I was enjoying a talk with my friend the other day, and he shared with me how he noticed that since he went through one of the programs at The Hoffman Institute that he has noticed that he has started getting more compliments.  He said that it made him feel good to hear them because sometimes he had a hard time remembering the good things about himself.  Just after that moment, the idea was born!  We talked about keeping a compliment journal, and how it might help him remember the good parts about himself when he’s feeling bad.

Here is a compliment I received recently: Every time I see your witty twitters or facebook posts, and they make me laugh, it makes me happy you‘re in my life.

Thank you notes and gratitude letters acknowledge another person’s actions.  Thank you notes are short, and usually about discreet instances, such as a gift or a interview.  Gratitude letters are longer, and usually recognize multiple ways in which you are thankful for this person in your life.

A gratitude letter is an acknowledgment that someone’s role in your life is not just as a supporting actor, but as a distinct and separate person that is taking time from their lives to do something that helps you.  It is taking that person into consideration as something other than a means to your self actualization.  It is letting them know they matter, they are appreciated and that they are seen.  It may contribute to their sense of significance by letting them know how they affected you.

To get in the frame of mind to write your gratitude letter, start with the Peter Levine’s ‘felt sense of comfort’ exercise.  Then think of a person that positively impacted your life.  What might they have had to give up to help you?  What ways have their actions may have served as examples for how you want to live? Did they have to do what they did for you?  As you are thinking about what you are grateful for about this person, notice the feelings that might be coming up for you.

Now you are ready to write your letter.  If you’re having a hard time thinking of the wording, here are some sentence suggestions:

• I appreciate you because . . .

• When you did X for me, I felt (in case you need a feeling thesaurus: feelings you might have when your needs are met, another link to feeling words)

• When you did X for me, it meant that I could now do _____, and because of that my life is (positive adjectives)

• When I saw/heard that you did X, it told me that you were a (positive adjective) person. I felt ___, knowing that you were in the world.

What happens when some pick up artists try to teach women how to meet men in San Francisco?  Find out here.

Is there more than one path to empathy?

Have kids?  Want to make the world a kinder place?  Here are some ideas about how to raise kinder children.

What’s the relationship between teens, screens and relationships?

One more reason to work on your social skills, loneliness increases the likelihood of high blood pressure in people over 50, and if you’re lucky, you’ll make it to over 50.

Feel the way your body makes contact with the surface that is supporting you.

Sense into your skin and notice the way your clothes feel.

Sense underneath your skin — what sensations are there?
Now, gently remembering these sensations, how do you know that you feel comfortable?  what physical sensations contribute to the over all feeling of comfort?

Does becoming more aware of these sensations make you feel more of less comfortable?  Does this change over time?

Sit for a moment and enjoy the felt sense of feeling comfortable.

Good.

If you take the time to try this, I’m curious to hear about your experiences.  Did you only do it once?  Have you done it several times?  Does anything seem to change the more often you do this exercise?

What Eric Barker thinks, based on some research, we should look for in a marriage partner.  He also wrote another interesting one on why people blame the victim . . ..

An interview by Elle Magazine with Neuropsychiatrist Louann Brizendine on her new book “The Male Brain,” she has some pretty interesting commentary on male/female communication and aptitude differences, as well as some ways to look at how the sexes know how they are loved, which might help explain some sexual gridlock couples get into.

Jealous much?  While this article is for those in open relationships, Annsley Chapman’s five tips for managing jealousy are great ideas whether you are a one-and-only, or share-the-love-type.

Psyblog tells us ten reasons why we may be more likely to conform.

Eight reasons I’m glad I’m not male in some cultures that have ritualized coming of age.

I don’t know if is remarkable that people were honest in representing themselves [online]” because “the truth draws people in” as the author of this article posits, or if it’s because social networks where your real life friends ARE your virtual friends means more accountability and less room for fibbing without real world consequences.

Science Daily talks about how the military has started using mindfulness meditation training to help build resilience in troops and reduce the likelihood of PTSD.

J.K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter novels, gives a compelling commencement address at Harvard talking about the benefits of failure and adversity and the importance of imagination in empathy.  You have the option or watching or reading it.

A great talk about the values behind words and how language can structure our thinking as well as some gifts from adversity.  The talk is given by a woman that is a double amputee.

Even people that are high acheivers sometimes feel like an impostor or fraud and that any day someone just smart enough will figure them out for what they are afraid they are.

The History of the fear of ‘information overload’ it goes further back than today’s fears with facebook, blogging and constant availability of information without a need for memorization.

Frontline brings you a film about how our digital technology is making our lives better, and worse, with Digital Nation.

This Column will Change your Life: The Insulted and the Injured; about the rise of rudeness due to obliviousness and what to do about it.

Reshaping Relationships Through Passion; about the benefits of developing relationships that challenge us to grow based on shared passions.

What Makes a Good Teacher?; Mr. Taylor ranks among the top 5 percent of all D.C. math teachers. He’s entertaining, but he’s not a born performer. He’s well prepared, but he’s been a teacher for only three years. He cares about his kids, but so do a lot of his underperforming peers. What’s he doing differently?

I’ve once again been thinking about what I want in a relationship. I started to wonder if I had a model of relationship that I was wishing for? At this point in my life, I’ve experimented with a variety of relationship styles, and I still don’t have a vision of what a relationship is supposed to look like for me. But then… do I have to know? Should I know? Is having that kind of vision (expectation?) useful? Am I feeling cultural pressure to be in a certain place (married, having kids, owning a house, etc)?

To find out if what I wanted looked like any particular model, I came up with a list of things that I wanted in a relationship.

I want someone who…

• is my “partner”. Meaning, someone with whom I have a symbiotic relationship.
• is honest and inspires me to be honest.
• is excited about being in a relationship with me.
• is a good communicator.
• lusts after me.
• is confident and inspires me to be confident.
• is romantic… someone who will feed me wine and read me poetry.
• has a passion.
• practices good self care.
• I feel could take care of me.
• needs me at times… or who is ok with being able to rely on me.
• makes me feel safe.
• likes to explore new places.
• is musically inclined.
• accepts me.

Of course, these are all things that I “want”… which is distinctly different from having expectations. I am asking for what I want without the expectation of anyone fulfilling those wants. But surely, the more of these qualities that someone has, the more attracted I will be to them.

Does that include marriage? I don’t know. I honestly don’t think about it that much, but I feel like I’m supposed to. Does it include polyamory? I think that what I really want is honesty. I don’t want to be in a relationship in which each person is actively looking for other people to be romantic with. But in the course of living, I know we’re going to meet people to whom we’re attracted… and I envision those situations being handled together. Does it include children? I don’t know (should I know?). I’m not inclined to have kids.

Are my list of wants a relationship model? Is uncertainty a relationship model?

“Being comfortable with uncertainty puts us in he position of not approaching relationships with desperation or an agenda.” says Lexi. “…which I think give the other person an opportunity to come to us as they are and be seen as they are . . . and when there is real mutual attraction maybe it helps us have better relationships.”

One thing I do know, is that not knowing where I or my relationship are going does not mean slacking on moving forward: working on my projects, setting goals, practicing good self care, and developing my sense of self and my relationships with others… yes, this is where I’m going.

“What makes people despair is that they try to find a universal meaning to the whole of life, and then end up by saying it is absurd, illogical, empty of meaning. There is not one big, cosmic meaning for all, there is only the meaning we each give to our life, an individual meaning, an individual plot, like an individual novel, a book for each person.” – Anais Nin

“The secret of happiness is this: let your interests be as wide as possible, and let your reactions to the things and persons that interest you be as far as possible friendly rather than hostile.”
~Bertrand Russell

Dear Cute and Intelligent Females:

I’m a man who likes women. I like meeting them, talking to them, flirting with them. Like most men, however, I have trouble approaching you in public.

There are a lot of guys like me out there. Sometimes you forget that the game of love is best played cooperatively, not competitively. As a public service, I’ve put together a list of observations on things that we guys struggle with when approaching women. Being aware of these things will make our job easier and your interactions more interesting and engaging. At least when you’re talking to me.

•  We suck at reading minds (also known as body language and voice inflection). Make it painfully obvious to us what you’re thinking and feeling. Men are a face-value breed and find it very difficult to (and frankly don’t like to) read into body language and voice tonality/inflection. If we don’t seem like we’re getting it, then we’re probably not
• Rejection is the male version of spiders: small and harmless, but incredibly scary. You guys freak out at a spider, we freak out at rejection. Hopefully this explains some strange behavior you may have observed in the past.
•  Females are built to be conversational Olympians, while most men converse about as well as dogs can kayak. Help us out by offering up topics of conversation. Do most of the talking. Ask us open ended questions about our feelings and experiences. Not all men like to open up to a girl they just met or even know how to speak the language of women; when you find one that does you might want to hang onto him for a bit.
•  iPods and sunglasses are evil. You might as well be standing behind 3 tons of heavy artillery with a sign that says “I will destroy your Xbox, plasma TV, and three quarters of the world’s beer supply if you come one step closer”. Take your sunglasses off if you see a cute guy. Wrap up your earbuds if you’re in proximity to a potential mate. Eye contact and open body language are huge and can do wonders to get a guy to approach you.
•  If you’re wearing a ring, don’t hide it. Don’t be afraid to tell us you’re already in a relationship. There are tactful ways of doing this. Tell us you can’t wait to get home to your husband’s award-winning meatloaf. Mention how awesome your boyfriend’s watercolor art of Lake Tahoe is. We’ll get the hint. If we don’t, you’re well justified in throwing a dirty martini or a nearby bucket of mop water in our face.
•  Mild confrontation is healthy and necessary. Women avoid confrontation the same way men avoid rejection (hint: like the plague). That’s why you give us fake numbers and that’s why we chicken out on making a move. Be more upfront and we’ll respect you (and probably be turned on too). I’m not advocating turning into a GI Jane (although some guys are into that), but sometimes guys need their egos shaped and trimmed a bit.
•  Last but not least: SMILE. Nothing improves an interaction more than a smiling, friendly face. Think of it this way—who would you rather have approach you, the hot dude with a furrowed brow, or the average guy with a big friendly grin on his face? If you answered with Hot Furrowed Brow Guy, then please keep on not smiling so I don’t approach your cranky ass.

Like the wise old dating coach Hitch says, “No woman wakes up saying ‘God, I hope I don’t get swept off my feet today!‘”

So if you want to be swept off your feet by a man, be more conscious of the message you convey. Most girls are not aware of the signals they are broadcasting to the world and the only way to effectively change personal behavior is to become more aware of what we do, when we do it, and why we do it. Pay attention and the rest will follow.

Improving the world one interaction at a time,
Jon Graves