Speak up! Your life really depends on it! But his doesn't.
How do you explain this? Women speak up more during marital arguments than men, men tend to be quieter. But women who didn’t speak up had four times the likelihood of dying at an earlier age. It made no difference to the men's longevity!
Researchers looking at data from the Framingham Study also found that “marriage was good for men’s health and longevity regardless of marital strain, with one exception: Men who reported disruptions at home because their wives were upset at work had triple the risk of developing heart disease. The researchers speculate that men may feel frustrated when they can't "protect" their wives from an unhappy work environment.”
Your thoughts on explaining these interesting results?
Have you ever thought you’d made yourself perfectly clear, and yet it was as if the other person didn’t seem to hear a word you said? Perhaps you felt angry, frustrated, disrespected, inadequate, hopeless, or another unpleasant emotion, depending on what you thought was the reason they weren't listening.
There are lots of reasons that people don’t hear us, but most fall into two basic categories: communication skills and trait based misunderstandings.
There is always the possibility that we aren’t communicating well. If we use blame and judgment or act the victim instead of using “I” statements, most people will not be centered and grounded enough to listen to what we are really saying, the needs or pain behind the accusations. So learning how to communicate well can help here. Non-Violent Communication, Crucial Conversations, Active Listening, and other techniques can help us learn how to communicate so that we have a much better chance of being heard. You can learn more about them in the Resource Directory in The Relationship Dance.
One of the reasons people don't listen is, of course, that it would be inconvenient or unpleasant for them to do so, but this is based in fear. A person who feels good about herself can accept reality and hear strong criticism. She'll evaluate it, accept or reject it as seems accurate, and if accepting, use it gratefully to change course.
People who feel inadequate may put up a façade of competence and self confidence, but if they are unable to listen without being thrown, you know it’s just a façade. Most of us have some feelings of inadequacy in some area or are vulnerable when we're stressed. That’s why it’s important to make the other person feel safe when communicating something important, as Crucial Conversations teaches us how to do.
Sometimes the person really doesn’t care or has her own agenda, but in my experience, this is rare. Often there is a misunderstanding based on trait differences. Trait differences make two well intentioned people assume that the other is ill intentioned or stupid.
For example, Erica’s boss, Grant, told her that they were considering acquiring a new company and could use information on revenues in the past five years. Erica spent a whole week on it and turned in the report to Grant, who was incredulous. He told her he hadn’t wanted that report. She said, “But you told me to do it.” He was sure he hadn’t, she that he had, and they were furious with each other, Grant sure that she was impulsive, Erica that he was indecisive and irresponsible.
The boss was an Interactive Thinker, Erica a Quiet Thinker, his opposite. When you don’t realize your traits, miscommunication is easy. They were still thinking badly of each other two months afterward, until they learned about how these traits operate. They'd wasted lots of stress hormones before they understood what had happened and how they needed to communicate in the future. You can learn about it at http://www.traitsecrets.com/chapter.htm.
It happens so often with traits, and people can go years without realizing what’s going on. It was only after I learned about traits that I realized a trait difference with my husband had me thinking he was an irresponsible procrastinator, and him thinking I was a uncaring or a wimp. Understanding traits sure helped our relationship!
Without all that thinking and judging, animals have it easier. Baby Squirrel here quickly realized no communication skills would work because its companion lacked the essential trait of auditory ability. Sometimes you just have to realize the situation is impossible. But it's rare to find people with actual stuffing between their ears in our human world, and if you try to talk to them, people will think you are strange.
A psych major in college, I knew all the right things to do to toilet train. I waited until my daughter was clearly ready, almost three, and really, really wanted to wear Big Girl Panties. There was also the incentive of keeping up with the Jessicas, since most of the girls in her nursery school wore them and she didn't want to be left out.
I tried only positive reinforcement, and made sure it was intermittent. We even had a little tabloid newspaper by the potty so she could be just like Daddy. But I didn't understand the spiritual principles under the psychological theories, so after a few months I was starting to wonder if my daughter was going to have to go from extralarge Pampers to extra small Depends.
Big Girl Panties were the Olympic Gold of our toilet training. She wanted the frilly, colorful ones so badly, almost as much as I wanted her to wear them. Yet, when I tried letting her wear them in return not peeing on the floor much, it didn't work. I tried negotiating them in return for sitting on the potty and producing, but that didn't prevent constant accidents, so we returned, dejected and defeated, to diapers.
One day I had a revelation as I went to wake her up in the morning. It came over me suddenly, and it was like I was taken over by a benign force. I was calm and positive as a force took me over and told her that she could wear underpants all the time if she just went to the bathroom and sat on the potty before each meal and at bedtime. "You just have to sit there for 1 minute, you don't have to pee. You can pee and poop all over the floor, if you want," I told her.
"You're kidding!" she said. I assured her I was not.
Excitedly, she jumped out of bed and ran to sit on the potty. When she returned she enthusiastically ordered, "Kid me again!"
She was dry from then on, even at night!
I thought that this was pretty amazing, but it was only years later I realized why it worked and the larger spiritual lesson it exemplified.
A number of spiritual teachers have offered the same insight in somewhat different ways. Byron Katie has a book titled Loving What Is, and her The Work is all about accepting situations and people, including yourself.
Eckhart Tolle says in The Power of Now, "Whatever the present moment contains -- accept it as if you had chosen it. Accept -- then act. Always work with it, not against it. Make the present your friend and ally, not your opponent. This will miraculously transform your whole life."
Of course, the accepting part is not easy. I really didn't accept cleaning up puddles all over the place. But once I really accepted them, they vanished.
Spiritual Guide Abraham says through Esther Hicks that we need to simply know what it is we want, trust we will get it, and it or the right actions to get it will come to us. However, if we want it too much, we are not trusting but grasping. We are actually pushing what we want away. "Nothing brings out the worst in another faster than your focusing on it."
I knew what I wanted, but had been wanting something negative -- no accidents -- rather than something positive. My epiphany was that I really trusted that the new approach was what was needed and I was willing to accept accidents. I was totally relaxed about it.
I had, without realizing it, focused on the negative--accidents--and children pick up what their parents focus on. I'd been using negative words "Don't pee on the floor" instead of "It's nicer when you pee in the potty."
By simply accepting the situation as it was and making it okay "You can pee on the floor," while offering a positive behavior and reward, sitting on the potty and wearing panties, the situation changed within minutes!
Of course, the trick is to really accept it. If only I had remembered the lesson my baby guru had taught me when she was an infant, I it would have been so much easier. But that's for my next blog post.
I saw the funny Youtube video below called Everything is Amazing and Nobody’s Happy about how people (implied young people) complain rather than appreciate the wonders of modern life. In one way it resonated. One of my personal favorite gratitude exercises is to pretend I am a woman from the Middle Ages, say 10th century, who has been magically transported to my current life.
So why did I feel some discomfort with this video? Watch it and see if it strikes you the same way.
I finally figured out my discomfort: the guy was complaining about complainers! Old saying: When you point a finger at someone, watch where the other three fingers are pointing. It was the energy of that complaining coming through. Ironically, complaining is about ingratitude!
A lot of humor is about separation, seeing ourselves as different from and superior to those other people, and humor is probably a lot better way to channel anger than many methods. It reminded me of the subtleties of communication, how easy it is to deny intent because of the words' content. I'm sure you, too, have had apologies that don't feel like apologies, and this can be part of passive aggression.
I don't think it was his words. Only 7% of information comes from words, 38% comes from tone of voice and 55% is nonverbal. We pick up these cues subconsciously.
Could he have made his point with humor and a positive energy? I think so. Lots of humor is fueled by anger, but not all. Think about some comedians who are funny but don’t come off as condescending or angry. Bill Cosby and Ellen DeGeneres come to mind. Their underlying perspective is "Aren't we funny?" But it seems to me that a warm appreciation of the human condition wasn’t behind his spiel, but anger and a put down.
Can negative energy bring about something as positive as positive energy? I think of Marshall McLuhan's "The medium is the message." I'm not sure who said "Who you are scream s so loudly I can't hear what you say." The energy infusing the message is 93% of the message, so in communication, where we are coming from really determines where we are going.
"You have to read this," my husband said. Two very gutsy young women had written about an experiment they'd undertaken in a Middle Eastern country, where he directs a study abroad program in Arabic.
In most countries surrounding the Mediterranean, women can't walk down the street without being harassed, ranging from catcalls to pinching and grabbing. Students are routinely warned to never make eye contact with these men and look straight ahead or down. It's pretty scary not being able to walk a block without being harassed this way.
These two young women decided that they were missing a lot about their study abroad experience by walking around looking down all the time. They decided to experiment, in a group of women, with actually responding to the men, although they reserved the right to avoid men who seemed dangerous or weird.
They responded to the men with a traditional Arabic greeting that has a religious tone, and chatted politely according to the customs, treating the men as if the men were gentlemen. They made it clear they wanted to be friends only. With only a few exceptions, the response was wonderful. They made friends and protectors who watched out for them as they walked the streets of the capital city. They were invited into stores for tea and cookies.
The most important thing in communication is your attitude, where you are coming from. I was just starting to write about how to get into the right place for difficult communications when my husband gave me their paper. I will write more about that soon, but what a perfect example! The first requirement is the the willingness to consider that people behaving in ways that are offensive might actually be nice human beings. Doing this requires overcoming fear.
It's also important to know who you are dealing with, what the local customs are and mean. As a sociologist, I also see it that by speaking in a respectful and friendly traditional way in Arabic, the women redefined the interaction, reminding the men that they were really nice, well-mannered, friendly men. They changed the men's roles from macho aggressors to warm gentlemen by treating them that way, and by acting as friendly visitors, not American girl students. They were confident, friendly people, not objects.
The women write that the locals are incredibly friendly. They'd even been invited to their taxi driver's home for dinner and become friends with his family. They realized that there were powerful social understandings about hospitality in that country that could help them. They dropped their fear, but not their discernment and caution. As a result, they have seen far more of the country than they could have, and learned much more than Arabic.
What are love, romance and relationships about? Can you be in love for life? What do you need besides love for a good relationship? In the acclaimed film about conscious loving, How Will We Love, filmmaker Chris Brickler started out exploring his grandparents' 65 year marriage, then moved on to interview experts such as Helen Fisher, Harville Hendrix and everyday people.
Here are just a few ideas from some of the experts in the movie:
The more intensely you fall in love, the deeper you were wounded in childhood.
You develop an unconscious list of what you want in a mate in childhood.
Conflict can indicate you are with the right person.
Most people leave a relationship just at the point where it could turn around and deepen.
Why we fall in love.
Love as a spiritual path
Did this movie move you? Which idea did you find most insightful, interesting or objectionable? Hard choice for me, but perhaps most interesting that going through the worst, a sort of dark night of the soul of the relationship, can bring new depth and connection. Of course, the problem is determining when it's worth going through. I think can relate to a favorite quotation:
“Should you shield the canyons from the windstorms you would never see the true beauty of their carvings” --
Elisabeth Kubler-Ross
There are many interesting and controversial ideas. We will be discussing some in The Relationship Dance Community. Join us there for more discussions of specific ideas.
Whether you’re angry with someone else, someone is angry with you, whether you need to say something that another person could find painful, whether someone is saying something painful to you, it all works better if you remember RESPECT. Respect means respect for both yourself and the other and respect for reality. Understanding the concept of respect will get your head in the right place and empower you.
When someone is saying something that is pushing your buttons, something that's untrue, or that's true and painful, respect yourself. It's much harder for others to respect you if you don't respect yourself, and respecting yourself as human changes your perspective. It can be painful to hear if it's touching something that you disrespect in yourself. Acknowledge your feelings to yourself, give yourself some compassion. If it's true, accept it and decide what you can do about it, if only accepting responsibility if it is past and can't be changed.
Compassion is not pity. Compassion views us as equals, all capable of suffering, all with the divine spark. It empowers all involved, it comes from a perspective of unity and empathy. It says, we're all, including me, human and flawed, human and divine. Respect and love are at the basis of compassion.
How do you view someone who accepts criticism or bad news with an open mind, as opposed to defensiveness? She is doing that from a position of self respect, which is a position of strength. She will automatically be acknowledging and respecting your feelings, as well as respecting herself.
Pity is a one up/one down view, it comes from fear and misunderstanding, involves condescension for others, viewing yourself as a victim who is not capable or worthy because of ____. It is a perspective of separation--I'm not like him/her, and I can't change or am not as valuable.
When you need to say something that could be difficult for someone else, remember respect, both for yourself and the other. From "You're fired," to "I must leave this relationship," to "Your fly is open," attitude is everything, and that attitude needs to start with respect. All of the above communications are easier ot swallow when they are delivered from a position of equality and kindness, respect for the other which comes from compassion.
Apart from compassion, respect means respect means respecting reality. It means that you recognize with whom you are dealing with at the moment. You don't deal with a wolf the way you would with a sheep dog, especially if you are a lamb, and you don't deal with an abuser the way you would someone who is not potentially dangerous. The wolf is not despicable, evil, or unworthy of respect as a part of God's creation, but it is a wolf and will likely act like one. You recognize when you are dealing with someone irrational and don't expect rationality or condescend because she isn't acting rationally. You respect who the other is and recognize what is possible, and when safety comes first and take steps to ensure it.
Emerson said, "Who you are speaks so loudly I can't hear what you're saying." When you speak from respect for yourself and the other, what you say is easier to accept. People tend to respond the way you expect them to. Lots of interesting experiments show that how we label people, if only in our heads, affect how we treat them and how they respond. We all respond better with respect for all involved.
So what's wrong with this song?
Amazing singing, great melody, and you can dance to it. It's the lyrics: "All I'm asking for is a little respect." You can only get respect by respecting yourself and expecting it, you can't ask for it, that already disrespects yourself. If you have to ask, you won't get it. You have to respect yourself and expect respect. It has to start with you.
I recently received an email that revealed so much about how we think ourselves into problems in relationships and everything else. Here it is:
Answer me first then forward to your friends!!!
If you saw ME in a police car what would you think I got arrested for?
Reply to me, alone, then fwd this on and see how many crimes you get accused of.
What an example of the Law of Attraction, of course, a great way to brighten any day!
My friend was operating on the belief that there was something bad about her, and she was seeking others to tell her what she assumed they saw wrong in her. You give the universe or your friends a request, and generally both will fill it right in the terms you ask. The universe usually fills it precisely, so be careful what you ask for. Best to just vibrate how you’ll feel when you have what you want, rather than focus on what you think want.
Funny aside story on this. I know of a woman who asked the universe for a particular type and color of new car in her garage, spent time visualizing it. Then one of exactly that type and color crashed into the garage. She did not feel good about the result. Gotta be specific, especially about how you’ll feel.
That’s why it’s so important to be aware of what you ask for, what you focus on. Good to focus on what people appreciate and do more of it. My friend could have emailed asking if she was being applauded, for what would it be?
Assuming there’s something wrong and focusing on the negative is different from asking what's right and how things could be improved. A nice little exercise if you really want feedback is “On a scale from one/lowest to ten/highest, how would you rate our relationship? What could I do to make it a ten?” That gives you something to go on, and you can decide whether, for example, being consistently on time vs., say, always cleaning up after him, is what you consider worth the ten.
The real problem is when we don’t realize that we are asking for what we really don’t want. We are caught up in a thought paradigm and can’t recognize the terms in which we are thinking. We think that by requesting criticism, we can somehow see our weaknesses and correct them. In my experience, I get plenty of opportunity to improve myself through the feedback and interactions of everyday life. It is vital to confront and release or transform our negative beliefs, but asking for negativity only reinforces what you want to release. And my friend was assuming that others’ responses to something they had to make up had reality!
The funny thing was, when I read about seeing her in a police car, my assumption was that she’d had car problems and perhaps the police were giving her a ride to get gas. I didn't think in terms of crime, even though she'd asked. But that was because I'd learned some things I'll post in the next blog.
My daughter is spending a month in Morocco, polishing her French while visiting family friends. This is part of what she posted in her blog yesterday, asking for comments: There are times I wish I had a t-shirt that read:
Dear Moroccan Men, Please stop looking at me like I’m a piece of meat. Salaam, Sara
Although to be honest, having something printed on my chest for them to read probably would not alleviate the problem.
I thought I would wait until after an inevitable more extreme experience to write something about being a woman in Morocco, but I’ve found so far that the little daily ordeals are what I find most difficult. Everyday in Morocco, I get blatant leers from men on the street. Coming from someone whose friends often need to point out to her that a guy is taking notice in social situations, I feel like this says a lot. I am so sick of it, being constantly objectified.
I wrote her a long email in response, and she asked me to post it on her blog, so here is what I said, minus my "Hello, My Little Lamb Chop" greeting, which she somehow did not want. I think it relates to most things in life we can't control that anger us. Do you have any advice or thoughts to offer her? I'll forward it, or you could add it to her blog comments.
First, I understand how hard it is to have your humanity denied so consistently. It's a power game, in part. Think about who does it here. Construction workers are famous for it. People who feel their low status can at least feel the power of making women uncomfortable. It doesn't mean that they are bad people, just people who have emotional pain about their situation. I am sure there are many un and underemployed men in Morocco. So this is the problem of the power trip, and you have had a hard time with that.
You are upset by their lack of respect for you and women generally and what that means for the society. As you reported, it's part of the cultural mores. That means it's hard to change, especially in one month. Do not get upset about things you cannot change, it is a waste of energy. Instead, decide how to cope. The problem, since they haven't actually physically harmed you, is not what they say or do, but your emotional reaction to it.
How to do deal with your emotions? Understanding, both of yourself, because it is hard to be treated that way, especially in a society where you don't feel fully comfortable, and of them. You pointed out how the society operates. People get objectified when no real contact between them occurs, and young men and women in Morocco have little chance to relate equally and meaningfully.
What would you do if you were a young, unemployed man who felt bad about himself, and whose society accepted catcalling as the fun, manly thing to do? It would make you feel like you have at least some power, like how poor Whites used to at least have Blacks to put down in the South. A situation to work to correct if you have the opportunity, but not by vilifying the oppressors, who are oppressed themselves.
So have compassion for them, view them as people who know of no better way to feel better about themselves. You do have power, power over your thoughts and feelings. Anyone can look at you, it's just that they are telling you that they are doing it, so it's the power thing. You are accepting their definition of the situation by feeling helpless because you can't stop it. You can't stop it, but you don't have to feel helpless.
Find a way to laugh at what's going on. After all, as you point out, they are doing you the favor of showing that men do pay attention to you in a way that naive, clueless you has to notice. And make reacting with equanimity your goal, so that the experience is a school for your emotions. It won't always work, but work toward it.
People react to the vibes you give out, and those vibes come from what you are thinking about yourself and them. That is why it’s so important to get your head in the right place. You have a heart of gold, and that will help, because you are instinctively compassionate. However, you do need to realize your own power, which is considerable, and your most important power is over yourself.
Eleanor Roosevelt said, "No one can make you feel inferior without your permission." I think she would say the same about making you feel like a piece of meat. So when they make opening moves, don't play the power game and give them power by feeling uncomfortable. It's just what they want, and you do have the power to not give them that.
You may have heard of the Washington DC Metro train crash that killed six people. Have you ever wondered how you would react in a crash? A inspiring and miraculous story of what happened in the most affected car shows how important it can be just to be there for someone.
The Rev. Dave Bottoms, a chaplain who’d served in Iraq, was riding the car when the collision occurred. As he saw a wave of debris hurling toward him, he prayed “God, make it stop.” It stopped just before his seat.
As you can imagine, there was crying, screaming, and confusion. Rev. Bottoms heard, "I'm here. I'm here. Please don't leave me." He crawled toward the woman’s voice, which was under a huge pile of debis. Years ago, when he first joined the service, a mentor had told him: "You don't let anyone suffer alone."
She told him she was dying. He told LaVonda King she was not alone. People were desperately trying to get out of the car. It has fumes, dust, and they were worried about explosions. Rev. Bottoms stayed, reassuring her he was still right there.
Knowing that hearing is the last sense to go, he kept talking to her even after she stopped moaning. Rev. Bottoms was the last person to leave the car after help arrived, but LaVonda felt a caring human connection before she passed on.
You can read the full story at Three Minutes to Ft Totten. Bottoms was a hero, showing incredible courage to comfort another who was dying. It made me think about how just being there, giving full, caring attention to someone, is a gift under any circumstances. Bottoms recited the Lord’s Prayer, but mostly he just let her know someone cared.”
Kelly came to me panicked. For financial reasons, she had limited time to finish her dissertation, but the chair of her committee was acting as if she hated Kelly, refusing to talk with her, one of the other members was unavailable, while the third was siding with the chair!
As a former professor in a field related to Kelly's, I saw that Kelly had a good topic and reasonable approach that only needed some modifications. However, Kelly said that Alice, the chair, was refusing to help Kelly when Kelly went to her for guidance and accusing Kelly of wanting Alice to "do it for her" when Kelly tried to get help and feedback.
Kelly was at her wit's end. She had chosen her committee purely for their connections, which she hoped would help her in getting a job. While that was a consideration, she might have done better with a mix of people who really wanted to nurture students and those who had connections. Kelly said she had to finish the first part of her dissertation before she could get a new committee, and she had some people in mind. So the problem was, in Kelly's mind, how to appease the dragon (Alice) so she could escape.
Kelly had also chosen Alice because Alice had given Kelly straight A's on all her papers when Kelly had been in her classes, albeit with lots of criticisms. Kelly, a busy single mother, had done these papers pretty quickly, and was a bit surprised to get such good grades. That made her think that with more effort, she'd do really well with Alice. She couldn't understand what had happened.
Kelly had good social skills and reported tactful communications with Alice, so that led me to think of trait behavior. Fortunately, Alice had written a lot on Kelly's typed papers, and I had Kelly write me a sample write of her own immediately. When I saw it, I started laughing. It was so clear what the major problem was.
Kelly was an Interactive Thinker and Alice was her opposite, a Quiet Thinker. These traits are behind an enormous number of misunderstandings at work and at home. A trait is a habitual way of perceiving and behaving, and we assume that however we see and behave is the normal, right way to do it. "Normal is what I am."
Interactive Thinkers, like Kelly, need to develop their ideas through interaction, usually with others, but sometimes by writing (many drafts). They have to get their ideas out in the air to formulate, develop and screen them -- to figure out which ideas are worth further work and which should be dropped.
Quiet Thinkers do this entire process in their heads. They never say a word until they have the idea in its final form, ready for implementation. In meetings, they don't say a word until they've decided exactly what should be done, and when they say something, they mean they are ready to do it NOW.
Each trait has it's positive and negative side, depending on the situation. (You can read more about that in the chapter I've put in the document files in The Relationship Dance.) However, it's always a difficult situation when you are dealing with someone with the opposite trait and don't recognize what's going on!
Now it was clear to me why Alice viewed Kelly as asking Alice to Kelly's work. Alice, as a Quiet Thinker, fully developed all her ideas by herself in her head, and never mentioned them until they were ready for implementation. Alice worked everything out by herself before presenting it, and when she presented it, she felt she'd done her best and people should act on it or react to it.
Kelly mentioned ideas when they were in the seed stage, where ideas sometimes can look strange, and wanted to talk about them. Interactive thinkers love batting ideas around, and sometimes it's not clear that those ideas are directly relevant to the issue at hand.
Alice would think that Kelly had half baked ideas and wanted Alice to complete them for her. She probably thought Kelly was incompetent and wasting Alice's time. After all, any normal person (like Alice) wouldn't present something until it was complete and ready for action. Alice would not want to develop her ideas by talking to anyone else. Presenting an idea before it was ready for prime time is, to a Quiet Thinker, lazy, irresponsible, or stupid. (When people don't do things they way we would, we tend to assume the worst reasons for their behavior.)
Kelly didn't want Alice to get Kelly's ideas ready for implementation, she just wanted Alice to listen, bat ideas around with her, and tell her when she was off track. Interactive Thinkers also need Quiet Thinkers to help keep them focused and on track.
When you understand trait behavior, people with opposite traits are actually helpful to each other. For example, Interactive Thinkers can help Quiet Thinkers by pointing out possibilities they might not have considered, and Interactive Thinkers often are good at long term planning.
When Kelly had submitted those papers she'd thought weren't really fully ready, they'd been presented to Alice as fully ready, so Alice believed Kelly had done it right by presenting something fully worked out (her way) and Alice would comment on them. Kelly had never asked Alice to discuss the papers while they were in progress.
It was now clear what Kelly needed to do: only present Alice with products that appeared finished for comment. But Kelly desperately wanted someone to talk with. She'd always talked with a friend before, but the friend had died the previous year.
She couldn't think of anyone who would be appropriate, until she suddenly remembered a neighbor of hers, a professor in a related field, who had seemed very interested in Kelly's topic. She could interact with Kelly so that Kelly could feel comfortable in developing her ideas before she went to her committee and just ask them for their reactions to a finished product.
Now Kelly understood what she needed to succeed. She plans on asking the neighbor for some time and looking for other people with similar interests for interaction. For her new committee, she'll will choose at least one Interactive Thinker.
There are many aspects to these traits. They also explain people's different reactions to and behavior in meetings, and why some people love meetings and others hate them.
You can read more about these traits in the document files on The Relationship Dance, where I've posted the entire chapter from our book, Trait Secrets.
Do you know why many people who have a disability don't want to be called handicapped or disabled people? They want to be called people with a disability. Thus, not "she is dyslexic," but "she has dyslexia."
Language guides our thinking. Most people with disabilities don't want to be thought of as their disability, the disability then becomes the most important aspect of their identity. They are more than that.
I was thinking about how we say "I am angry," rather than "I have anger.*" Of course, we also say "I'm happy, peaceful," etc., but we are more than our emotions, although when we're in the grip of strong ones, it sometimes doesn't feel that way. It's not that emotions are disabilities, but that we linguistically and psychologically may identify with them.
However, meditation and spiritual teachers teach us to identify with the observer who watches the experience of the emotion much like a mother regards a crying baby, with gentle love, acceptance and care. If she identifies with the child and gets upset herself, she’s no help to the child. Nor is she a help if she gets upset at the child for feeling the way it does. Only if she calmly observes and accepts what is going on in the child is she able to be helpful.
Our emotional children inside of us need the same loving acceptance. Although it may sometimes feel like it, it’s good to remember we’re not that emotional child now. We are way more than that, even as with acceptance, it informs and enrichs our lives.
NonViolent Communication (see the Resource Directory in document files of The Relationship Dance) teaches us to comfort ourselves first in any difficult situation. That not only recognizes and calms those feelings, it reminds us that we’re capable of taking the larger, observer position.
This is something I'm still working on, but there are many resources that help me with it, and most are listed in the Resource Directory. Mostly, I try to stay positive, grounded, and in my body, and check that throughout the day. Prosperity breathing helps, too. What do you do?
Recently we've had some shocking public incidents ranging from a Congressman yelling "You lie" to the President in Congress, to Kanye West's treatment of Taylor Swift and Serena Williams outburst at a line judge. These incidents are extreme and we haven't seen examples like them in public before, and certainly not so many so quickly.
The basis of society is respectful treatment of each other, obeying the written laws and unwritten norms based on the Golden Rule.
How can we understand what is going on, and of course, work to improve civility so that we can treat each other respectfully, even when we disagree?
I have been reading The Civility Solution: What do Do When People Are Rude by P.M. Forni. He has many good reasons for the decline in civility, especially a society where we lack the strong sense of unified community to condemn rude behavior and an increasingly materialistic attitude, where people don't count.
However one of the things he talked about at length was how people who are rude, if it's not just thoughtlessness, believe they have been, are or will be treated unfairly. He doesn't say it, but I think they also feel inadequate to deal with the situation. They are taking a victim posture or are like a child having a tantrum.
When people feel treated unjustly, whether correctly or not, they feel entitled to complain or retaliate. It need not even be to the source of their injustice. Plenty of spouses and cats will attest to receiving anger meant for the boss.
I've started a discussion in The Relationship Dance on how to respond to rudeness of different types. Here I wondered what you think are the reasons for the lack of civility we so often see. Do you think things are worse than twenty years ago (if some of you can remember that far )? What can be done about it?
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I think it relates to most things in life we can't control that anger us. Do you have any advice or thoughts to offer her? I'll forward it, or you could add it to her blog comments. 
)? What can be done about it? 
