Flourishing Today

Dear Friends,

I love it when my sweetie meets my needs without my ever having to ask. But it certainly doesn’t happen all the time. Most of the time I find I get better results if I ask clearly and openly. I would love to say I’m immune to the flash thought of “if you loved me you would KNOW that…” but I’m not. I also remember how much it bugs me when other people expect me to read their minds.

Have you ever had the experience of feeling like someone is reading from a script, and they expect you to play the opposite part, but didn’t give you the script; yeah, annoying.

Of course there may be times when you have every right to be frustrated, after all, you have the right to feel the way you feel. Maybe the other person could be paying better attention. Maybe you did tell them what you needed. However, maybe we could be a bit more clear; maybe they need to hear what meeting the request would do for us. At the same time, it is easy to take a moment to ask ourselves: “is this a case with which our minds could use a little help from our outside voice?”

With a turban in the shop,
Kaye

Dear Friends,

You meet someone. There is a spark of attraction. You say to yourself “This person is pretty cool, I’d like to get to know them a little better.”

And then it starts..

How much do you tell the person about your past? About how you tick? About that one little habit you have? Something dearly important to you (like being a stay at home parent) in a relationship… that you need, but are afraid to admit?

I wish there was a hard and fast rule. Then I could tell you: tell them X much. I tend to run on the side of honesty, if only because it saves some wear and tear on my soul. It also helps with the sorting: the person can self-select out on the first date and you can move on to the next person who can appreciate where you’re coming from. And, if they know those little idiosyncrasies up front, you don’t have to wonder if the person across the table would still love you, if they only knew. Because now they know. True, you can also consider timing: when would you want to hear their family history?

Dear Friends,

People talk about creating Win-Win situations. Sometimes these are people who play “Zen Volleyball,” a game where nobody wins unless both teams reach a tie at 7 points. However, there are also people who know that when it comes to relationships (be it sexual, business, social, etc.), nobody wins if someone is losing.

Dawn & Akien of Mandala Enterprises explain it with the following diagram:

The Relationship

As you can see; if I win and you lose, the relationship loses (because you’ve lost). Same goes the other way. The only way the relationship wins, is if everyone wins.

Now, I know what you’re thinking. And there are lots of thoughts on how much compromise can be made before somebody feels like they’re losing. But this about remembering to:

• Build deals where everyone gets to win, and

• Give your partner ways to win (then let them know they won)

To your successes,

Kaye

Dear Friend,

Dating can be one of the hardest times when it comes to remembering who you are. Because there you are, sitting across the table with this new person, wondering if you’re a match. Does she want kids? Will he accept you even on your bad days? How will the two of you handle any *gasp* future problems? Do you lay all the cards on the table in the first hour… or over time?

We forget, that dating is a numbers game. Only recently did “dating” even become a moderate form of commitment in some people’s minds. Is dating more than one person even OK anymore? Early memories of my dad explaining to me the differences between dating, going steady, and getting married. Dating, was expected to include more than one person. THEN you’d narrow it down to the one you go steady with.

Alison Armstrong, founder of Pax, points out that when she talks to women, they’ll say they never dated; they just go from relationship to relationship. I’ve done it myself. And it is pretty easy to do, especially if there is fear around being alone. That doubles the push to find the security of a relationship as soon as possible. Half the time, we’re not even sure we like the guy, and yet so many of us are driven.

But when it comes down to it; dating is a numbers game. You might find the best person after 2 dates with 2 people. Most of us take more than one date, with more than one person before we can find who we resonate with. And easier if give yourself permission to date… and even more satisfying with upfront commitment to being yourself.

I haven’t yet found the model to end all other models.

What I mean by this is: I haven’t found the “one size fits all” way of relating to the world that works for and empowers everyone, always.

To echo a talk I once heard by Terry McBride: You can put your feet flat on the floor, to “ground.” You an put your palms up to “receive from source.” You can say your prayers to one or many powers – from God to Oscar the Grouch.

But sometimes the rubber hits the road and you get to look inside at what you really believe, and start from there. In that moment, we get to look at ourselves, and discover the Truth – Our Truth. A Truth about what you really believe about yourself, your life and the world. Somewhere, along the line, you might revisit that truth, and decide what you want to believe. I tend to judge the measure of my own beliefs, by whether they pick me up and help me keep going, or knock me down, flatter than a bug under a 4yr old’s shoe.

However, trying to tell someone, including yourself, what to believe (or how they should feel about something) is often as rewarding as trying to tell that same 4yr old that they’re tired and should go to bed.

A young woman was in a car accident. It had been a very hard year for the young woman, and while the accident was a relatively minor one, it pushed her to the edges of her resourcefulness. Her fear of the future overwhelmed her, and for a few days, the young woman was paralyzed with overwhelm. How could she afford to fix her car? What if this raised her insurance? She didn’t have work, how could she work if she didn’t have a car? On top of it, she was far from home and the people she knew. To top it off, the young woman believed she had to go at it alone. Fortunately, she had a two dear friends, who brushed her up and helped her stand once more, but she still had few answers.

The first estimate was $4,000, more than the worth of the car, and certainly more than the young woman could afford. Luckily, one of her friends was able to help her sit down at the body shop, and find out what it would take to make the car run legally.

Thankfully, we are never alone. The man at the body shop figured the frame could be pulled out… the headlight replaced… if unbent, the hood could be re-latched..

Sometimes, we believe we are alone, and the solutions have to be perfect. Yet we are never alone and while the solutions we find are not always beautiful ones, they are solutions we have. There is an art to identifying when do we hold out for the full enchilada, and when do we decide to accept that right now, this will have to be enough to eat, because that is what will sustain us to find the next solution. The second part of the art is focusing on where it is you want to be, instead of getting lost over where you aren’t.

Of course, sometimes these are easier said than done, and we get to accept that too.

If that ideal didn’t sound insane, the growing rate of burn-out, depression, addiction, divorce, and critical health-problems due to stress, should tell you that the message of “Having it All” is a death sentence we have to stop.

Sure, given the infinite nature of time, we could “have it all.” But all we really have is “Right Now.”

So if you’re ready to get off that death-march bandwagon, remember the last time you felt content. Take a moment to list the five most important things to you “Right Now.” Take into account survival is important, and what if you could work on what you need to be content in the top two (or three, if you need to taper down instead of going cold turkey)?

It may feel like you won’t get as much done at first, but I promise you’ll live longer, look younger, feel better, and be even more effective at what you DO do.

Sounds good, doesn’t it?