Do you Have Real Conversations?
For the most part we rarely engage in genuine conversations with one another. We rely upon formatted questions and answers that we exchange with each other, our words resembling ping-pong balls being sent to and fro. We deliver and parse data with each another and ordinarily leave the engagement more or less the same as when we entered it, save the uploading of new information. But we aren’t truly conversing. We aren’t sharing our true self- only the part we want seen-the safe part.
Real conversations require our full participation. This is the space where two people participate in an unfolding conversation. Genuine conversations invite the sense of “us” the space where a participatory reality unfolds. How do we achieve this authentic experience of conversation?
To do so, we must let our guard down. The barrier that we build to protect how we want to be seen precludes authentic conversation. Socially learned rules of engagement isolate us as they instruct us against appearing weak, vulnerable, ignorant, assertive or unhappy. These exchanges betray our authentic being and thwart our growth, individually and relationally.
When we release our need to be seen in a particular way we can then move into the space between the other and me. In this space there arises the potential for a participatory unfolding of two people where the conversation isn’t predictable or predetermined.
This engagement moves well beyond the transactional exchange of data points. “What have you been up to?” prompts “Oh I’m so busy with the kids and vacation plans I don’t have a minute to come up for air.” Or ask, “How’s the job going?” and you can anticipate, “Pretty good, can’t complain.” The proverbial, “How are you?” necessitates the automatic, “Good, and you?” There’s no conversation occurring in these exchanges. These transactions are routine, robotic and self-protective. And they are dehumanizing.
To enter into authentic conversation—the realm of participatory relationship—requires that I drop my defenses and release my armor. When I embrace my vulnerability and allow the conversation to enter the realm of the uncertain— the possibilities of genuine engagement are summoned.
When the conversation enters into unknown territory don’t pull it back into the retreat of the familiar. Ask a new question, one which you’ve never considered and be present for the response. Or share a part of yourself that you’ve kept hidden. In the unfamiliarity of a new dialogue, you’ve both entered a sacred space, a space that allows you both to truly relate. A real conversation is an adventure into the unfamiliar where two people present their authentic self, unguarded and welcoming the uncertain. This is where new possibilities await.
Detoxing Your Mind
Many people participate in cleanse programs to eliminate toxins they’ve accumulated over their lifetime. These poisons drain our vitality and denigrate our health. Detoxing has gone mainstream as more and more people seek wellness. As well, a vast number of us work out regularly, tending to our physical wellbeing. But there’s a most important aspect of ourselves that we ignore—the health and vigor of our minds. We need to detox our minds from the false and limited thinking that disrupts our lives and our relationships.
What do I mean by the toxins of your mind? Over the course of your life you probably cling to a few primary beliefs about yourself. These beliefs shape the way you know yourself and how you think. They are the filter through which you see. From these beliefs and your personal experiences, you have likely become addicted to certain recurring thoughts that write the script of your life. Regrettably, these thoughts are often self-limiting, denigrating or simply wrong-minded and keep you from living the life you deserve. Habitual thoughts confine you to being a character in your script, rather than being the author of your life narrative. Think of these limiting old thoughts as a straitjacket. Ask yourself what the central theme of your thoughts tells you. They may sound like “I’m not smart enough” or “People don’t respect me,” or “I always make the wrong choices.”
Stuck in a Groove
For those of us old enough to remember vinyl records, we might recall that when there was a scratch on the album, the needle would sometimes get stuck in the groove. The same sound or lyrics would keep repeating. In the groove, the tone arm couldn’t find its way into the next groove. This is exactly what happens with our thoughts. They tend to keep reiterating the same messages, time and again. When they do so, they summon old memories and old feelings and thwart our ability to change.
The replay of old thoughts and feelings preclude us from being present. We are simply replicating the past. This is such a wasteful way to live our lives as we move from moment to moment—wanting for change—but not understanding how to achieve it. The continuous repetition of old thoughts and feelings robs us of new experience. As well, it deprives us of bringing new possibilities into our lives. This groove is where fear reigns supreme. Mind detox helps free you from being trapped in the groove.
If I can’t see the thought, I won’t be having a thought – the thought will be having me!
I have been looking at this problem for some time now and have developed a method to help people detox their minds. This process helps us to illuminate the habitual thoughts that trick us into false realities. Learning to observe thought, rather than attaching to and becoming the thought, is where our change process begins. When you are able to see your thought, you are actually thinking! This is where you access your inner wisdom.
The difficulty we encounter in disengaging the thought is due to its automatic nature. Before we have an opportunity to take notice of the thought, we’ve already become the thought. You can learn to train your mind to become more alert and slow down the process, so that we may see the thought more clearly. It’s almost like seeing it coming in slow motion, as if you were a watching sports replay. When you learn to see the thought clamoring for your attention, imagine placing your forefinger vertically in front of your lips and say shhhh to the thought.
Slowing it Down
For an analogy let’s look at tennis. Let’s metaphorically equate thought with being the tennis ball. Becoming aware of the thought is like anticipating the arrival of the ball on your side of the net. You see our opponent’s positioning and footwork, their racquet movement and the position of the ball as it advances toward you. By the time your opponent hits the ball and it approaches the net, you’re fully engaged and anticipating its arrival. You’d hardly wait until the ball was inches from you before you began to react. Anticipation and awareness are fundamental in tennis or any sport. And so we train ourselves in this awareness and time slows in a relative sense as we come into this zone of awareness.
The very same thing can be accomplished with thought as we learn to see it in advance of becoming it. In the nanosecond before you merge with your next thought you exist in a pure state of potential. Everything is possible. You don’t need to be confined by your life history but can break free to create the life you choose. But you need to learn to think differently. Detoxing your mind is altogether achievable once you set your intention to do so.
Mel’s method for detoxing your mind will be discussed in detail and at length in his new book, The Possibility Principle: How Quantum Physics Can Improve the Way You Think, Live and Love.
Silence: A Relationship Killer
Over the many years that I’ve been practicing therapy, I’ve found that couples that are struggling in their relationships often succumb to the default mode of silence. Sometimes, it’s one person who defers to the unspoken, and at times it’s actually both. In either circumstance, such silence – not a healthy pause or meditative break – speaks to the absence of verbal and emotional intimacy. Unless we’re communicating on levels of extra sensory perception or body language, words are the only tools available to us to communicate let alone resolve our issues. There’s little sense to being in a relationship and resorting to silence. Not only does it sabotage the lifeline of a healthy coupling, it chokes your expressive needs.
When you can express what you’re feeling – in the moment that you’re experiencing it – there’s much less likelihood that you’ll act out on that feeling. Problematic feelings that go unexpressed tend to percolate and boil over – they take on energy of their own, and the ensuing conflict hours or days later may have little correlation to the original emotional insult. When this occurs there’s little chance of being validated, as there may be little correspondence between your hurt feelings and the disruption of the moment.
Telling someone that you feel angry, and explaining why you do, will ordinarily sever the reactive state of being angry or acting angrily. Furthermore, the non-verbalization and suppression of your feelings will – over time – result in substantial resentment, with the accompanying behavior that we might expect. If you don’t share your problematic feelings, there is a great probability that you’ll act out on them, in any number of unrelated ways. Having done so, you now become the problem in the other’s eyes. We’ve now entered into a negative spiral of silence and struggle
Breaking Free from Your Comfort Zone
Our Most Intimate Relationship
The most intimate relationship we will have in our lives is not with our parents, our spouses, our children or closest friends. It is with our thoughts. They are our constant companions. Our thoughts will impact our lives far more than any relationship. In fact, they will greatly impact those relations. The quality and nature of what our thoughts tell us will largely script the experience of our lives. Learning to break free from the confines of old thought is the key to personal growth.
Thoughts can either be our supportive allies or our critical antagonists. They are the very filters through which we experience our lives. A particular thought – embedded as part of a larger belief – can either imprison or liberate us. Our thoughts very much tend to be self-fulfilling prophecies.
Don’t Call Me A Shrink
The Myth of Objectivity
When people ask me what I do for a living, I typically respond that I practice psychotherapy. I often hear the response, “Oh, so you’re a shrink.” Notwithstanding that I’m a psychotherapist, and not in fact a psychiatrist (the more proper match for being a shrink), being called a shrink causes me to pull back and defend myself. I’d rather expand than shrink.
Although my comment might be seen as glib, it really speaks to my shifting worldview and my intention to practice a psychology that is in coherence with this shift – emergence as opposed to reduction. Read more
Can Your Feelings Be Wrong?
This question comes up so often in my therapy sessions. The greatest source of invalidation comes from denying our feelings — whether we do it ourselves or others do it to us. People really struggle with the question of whether their feelings or right or wrong. Wrong question! Feelings are neither — they just are. Imagine saying that you feel hot. Can someone tell you that you’re wrong? That you’re not feeling hot? Of course not. They might argue that it isn’t hot, particularly if you’re sharing a bed together. But indeed if you feel hot, you feel hot.
Now if you’re overdressed or the thermostat is set too high you might make an adjustment and no longer feel hot. In that case what your feeling changes. Similarly, if you feel angry, unloved or disrespected, some meaningful communication might assist you to reconsider what you’re feeling. Learning not to be reactive also helps in re-framing what we’re feeling. But this doesn’t suggest that you weren’t feeling what you were.
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