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Resources for Life, Love and Relationships |
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In This Issue:
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Welcome to the February 2005 Issue
February is the month for Valentines or the lack of them … Creating healthy relationships is not an easy task. They require a continuity of cooperative interactions. One person cannot create a healthy relationship without cooperation from their partner, anymore than one end of the Golden Gate Bridge can support the whole of the span crossing the Bay.
An individual supports their own end of their relationship but only their end. Their partner has to contribute too. The time worthiness of the relationship between two people depends on the strength, foundation support and ongoing maintenance that each one contributes. After a while, if only one person contributes, the relationship will fail.
If your relationship is not doing too well, think about what you can do to improve your contributions to its health instead of finger pointing or blaming the other person for relationship problems.
February is the month we look forward to spring. Here in California spring is already in beginning to blossom. Spring is when we think of planting our gardens. I just planted rows of basil, cilantro and sage seeds. Why? Because I want a harvest of basil, cilantro and sage and surprise, surprise, I will harvest what I sow.
If you want a happy, flourishing relationship what kinds of seeds are you sowing? Because, just like a garden, in a relationship, you will harvest what you plant. Plant seeds of dissatisfaction and that’s what you will reap. Plant love and care and you will harvest something much more valuable.
Consider what you want to harvest months from now or years from now and plant accordingly. But, if your life is such a mess that you don’t know what to plant to make your situation improve call me at 415-421-3030 and see if you can derive clarity with psychotherapy. It will be my privilege to help you.
Small Dreams Are Wonderful.
Small dreams are wonderful because when they are truly small, they are probably attainable. Cherish your small dreams and determine that you will do what is necessary to make them come alive.
Larger dreams are achievable too. If you can identify the elements that are the building blocks of your larger dream, then you can set about completing each smaller element. This way, the possibility of achieving your larger dream takes on a more practical reality.
What smaller, achievable increments can you work on today or this week, that will make a small dream you cherish come true or will contribute to the attainment of a larger dream at some point in the future?
Consider what will add value to your life? What steps do you need to take to achieve this value? Think about these steps, write them down then plan to spend the time transforming your dreams into reality and treasuring the added value they bring to your life.
Achieve, then take the time to enjoy what you have achieved as well as continuing to work on the next attainable satisfaction and remember, small dreams once achieved feel wonderful.
Growing Healthy Relationships
Valuing Your Partner
Looking back, I was lucky. My mother and father loved each other. You could see this by the way they treated each other. They said please and thank you to acknowledge the other one’s actions. My mother put my father’s slippers to warm on cold days and put on fresh lipstick when he was due home from work. When she heard him come home, she went to greet him with a kiss. My father gave her candy and flowers at the weekend. While my parents had the usual arguments about in-laws, where to go on holiday or the big contention: how to discipline my brother and I; they never went to sleep on a quarrel and even after the worst quarrel by next morning they would be perfectly fine with each other as if no dissension had existed.
Creating good relationships takes effort. The effort of showing the appreciation you feel and not taking the other person for granted. The effort of resolving conflicts so they don’t drag on for days. The effort of letting the other person know they are special.
Living in the Moment
One day, I got a call telling me my mother had been seriously injured while I was on vacation, an injury that led to her death. My aunt’s friend won a bowling contest and was thrilled – just before she fell down a flight of steps dead from a massive aneurysm. Another acquaintance went canoeing, tipped his canoe, hit his head on a rock and drowned.
If your partner died suddenly, would you have regrets about the way you had behaved or regret things you had failed to say or do? Would you feel guilty you had wasted time pursuing petty squabbles? That you made angry hurtful remarks or withdrawn into lenghty, resentful silences? That you had nagged about something your partner neglected to finish? Would you regret failing to communicate your love, appreciation or the desire you felt for your partner?
If any of these apply to you, make a list of the things you would regret doing or not doing and find time to communicate your loving feelings to your partner while you can.
The Importance of Balance
One important element in a good relationship is an essential balance between wanting to please your partner and feeling they are willing to please you.
Tom and Nancy are having a hard time. They both want a good relationship but it is not going well. Tom acts as if he is the boss and Nancy, a self employed professional is already tired of the way he has taken charge and expects her to follow his lead. She feels he does not listen to her, that he does what he wants and neglects to discover what she wants. Wherever they go, he drives. Even when they take her car, he drives. He likes to watch sports on television so to please him she has been watching his choice of programs. They go skiing and he has his preference for where they will ski. Although she likes to have him drive and is easy going about television and where they will ski, he seems to believe he is in charge of their relationship and expects her to follow his lead in everything. He does not credit her with being an independent, considerate professional woman and does not realize she wants her consideration of him returned. However, in all fairness, the underlying message she has been communicating is that he is in charge. And who has given him this message? Nancy has.
If this relationship is to turnaround, she needs to equalize their choices by speaking up and saying what she wants directly so he gets to hear her ideas and wishes. If she does not speak up, she cannot later complain her wishes were not considered. Of course, she may find that as soon as he is required to consider her wishes as well as her own, he moves on to find a woman who likes being a satellite to his ego however she may discover that when she says what she wants he is happy to share.
Sharing Costs and Benefits
Women also get off track. Jane is divorced with two grade school children. She enjoys dating Phil but already he is discovering that a trip to the movie involves four tickets not two. He is thirty, likes dancing and hiking but their dating agenda be controlled by her children. In spite of their physical attraction for each other, Phil is stifled and fed up of hearing how she would love to dance and hike with him but cannot leave her children when he knows her mother would love to provide childcare for her. Soon he will move on. She may convince herself he has a fear of commitment because she cannot appreciate the imbalance between her control of their relationship and his desire to have some of his needs met.
The Need for Healthy Boundaries
Good relationships require good personal boundaries. When you are in a relationship with someone who always pleases you and never says no to you, it is human nature to begin to see this person as less important than yourself. Or, if you always have someone who pleases you, it is human nature to begin to expect to get your own way. Clear communication means that each person is aware of the other person’s preferences and individuality.
Conflict Avoidance Leads to Emotional Blowups
Another common imbalance occurs when one person dislikes conflict. To avoid arguments and confrontations, they give in to keep the peace. This means that the other person’s demands meet no effective opposition so they continue in ignorance of the other person’s avoidance until one day, the conflict avoider has had enough. When the avoider has built up enough resentment, their passive acceptance and often results in a major disagreement.
Conclusion
You need healthy personal boundaries in a relationship. You need to say what you genuinely think and feel and be free to disagree with a point of view that you do not share. Open communication leads to negotiated decisions about what to do, where to go and how you will share joint time. Speaking up about differences may mean decisions that not all your leisure time is spent together and it will definitely mean that you will not always get your own way. It will also mean that your partner sees you as a separate and distinct person in your own right, and that you will continue to see your partner as a distinct person in their own right. You may still choose to please each other but when you keep a balance, pleasing each other will always be a two person interactive shared pleasure and not a win-lose imbalance.
February is Black History Month
I will never forget an African American male client telling me how depressing it was that every time he walked down a street any white woman coming towards him along the sidewalk would be likely to clutch her purse a little bit tighter because he was a black male.
Another African American client told me that as a computer consultant he was often queried about his background and credentials when he responded to a company’s request that he fix their computer problems. He said a white colleague was always immediately ushered to the source of the problem. His strategy was to tell the inquisitor that he would be happy to answer all their questions as long as they knew he would be charging his hourly consultancy fee for all the time he spent on site. It is hard to know you will be treated with suspicion just because of your race.
I remember saying to Noah Griffiths, a well known, local African American journalist that I made a point of donating food and toiletries to African American women I saw living on the street. He told me to give first to African American men since they had the hardest time surviving, so now I donate to the African American men and invariably, the response I experience is that they are the most gracious and appreciative segment of the homeless.
When you ask African Americans to tell you about the kinds of slights they suffer, it is shaming to think others can be so inconsiderate of another group of human beings. None of us have control of the circumstances of our birth, of the race we are, the religion we are, the nationality we are or the sexual orientation that is formed in utero. Nor do we have control of how intelligent, attractive, tall, short or healthy we are when we are born.
When you see someone worse off than yourself, give thanks for your good fortune, for there, but for the grace of God, might you be.
Remember, how you treat other people says more about the sort of person you are than the sort of person they are. If you want to be thought a decent person, be sure to treat others decently irrespective of race, religion, sexual orientation, or socio-economic circumstances.
Finally, be aware of how you behave and how you see others behave towards African Americans as a group and do your part to eliminate any prejudice and/or negative bias you experience and make this country a true democracy with liberty and justice for all.
Sexual Safety
In the news there is mention of a new form of the HIV virus that is not only drug resistant but which leads to the development of AIDS in a few months rather than a few years.
I remember Jake. He came into my office with a positive HIV test. He had had protected sex until the condom broke. At that time, years ago, he did not know a shot of anti-viral drug within 24 hours would eliminate the threat of the virus taking a hold in his body. Unfortunately he became HIV positive. Still, he has a long life expectancy with the anti-viral drugs currently available.
Ted had sex with anyone available when he was high on methamphetamines. He tried to kick the drug habit before the riskiness of his behavior resulted in him becoming infected. Unfortunately, he relapsed, had sex with someone HIV positive and became infected. He still gets high and can potentially infect others because when he uses he is as careless of other people’s health as he was of his own health.
These real life stories are why I find news of a drug resistant form of HIV a frightening development for anyone involved in sexual risk taking. Sexual risk taking means having sex with someone who is unknown to you [for instance having sex on a first date] or with someone whose sexual or drug taking history is unknown to you. You need to have sufficient knowledge of who a person is and what their risk taking habits are before you open yourself to the risk of acquiring an infection through sexual intercourse. This means having sex while drunk or high is risky; so is having sex with someone you have only just met.
New infections are still occurring mostly in teenage and young adult populations. If you have children, inform them early about sexual hygiene. Abstinence is a laudable goal but it tells you nothing about how to take care of yourself if you fail to stick to that goal. Tell them, that sexual chemistry is a powerful attractant but that does not mean you have to act on it at the first opportunity. Tell them if women can still get pregnant because condoms break, you can also get HIV [or any other STD] if the other person is infected. Tell them, that you need to know both the person and the condom are reliable to prevent becoming a statistic which translated, means experiencing shock, dismay and long term negative health consequences.
Tasty Vegetables For Weight Loss Eating
Vegetables: raw and we think salad; cooked and we think boiled or steamed vegetables.
Vegetables are low calorie, nutritional food that can fill your stomach. Use them to fill youup as you cut down on calorie dense starches, fat and protein foods.
Not everyone likes a mass of vegetables on their dinner plate so here are some easy ways to liven up these healthy nutritional plants and make them outstanding and enjoyable foods to eat.
Cooked vegetables
Idea #1
Boil or steam your vegetables as usual and drain. Put a little olive oil in a frying pan and brown some onions, the Maui sweet onions are best, add garlic if you wish, add a dash of soy sauce, then toss in your boiled or steamed vegetables and stir until they are covered with the sauce: serve immediately.
Idea #2
Boil or steam your vegetables as usual and drain. Mix a little balsamic vinegar and olive oil with chopped mint or cilantro or chives/spring onions. Pour over the vegetables and serve.
Idea #3
Mix several different vegetables to provide color and visual variety on your plate. Add sliced tomatoes or cucumber with a sprinkle of nuts and dressing [see below] alongside a serving of cooked green vegetables.
Salads and Salad Dressings
Salad dressings are EASY all you need is oil, vinegar and mustard. The proportions are a quarter to one third cup of vinegar to two thirds to three quarters a cup of oil. For one cup add one teaspoonful of mustard. Variations in flavor depend on the kind of oil, vinegar and mustard you use. You can also spice up dressings with crushed garlic, curry powder, black pepper, salt, pine nuts, chopped walnuts or horseradish. For a creamy dressing add a dessert spoon of mayonnaise to the mixture.
Olive oils are a good choice but also try walnut oil for an interesting change. Raspberry vinegars are also tasty especially if you add a few [buy them frozen for low cost] raspberries to your salad. Pine nuts or chopped larger nuts make a nutritional addition to any salad as do chopped herbs like mint, cilantro, Italian parsley, or basil. Other fruits like chopped apples, hard pears, apricots, plums cherries or oranges also add a different flavor to salads. The permutations are endless …
Basic Vinaigrette Dressing
For a tasty basic vinaigrette dressing, use four parts virgin olive oil to one part balsamic vinegar and add one level teaspoon of Dijon mustard and a dash of salt, stir to make one cup of dressing. The dressing will keep for more than a week in a refrigerator.
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Copyright Sylvia Mills, PhD, March, 2004. All Rights reserved.
Sylvia is a Professional Member of the National Speakers Association and Psychologist. She is available for consultations, presentations and psychotherapy. Mailing address: 870 Market Street, Suite 1220, San Francisco, Ca 94102. E-mail address: Sylvia@SylviaMills.com
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