Sunset

"One of the most satisfying experiences I know is to fully appreciate an individual in the same way I appreciate a sunset. When I look at a sunset... I don't find myself saying 'Soften the orange a little more on the right hand corner, and put a bit more purple along the base, and use a little more pink in the cloud colour...' I don't try to control a sunset. I watch it with awe as it unfolds."
Carl Rogers

Vengeance

"Vengeance is a lazy form of grief.
Words of compassion are better than a gun - even if it is slower."
Movie - "The Interpreter"

Persuade, Negotiate, Argue

Persuading, Negotiating and Arguing are valuable skills to develop.
Discover and practice how to use these important skills effectively.
If we are going to need to use these tough skills, and we all have to on occasion when critical conversations take place, we might as well be deft and graciously as successful as possible in facilitating what needs to be done for the best of all the people involved!

A good book: "Getting to Yes" Roger Fisher and William L Ury

Sponge People

Your'e talking to someone and suddenly you feel tense, angry, sad.
Why is that? you wonder.

Your'e spongy. Some people put out a lot of emotional energy, and spongy people suck it up.

Not everyone is spongy.

Those of us who are, can learn to protect ourselves from taking in any other person's negative and harmful stress.

Here's how to construct your suit of psychological armour.

Remember - ARMOUR UP.

A
ACKNOWLEDGE
When you feel uneasy in any company, acknowledge it to yourself.
Learn to know when you feel uneasy, especially with the same people time after time.

R
RECOGNISE
Learn to realise when YOUR feeling actually fits THE PERSON you are talking to.
YOU'RE angry when SHE has been wronged.
YOU are anxious when HE is stressed.

M
MONITOR yourself.
Monitor how you feel when in the company of different kinds of people.
Monitor how you feel before contact, during contact and after contact with various people.

O
OBSERVE
As a highly contagious person gets closer to you, watch them and also yourself.
See what happens - to you and to them.
Are THEY sending out their negativity towards YOU?
Do they often send out subtle or obvious negativity to whoever is around them?

U
UNDERSTAND
Few contagious people are deliberately trying to contaminate you.
The way they are "put together" frees you to tap into your compassion for them.

R
RELAX
If simply noticing all the extra sensations rattling around you and inside you isn't enough…
Take a deep breath.
Exhale.
Relax all your muscles.
Negative Energy (yours, and also theirs) will lessen - if only a little at first.

SPACE

Create physical space and distance as soon as possible from emotionally contagious people.
Walk away - graciously.
Take a loo break.
When you are away: Breathe deeply. Relax.
THINK. VISUALISE the best DAY, the best PLACE, the HARMONY you want with them…
Go to your place of Inner Peace.
Meditate.
Pray.
Be still.
Regain your own composure.

U
UNHOOK
from the toxicity between you and any other person.
Stop trying to change/control anything of what they are feeling.
Allow the other person to be exactly as they are right now.
Don't get pulled down into their problems.

P
PROTECT yourself.
Return to your visualisations that connect you to your peaceful core self.
Spend a few minutes a day visualising the confidence, peace and harmony you want in your relationship with them.

The only use you will be to them, and the only way to survive in relationship with them is… Armour Up.

If you are spongy and vulnerable to the unsettling energy of others, count yourself lucky because you now know you need to ARMOUR UP.

Create your own beautiful, protective, shining suit of Armour.

Consciously screen out the stresses that afflict you and all the rest of humanity.
Be with, but not of, them...

Remember your ARMOUR UP list.

Head out into your daily interactions with your fellow men, effectively clad.

The power to keep yourself safe from any contaminations from others has to be developed by you, for yourself.

From: Martha Beck - O 08/06 p31

Contract Marriage or Covenant Marriage?

"When troubles come, the parties to a contractual marriage seek happiness by walking away.... But when troubles come to a covenant marriage, the husband and the wife work them through."

Want to know more?

Go to http://www.lds.org/ click on "Gospel Library" then "Magazines" then "Ensign" then "Past Issues" then "1996" then "November 1996" then scroll through for "Covenant Marriage" by Elder Bruce C Hafen.

"There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: and God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be attempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it."
I Corinthians 10:13
and read some verses further too.

"Where there is a problem, there is a solution!"
Choose a God-inspired solution.

Holy

"To be holy in an unholy society is more of a challenge than to escape into the mountains and meditate and be spiritual."
To be spiritual in a physical and material world - that's the challenge we aspire to all the time."
"We don't take ourselves too seriously - which is perhaps a characteristic of humility."
Rabbi Yossi Goldman

Helplessness

"Helplessness is actually a place of power when we ask God for help."
"Better to have help that is imperfect than no help at all."
Joyce Meyer