Posts Tagged ‘Relationships’

Yes Means Yes!

Wednesday, May 26th, 2010 by Sara

Yes Means Yes: Visions of Female Sexual Power and A World Without Rape is, without question, my favorite book. I think everyone should read it. This compilation of essays written by feminists (both men and women) is the first book I have found that lays out a creative (vs reactive) vision for sex and sexuality in our society; instead of talking about sex from the traditional “no means no” message that defines consensual sex as not saying “no,” the authors of this book instead encourages society to teach couples how to approach sexuality from the expectation that there is “enthusiastic consent” to each and everything that happens in the bedroom.

I think enthusiastic consent is a genius method for building positive relationships; it demands that both partners be engaged in genuine, truthful conversations about what’s wanted in each and every intimate encounter.

What a great way to build a positive sexual relationship– what a great way to build ANY relationship!

I’ve been doing an inventory of my relationships, both romantic and platonic, and I have noticed how few of them operate with consistently open, honest, and direct communication. In evaluating my relationships, I’ve noticed four patterns that keep me from having authentic relationships built on Truth:

1)     I don’t know how to directly ask for what I want-or let my embarrassment or fear get in the way of speaking up.

2)     I don’t know what I want and defer to someone else to make decisions for me or mirror their wants.

3)     I’m not up to date on my relationships: I assume that yesterday’s (or last year’s) operating agreements are the same and forget that people’s wants change.

4)     I don’t trust other people to be forthcoming with me and try to read minds rather than asking what they want.

Cycling through indecisive, apologetic, and passive communications is not nourishing to me, and it doesn’t help me build intimacy. I think about how much better I feel when I take responsibility for myself, evaluate what I want, go for my satisfaction, and trust that other people are capable of doing the same.

Withholding my wants means that I am building fake relationships based on an inaccurate projection of who I am—my “false self” rather than genuinely intimate relationships where I am really seen for who I am as an individual. And, if I can’t be honest with friends about inconsequential things like what movie I want to see and where I want to have dinner, how am I going to be able to directly express what I do and don’t want in my romantic relationships, which are far more intimidating and which I have far less experience negotiating?

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Liar Liar Pants on Fire!

Friday, April 16th, 2010 by Allison

At a social gathering last week, I noticed a friend wearing this blue sweater that reminded me of cookie monster. It was almost the exact same shade of blue as the Sesame Street icon’s fur, and it was quite large and fluffy. I remember asking myself if this would be one of those broccoli-in-the-teeth situations where she’d want to know if she were walking around looking like a Jim Henson creation, or was I just being a judgmental jerk who should keep my opinion to myself? I opted not to say anything, but it brought an interesting question to bear. How often do I withhold truth (even if it is subjective) from people who might benefit from the hearing of it? I wouldn’t consider myself to be a liar by nature, but recently in our Year of More program, I’ve been challenged to think about where not telling the whole truth has held me back from connecting with people on a deeper, more authentic level, or where it has held me back from exercising positive influence on the world around me. I’ve realized that I’m often afraid to tell the truth because I fear alienating people whose feelings might get hurt, but how much more good could it do in the long run if…my perception of my friend’s wardrobe, who wants to be seen as a competent, professional woman, is shared by others? If…my friend really would want to know if her clothing did not match the way she wishes to show herself to the world? If…by sharing my opinion in a responsible way, she was able to make a change that resulted in her looking more feminine and powerful? If…by making a suggested change in her wardrobe, she gets an unexpected leg up in a job interview or in her dating life? What if…I took a small risk like this one and saw what would happen when truth wins?

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Ditching your bad habits for a more rewarding life

Wednesday, March 10th, 2010 by Beryl

Most of us struggle with bad habits that cost us time, money, energy and self-esteem. To make it worse, we often feel helpless to give up our “drug” of choice: sugar, carbs, tv, oversleeping, internet surfing, etc. The truth is that these habits prevent us from having the life we really want, the relationships we really want, and the quality of life we really want. But underneath these bad habits – which Dr. Judith Wright of the Wright Leadership Institute calls “Soft Addictions” – are feelings of insecurity, fear, worthlessless, and pain. The bad habits are merely the symptoms – getting underneath them to what’s really going on is the key – and the benefits can be astounding: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/connie-bennett/my-abcs-of-breaking-sugar_b_448407.html. I know it sounds too good to be true, but if you want to have a rockin engaged life filled with aliveness, intimacy and growth, take a good look at your bad habits and what’s really underneath them. I am living proof.

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Just a pinch will do

Tuesday, December 29th, 2009 by Kate

I’m on vacation with my honey in Florida and wanted to send you more than a postcard. In addition to the usual things one does in Florida – golf, beach, bowl game related festivities, historical site visits, bike rides – we’ve been working on dealing with upsetting things directly and immediately, with cool results!

On our first day of travel, when Fred would get upset about a long line, bad coffee, the guy in front of him on the plane…you name it…a string of gesticulations and frustration language would follow, usually at (what I’d consider) high volume. At the end of the day, I shared that I felt embarrassed and hurt, and that when he gets angry NEAR me, I have to work really hard to persuade myself that he’s not angry AT me.

Naturally, he was upset that I hadn’t given him the feedback in the moment so he could assess for himself where the line of disproportionate reactions is. Drawing on a similar incident from a few weeks back, we agreed that I get to pinch him when I think he’s unnecessarily and embarrassingly escalating the situation. It happened again the following night, and I missed my chance for the pinch. Afterwards, I said, “I should have pinched you.” He said, “I know.” We talked about it a bit, and I felt understood, but not confident that it wouldn’t happen again.

Today I witnessed a minor miracle of a totally calm Fred explaining to a confused Chipotle employee what he’d meant by “make it really hot.” A few weeks back: “When I said make it really hot, I meant really hot.” Today: “OK, that green sauce…I’d like a full scoop of it, up to the top. Then the same thing with those other two sauces.” No pinch required!

It feels good to see him getting what he wants without having to make others feel like pieces of bay-scum. And while I’m glad I didn’t have to pinch him today to make it happen, I’m glad to have the agreement to use it tool for consciousness from here on out.

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Leadership means learning to follow – even with your husband!

Saturday, November 21st, 2009 by Barb

My husband has been taking the lead in our relationship by bringing up conversations that are usually easy to put aside. We’re both busy working professionals and being new parents, it’s all too easy to have our day to day conversation revolve around work or our 11 month old son.

But my husband has really been pushing us to talk about the bigger stuff. Today is our 8 year anniversary and he’s pushing us to talk about our vision for ourselves as a couple, what we want individually, what we want in our relationship, and what we want for our family.

He’s been leading us in this particular area. And one thing I noticed about myself was that I did not want to acknowledge him for it. It suddenly struck me yesterday how I was not being a very good leader by withholding my acknowledgment. I made a change and really thanked him today for taking the lead. He told me how much he appreciated the acknowledgment and what it meant to him. I suddenly realized that this is an area of growth in my own leadership – learning to acknowledge where others have excelled and learning from them.

This small acknowledgment is actually a big investment in our relationship. I’m grateful to be reminded that leading sometimes means learning to follow!

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Follow the leader: how your family team can predict your leadership success!

Monday, November 16th, 2009 by Beryl

Do you know how to be in a well-functioning team? I didn’t. I grew up in a family that didn’t know how to work together.  We weren’t a team. We engaged in isolated activities – homework, chores, tv, etc. The only time we were together was at dinnertime, and that was usually a tense time spent waiting for it to end. I wasn’t involved in team sports, so I didn’t learn how to be a team member there either. So I didn’t have a great concept about what it really meant to be on a well-functioning, effective team. Worse yet, I didn’t know that I knew nothing about teams or team development.

When I started my current job I still had no concept of what it meant to be part of a team—I thought my job was to just keep my head down and do a good job. As I began to manage, supervise and lead other people I saw that I wasn’t very effective at influencing others and getting others to perform well. I had a rude awakening – I had a ton to learn about team development and leadership. I realized that my own personal transformation was critical to being an effective leader and learned a very important lesson – that we are all leaders all the time, whether we are leading towards a positive place or a negative place. This was an intriguing concept to me, so I began leading a team at the Wright Leadership Institute’s MORE Life training to develop myself as a leader.  There I learned (and continue to learn) specific leadership skills that have moved my leadership light years ahead. Here are a few specific examples of what I have learned:

  1. Effective leaders know how to communicate in a way that gets them heard and leaves others feeling seen and heard
  2. Effective leaders seek to understand how others are actually a reflection, or mirror of them
  3. Effective leaders understand group dynamics and processes
  4. Effective leaders are present to themselves and their own emotions and use them as data about what is happening in the group
  5. Effective leaders lead by empowering others towards success.

So – look to your family to get clues about what kind of leader you may be instinctually. If you’d like to learn more about how you could learn the skills of becoming a transformational leader and be inspired by other transformational leaders, join us on November 20 and 21 at Ravinia for a Transformational Leadership Symposium (http://transformleadership.com/) , featuring leading figures on the cutting edge of Transformational Leadership, such as Brad Anderson (former CEO of Best Buy), among others.

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It’s all their fault!!! (Or is it??): How attachment theory sheds light on the state of our relationships.

Thursday, November 5th, 2009 by Beryl

I love blaming people for the state of my relationships. It’s really more fun that way – I get to be chronically dissatisfied and self-righteous, and they get to be mired in victimhood and hopelessless. And I always pick the ones that are a perfect match for me too. Not the solid, assertive types, but the withholding, passive-aggressive types. For most of my life, I thought I just had bad taste in people, or just had really bad luck. But that didn’t explain the family I was born into. Bad luck, one might think? I don’t think so.

After picking the same type of people – friends and boyfriends – repeatedly for many years, and blaming them for the state of our relationships, I finally figured out what the REAL problem was. I had attachment issues! Through my education and relationship training at the Wright Leadership Institute, which includes neuroscience and family systems education, I was able to understand how my attachment to my primary caregivers foreshadowed my attachment to every person in my life, and how secure I felt in the world. In other words, I tended to attract and be attracted to people who were like my mother or my father. AAARRRGGGHHHH!
With this training and understanding I have been able develop new perspectives on myself in relationships and identify what works and doesn’t work for me. I am developing more fulfilling and satisfying relationships as a result.

How is YOUR attachment pattern impacting your relationships?

If you want to read more about how having a secure attachment can impact your life, check out the book: A Secure Base, by John Bowlby.

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Posted in Leading a Great Life, Personal Growth, Relationships | 1 Comment »

Are "boys" a soft addiction?

Wednesday, September 30th, 2009 by Jillian

I was in a conversation today with a talented and attractive young single woman. She shared how enlightened she became realizing that for her, boys were a soft addiction. It might seem strange to think that boys can be a soft addiction, but it’s really not.  The definition of a soft addiction is a ”seemingly harmless habit that zaps our time, money and energy”, and these habits that we do instinctually are trained in our brains to try to get our needs met. These habits don’t work, they don’t meet our needs, and we just deepen the groove in our brains – the neural pathways-  that keep us doing the same thing over and over with the same unsatisfying result.

This woman talked about how she would spend a lot of her time thinking about these boys she was meeting, sending text messaging, and fantasizing about the future with these boys, but then was unsatisfied with the actual dating encounter. I thought about how much I’ve grown in my own dating life and how I’ve really cut out a lot of the unsatisfying bullsh*t that can go along in the dating process. But, really, I do relate. I still play games – softly addictive ways of being- in my dating life. The biggest one for me is the soft addiction of avoidance and ommitting the truth. I routinely avoid sharing how I really feel and what I really want in relationships. It is such a habit for me that it takes writing down what I want to say, telling a friend that I plan on telling my date these things, and even then it takes a lot of chutzpah to do it! At least once a week after a phone conversation with someone I’m dating has ended, I force myself to call back and share what it was that I was really feeling and what I really wanted- otherwise that which I’ve ommitted blocks the intimacy that I am trying to build.

Underneath these soft addictions are unexpressed feelings and deeper hungers. For me, I feel fear and excitement, and experience a hunger to be loved, to be seen, and to matter. I think that’s why I do what I do – the silly wiring in my brain has be thinking that if I share what I want, I won’t get it, and then for sure I won’t be loved. I would bet that the young woman I spoke with was feeling angry about the back and forth superficial text messaging, and a hunger for genuine connection, and so spent time in her fantasies where she could create the relationship that she wants. We talked about this and shared that we are trying new ways of relating to these boys/men, telling the truth, expressing our feelings – in text messages to start – and then in real face to face interactions. This is what it takes to rewiring our brains and start to meet our deeper needs and hungers.

So, I think that boys, or men, certainly can be a soft addiction, but more important it is the ways of being when we are with boys/men that is the issue. Boys and men are great! The soft addictions that we engage in during the dating process is the problem! But isn’t it cool that we can use boys and men to see how different we act, catch these patterns and then change them?

Any thoughts?

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