<ul><li class="ql-align-justify">Reflect on the positive reasons that you have chosen your partner.</li><li class="ql-align-justify">⁹88888888⁸Put yourself in your partner’s shoes and assume that they have good intentions.</li><li class="ql-align-justify">Shifting your focus to understanding your partner's stuggles builds good will that comes back to you and strengthens your relationship.</li></ul>People in satisfying, fulfilling relationships give each other: The Benefit of the Doubt.Giving your partner the benefit of the doubt comes from a sense of caring and understanding in your relationship. Nothing strengthens your relationship more than being understanding .

Key points

Take no thought of who is right or wrong or who is better than. Be not for or against.

<ul><li>Reflect on the positive reasons that you have chosen your partner. </li><li>Put yourself in your partner’s shoes and assume that they have good intentions. </li><li>Shifting your focus to understanding your partner's stuggles builds good will that comes back to you and strengthens your relationship. </li> </ul>

Chosen Partner 

I have never had someone come into my office and say, “My problem is that my partner understands me too much.“ Developing empathy for your partner means really understanding what life has been and is like for them. Empathy is not some mystical power. It is not magic, <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/intuition">intuition </a>, or just the “warm fuzzies.“ And make no mistake; empathy is not <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/mind-reading">mind-reading </a>.Empathy is not something that drains or depletes partners. Sympathy can be draining, but not empathy. Sympathy leads us to feel we have to do something.

The Power Of Empathy For Giving Your Partner The Benefit Of The Doubt

As another example of giving the benefit of the doubt, Craig shares with his wife, Jill, that he'd like to start his own consulting firm. Jill then feels understandable <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/anxiety">anxiety </a>(as does Craig). At the same time, she empathizes about how this need for entrepreneurship has been a longstanding need and goal for Craig.

Example Of Giving Your Partner The Benefit Of Doubt 

Here is how to make the benefit of the doubt work for you, your partner, and your relationship. 2. Put yourself in your partner’s shoes. Assume that they have good intentions. 3. Consider your partner’s caring and love shown in the past. Then ask yourself if there is a possibility that your partner had no intention of causing you any <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/grief">grief </a>.

5 Steps To Give Your Partner The Benefit Of The Doubt

Relationships take work. Yet, we need to ask ourself if we are just working hard (e.g., having the same fights over and over) or if we can learn and grow to give each other the gift of reasonable acceptance of our intimate partners. I have no doubt that giving each other the benefit of the doubt helps us work smarter and feel happier in our loving relationships.

Final Thoughts 

The importance of seeing your partner's perspective.

personaldevelopment

Personal Development

loveandrelationships

Love & Relationships

Giving Your Partner the Benefit of the Doubt

She never confronted the death of anything, be it a habit, a phase, or a marriage, even when the end stood right in front of her, plain and inevitable.

After a few drinks, I hear the same stories from them all.Men are the same everywhere. Same food, same water, same old crap.

It was always like this.When you spoke the truth, they hated you.The more you talked about love, the more they hated you.

Real filth is on the inside.The rest simply washes off. There is only one type of dirt that cannot be cleansed with pure waters, and that is the stain of hatred and bigotry contaminating the soul. You can purify your body through abstinence and fasting, but only love will purify your heart.

In general one shouldn't be too rigid about anything because to live means to constantly shift colours.

Most of the problems of the world stem from linguistic mistakes and simple misunderstandings.Don't ever take words at face value. When you step into the zone of love, language as we know it becomes obselete.That which cannot be put into words can only be grasped through silence.

What matters is to find the soul that will complete yours. All the Prophets have given the same advice: Find the one who will be your mirror!

How can love be worthy of its name if one selects solely the pretty things and leaves out the hardships?It is easy to enjoy the good and dislike the bad.Anybody can do that.The real challenge is to love the good and the bad together, not because you need to take the rough with the smooth but because you need to go beyond such descriptions and accept love in its entirety.

You can study God through everything and everyone in the universe, because God is not confined in a mosque, synagogue, or church. But if you are still in need of knowing where exactly His abode is, there is only one place to look for Him: in the heart of a true lover.

Each reader comprehends the Holy Quran on a different level in tandem with the depth of his understanding.The 4 levels of insight.<ol><li>The 1st level is the outer meaning and it is the one that the majority of the people are content with. (Scholars who focus on the sharia know the outer meaning)</li><li>The 2nd level is Batini - the inner level. (Sufis know the inner meaning)</li><li>The 3rd level is the inner of the inner. (Saints know the inner of the inner)</li><li>The 4th level is so deep it cannot be put into words and is therefore bound to remain indescribable. (This is known by prophets and those closest to God)</li></ol>

He had a remarkable curiosity about everything new and unusual and was a great observer of nature.Some days I found him in the garden admiring the symmetry of a spiderweb or the dewdrop glistening on a night blooming flower.Insects, plants, and animals seemed more interesting and inspiring to him than books and manuscripts.But just when I would start thinking he had no interest in reading, I would find him immersed in an age old book.Then, once again he would go for weeks on end without reading and studying anything.

About Shams

Did you know that Shams says the world is a huge cauldron and something big is cooking in it?We don't know what yet. Everything we do, feel, or think is an ingredient in that mixture.Weneed to ask ourselves what are we adding to the cauldron. Are we adding resentments, animosities, anger, and violence?Or are we adding love and harmony?

How we see God is a direct reflection of how we see ourselves.If God brings to mind mostly fear and blame, it means there is too much fear and blame welled inside us. If we see God as full of love and compassion, so are we.

It is easy to love God, But difficult to love fellow human beings with all their imperfections and defects. There is no wisdom without love. Unless we learn to love God's creation, we can neither truly love nor truly know God.

Fret not where the road will take you. Instead concentrate on the first step. Thats the hardest part and thats what you are responsible for. Once you take that step, let everything do what it naturally does and the rest will follow. Do not go with the flow. Be the flow.

What good could come out of a man who cannot settle down?If a man has no sense of belonging, he can drift in every direction, like a dry leaf in the wind. The perfect victim for sheitan.

Why worry about the aftermath, an imaginary future, when this very moment is the only time we can truly and fully experience both the presence and the absence of God in our lives?Motivated by neither the fear of punishment in hell nor the desire to be rewarded in heaven, Sufis love God simply because they love Him, pure and easy, untainted and unnegotiable.Love is the reason. Love is the goal.

In this world take pity on three kinds of people.The rich man who has lost his fortune,The well-respected man who lost his respectability,And the wise man who is surrounded by ignorants.

*The international bestseller* "Every true love and friendship is a story of unexpected transformation. If we are the same person before and after we loved, that means we haven't loved enough..." Ella Rubinstein has a husband, three teenage children, and a pleasant home. Everything that should make her confident and fulfilled. Yet there is an emptiness at the heart of Ella's life - an emptiness once filled by love. So when Ella reads a manuscript about the thirteenth-century Sufi poet Rumi and Shams of Tabriz, and his forty rules of life and love, her world is turned upside down. She embarks on a journey to meet the mysterious author of this work. It is a quest infused with Sufi mysticism and verse, taking Ella and us into an exotic world where faith and love are heartbreakingly explored. . . 'Enlightening, enthralling. An affecting paean to faith and love' Metro 'Colourfully woven and beguilingly intelligent' Daily Telegraph 'The past and present fit together beautifully in a passionate defence of passion itself' The Times

philosophy

Philosophy

religionandspirituality

Religion & Spirituality

motivationandinspiration

Motivation & Inspiration

THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER *One of the BBC's '100 Novels that Shaped the World'* "Every true love and friendship is a story of unexpected transformation. If we are the same person before and after we loved, that means we haven't loved enough . . ." Ella Rubinstein has a husband, three teenage children, and a pleasant home. Everything that should make her confident and fulfilled. Yet there is an emptiness at the heart of Ella's life - an emptiness once filled by love. So when Ella reads a manuscript about the thirteenth-century Sufi poet Rumi and Shams of Tabriz, and his forty rules of life and love, her world is turned upside down. She embarks on a journey to meet the mysterious author of this work. It is a quest infused with Sufi mysticism and verse, taking Ella and us into an exotic world where faith and love are heartbreakingly explored. . . 'Enlightening, enthralling. An affecting paean to faith and love' Metro 'Colourfully woven and beguilingly intelligent' Daily Telegraph 'The past and present fit together beautifully in a passionate defence of passion itself' The Times

Elif Shafak is an accomplished writer whose work has resonated with readers around the world. Elif Shafak has published several books that explore a range of topics, from fiction to nonfiction, and has received critical acclaim for the ability to weave compelling narratives. Elif Shafak's writing style is known for its depth and authenticity, and has earned quite a loyal following of readers.

Elif Shafak

The Forty Rules of Love

In a new study published in the journal Personal Relationships , Alaei and Department of Psychology professors, Geoff Macdonald and Nicholas Rule, found that people's individual attachment styles correspond with the lyrics of their favorite songs. In other words, we tend to return to the tunes that spell out what we're going through in a relationship, for better or for worse.

Attachment Styles parallel to the lyrics of your favourite song

<ul><li>Anxiously attached people worry about being rejected and seek a lot of reassurance about their relationships.</li><li>Avoidant attached people respond to their negative expectations of relationships by closing off emotions and intimacy in favor of independence.</li><li>People with a mixed attachment style have confused expectations, fluctuating between clingy and cold.</li><li>Secure people have optimistic outlooks on relationships, and are open communicators and trust their partners.</li></ul>

4 Main Attachment Styles

According to the University of Toronto study, those who displayed Secure attachment styles favoured tracks that portrayed secure attachment in the lyrics like All of Me by John Legend Anxious attachment styles contrastingly went for songs like Someone like you by AdeleWhile, “Avoidants” chose songs like Irreplaceable by Beyoncé.

Music can be a powerful exacerbator of that because it can stir up deep emotions and memories, thus reinforcing your wounded traumas.

If we’re listening to music that reflects our relationship back at us, is that helping or hindering our relationship skills? 

Understand yourself and those around you.

psychology

Psychology

health

Health

New psychology research suggests your favorite songs reveal your attachment style

Dress right, dress nice.

Take care of yourself and your possessions. Don't be sloppy.Be classy.

Be healthy. Eat healthy, do exercise.

Do not criticize other people. No body is perfect.

Be a positive person. Negativity drains other people.

Hobbies and interests. Be interesting.

17 SIGNS YOU’RE MORE ATTRACTIVE THAN YOU THINK // Want to know how to know if you’re attractive? These signs you’re attractive are the key. Knowing how to be attractive can feel intimidating but once you know the right skills it’s actually pretty simple. After these signs, you’ll be able to understand how to know if you’re attractive, how to be attractive to girls, and ultimately how to get a girl to like you. You’ll learn some body language, some psychology, and a bit about self-confidence. Ready to dive in? Let’s get started with 17 Signs You’re More Attractive Than You Think! #Christiandating #datingcoachformen #CoachMelannie Links I Mentioned 💪 FREE MASTERCLASS - 3 SECRETS TO FIND AND ATTRACT YOUR DREAM GIRL 🔥 https://coachmelannie.com/masterclass-yt/ HOW TO NOT GET FRIEND-ZONED (3 TIPS TO AVOID THE FRIEND ZONE FOREVER) https://youtu.be/fn_SvgY6Tps TOXIC GIRLFRIEND SIGNS (IT’S NOT YOU, IT’S HER) https://youtu.be/gMRxuAdzjQA Want more videos on Christian dating and understanding women? Check out the links below! Have any questions? Leave me a comment 😊 More videos on Christian Dating and how to have a healthy relationship: HOW TO FLIRT WITH WOMEN https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLsQq0KK7pJ-XsyVNxjH6S9-iRe-S5q4rO HOW TO BE ATTRACTIVE TO WOMEN https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLsQq0KK7pJ-X_ynv6PY785bErqiZoqbSk TOXIC GIRLFRIENDS/TOXIC WOMEN https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLsQq0KK7pJ-VyeTDmwCE46a85Pme0uqRA HOW TO BE CONFIDENT AROUND WOMEN https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLsQq0KK7pJ-W_e1sSY8-UDYrC3VBdGUNS ALL MY VIDEOS https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLsQq0KK7pJ-WZW-efKlrzF-fIwtoDigfB About Me: Hi! I’m Coach Melannie. A Christian Dating Coach for men. 💥 I teach Christian men how to stop wasting time and money on dead-end relationships by learning the right skills to finally get your ideal girlfriend. Let's stay connected! Website: https://coachmelannie.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/coachmelannie/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/coachmelannie Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/coachmelannie/ Questions? Email me at: melannie@coachmelannie.com Music: https://www.bensound.com/royalty-free-music End song: I Found Love (feat. Brenton Mattheus) - Dustin Miles Music provided by Ninety9Lives Video: https://youtu.be/ygSW0pYM274 Download: https://99l.tv/IFoundLoveYU https://youtu.be/62X9zBP436U

communication

Communication

17 SIGNS YOU’RE MORE ATTRACTIVE THAN YOU THINK // Want to know how to know if you’re attractive? These signs you’re attractive are the key. Knowing how to be attractive can feel intimidating but once you know the right skills it’s actually pretty simple. After these signs, you’ll be able to understand how to know if you’re attractive, how to be attractive to girls, and ultimately how to get a girl to like you. You’ll learn some body language, some psychology, and a bit about self-confidence. Ready to dive in? Let’s get started with 17 Signs You’re More Attractive Than You Think! 

#Christiandating #datingcoachformen #CoachMelannie 


Links I Mentioned 💪

FREE MASTERCLASS - 3 SECRETS TO FIND AND ATTRACT YOUR DREAM GIRL 🔥
https://coachmelannie.com/masterclass-yt/

HOW TO NOT GET FRIEND-ZONED (3 TIPS TO AVOID THE FRIEND ZONE FOREVER)
https://youtu.be/fn_SvgY6Tps

TOXIC GIRLFRIEND SIGNS (IT’S NOT YOU, IT’S HER)
https://youtu.be/gMRxuAdzjQA

Want more videos on Christian dating and understanding women? Check out the links below! Have any questions? Leave me a comment 😊


More videos on Christian Dating and how to have a healthy relationship: 

HOW TO FLIRT WITH WOMEN
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLsQq0KK7pJ-XsyVNxjH6S9-iRe-S5q4rO

HOW TO BE ATTRACTIVE TO WOMEN
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLsQq0KK7pJ-X_ynv6PY785bErqiZoqbSk

TOXIC GIRLFRIENDS/TOXIC WOMEN
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLsQq0KK7pJ-VyeTDmwCE46a85Pme0uqRA

HOW TO BE CONFIDENT AROUND WOMEN
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLsQq0KK7pJ-W_e1sSY8-UDYrC3VBdGUNS

ALL MY VIDEOS
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLsQq0KK7pJ-WZW-efKlrzF-fIwtoDigfB

About Me:
Hi! I’m Coach Melannie. A Christian Dating Coach for men. 💥 I teach Christian men how to stop wasting time and money on dead-end relationships by learning the right skills to finally get your ideal girlfriend.

Let's stay connected!
Website: https://coachmelannie.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/coachmelannie/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/coachmelannie
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/coachmelannie/
Questions? Email me at: melannie@coachmelannie.com

Music: https://www.bensound.com/royalty-free-music

End song: I Found Love (feat. Brenton Mattheus) - Dustin Miles
Music provided by Ninety9Lives
Video: https://youtu.be/ygSW0pYM274

Download: https://99l.tv/IFoundLoveYU


https://youtu.be/62X9zBP436U

Hello! I'm Coach Melannie. A Christian Dating Coach for men. 👉 I teach Christian men how to find, attract, and keep your dream girl without mind games, tricks, or pretending to be someone you aren't. Are you ready to get your dream girl? Make sure you subscribe and ring the notification bell! 🔔

What can you expect from my channel? Some of my most helpful videos are on:

- How to get a girlfriend

- How to know if a girl likes you

- What makes a man attractive

- Female psychology

- Signs of toxic women

- How to make a girl think about you non-stop

- Signs a girl likes you

- and SO much more! 

Be sure to hit the subscribe button and welcome to my community!

🚀 P.S. If you want to fast track your results, make sure you check out my free masterclass too https://coachmelannie.com/masterclass/


Coach Melannie

17 SIGNS YOU’RE MORE ATTRACTIVE THAN YOU THINK 😏

Unfortunately, when people sacrifice their own success for other people, they fall behind on their personal responsibilities, and burn out.Reaching down to help people climb up the ladder, they get stepped on—and sometimes squashed.

Although many people give at their own expense, there’s a group of people who are productively generous.How do they give without compromising their well-being and falling short on traditional measures of success?They reject 3 common beliefs about giving. As leaders, it's part of our job to debunk these misconceptions, see below...

Dont confuse being generous with being nice.Being a nice person is about courtesy: you’re friendly, polite, agreeable, and accommodating. When people think they always have to be nice in order to give, they fail to set boundaries, rarely say no, and become doormats, letting others walk all over them.Productive givers focus on acting in the long-term best interests of others, even if it’s not pleasant.They have the courage to give the critical feedback. They offer tough love, knowing that we might like them less, but we’ll come to trust and respect them more.

1. Giving is not about being nice

In the eyes of many people, giving doesn’t count unless it’s completely selfless. In reality, though, giving isn’t sustainable when it’s completely selfless.For example, studies reveal that people who give altruistically—with no concern for their own interests—are prone to burnout and depression. Ironically, they’re also less likely to stick with helping and volunteering over time, because they’re too exhausted to keep giving.

2. It’s not about altruism

Successful givers secure their oxygen masks before coming to the assistance of others.The productively generous choose to help in ways that are energizing rather than exhausting.

The productively generous recognize the difference between taking and receiving. <ul><li>Taking is using others solely for personal gain. </li><li>Receiving is accepting help when you need it, and maintaining a willingness to pay it back or forward.</li></ul>

3. It’s not about refusing help from others

What the productively generous know:1. Nice guys may finish last, but good guys finish first.2. Whereas the selfless give until it hurts them, and the selfish give only when it helps them, the sustainably generous give when it helps others but doesn’t hurt them.3. Receiving is necessary for giving—and if you never ask, you deprive the people in your life of the joy of giving.

On the Road to Thriving

Three other pillars for a successful life: well-being, wisdom, and wonder. All of these pillars can be side effects of productive giving.<ul><li>Helping effectively can boost our well-being by strengthening relationships and injecting meaning into our lives, revitalizing us rather than draining us.</li><li>It can make us wiser, allowing us to advance the common good without becoming martyrs.</li><li>It can free up time to be amazed by the wonders around us.</li></ul>

Successful givers secure their own oxygen masks before coming to the assistance of others

In Western culture, many people define success narrowly as money and power. In her uplifting book Thrive, Arianna Huffington argues that this leaves us sitting on a two-legged stool, which will tip over if we don’t add a third leg.

moneyandinvestments

Money & Investments

leadershipandmanagement

Leadership & Management

How to Become Productively Generous

Prejudice is an assumption or an opinion about someone simply based on that person's membership to a particular group.In society, we often see prejudices based on characteristics like race, sex, religion, culture, and more.

Prejudice

When people hold prejudicial attitudes toward others, they tend to view everyone with the defining characteristic as being "all the same." They paint every individual who holds specific characteristics or beliefs with a very broad brush and fail to look at each person as a unique individual.

<ul><li>Ageism, such as believing that someone is "too old" or "too young" to work in a particular role or participate in a specific activity.</li><li>Classism, which may include having a negative belief about someone based on their income or looking down on someone because they are "poor" or a member of the working class.</li><li>Homophobia, often defined as feeling a sense of discomfort, fear, distrust, or hatred for people who are members of the LGBTQ+ community.</li><li>Nationalism, which involves believing that the interests of your state's group are more important than those of other groups.</li></ul>

Types of Prejudice

<ul><li>Racism, which involves having a negative attitude toward members of a certain racial or ethnic group rooted in systems of power and oppression.</li><li>Religious prejudice, which involves feeling negatively toward someone because of their religious beliefs, practices, or ideologies.</li><li>Sexism, which involves holding certain stereotypes or beliefs about someone based on their sex or gender.</li><li>Xenophobia, which involves disliking or fearing someone who the person considers "foreign" or "strange," often in the context of their native country.</li></ul>

Develop empathy for members of other groups.By imagining themselves in the same situation, people are able to think about how they would react and gain a greater understanding of other people's actions.

How to Reduce Prejudice

Prejudice involves having negative attitudes and stereotyped beliefs about members of a group. Learn why prejudice forms and how to overcome it.

problemsolving

Problem Solving

How People Develop Prejudices

Every day we engage in conversations rooted in ritual and social norms. With no conscious effort, we shift from one role to another. One minute, we’re the spouse happily cooking breakfast with our spouse. Shortly after, we’re meeting a client for lunch as a trusted advisor. And at the end of the day, we’re having cocktails with a friend as a confidant. No matter who we’re interacting with, our emotions, wants, worries, and judgments are embedded in each conversation.

Unconscious Conversations

We mostly shape-shift on autopilot, giving no thought to our personal conversational patterns. But when we pay attention to these patterns, we become more objective observers, reducing negative judgments about ourselves and others and creating space in our minds for navigating uncomfortable interactions.

Shape-Shifting Interlocutors 

Voice Dialogue is the psychological concept of the internal self, developed through socialization. According to Drs. Hal Stone and Sidra Stone, the psychologists who developed the method, we adopt different personalities to cope with the vulnerabilities and complexities of life. In every interaction, we must not only navigate the roles and words of others, but we must navigate ourselves. It’s no surprise then that interactions go awry and confound us.

Standing With Our Feet In Two Boats

To uncover the patterns of thinking that serve or hinder us in conversation, we can ask ourselves four questions.<ol><li>What roles can I observe in my interactions? </li><li>What story am I bringing to the conversation?</li><li>What’s fact and what’s fiction in my conversation?</li><li>What questions can I ask to understand others better? </li></ol>Each question gives a window into conversational dynamics and patterns so we can better navigate confusing or fraught interactions.

4 Questions to Ask for Better Conversations

Each role we play with others involves intrinsic power issues, and real and perceived power dynamics play out, unspoken and unacknowledged. Those dynamics can enhance or hinder conversations.In any conversation, ask yourself what role you are playing, and pay attention to the power dynamics. As a boss, are you coming off as arrogant or humble? As a direct report, are you presenting as judgmental or respectful? As a friend, are you critical or supportive? As a parent, are you fearful or loving?

1. What Roles Can I Observe in My Interactions?

We thrive on the stories we adopted from our families and cultures. They facilitate connections, and when we hear stories that resonate with our patterns of thinking, our brains fire up. We experience neural coupling, an uptick of dopamine, and a positive shared experience. No matter the role we play—mother, father, sibling, leader, or friend—every interaction is a complex collection of stories and potential connection.

2. What Story Am I Bringing to the Conversation?

Stories are vital. Unfortunately, they can trap us in fear, worry, and conflict. When someone opposes our beliefs, we can become emotionally triggered and react on autopilot. Our stories help us navigate life, but we suffer when our ego is caught in their grip. We don’t have to give up our stories. We just have to be aware of them, recognize them, and consciously choose those that serve us and reject those that don’t.

Following A Broken Compass

Our stories consist of facts and opinions. That might seem apparent, but fact and fiction become a perplexing, tangled web because our stories are so crucial to our identities, our egos, and the roles that we play. It’s not surprising that they often lead us astray.By recognizing our stories, we can investigate and transform them. Facts are inarguable and confirmative. Objective reality is based on our shared senses and our social norms, and our actions are recordable and objective. Sometimes we don’t agree with an action, but that doesn’t diminish its indisputable reality.

3. What’s Fact And What’s Fiction in My Conversation?

Facts are critical for establishing common ground from which we can connect and sync up our conversations.Opinions, on the other hand, arise out of the collection of beliefs that we adopt throughout life. Unlike facts, our opinions are complex, personal, and uncertain. Our egos, roles, and personalities are very comfortable with our opinions, which comprise a big part of our thoughts. We readily defend them because we identify so closely with them.

Facts Sync Up Our Conversations. But We Sync With Our Opinions. 

When we investigate our opinions, we slowly detach from them and reveal our more profound—and often unconscious —thoughts so we can make conscious choices about their value.We can use four fundamental components of opinions—desires, concerns, authority, and standards—to transform our thinking, allowing us to change a difficult conversation into a collaborative one.

Conscious Choices About (Often) Unconscious Thoughts 

During a troubling conversation, ask yourself :<ul><li>What desires and wants are part of this conversation?</li><li>What concerns about the future are affecting my thoughts related to this issue?</li><li>What power issues are impacting this conversation?</li><li>What standards am I using to make this judgment?</li></ul>

4 Fundamental Components Of Opinions

We unconsciously advocate for and defend our positions because we’ve long been trained to “have the answer.” Advocacy is far more common than its underappreciated sibling, inquiry.To change that dynamic, we can begin to listen to how we and others advocate in conversations. What is our tone when we offer our perspective? When questioned, are we defensive or open to other ideas? How do we react when others advocate their position forcefully?

4. What Questions Can I Ask to Understand Others Better?

Instead of giving up our opinions, we can practice open advocacy. Open advocacy is holding our opinions more lightly and sharing the thinking under the surface of our stories, creating space for deeper understanding.Open inquiry is the art of asking sincere, respectful questions to seek understanding. It’s a secret key to creating mutual learning and collaboration. When we inquire about others’ desires, concerns, issues of power, and standards, we invite them into collaborative, creative interactions that are far more fulfilling than the alternative.

Open Advocacy And Open Inquiry

Asking these questions over time and observing our roles, stories, opinions, and interaction styles will dramatically increase our awareness and conversational skills and guide us to having more conscious satisfying conversations—and a little more peace.

The Takeaway: Roles, Stories, Opinions, Interaction Styles

Seeing the question “What are you bringing to the conversation?” in a whole new light. “An awful lot”, is the answer; and probably not in the way we thought, neither about “awful”, nor about “a lot”.

How to uncover the patterns of thinking that serve or hinder us in conversation.

4 Questions to Ask Ourselves for Better Conversations

Quantum theory is perhaps the most successful scientific idea ever. So far, it has never been proved wrong. It is stupendously predictive, it has clarified the structure of the periodic table, the functioning of the sun, the colour of the sky, the nature of chemical bonds, the formation of galaxies and much more. The technologies we have been able to build as a result range from computers to lasers to medical instruments.

Quantum Theory: “Here, I Solved Your Problem.”

Yet, a century after quantum theory’s birth, something remains deeply puzzling it. Unlike its illustrious predecessor, Newton’s classical mechanics, it does not tell us how physical systems behave. Instead, it confines itself to predicting the probability that a physical system will affect us in one way or another. When an electron is fired from one side of a wall with two holes, for instance, quantum theory tells us where it will end up on the other side, stubbornly saying nothing plausible about which hole it has gone through.

Also, Quantum Theory: “Never Mind How I Solved It.” 

Quantum theory treats any physical system as a black box: if you do this to it now, it will react like that later. What happens in between? The theory simply doesn’t tell us.Many scientists are content with this, but others are puzzled. Among the latter, some make hypotheses: they propose complicated stories about parts of nature that are hidden from us for ever, or multiple universes that underpin the part of reality we do see. Others resign themselves to the notion that science is not about what things “really are”: it is only about what we are able to directly observe.

Giving A Black Box To A Species That Likes To Box Things Itselt

Another idea has recently begun to catch on. Perhaps there is no need to make anything up about what lies behind quantum theory. Perhaps it really does reveal to us the deep structure of reality, where a property is no more than something that affects something else. Perhaps this is precisely what “properties” are: the effects of interactions. A good scientific theory, then, should not be about how things “are”, or what they “do”: it should be about how they affect one another.

“I Am, Because I Affect.”

The idea that reality is a sum of relations instead of objects, entities or substances is still radical, although the possibility that this could be what quantum physics is telling us about nature was first suggested a quarter of a century ago. For a while it remained largely unnoticed, then major philosophers picked it up and began to discuss it. Nowadays interest in the idea, called the Relational Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics, is steadily growing. It is a possible solution to the puzzle of quantum theory: what quantum phenomena are is evidence that all properties are relational.

“I Am, Because I Relate To.”

There is a strikingly similar definition of existence at the root of the western philosophical tradition. Plato’s The Sophist contains the following phrase: “Anything which possesses any sort of power to affect another, or to be affected by another, if only for a single moment, however trifling the cause and however slight the effect, has real existence; and I hold that the definition of being is simply power (δύναμις)”.

For Anything To Exist, It Must Have An Effect

And in the eastern tradition, the Buddhist philosopher Nāgārjuna’s central notion of “emptiness” (śūnyatā) tells us that all things are empty of intrinsic existence and nature (svabhava), or, in other words, that nothing has independent existence: anything that exists, exists thanks to, as a function of, or according to the perspective of, something else.

For Anything To Exist, It Must Make Some Difference To Something

Maybe this is not such a radical idea after all. We all know that a chemical substance is defined by how it reacts, a biological species is defined according to the niche it occupies in the biosphere, and what defines us as human beings is our relationships. Think of a simple object such as a blue teacup. Its being blue is not a property of the cup alone: colours happen in our brain as a result of the structure of the receptors in the retina of our eyes and as a consequence of the interactions between daylight and the cup’s surface.

A Blue Teacup Is Blue Because_

Its being “a teacup” refers to its potential function as a drinking vessel: for an alien who doesn’t know about drinking tea, the very notion of a teacup is meaningless. What is more, its stability as an object depends on the timescale in which we consider it: take a longer view and it is just a fleeting aggregation of atoms. And are these atoms themselves independent elements of reality? No they are not, as quantum theory shows: they are defined by their physical interactions with the rest of the world.

A Teacup Is A Teacup Because_

So quantum physics may just be the realisation that this ubiquitous relational structure of reality continues all the way down to the elementary physical level. Reality is not a collection of things, it’s a network of processes.

Reality Is A Network Of Processes

If this is correct, it comes with a lesson. We understand reality better if we think of it in terms of interactions, not individuals. We, as individuals, exist thanks to the interactions we are involved in. This is why, in classic game theory, the winners in the long run are those who collaborate. Too often we foolishly measure success in terms of a single actor’s fortunes. This is both short-sighted and irrational. It misunderstands the true nature of reality, and is ultimately self-defeating.

Reality Is The Sum Of Relationships

From subatomic particles to human beings, interaction is what shapes reality. 

From subatomic particles to human beings, interaction is what shapes reality

mindfulness

Mindfulness

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Science & Nature

Why Relationships Are The Key To Existence

Have you ever wondered what goes through your brain when you are in love?If you have ever experienced your crush turning into love, it is safe to say that you assume the transition happened naturally. However, did you ever stop and think about why you felt such a significant emotional leap in the first place? What changes happen in your brain that make you fall deeply in love?Experts explain that the process of romantic love involves a few complex changes, specifically in the reward system of the human brain, making you crave the objective of your affection.

The Psychology Of A Loving Brain

Romantic love is most constantly linked with activity in two regions of the brain – the caudate nucleus and the VTA or ventral tegmental area. These two areas play a key role in your reward pathway and control dopamine, the “feel good” neurotransmitter. It means that during the early phases of your love, you crave the other person because you feel so good thanks to them.

These feelings persist over time. Studies seem to suggest that the moment you fall in love, provided that the relationship continues to be satisfying, thinking about your partner will not just make you feel good. At the same time, it can also help buffer against stress, pain, and all sorts of negative emotions and feelings.Even if it is still early, those giddy initial stages of romantic love might feel somewhat different from the kind of love that has already been nurtured through the years. However, the human brain might not necessarily be able to identify the difference.

Another study had participants who had already been married for 21.4 years on average. They reported that they still feel passionate love for one another, showing the same activity in areas rich in dopamine, such as the VTA, similar to those who are still in the early throes of love. The neural patterns of romantic love appear to be universal across different sexual orientations, genders, and cultures. However, not all kinds of desire or love look the same. For example, platonic and romantic love might come with some distinct neural signatures.

Studies also show that the neural processes that are responsible for sexual desire and attraction can take place together and might even often overlap with the ones that control romantic love, despite being mostly distinct from each other. However, there is still no study to date that has followed just one person throughout the course of their romantic life to identify if neural changes take place over time. Today, experts continue to try to fill the gaps in how people understand love.

Additional future research will probably tease apart the processes of the brain at work, from that initial awkward date to several years after the couple has exchanged their first “I love you.” Supplementary work will also look into the underlying neural processes linked with the different forms of love associated with friends, family, things, and places. The physiology of a loving brain is a complex one, but one thing is for sure, love in and of itself is a great feeling to have.

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Self-care has been the hottest buzzword across for quite some time now, even more so because of the COVID-19 pandemic. While pampering yourself is probably the first thing you can think of when you hear the term, self-care actually goes beyond finding ways to relax.Self-care is the newest form of health care. It is all about looking after yourself, not just physically but also emotionally, socially, mentally, and spiritually.

Self Care

When it comes to taking care of your overall health and well-being, it is imperative that you find the perfect balance that lets you address each of these different key areas. To make self-care effective healthcare, you might need to focus more on one particular area to find relief from your stressors or restore balance to your life.

Emotional Self-care

You need to develop healthy coping skills to deal with certain uncomfortable emotions such as sadness, anger, and anxiety. Emotional self-care might include certain activities that will help you express and acknowledge feelings safely and regularly. You can discuss how you feel with a close friend or a partner. You can also allot time for leisure activities to help you process your feelings and emotions.

The things that fill your mind and the way you think can greatly affect your psychological well-being. Mental self-care involves doing things to help keep your mind alert and sharp such as learning subjects you find fascinating or solving puzzles. You can also watch movies or read books that will inspire and fuel your mind. Mental self-care can also involve doing things to help your mind stay healthy. For example, practicing acceptance and self-compassion can help you sustain a healthier and happier inner dialogue.

Mental Self-Care

Your body will only run efficiently if you look after it well. Don’t forget that there is a strong and direct connection between your mind and your body. If you take care of your body, you will also feel and think better. Physical self-care also involves how you fuel your body, how many hours of sleep you get, how you look after your physical needs, and how much physical activity you do. Taking your medications as prescribed, attending healthcare appointments, and observing proper health management are all key aspects of good physical self-care.

Physical Self-care

Self-care is also all about socialization. Unfortunately, it is usually difficult to set aside time to meet friends. When life gets too busy, it is even easy to neglect and forget about your relationships.However, these close connections are all essential for your well-being. The easiest way to maintain and cultivate your close relationships is to put more energy and time into establishing and strengthening your relationships with the people around you.

Social Self-Care

There is no such thing as a specific number of hours that must be devoted to working on your relationships or meeting with friends. After all, people have different social needs. The secret here is to identify your own social needs and designate enough time in your schedule to form a healthy social life.

A lifestyle that includes spirituality or religion is healthier in general. However, nurturing your spirit doesn’t need to involve religion. This can also involve things that will let you develop a deeper sense of understanding, connection, or meaning with the rest of the universe. Spiritual self-care can be in the form of praying, attending religious services, or enjoying meditation. Practice self-care today and live a healthier life!

Spiritual Self-Care

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