Start off your New Year with a bang!

domp

As I reflect on the year, I realize more and more that life isn’t always about getting what you deserve. It’s about us all being on different trajectories. The reality is that everyone has the same opportunities at being happy. It’s about the choices we make and understanding how it shaped our experiences. The better we are at understanding why we chose what we did, the closer we get to actualizing our goals.

The things that we experience are temporary. It changes as our perception of the experience changes. Everything has its own unique trajectory. Imagine a ball in flight. The speed and direction in which it travels is dependent on the amount of force exerted onto the ball, the angle of your wrist, your strength for it to travel. The same principle can be applied to our everyday lives. Each person’s trajectory possesses its own unique set of qualities that is directed by each decision we make. What it yields is dependent on the decisions we make around the goal we want to achieve. The better we understand our experiences, we get a better sense of what we need and then we are better aligned to encounter the right set of circumstances and people.

This year, in addition to your New Year’s resolution, write a letter to your 2012 self itemizing the things that you gained, how you grew, and what you’re appreciative of. Whether you: grew from the ordeal of a break-up, divorce, found the love of your life, found a job, got laid-off, gained more customers or started your own business. Think about each thing that you would like to continue and things that you would like to grow from. Everything we go through brings us closer to what we need to actualize our dreams or brings about our happiness. If your goal is to be a better partner in your relationship (your trajectory), think about how your communication style may have improved in the last year or conversely how it can be improved in the coming year (your decision making process). Whatever the situation is, think about what led you to that moment and what you intended on happening. If it is what you intended, apply that formula to other situations. If it wasn’t, revise the process by being more congruent with what you want to achieve. Sometimes when we see it written, we are better able to see some of the incongruence very clearly. When I have reflected on my past experiences, I realized that the qualities and circumstances that I was seeking was the opposite of what I was experiencing. Hope this helps you have the best year yet!

Have a happy, healthy & prosperous New Year!

How to get what you want.

Honesty, communication, and respect are what I believe are the foundation for any good relationship, romantic or not. If you want to improve your relationships, you can begin with working on your communication and listening skills. Miscommunication and not being heard quickly becomes anger, resentment, regret or disillusionment.

Tips on communicating and listening:

  1. Don’t assume you know what the point is. Let the person convey what is on their mind before you interject.  When you interject too quickly you are focusing on the previous discussion that was a recycled version of the one you are currently listening to and already expect the outcome to be the same. A fight, resentment, introversion, or accumulated anger is what you are trying to avoid.
  2. Summarize, anticipate, and formulate questions based on what you’re hearing. Strategize by moderating your reaction as the person is talking to you, then respond. The speed in which your thoughts and speech work are two different frequencies. That allots you time to avoid the pitfall of another fight, being misunderstood, or expressing the wrong emotions.
  3. Be flexible in your thinking about the outcome of the discussion. If ultimately you want x, you may have to be able to hear an alternative method.

You are not meant to suffer silently.

Since its Father’s Day on Sunday, I have been getting a lot of letters on deep seated pain about daddy issues, parent absenteeism, abandonment, and parent-child reconciliation. I don’t want to minimize the role our parents play in who we become in our adult relationships. There are many reasons why it is that we pick the wrong types. I’d like to give you the easy answer, but the truth is there isn’t just one factor.

The reality is that your parents can’t be blamed for your past failed relationships. You decided to select who you dated. I’m not here to tell you that they didn’t contribute to the choices in who you selected, why you selected them and/or why you tolerated things you may not have normally tolerated. Your parents provided you with the basics: life. That’s the only thing they owe you. The rest is entirely up to your own design. They provided the context for how you function. You take that blueprint and create your life schematics. The best thing you can do is go through life recognizing why you made the decisions that you did. If it was due to an absent parent, address it with that parent or parents. They also have reasons for their decisions. You have tried to reason out the rationale for their decisions for years and, in the final analysis, that is hardly ever their reasons. The reasons that exist in your mind are reasons you created to cope with your pain, hurt, the incomprehensible or the unfathomable. They tried to deal with their decisions the best way they could. Listen to their rationale. More than likely it was never intended to hurt you or not show you love. All of our decisions are based on selfish reasons (meaning they are benefiting some aspect of what we are and think we need/want). Try to avoid thinking that they owe you more than what is realistic. That may further imprison you or arrest your growth. Once you have identified the aspects that caused you to make the decisions you made, then you are able to move forward and understand the painful experiences you have had. We all have things that cause us pain that keep leading us to reproduce pain. That’s the irony. Sometimes it is conscious, other times its subconscious.

Today begin a different practice. Start by recognizing your parents’ limitations. They didn’t intend for you to be brought into this world to suffer. They may have been in their own personal version of torture. Any human life brought into this world is a gift because it’s something the world needed. You are not here to suffer silently. Sometimes we love in search of ourselves, to fill a void, to feel again, to feel needed, simply to have companionship, etc. In every case, ask yourself what this relationship really represents in your life and to you.

What are some of the things you can do to help reconcile some of the causes of your pain?

 Step 1. Gratitude list

thx

Make a list of all of the qualities you admire about your parent(s). The one (or both) that affected you the most. It could be that they provided you with a home, clothes, food, toys, your education, etc. Anything that made your life comfortable.

Step 2. Defining moment

Once you’ve completed that list, I want you to go back and think of a moment in time that you were grateful that they were there. It could be taking you to your little league practice, that they pushed you to excel in school, that they both where in the delivery room, they took you to get your driver’s license or your first car, the day you had your own child and gained a better understanding of the choices a parent makes, etc. Anything that contributed to you at the time or to who you are now.

Step 3.  Reflection

How does it make you feel? That feeling is what you should feel when you are in a healthy relationship.

Happy Father’s Day and thank you mom & pop!

Stop the head games you play with yourself!

Just because you had a negative experience doesn’t mean that you’re going to have another bad experience. I have often said that relationships should leave visible scars rather than psychological scars. Simply because physical scars heal within a specific time and sometimes are reminders of what not to do, while psychological scars can act in the complete opposite where you can become imprisoned in your mind and body.

Here are some tips on how to avoid the head games you play with yourself:

  1. One of the key elements about a relationship is that it should make you a better version of yourself. If that is not happening, you have to exit while you still recognize yourself.
  2. You allow yourself to be used. Ask yourself why you allowed it in this case and not others or why you continuously let them use you.
  3. There is a reciprocal nature to the universe. Let the universe take care of it. Don’t ruminate about the relationship.
  4. Don’t victimize yourself post break up.
  5. Don’t relive negative events that occurred in the relationship by recalling what happened or extract an aspect to persecute yourself over again. You’re torturing yourself & subsequently delaying your own growth.
  6. Don’t lie to yourself. One of the keys is that you have to be honest with yourself and in defining your truth; you have to come to terms with it.
  7. People are who they are, not what you want you want them to be or what you would like to see them become.
  8. Don’t ascribe unrealistic expectations to people. People’s reality is shaped by their experiences which shapes their perception.
  9. No repeat performances. Time post break up simply created distance, not fondness. They are your exes for a reason. You keep moving forward, not backwards. Re-read #6.
  10. Develop further or refine your list of what is compatible for you.
  11. Further refine your happiness hypothesis.
  12. If it reached your threshold of what’s unacceptable, it’s unacceptable. Some people dismiss porn being played in the background while you’re trying to have a conversation, some dismiss cheating. It all depends on your tolerance level. None of it is wrong because it’s how you define your happiness.

Stop dating assholes!

Let me give you the timeframe: coke & porn and bucket list boy were all within 1 week. I am a firm believer in giving people opportunities.

A friend of mine said “Listen, we all date assholes till we meet the right one.” At the time I thought it was a harsh statement, but he’s right. Not that the people I date are assholes; because who we choose to date is a reflection of who we are and what we think we want. While dating, we are really testing out the combination of qualities, characteristics, and life desires we are looking for. We discover the things that we thought we wanted might not be what we need.

Approaching dating as though it is testing out our happiness hypothesis or algorithm can help minimize some of our own expectations. Create an equation that includes the elements that you absolutely require (fixed variable) and the elements that you think you want (random variable). Focus just on characteristics, qualities and life desires. For example: a friend of mine has the following requirements of the men she dates: ivy educated, graduate degree, professional, shared religion, family-oriented, certain age range, & certain height requirements. Physical appearance, sense of humor, adventurous, and work-life balance are not priorities for her. Identify the elements that you think you must have and those that you’d like to have.  You might find that dating based on a system testing out your happiness hypothesis, will help you figure out what is a better fit for yourself.

The other elements about finding the right person are far more complex. Being in the right frame of mind + the right place + the right time + right chemistry + the person also possessing the right set of characteristics.

You might also find that you will feel less pressure on making the wrong person fit the model and essentially you’ll stop dating assholes.