Nourishing Our Relationships with Active Constructive Responding
Being in relationship with anyone – friend, family, or lover – means attuning ourselves to them: paying attention to their moods and emotions, to what’s going on in the ebb and flow of their lives. And, hopefully, they do the same. A healthy relationship entails emotional reciprocity. It also requires dramatically more positive input than negative […]
Showing Up For Each Other
Especially in the midst of chaos, grief, and what very much seems like the apocalypse, what there is to do is show up for each other – in whatever ways we can. The trick, of course, is in recognizing our own capacities and only offering what we actually have to give. Which may not be […]
Becoming Cheerleaders for Each Other
There’s not really any such thing as succeeding on our own. We don’t live in a vacuum. Every person living a big, cool life has gotten there with help from others. And I fundamentally believe that we are here on this planet to lift each other up. It’s just shitty that in the endless news […]
The Life Changing Magic of Nonviolent Communication
It’s happened again. Somebody you care about did a thing – an inconsiderate, unkind, irresponsible, or just plain stupid thing – and it has hurt your feelings. Or made you super mad. Or caused a whole bunch of confusing emotional chaos that you really didn’t want to deal with today. Fuuuuuuck! So. Given that reality, […]
Your Needs Are Not a Failing
Food, water, shelter. Safety and security. Sleep! Friendship and a sense of connection. These are all amongst the foundational needs of every person on this planet. They all fall in the first three sections of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs – the premise of which (if you aren’t familiar) is that basic needs must be met before […]
Deciding People Mean Well
No matter how kind or compassionate or generous we may be, people are going to hurt us. That’s a reality of being in relation with other humans. People fuck up, and our feelings get hurt. We get angry. We sometimes retaliate, even when we don’t mean to. Everybody behaves like a jerk sometimes. Welcome to […]
When Your Brain Is a Bad Neighborhood, Call in a Friend
I don’t know who needs to hear this, but if you’re struggling with your mental health: it’s not your fault. You’re not doing anything wrong. You’re doing the best you can right now, and your best is good enough. Perhaps unsurprisingly after two weeks of Covid, I ended up a bit depressed. I didn’t have […]
Choosing People Who Choose You
Sometimes it’s easy to forget that being in a relationship with people is actually a choice we make on a daily basis. We are constantly choosing to show up, to engage with the people in our lives – whether those relationships are friendship or romantic partnership or even familial. (Reminder: we can opt out of […]
Hearing It Once (Probably) Isn’t Enough
74 GB. That’s how much information, on average, our brain has to filter through on a daily basis. (Or did in 2017, when the article I got the stat from was published. It’s probably even more now). So, what’s actually surprising is that we somehow think that saying or hearing something once could ever be […]