch. Moments of passion are enhanced by the feel of silk sheets caressing your skin-the erotic sensations are almost orgasmic.

The six secrets to unleashing the chemicals of romance is a powerful approach that when used correctly, can ignite the flames of intense passion and desire in your lover.

James Hall is happily married and thoroughly enjoys writing about relationships. His site http://www.a1-online-dating.com is a dating guide to finding lasting love on the web.

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Most single guys are settled in their life. Their mornings, afternoons and evenings have a routine they are comfortable with and rarely will they go beyond the boundaries of that routine. Even a single guy’s loneliness can become his norm and if someone crosses his path that interest him, he rationalizes instead of trying to adapt.

Many times this leads to confusion - he just isn’t sure if she is the one. He over thinks, he pauses, rewinds, goes forward until nothing makes sense about being involved. Soon he is back to his comfortable routine of drinking beer and watching football on Sunday. The loneliness he feels won’t go away and after many beer drinking Sundays, he may try to fill that emptiness again. But just like before, he soon feels he is out of his comfort zone and the story repeats itself. After awhile, he is asking himself, how do I find love?

This problem persist because he wants the girl to instantly fit into his comfort zone. At first, when he sees her, he is excited and this is enough to keep the relationship alive. In time the lady’s personality and feelings make him over think the relationship and the excitement dissipates. At one time it was exciting, but it loses its luster as the relationship moves forward - especially when the lady’s discussion involves changes in his life. He feels the pressure and wants out. Soon, he is back to filling his emptiness with beer and Sunday afternoon football.

You see ladies, guys don’t have the same type of instinct as you do and don’t easily trust intuitive feelings. He’ll over think what’s in his heart, especially if he feels the only way he can love you is for him to make major changes in his life (they may not be major to you, but to him missing a Sunday afternoon of football may seem worse than going through hurricane Ivan). The gap will widen until it is beyond closing, no matter how he may truly feel about you. Whatever he felt at first now rest in a place that has no understanding of intuition. It may still be there, but buried in a cluster of confusion. What can you do ladies? Not much, except maybe back off a little. What can you do guys? Don’t think about it - trust your gut feeling.

I just got done saying that a guy’s feelings may be buried in confusion. What a man doesn’t realize that this is what separate men from women’s intuition. What we interrupt as confusion, a lady calls intuition and has complete trust in those feelings no matter how chaotic it may seem. In other words, guys, they go with the flow. We will fight it, we will rationalize it, we will try to hide it with alcohol, cover it with masculine bravo, but instead, we should listen to it. Don’t run, don’t hide, just let it be and let it take its course. Scary, thought, isn’t it, guys? But if you are tired of the merry-go-round of emptiness you may want to give it a chance.

I know some of you guys are still looking for clarity, so here goes. Our visual instincts are in tune when we first see a lady. All she needs to do is give us a little sign of encouragement and our hormones are in high gear. We don’t think beyond the moment, care about house payments or closet space, our eyes see what we like, a signal says it is ok to like what we see and we are in heaven. Simple! Now let’s move ahead where the lady starts thinking about how life would be beyond the weekend movie, sexual encounters and the occasional dinner together. She wants more. If you fight it, she is gone, so you let the door open. She is in with some feelings - you thought you could handle it, but now you seem to be reacting to her feelings. Is this bad, guys, that you are reacting to her feelings?

We seem to interrupt a reaction, even if it is a positive one, as being bad. At this stage we begin the debate between what we feel and what we know. We know we like to watch foot ball, but how will my feelings change me being able to watch football on Sunday? (I know ladies, you just can’t believe it’s that hard to decide between football and love, but for guys, it can be). When there is a debate between our head and our heart, ladies, the head usually wins. What I’m telling guys, if what you feel inside is positive, don’t cloud it with other possible scenarios. Let it flow - trust that what you feel inside can be a positive in all aspects of your life. But for now, don’t think, just be.

Guys, I’m not saying that in time you may realize that she is not right for you and shouldn’t get out, but what I am saying is we usually kill the chance to find out before we let time take its course. Usually, we over think our reactions until the only reaction left is we feel she is an intrusion in our life. Than she’s gone and the loneliness comes back - another Sunday, another 6 pack or two of beer and you are getting older, lonelier and maybe, just maybe, wiser.

I say wiser because I think younger guys fit the above sort better than an older gent. As a guy gets older, he may realize not to react so quickly, but trust that what he feels may actually enhance other aspects of his life. This is why a lot of younger Filipina ladies like older men. To them, older men are more settled, accepting and willing.

Obviously, guys have met a lady and after the first date knew she wasn’t the one. Even then a guy will call it a mistake rather than a gut feeling. He’ll say something like, “I don’t know what I saw in her, but man she isn’t for me.” It is when it goes beyond the first date and his gut has already said, “man she is the one” that he will start to talk himself out of any involvement when the lady wants a little more than the two of them getting together on Friday and Saturday nights. I”m telling you guys, trust that initial feeling, let the confusion in, don’t fight it and give it time. You may find that you can still watch your football game on Sundays while she is nibbling on your ear.

That’s it, short and sweet. Guys, if you feel she is the one after a date or two, trust your gut feeling and don’t talk yourself out of it. There is more to life than Sunday afternoon football. There is Monday night football also. Just kidding, smile, let what you feel be your guide and forget thinking too hard about how those feelings may change your life. Let it flow and let her love you.

About The Author

Steve Eyes is the webmaster and owner of FilipinaEyes Association. His experience comes from finding love on the internet and helping others do the same. http://www.filipinaeyes.com http://www.filipina-lady.net http://www.filipinaeyes.com/Dating-RSS-Feed/rss.xml

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Many of us have some very definite ideas about anger. We see anger as
destructive and hurtful. We consider it to be an inappropriate response. We equate
anger with violence. In short, we feel that anger is simply wrong, and that when we
experience anger, there’s something wrong with us. Anger isn’t nice. Anger isn’t
polite. And anger certainly isn’t our friend.

Anger can be all of these things. But anger is also useful, necessary and even
healing. We need our anger. We simply need to learn how to express our anger in
appropriate, conscious, supportive ways. On its own, anger is neither good nor bad.
It can be used to hurt, or it can be used to heal. It may not be a particularly pleasant
emotion, but it’s an important one. And anger-or rather the skillful use and
understanding of anger-is essential to creating healthy relationships.

Guy Williams, a friend of mine who also happens to be a minister of Religious
Science offers a tremendously insightful approach for understanding anger. Guy
says that anger arises from a communication not delivered or an expectation not
met. Anger is actually a tertiary response: our initial responses are grief and fear.
First, we grieve the death of the expectation that was not met. Next, we fear that
things will never change. Finally, we experience anger.

So few of us recognize that anger can be a positive, healing response. When we
allow ourselves to experience anger, it focuses our minds, and strengthens our
resolve. We discover reserves of strength and power. Our anger is what gives us the
courage and the power to confront our fear that things will never change, by
creating change.

So many of us equate anger with aggression. We believe that when we experience
anger, someone will be hurt. In order to create a more spiritual and skillful
relationship with anger, it’s helpful to recognize that we can defend
ourselves without attacking.

Consider that we each carry a sword. When someone crosses a boundary, we
experience anger (because our expectation that our boundaries will be respected
was not met). At this point, we have a choice. We can choose to use our sword to
attack, lashing out at the person who crossed the boundary. This will inevitably
violate our partner’s boundaries, and make our partner feel unsafe and angry. They
will, in turn, pull out their sword and begin to attack us in earnest. The
result is a classic “lose-lose” scenario, where both participants are wounded and
feel less safe than they did at the start.

We do have another choice, however. We can choose to use our sword to
defend our boundary by simply removing it from its sheath and displaying
it. Brandishing our metaphorical weapon is usually more than sufficient to hold the
attention of the person who crossed the boundary. Once we have our partner’s
attention, we can calmly make them aware that they have crossed a boundary, and
ask that they take a step back and respect that boundary in the future.

Because we are merely defending ourselves and not attacking our partner,
we are far less likely to make our partner feel unsafe, which in turn means our
partner is far more likely to apologize for having unintentionally crossed a
boundary. It’s a “win-win” situation because we feel safe once again in the
expectation that our boundaries will, indeed, be respected, and our partner feels
safe because they are now more aware of the boundaries in the relationship, and no
longer need to fear that they will accidentally violate them.

If we choose not to take things personally, and always assume that the boundary
violation was unintentional, we not only avoid stepping into the role of victim, but
we also avoid the need to forgive our partner, because we never blamed them in the
first place.

Avoiding blame, by the way, is another way that we defend ourselves without
attacking. When we blame someone for their actions, we are, in fact, attacking them.
We cut them off from the flow of our love. This makes them feel less safe, and
frequently is interpreted as an attack. More importantly, when we blame someone,
we reinforce the lie that we are separate from All That Is, and cut ourselves off from
the universal flow.

So how is anger essential to healthy relationships? Anger is our call to
awareness.

Remember that relationships are all about meeting our fundamental needs. In every
relationship, we need to feel safe and we need to feel validated. As
long as those needs are met, our relationships are truly amazing.

When we feel angry, we know something is not right. We become acutely
aware that some of our needs are not being met. Anger is most often
associated with safety violations. If we feel angry because our
validation needs are not being met, it’s usually an indication that we have
an attachment to meeting our validation needs-a sign that one of the main
ways that we feel safe is to feel validated.

When we feel angry in our relationships, we usually respond in one of two ways. The
first response is to express our anger, most often by lashing out in some way. We’ve
already seen how this is always a lose-lose proposition.

The second response is to repress our anger in order to avoid a full-out
confrontation. (Notice how this response also assumes that the only other way to
deal with anger is to express it by attacking!) When we repress our anger, we
attempt to restore the balance in our safety accounts by isolating ourselves and
disengaging from the relationship. Eventually, we will no longer be able to repress
our anger, and it will manifest in a confrontation of unexpected and inappropriate
intensity.

Neither response meets our relationship needs, of course.

When we cultivate a more skillful relationship with anger, however, we have a third
option. When we feel angry in a relationship, we can become aware that
we’re feeling unsafe, that some expectation has not been met, and that our needs
are not being met. We can own this experience, recognizing that it’s about
us, not about our partner. And we can choose to take appropriate action.
Instead of attacking or withdrawing, we can choose to engage in the relationship
more fully.

Before we engage in the relationship, however, we must first recognize that we’re
feeling unsafe, and remedy this. We may be able to shift our awareness and restore
the balance in our safety account in an instant. We may need to disengage (briefly)
so that we can cool down before we reengage in the relationship. Whatever the
method, it is essential that we feel completely safe before we proceed. If we don’t
feel safe, we won’t behave in a reasonable or rational manner.

Once we feel safe, we can explore why we felt angry. Remember, anger arises
because an expectation was not met, or a communication was not delivered. What
was the expectation? What boundary was crossed? What was not communicated?
What was not understood?

Now that we’ve identified the reason for the anger response, we can consider it
objectively. The most important question is whether our expectations were
reasonable. Remember that we are responsible for meeting our minimum daily
requirements of safety and validation on our own. When our unreasonable
expectations aren’t met, we do experience anger, but that anger is a call to make us
aware that it’s time to adjust our expectations, and this does not involve our partner
in any way.

If we discover that our expectations are, in fact, reasonable, and that our partner is
responsible, then it’s time to defend our boundaries and hold our partner
accountable.

Holding our partner accountable, however, is not the same thing as blaming our
partner, yelling at our partner, insulting our partner, “tearing our partner a new
one,” or in any way making our partner wrong.

It’s important to recognize that much of the time, all that we need is an
acknowledgement that our partner has not met an expectation, and an apology. All
we need in order to feel safe again is to be able to believe that our expectations will
actually be met in the future.

This may seem hard to accept-how could a simple apology ever be sufficient? It’s
something each of us has to experience for ourselves. The desire for punishment or
revenge exists because we have disengaged from our relationships, and we believe
that our partners are responsible for meeting our safety needs. When we take
responsibility for restoring our sense of safety and choose to engage in our
relationships, all we need is an apology-an acknowledgement of the boundary
violation-and then forgiveness comes naturally.

Kevin B. Burk is the author of The Relationship Handbook: How to
Understand and Improve Every Relationship in Your Life. Visit http:// http://www.everyrelationship.com for a FREE report on creating AMAZING Relationships.

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I’m experiencing some challenges in my relationship with Candice Bergen.

I recently started watching Boston Legal on Sunday nights, because Candice
Bergen had joined the cast. (She joined the cast so that more people like me would
start watching Boston Legal on Sunday nights.) Like most Candice Bergen
fans, I mainly associate her with her character on Murphy Brown: tough,
smart, funny, sharp, no-punches-pulled, slightly over-the-top, and definitely not
someone you want to have angry with you. Even the Vogue editor she
played for a few episodes of Sex and the City fit this mold.

While I’m certainly enjoying watching her on Boston Legal, it’s been an
interesting challenge for me, because the character she plays, Shirley Schmidt, is
different from Murphy Brown. I expected her to be playing a larger-than-life version
of her usually type. Instead, we’re shown a very different Candice Bergen, and I’m
noticing that even after three episodes, I’m still having to adjust my expectations.

Shirley Schmidt does embody all of the strong qualities that Candice Bergen’s
characters are famous for: brilliant, no-nonsense, sharp and canny. But she’s also
much softer and more compassionate than I expect from her characters. This new
character is still Candice Bergen, but she’s a far more subtle and nuanced Candice
Bergen than I expected.

I realized this after the first episode. And yet, I still expect her to behave in the way
she did in Murphy Brown. I expect her confrontation scenes to be bigger
and louder and broader, and I don’t expect to see her character as a layered and
multi-faceted person.

This is creating a certain amount of strain on my relationship with Candice Bergen.
I’m having to alter my expectations of how she behaves, and who she appears to be
as a person.

Sadly, I don’t actually have a personal relationship with Candice Bergen. I simply
have the same relationship to her that millions of other television fans do. But even
in this one-sided relationship, I still have safety and validation needs, and this
change in her character is disrupting those needs. The fact that she has evolved,
that she is playing a different character requires me to adjust my expectations and
redefine my relationship with her, and this makes me feel less safe in our
relationship.

(At this point, in the interest of avoiding a restraining order, let me state that I am
only using Candice Bergen as an illustration.)

In Hollywood, actors are, often arbitrarily, assigned a “type.” We see an actor in a
certain role, and identify her with that role. The stronger the identification, the
harder it is for us to accept her in different roles. Actors constantly struggle against
“typecasting,” because once they’re seen as a certain “type,” they find it more
difficult to be cast in roles that differ from this “type.”

Jim Carrey, for example, is a fine dramatic actor; however, it’s taken him many years
(and a number of baby steps) to be able to be accepted in more serious roles, and
audiences still relate to him best when he’s being a clown.

But typecasting doesn’t just happen in Hollywood. We also encounter typecasting in
our family relationships.

For most of us, we first experience typecasting because we’re the ones being
typecast. Our families have an uncanny knack for not recognizing how much we’ve
evolved and matured as individuals. No matter what our accomplishments, no
matter how much we’ve achieved, our parents and siblings invariably remember us
as we were in our most memorable (and usually our least favorite) role from our
childhood.

When we spend time with our families as adults, we struggle against this
typecasting. We try, in increasingly less subtle ways, to get our families to recognize
and relate to us for who we are, rather than for who we were. It’s an ongoing
struggle–one that we seem to lose more often than we win, reverting to type and
playing out our well-established roles in the family drama long after we believe
we’ve outgrown them.

What we rarely notice while we’re feeling typecast ourselves, is that we’re making
the same typecasting assumptions about our family members. We’re so concerned
that our family members notice how much we’ve changed and evolved that we don’t
take the time to notice how our family members have also grown.

Since the Universal Law of Relationships states that our partners in relationships are
our mirrors, (and therefore it’s never about the other person), if we want
our families to accept us for who we are now, all we need to do is to learn to accept
them for who they are now. When we change how we relate to our families, the way
that they relate to us will also change.

It’s quite simple, actually. Unfortunately, simple isn’t the same thing as easy. Just as
it’s taking me time to adjust my expectations of Candice Bergen and accept her in
her new role, it takes us (and our families) time to adjust our expectations and
begin to relate to each other as adults.

One essential thing to recognize is that anytime the nature and dynamic of a
relationship changes–especially a long-standing relationship such as a family
relationship–we’re dealing with the question of safety needs.

Let me explain. One of the fundamental things that our egos need in order for us to
feel safe is to know what to expect. On the most fundamental level, “safe” is the
same thing as “familiar.” We don’t have to like what we expect in order to
feel safe; we simply have to experience what we expect.

Consider this: Our family relationships are some of the most important (and
frequently difficult) relationships in our lives. We value safety in these relationships
tremendously, because safety often seems to be in such short supply. No matter
how well defended we may feel in the rest of our lives, our family members always
know where (and how) we’re the most vulnerable. We instinctively cling to what’s
familiar (and therefore safe) in our family relationships, and this results in
typecasting.

On a conscious level we may want to embrace our family members and recognize
their evolution as individuals. On an unconscious level, however, the fact that our
family members are no longer playing their familiar and safe roles in the family
drama is very threatening. We (and our family members) unconsciously cling to the
familiar family dynamic (no matter how dysfunctional it may be), and try to impose
it on our family members-even as we attempt to escape it ourselves.

There may be some very deep and dark fears at the root of this. As long as we stick
with the original family dynamic, we’re still a family. We’re bound by blood and we
are required to stay in relationship with each other. Parents are required to raise and
protect children; children are required to live with their parents and abide by their
rules; siblings are required to put up with each other, or at the very least not fight in
a moving vehicle.

Once we become adults, however, this dynamic no longer applies. The thought that
our family members are no longer required to be in relationship with us–and
worse, that they could choose to reject or abandon us–is fundamentally terrifying.

This is not necessarily a universal fear, of course. But I invite you to consider that we
do derive a certain amount of comfort–and safety–from the knowledge that there
are some relationships that will always be a part of our lives.

So, how do we overcome typecasting in our family relationships? The same way that
we change any belief or pattern in our lives: through AWARENESS, OWNERSHIP and
CHOICE.

First, we become AWARE that our expectations of our family members may be out of
date. Next, we OWN and take responsibility for our expectations, and for our safety
needs. We are responsible for maintaining the balance in our own safety accounts. It
is not the responsibility of our family members to help us to feel safe by living up to
our expectations of them. Finally, we CHOOSE to relate to our family members as
they are now, rather than as they were then.

When our family members have difficulties in accepting us for who we are now,
remember that they’re feeling unsafe. Who we are is unfamiliar and threatening to
them. Once we’re AWARE that we’re involved in a safety issue, we can OWN the
situation. Owning this particular situation means recognizing that we’re not
responsible for the fact that our family members feel unsafe. We are, however,
responsible for making sure that their lack of safety does not result in us
feeling unsafe as well. Finally, we can CHOOSE to be gentle with our families,
helping them get to know who we are, not making them wrong for relating to us as
we were, and ultimately allowing them to feel safe in our relationship once more. <

I’m gradually overcoming my expectations in my relationship with Candice Bergen,
and as a result, our relationship has improved tremendously. Just imagine how
powerful overcoming typecasting can be in your family relationships!

Kevin B. Burk is the author of The Relationship Handbook: How to Understand and Improve Every Relationship in Your Life.

Visit http://www.everyrelationship.com for a FREE report on creating AMAZING Relationships.

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People who have been swept off their feet know the feeling. Love makes us all feel funny. That sense of giddy disorientation, unsinkable euphoria and complete obsession with a new love can be so overpowering, that it’s hard to imagine it’s all about emotion. Now scientists are confirming there indeed may be a lot more going on in a body that’s in love than simple, happy thoughts. In fact, a spate of research has shown what kind of chemical and neurological activities occur at different stages of human and animal relationships. While the results hardly make love less mysterious, they do start to shed light on why it can make people feel so funny.

DOPED UP

Helen Fisher, a research professor of anthropology at Rutgers University , is among many scientists who believe the flush of a new love is enhanced by natural stimulants in the brain, dopamine and norepinphrine. She explains that high levels of these natural chemicals can make people lose their appetites and their desire for sleep, just by thinking about their new infatuations. “These are basic traits commonly associated with romantic love and with these natural stimulants,” she says. “What else could explain the way you constantly think about a person, about the way you want to read them your bad poetry?”

Further studies show that gushy romantic sensations may be similar to the highs drug addicts feel when they’re under the influence. Nora Volkow; the associate director for life sciences at Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York , has analysed the behaviours of drug addicts and people in love and found striking parallels. “When a person is passionately in love, it is extremely exciting and provocative, and if the loved one is not there, distressing,” says Volkow. “When I see my drug addicted patients, it just clicks with me how similar the addiction is. “The fact that drug addiction and passionate love may trigger the same responses, signals to Volkow that drug addiction is especially dangerous since it taps into a natural sensation.

STIRRING THE BRAIN

She points out that recent studies show the same regions of the brain including the frontal cortex which is activated when a drug addict is high and when someone in love is looking at a picture of a loved one. Researchers at University College in London recently recorded changes in the brains of people who described themselves as “truly and madly” in love. The researchers, Andreas Bartels and Semir Zeki used a functional magnetic resonance imager to scan the brains of 17 lovehappy volunteers. When the team showed volunteers photos of their lovers, the results were dramatic. Four small areas of the brain lit up instantly the same areas that have been shown to respond to euphoria-inducing drugs.

Old friends, apparently, don’t quite cause the same stir. Fisher is conducting similar studies and is scanning the brain activity of people newly in love.

THREE STAGES OF LOVE

As most know; however, the rush people feel from new love usually doesn’t last forever. And Fisher is also interested in understanding the biological stimulants and anthropological explanations for all phases of love.

She argues that there are three main stages to a love relationship: lust, romantic love and attachment. The first, she says, is “to get you looking for anything at all” and is driven by hormones like testosterone.

The romantic love phase, which creates the brain chemical reactions described by the London researchers, serves to “force you to focus your mating energy on one person at a time.”

And the fmal, less steamy stage of attachment is to ensure that any children produced by a love match has parents at least through its early years.

Research shows there may also be chemicals associated with feelings of attachment. When researchers injected a natural chemical called oxytocin into the mice, the animals immediately formed attachments. When they injected chemicals that block the effect of oxytocin, Fisher says; the mice “avoided their partners and acted like cads.”

Recent studies have zeroed in on the chemistry of love, revealing what kind of chemical and neurological activities occur at different stages of human and animal relationships.

Love is enhanced by natural stimulants to the brain, dopamine and noreinphrine.

Gushy romantic sensations similar to the high of drug addiction.

Regions of the brain stirred when thinking of the loved one.

The stages of lust, love and attachment are affected by body chemicals.

About The Author

Niz for www.onlinedatingschool.com - Free dating tips - Here, you will learn about many aspects of dating, flirting, seduction, romance, love, relationships and related topics.

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Each month after completing and fine tuning Letters on Life I’m excited about sending it out. Within a few hours I start to wonder about the next letter and whether people will like it. Is it going to be good enough? Because of this concern I procrastinate and wait until the last minute to start writing the next letter. Underlying this version of the fear of rejection or the fear of failure is the question “am I good enough?” We all have that fear in some form or the other usually stemming from an incident in our youth. Let me share with you when it started for me.

I was away from home for the first time at UC Berkeley. There is always someone you meet that you look up to who seems to have all the answers. Mike Breen was that guy for me. I had just turned 17 and at 19 Mike seemed to possess that wisdom and experience about girls that was missing in my life.

I remember the defining conversation like it was yesterday.. “Mike what do you do if you meet a girl and you really like her and maybe even love her?”….And Mike coolly replied with that air of maturity and experience, “you tell her how you feel”. I confusingly asked “What if she says she doesn’t love you back?” That was one of my biggest fears and a few years later at the end of my junior year I felt that pain of rejection when my girl friend Bobbi told me she loved someone else. I made the decision that I would never feel that pain again so I avoided anyone who could hurt me like Bobbi did. By looking back and examining some of my old patterns I understand what I did to avoid the possibility of experiencing this pain again.

One thing I did was to select partners who I knew did not fit my picture of the person I wanted to be with. By finding enough faults with them I could keep them at a distance and eventually move on to avoid getting hurt. Another approach was to select a partner who was emotionally unavailable. They were hopelessly self centered, in other relationships or real afraid of intimacy because of the same wounds that I had experienced. If I was really honest with myself it was obvious from the very beginning.

Even though I felt that I wanted a life long partner, this pattern of avoidance lasted for many years. During this phase of my life I had engaged many teachers and mentors and participated in many personal growth workshops and always on some level my focus was on overcoming my barriers to having a great relationship. Sometimes there’s a saying or a poem that sticks with you and makes the biggest difference in your life. For me it was the following quote by Anais Nin that inspired me in my quest.

“And the day came when the risk to remain closed in a bud became more painful than the risk to blossom.”

Have your ever thought about the connection between trust and risk. To have a great relationship you must take a risk…You must be vulnerable. As you are able to increase your capacity to risk you also increase your capacity to trust. As my attitudes and beliefs shifted I was able to embrace my fears, overcome my barriers and attract my soul mate. Annie believes in me and brings out the best in me. We have been on this journey together for over 21 years. I would like to share with you a few of my insights that have enabled me to embrace this path of relationship. In a subsequent article I will share with you some of my insights as to what is necessary to deepen this journey.

We all want to be with someone who we think is special. Regardless of how special they are if they are not interested in you the same way you are interested in them it will never work. Ask yourself if they love you in the way you want to be loved? If they are self absorbed and self centered they probably won’t be capable of loving you in the way you want. I think most of us really know the truth in the beginning but we long so much for this special type of relationship that we overlook the obvious.

Sometimes we start to think that perhaps there’s something wrong with us so we give up on what we really want. We change our values and choose a partner that on some level we know isn’t the right one. We usually have a mental image or concept of the kind of person we want to be with. If your partner does not fit that image your emotions and heart will be in conflict with your mind.

We all have dreams and goals. Honor them by asking yourself if you and your partner share the same dream. If you have different dreams and a different vision it’s going to be difficult for the relationship to reach its fullest potential. Pay attention to the clues. If you desire a long term relationship and pick a partner who hasn’t had a relationship greater than six months, the likelihood is that this new relationship won’t last much longer.

I know there are many books written on relationships. These are just some of my thoughts…I realize that a lot more can be said and in the next letter I will focus on things you can do to enhance the quality of your relationship and to deepen your connection. I hope my experiences and insights inspire possibility in your life Feel free to pass this letter on to those in your circle.

About The Author

Mark Susnow is a coach and speaker who has a unique background. A former trial attorney of 30 years he combines his leadership capabilities with the wisdom gained from many years of meditation and yoga. His articles reflect this journey.

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It’s all about relationships! proclaimed my father during our recent holiday visit with my parents. Santa Claus coffee cup in one hand and a wagging finger toward my wife, Elizabeth, with the other. When you retire, thats what you realize is most important in life (okay, so thats not him in the photo).

Dad recently retired from 30 years as an orthopedic surgeon and the major shift in lifestyle seems to have brought about a significant shift in his outlook on life. For me, his statement about relationships became much broader and more profound than I thought such a simple and reasonable statement could ever become.

At first look, it makes sense that relationships are vital to our lives. Whether it is friendship, dating, marriage, family or community, relationships with others are a part of our everyday life. They give us belonging, meaning, companionship, intimacy and love. But, pulling back from this view and taking a broad gander at the subject I realized that relationships are more than just meaningful interactions with people. When we relate or interact with something we are, in fact, in relationship with it. For instance, our relationship with work, our relationship with ourselves, our relationship with our health and our relationship with our spirituality. By defining relationships from this broader perspective, our relationship list becomes almost endless.

You see, when we look at our relationships, we look at our interaction with every part of our lives; people, places, things, and events. So, what is our relationship to our work, ourselves, our environment, our health, our spirituality? How do we relate to these things? Or, better yet, if it is all about relationships how are our most important relationships?

Coming from the psychotherapy world, I often helped couples, families and individuals improve personal relationships by working through a series of 4 questions. Once I broadened my definition of relationships, I found that these questions are applicable to all types of relationships. The questions go something like this:

1. What relationships do you value most?

Be clear about what you value and which relationships are truly priorities to you.

2. Why do you value them?

Understanding the value these relationships have for you underscores the importance of the relationship and clarifies why a relationship feels important.

3. How do you nourish each relationship?

Now that youve identified how and why a relationship is important, you must define what it is that you do to keep that relationship alive and growing.

4. How do you maintain your commitment through the tough times?

Are the divorce stats really any different from the number of other relationships that end in our own lives (i.e., dropping the diet, forgetting exercise, leaving job after job, putting personal goals and dreams on hold, getting around to the God/spiritual thing when you have more time, etc)? These relationships may not necessarily be a marriage but like a marriage these relationships have their challenging times. Similar to a marital relationship, we must work through the difficult times in our other relationships rather than set them aside until a better time or just plain hope the struggles go away. This is often the point at which my coaching clients seek my assistance.

You will inevitably find that nurturing these relationships is often like a juggling act. Though, once we identify the key relationships in our lives and begin relating with them rather than leaving them on our To Do list, we will soon find that balance in life is an attainable goal and that, in fact, life truly is all about relationships.

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An All Too Familiar Tale

She takes her teaching responsibilities seriously; she is committed to making a difference in her students’ lives. She prepares her syllabus meticulously, with class-by-class activities and assignments, the most relevant and up to date readings, illustrative cases, experiential activities. She prepares thoroughly for each class, working hard to draw out her students, engaging them, encouraging them, challenging them.

Some days are better than others, but all in all she is feeling good about the work she is doing and about her vocation as a professor. And then it hits! The student evaluations. The thing about these evaluations is that for the most part they are positive, some very positive. 5’s on a 5-point scale with notations written in the margins — “best course so far,” “appreciated your command of the material,” and so forth. But then there are the others, the 2’s and 3’s, along with the comments — “too shallow,” “too many hours wasted in class discussion,” “not enough substance from the professor,” “I was expecting more.” The professor draws little solace from the positive evaluations, the 3.9 overall rating, the glowing comments from several students. What keeps her up at night and continues to trouble her during the day are those 2’s and 3’s, the negative comments, the criticisms and complaints, and worst of all, the fact that she was blindsided since none of this came to the surface during the life of the course.

So here we have an all too familiar classroom tale: The Righteously Screwed Student (”I paid my money, I came to class, I was entitled to a solid education, and you, Professor, didn’t deliver.”) And on the other side, we have The Unfairly Judged Professor (”I worked my tail off, I did my research, I put together the best course I could, I gave it my all, and never did I hear a word of complaint. And this is the response I get! Unfair!”)

The Independence Bias. In the university classroom, no less than in all our other social systems, we exist in relationship with one another (see Seeing Systems, Act II), yet when it comes to evaluations our focus tends to be on the individuals and not on the relationship; the professor evaluates (grades) the student, and then it is the student’s chance to evaluate the professor. In all of this, the relationship goes unnoticed.

Professor and student exist in a Provider/Customer relationship in which the professor has designated responsibility for providing an educational service and the student is the designated recipient of that service. (I think it is fair to say that in higher education the teacher/student relationship is one of Provider/Customer, but that this is less clearly the case in lower forms of education where many of the students may feel more like inmates than customers. I maintain, although it is an arguable point, that students in lower education are the willing and unwilling products of educational systems and that the customers lie elsewhere: universities, organizations, communities, parents.)

Once our eyes shift from the individuals to the relationship, then we begin to focus not only on the attributes of the parties, but also on the qualities of the relationship. And one quality that is particularly relevant is partnership: that is, is the relationship characterized by a joint commitment to the success of whatever venture the members are engaged in? In the case of the professor/student relationship, is that relationship characterized by a joint commitment to the success of the educational venture?

The Responsibility Dance. It may seem eminently reasonable for professor and student to be in partnership with one another, to be jointly committed to the success of their educational venture; yet, that is not how it often goes in the professor/student relationship or in most other Provider/Customer relationships. A more familiar pattern is the responsibility dance in which responsibility for success resides primarily, if not exclusively, with Provider (in this case, the professor) and minimally, if at all, with the Customer (here the student). Provider is responsible, Customer not responsible.

When this responsibility dance occurs, the relationship becomes one of non-partnership; yet the absence of partnership in and of itself may not be a problem. The Provider professor may take up all responsibility for the course and discharge it brilliantly; and the Customer students who have felt no responsibility for the course still emerge delighted customers. No problem. (One could rightfully argue that this is only true in the short term, but that there is a gradual and mutual disabling process that goes on the longer that non-partnership form continues.)

But now let us observe what happens in this non-partnership pattern when delivery is less than satisfactory. Our non-responsible student becomes The Righteously Screwed Customer (”You, Professor, were responsible; I was entitled; and you let me down.”) And our responsible professor becomes the Unfairly Judged Provider (”I gave it my best; I taught a good course; your reaction is unfair.”)

The student can, with impunity, blame the professor for the failure of the course, but the professor cannot blame the student, for if the responsibility dance is on, it is clear that the professor alone is responsible. (The grade the professor gives the student is an evaluation of the degree of mastery of the course content not of the student’s contribution to partnership.)

We Are Stuck With Relationship, but Do We Want Partnership? Democracy is not a requirement in the classroom. There have been many great professors who have taught many great courses in which there have undoubtedly been many disgruntled students, yet no one would have thought it necessary, much less appropriate, to have the students evaluate the professors. The teacher taught and the student coped as best one could. But once we choose democracy in the classroom, then the game shifts and partnership becomes relevant. Now we are in this together and, under these conditions, it is as valid for the professor to evaluate the student’s contribution to partnership as it is for the student to evaluate the professor’s.

The professor’s evaluation of the student’s contribution to partnership might comprise such statements as:

* You were a failure as a customer.

* Where were your complaints during the course, when we still might have had the opportunity to deal with them?

* Did you ask me to clarify points you didn’t understand?

* Did you speak up when you thought student conversations were dragging on too long?

* Did you suggest topic areas that you expected to be covered and
which were not?

* And so on.

Professor/student is a relationship. Our choice is whether or not to create it as a partnership relationship. As a professor I may not want that partnership; like many providers, I may not welcome the intrusion of the customer into what I consider my business. And as a student, I may not welcome the opportunity of partnership; like many customers, I may be firmly rooted in my entitlement and not feel that it is my business to help the provider deliver the service I expect. What can drive us toward partnership would be our common interest in creating the best possible product, service, learning experience. And if our choice is not to work on building partnership into the relationship, then we can expect occasional if not frequent bouts of “unfairly judged” and “righteously screwed.”

Many of us work on creating partnership in our classrooms by having an initial contracting session with our students, clarifying in that process what each of us expects from the other. Yet we also know that relationship is an ongoing process and if our focus is on partnership, then we need to come back regularly to examine that relationship. Is the Provider professor opening him/herself to evaluations, suggestions, and reactions from the students; and is the Customer student making it clear to the professor what is and is not working in that process? Are we jointly committed to the success of this educational venture?

Barry Oshry

Chief Theoretical Officer

Power Systems Inc. http://www.seeingsystems.blogs.com http://www.powerandsystems.com

There is nothing more practical than solid human systems theory.

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RELATIONAL SUCCESS…

Loving in the good times — and the not-so-good times.

Learning how to “win as a team” instead of demanding to win
as an individual.

Learning to care and caring enough to listen.

Seeking mutual growth, celebrating each other’s victories
and assisting each other during the stress times of life.

Being big enough to ask for forgiveness when you have
wronged the other person and strong enough to grant
forgiveness when you have been wronged.

Overlooking the small things for the purpose of gaining the
bigger things in a relationship. Striving to keep the “small
things” just that: small.

Giving enough space to the other person to allow for a
strong sense of personal identity and self-worth while at
the same time refusing to allow “space” to become a way of
punishing someone when they fail to live up to my
expectations.

Being flexible as schedules and various seasons of the year
fluctuate between “being normal” and “being totally out of
control.”

ASKING QUESTIONS/GAINING INSIGHTS

What has caused our relationship to grow stronger in the ups
and downs of life? Ideas for keeping the momentum…

Do we fight each other or *for* each other? How are we
doing? We function best as a team when we…

Am I caring — and caring enough to listen?

Is mutual celebration a part of who we are as a couple?

I certainly don’t use “personal distance” as a punishment,
do I?

Are we forgiving and experiencing true forgiveness? If so,
what insights have we gained?

Is anything “too big” that is really too small to be an
issue between us? What can (or should) be done about it?

Would we give each other a high rating in the area of being
sensitive to the shifting demands of the crazy lives we
lead?

Yours for a day filled with beautiful moments in time,

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In the 17th century, divination devices called The Tablets of Fate were sold on the street by fortunetellers. These were square pieces of paper which had sixteen numbers written on them and the idea is that you would go home, close your eyes, spin the paper and point to a spot on the paper to get the answer to your question. The numbers corresponded to the vibrations of specific planets and their responsibilities. For instance, the Tablet of the Moon was used to ask questions about family, friends and relationships. The tablet of Jupiter was used to consult about business, justice and legal matters.

The Tablet of Venus, which was used to answer questions about love, is as below.

The Tablet of Venus

5 11 1 9

14 7 4 12

8 3 16 2

6 15 10 13

To make your own Tablet of Venus simply copy the numbers you see above on a square piece of paper in the pattern shown and make sure the numbers are even spaced into sixteen spaces. Close your eyes, spin the paper and then ask a question. Wherever your finger or the point of your pencil lands - there is your answer. If the number is at all sideways or upside down then you read the number’s reversed meaning. This is a bit of a parlour game but it is traditional fortune telling, fun and surprisingly accurate. By the way, no peeking before you spin the paper.

1 Upright This person is your soulmate.
Reversed You are forcing this person to do something he or she does not want to do

2 Upright There will be delays and disappointments.
Reversed This person knows about your deception.

3 Upright Do what your heart tells you to do.
Reversed This person is a con artist

4 Upright Make sure you have all the facts before you proceed.
Reversed If you knew the whole story, you would forgive.

5 Upright Everything will be ok.
Reversed You will regret your hasty decision.

6 Upright It is your fault it is not working out.
Reversed Your love is strong enough to withstand all obstacles.

7 Upright You are to blame for what has happened.
Reversed Don’t judge a book by its cover.

8 Upright Your jealousy is destroying your relationship.
Reverse Your beloved is honest and true with you.

9 Upright Your beloved is faithful to you.
Reverse You are unfaithful to your partner..

10 Upright Someone is thinking about you right now.
Reversed Beware of a flirt.

11 Upright This misunderstanding will blow over quickly.
Reversed This misunderstanding may mean the end of things

12 Upright Some has changed his or her mind about you.
Reversed You are allowing gossip to destroy your love.

13 Upright There will be love, but not with the one you think you want.
Reversed Think before you act

14 Upright Your fears and suspicions are all in your mind
Reversed It is infatuation, not love.

15 Upright Your friend and you will part ways forever
Reversed There is no reason to be jealous

16 Upright This is a true love.
Reversal Be sensible, not silly about this…

Samantha Steven’s articles have been published in many high-standing newspapers and she has published several books. If you wish to buy Samantha’s books about metaphysics click here http://www.insomniacpress.com/author.php?id=110
You can meet Samantha Stevens at http://www.psychicrealm.com where she works as a professional psychic. You can also read more of her articles at http://www.newagenotebook.com

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