When Ignorance is not Bliss

Last night I had the strangest dream – prompted in part by me eating things I normally avoid and to a great extent by a comment I overheard whilst eating.

This last 10 days have for me been amazing, suddenly, after a period of several months of acute relationship agony, life otherwise is improving tremendously. Now this blog as I hope you know is about all relationships as Finding the Relationship you Deserve (the book) is about all relationships in all of life. My relationship agony has not been with beloved Jim, but with another blood relative in my family. This relationship agony has been caused by other people’s mind boggling relationships with themselves and others. If you follow one of my other blogs NLP Highland Words that Change Minds, you may recall that my last but one blog was in respect of the World Cup if you read that blog and you just might find it interesting, you will be aware that I and the blog comment on relationships, how they have changed in South Africa since ‘I were a lass’.

Well if South Africa has moved on, blow me Britain has not. I’ve lived in Scotland since 1998, until this year I have NEVER experienced racism, intolerance or ignorance on a scale of which this year I am becoming aware of all of these three things. None of this is directed at me personally.
Ignorance is a state of being uninformed, so dictionaries say. Avoid confusing ignorance with being unintelligent, as a person's level of intelligence and level of education or general awareness are not the same. The word "ignorant" is an adjective describing a person in the state of being unaware.

My formative years were in the 50s and 60s in a sleepy suburb of Nottingham, I grew up with the Church of England and I remember one song, sung at the summer ‘camp’ (we never went away, the camps were held at the local church) events ‘Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world, be they yellow, black or white, they are precious in his sight’ – it’s probably politically incorrect nowadays). Anyway, today I avoid churches if I can, but that’s another story, the comment is just here to state that what I write here is from a human point of view. In West Bridgford in the 50s and 60s I went to school with Polish, children, Russian children, German children, Ukrainian children, Indian children, Jamaican children and lots of white English children. I cannot recall one incident of racism, racial hatred (apart from my sewing teacher’s horror when I allowed a Jamaican girl to try, and I mean try to braid my very blonde, very straight and very soft hair (particularly in comparison with her hair, into Jamaican braids, she tried so hard and it just would not happen, we were fascinated with one another’s hair because it was so different!).

I learned so many things about how other people ate, what was ‘right and wrong’ in their families and I learned to form relationships with anyone ‘be they yellow, black or white’ and I learned different is ok. I also learned, cos some kids picked on me as I was ‘fatty’, that other people don’t like difference. Curiously what I did not know until about 2004 was that my Dad (bless his 87 year old cotton socks was racist – he now has 2 beautiful mixed race grandsons and 2 grandchildren who are also mixed race – that’s not obvious by looking at them by the way – and my Dad had at some point to change his mind about different people. My Dad grew up in a different age, with different rules and he did travel the world as a sailor, but then of course, other people stayed put, in their own countries).

Anyway this year I have come across indirect physical and verbal attacks on a 6 year old, cos he’s the wrong colour, so he’s different and that has almost cost me a family relationship and it has certainly changed that relationship, for reasons I will avoid discussing here.

Yesterday evening; we, me and Jim were sat outside the Golf View Hotel in Nairn, where in spite of some changes in ownership over the last few years, the food is still excellent. The Golf View has panoramic views of the Moray Firth, we watched a tanker, moored in the Firth, a cruise ship leaving from Invergordon and a small boot that had possibly left Nairn harbour, the sun was shining, the seabirds crying, quite a lovely day.

To my left sat a group of people in their 30s and 40s (one said he would be 44 this year, oh born in 1966, now that’s an interesting year – read on) they were mostly Scottish (from around Glasgow, Ayr and an English couple who I presume live in Scotland) they (the group) had some teenage looking children with and a spaniel and they were sitting and drinking and talking and they were quite loud.
Now do you know that scenario in life when something is in your field of awareness you home in on conversations, or you suddenly become aware of something and suddenly ‘it’s everywhere’? Well, bear in mind this is Saturday 3rd July and Germany (the football team that is) have just thrashed (nominalisation for played extremely well – I watched the match) Argentina that afternoon 4 nil and the German team played exceedingly, probably the best match in the whole of this year’s World Cup so far .

Playing well in a team is about relationships, 1) with yourself – confidence and self-esteem, 2) with your teammates, trust and knowing where, when and what the others will do and 3) with you management team – so you all produce the best end result.

Anyway, suddenly yesterday evening outside the hotel, I overhear a young woman (late 30s) say ‘I think it’s disgusting, disgusting that when Germany were playing England people in the pub (somewhere in Scotland) where shouting for Germany to win’. This is interesting I think to myself, many Scots will want any team other than England to win, so I listened more closely and I then I held on tight to my chair …. She went on “do they not know we fought Germany in 2 world wars, it’s disgusting to want them to win when they are horrible people.” At this point in time on the other side of the glass to where she is sitting there are 2 German couples blissfully unaware as they enjoy, their good food, the Scottish hospitality, the great view, that there’s a Scot out there in 2010 with these views.

Now I maintained a good and useful state and did not let any of this ‘spoil my enjoyment, ruin my meal’, I refrained from ‘seeing red’, allowing ‘my ‘blood to boil’. I was amazed 2 months previously I sat in the Manchurian restaurant n Aberdeen and watched a woman, another Scot, on the mention by one of the men at the table that he had a German doctor, I watched her put 2 fingers above her top lip and give a Nazi salute sat at the table in the busy restaurant on a Sunday night (and she was sober).

I ask – is their relationship with themselves, so poor that they need to be racist that they need to ‘pick on others’ because they are different? Do they realise how world wars start? Do they realise that these 2 world wars were a long time ago? In Germany several years ago there was a poster something like this – do you realise? Your pizza is Italian, your kebab is Turkish………….. etc, Relationships are about tolerance, about recognising others are different, ok so I could say ‘it’s a free country she’s entitled to her opinion’ – those kind of opinions are the way in countries and people lose their freedom, how Mandela was incarcerated for years, why this World Cup is so important for world peace.

I’m sure I lost relatives in both world wars; I know my children will have lost relatives on both sides in both world wars. It’s 2010. Why still have a war in your head? Why do we need to bring baggage from the past (see page 30 of Finding the Relationship you Deserve) and what’s more it’s not even our baggage, into life today? My own mother wasn’t too happy about the Japanese as her brother had suffered in prisoner of war camps run by Japanese soldiers, she had a direct reason, she’s now grown older she’s more tolerant. We all have bad, destructive relationships at times; we all are at times in relationships in which we do things we later might think differently about. However the world will never be a pleasant place to live in if we persistently believe that because people are different from us, or were different from us that we should denigrate them, we should dislike, or hate them.

One of the NLP Operating Beliefs (Presuppositions about how it might be useful to think about life) states – Mind and Body are the same system – what affects one will affect the other – therefore if we think badly of others – guess what?

I enjoyed my evening and we went home and Jim watched Spain and Paraguay play and read a book, we enjoyed our relationship with one another and ourselves. And we like anyone, unless they directly do something to us or our families and then first we try and resolve the matter.

Be mine Valentine!

“As long as he needs me,” On my own, how can I live without you?”, “What do I do to make you love me?”,– oh it’s those love songs again. It’s that time of year. It’s commercial exploitation – well they have to make a living, and you can only be exploited if you let that happen see Response-ability.

Anyway Valentine’s Day – hearts and flowers and by gum don’t those flowers get to be expensive?


Valentine was in fact a holy priest in Rome, together with St. Marius and his family, Valentine assisted the martyrs who were persecuted by Claudius II. Valentine was arrested, and sent by the emperor to the prefect of Rome, who, found that Valentine wouldn’t renounce his faith and the lovely prefect commended him to be beaten with clubs, and afterwards, to be beheaded. He was executed on February 14, about the year 270.


There are lots of different stories about Valentine - so we’ll just have that one here. When people start celebrating St Valentines’ Day? Who sent the first Valentine? There is a rumour that he himself did that from prison before he was beheaded. It is rumoured that the Romans first started the celebrations and in Great Britain we first began celebrating around the 17th Century – so the shops haven’t just invented it!

Is this a time we need to be careful? Will we get upset when we don/t get a card? Will we feel left out? Unwanted? Unloved? Well it’s all optional you know.

For my personal opinion, so “My Model of the World” everyone deserves something nice on Valentines’ Day (and when I find out where I’ve mislaid the heart chocolates I bought for my course this weekend I’ll be much happier – I thought everyone deserves a little token).

But – remember people, and love is there 24x7, 365 or 366 days a year. A relationship is for life not just for Valentine’s Day. Someone told me a few weeks ago – “Actually I can’t come on your course because Day 2 (of an 18 day course) is on Valentine’s Day and my wife wouldn’t like it”. Err what does she do when he’s at work?

To be honest I’ve been for a Valentine’s meal twice in my life the first time we didn’t pay for it, because the hotel couldn’t cope with the numbers they had accepted for reservations and part of the meal was cold, and the 2nd time, well it was ok, but it was overpriced and over the top. And this year I’m working and my bidey-in is playing bowls, again;)

I invite you to think – what is all this blackmail we subject ourselves to? Are we any better off because someone bought us a card and gave us some expensive flowers. I have to admit, last year I was better off, well I felt better off. I was in a bad place 14 days away from a major op and little bit cheesed off with life so the Posy for Rosie in a big vase that I got from Jim was lovely. My guy is not a hearts and flowers kind of guy normally; he shows me he wants to be with me other ways.

How do the important people, so not just your partner, but also your children, your parents, your friends (this weekend just gone a participant on one of my course bought 4 copies of my book for 4 of her friends!) show you that they want to be with you, that they like you, that they love you? And vice versa?

How do they show us, tell us, make us feel “loved” or “wanted”, it’s a two way thing you know. How will you treat your partner?

Note : No-one is worth spending time with if they tell you “you would do that if you liked me”, “show me how much you love me and do ……..”, “you can’t possibly like me/love me because ……………” anything like that is blackmail and manipulation. People do things for other people because they want to, of their own free will, because they like the other person.

Together we (me and Jim) do things we like – such as eating out by the sea on a warm and sunny evening, and going up to the top of a hill to watch the sun set and dawn break at midsummer. Who needs a fluffy toy? You can’t change someone else, but you can change the way you react. Knights in armour on shining white horses, or pretty damsels, who want to do your every bidding, are in short supply, especially in the 21st Century! And “a dream” or “a dream man or woman” will always be just that – a dream. We can allow our dreams to become reality, by noticing that the guy or gal in front of you has wonderful qualities. Have you seen the film Shrek?

And there are other people around who send me cards and thank yous, my grandsons, clients, and I can make collages myself, and buy me little things I like. So the better I understand myself and what I think I would like, the better I am able to understand my partner and I can therefore create a more satisfying and pleasurable relationship.

Now sometimes I may have to repeat myself, several times. Just how many times? You know we have patterns, run patterns in the way we are convinced of things. Sometimes we say that this is nagging, we have to nag someone – but do we?

What happens if we match the other person’s body posture and use a tone of voice that is “normal”- so we leave out the whining, complaining, commanding, demanding, whatever it is that “turns the other person off” and we state our case, taking into account some of the following?

So does your partner need to “see something, hear something, do something or read something” in order for it to “sink in”. I have a couple of friends when I want to get my point across to them, I need to write to them, one knows it works for him and he told me so several years ago and asked me to write to him so he could understand something better, and the other one, asked me “why do you write to me, when you’re really annoyed? You know I have to take you seriously.” Well what do you say to that?

And, or – does your partner need a number of examples, so do you need to present (so say it, write it down, show them or show by doing) them with the information, or will they react when presented with partial information, or are they never completely convinced, they need to re-assess the information each time (yes there are people like that, and it’s not their fault, it’s just the way they are), or does the information need to remain constant for some period of time? Now it may be that they react differently for different pieces of information, in different situations, or maybe that they react in the same way for everything. You only need to work it out if you are having problems, honestly. Only if something isn’t working, do something else instead.

It’s really worth giving all of this thought, especially when all the other bits of your relationship add up so why throw it all away because you don’t bring me flowers as the song says?

Mm we can do really effective, but not really useful “programming” of our brains with that stuff – notice the words of a love song and enjoy them as a song, but not as a creed by which I or you live.

Go out and buy yourself something for Valentine’s Day. Why not? Whatever you do enjoy the day. Smiling at others is often good. Smiling, thinking happy, being happy brings amazing results. Try it.

Mr or Mrs Right Now!

I read an article yesterday advocating something along the lines of “get married – right now” – wait no longer for Mr or Mrs Right – mm well, please, please make sure the person you marry or live with is a friend with whom you have a few things in common. This is particularly pertinent right now as 2 of my female acquaintances have horrendous problems, problems which have been going on for years - mainly because they got married "because they thought they should, they were afraid of being left on the shelf, they were afraid of being left alone" or some such. Yhis is impacting on their friends, families, their mental health, in one case their ability to work and function as a member of society!


A good friend is someone you can think aloud in front of, a good friend is there to pick up the pieces and a good friend will always welcome you back, a really good friend will also put their foot down and say I don’t like that (whatever it is you might be saying or doing - like your latest fad or partner) but you know it’s okay I still value you as a friend. Whether that friend is male or female and in the relationship you truly deserve the most important friends are My oldest friendship goes back to age 11 when I started Grammar school, she phones me when she needs to talk and I know if I need her she will be there for me, she also came to my second wedding (see the end of this book if you need to) and she came to my late husband's funeral, she just said “I’d like to be there.” My other very good friend I’ve known since I was 16, we were pen friends at school, she’s in a different country, if I need her she is there, when I go to visit them I usually get taken along to “sort something out”, I also get taken to school (she’s a head teacher) – we listen to one another’s worries, and we go to the Opera, I don’t that in the UK, well rarely.

Friends are important, it’s important they are non-judgemental (after all we are only judging from what we believe to be true, it might or might not be true for us, but it certainly ain’t true for the other person). Friendship is kind of like the most precious balloon you ever had as a child, let it fly and bounce on the wind at the end of a string and if you pull it close, treat it with care, because if you squeeze too hard it will burst into pieces and you can’t, however hard you try put a balloon together again. You will need your friends on the way to your relationship, you will need them in your relationship, and you will need them after your relationship, nothing is so good it lasts eternally – do you know these lyrics?:

“Nothing is so good it lasts eternally
Perfect situations must go wrong
No-one in your life is with you constantly
No-one is completely on your side”

They are from “I know him so well” from the musical Chess (and I have permission from Sir Tim Rice to use the lyrics) and there are more lyrics than this and I’ve taken these out of context, but for a reason. At some point your partner or you may leave the relationship. If we marry, we marry “till death do us part” and that I think is possibly the “nicest” (said with great care here) way for a relationship to end. For some people relationships will end earlier than we would like them to. This can be due to death which happens at an untimely stage (I don’t really think there’s right time to die – it hurts the people who are left at any age). For some people it will be someone else’s death that ends the relationship, the death of a child, another loved one, sometimes one partner becomes so ill they are no longer the person you met and partners make (for me) interesting choices about how to deal with this situation. Some people are just not the right people at the time, and we have to acknowledge that and move on.

With a lot of work, and it takes a lot of work to sustain any relationship, you will keep the relationship and that includes your friends. This year a young woman on one of my courses whose marriage was a few months away set her “Life Purpose” and in that she stated something along the lines that her husband to be would have to be there for her to fulfill her life purpose. The guy on the course working with her came to me and asked “is that okay, I thought it’s a good idea to have in this only things we can have on control over (or we reasonably believe we can) and not to rely on other people”. Yes he was right, so I took Sarah (that’s not her name) on one side, as she was already starting to get upset at the thought that her future husband might die. Now I am in the position (if you haven’t been to the end of the book you might want to peek now or just believe me) to say, hey people die. The love of your life can die (or just walk out) and you might be stood there saying (shaking like a jelly and falling apart) I can’t go on, and if your life purpose is that you can’t continue to live without that special person, you will be stuck, very stuck.

So a) nurture your friends, notice they are not more important than but just as important as your relationship and b) make sure your partner is a friend!

Please and thank you and a way to save money on presents in the short term

You know please is an interesting word, in some languages it’s not needed, because it’s understood by the way you ask something that you are being polite. So you might ask would you do something for me, or would you like to do something, or may I have something, and in those even in the English language “please” is really implied. It’s just an extra word, which (in many languages) we don’t need to use, as we have the right tone and body posture, so that the person we are asking to do something knows we are being polite. In the English language we get hung up (sometimes) on the use of the word please. Other times we forget to use it at all, and there we have problems too.

Now why am I waffling about this? Well if the prospective partner in your relationship does not speak British English, then notice they may not use the word “please” as often as you might like, or you might have been trained, or programmed to believe is necessary by your parents, teachers, peers etc. to believe “please” should be acceptable. Notice how they look at you, what their body posture is like, what their voice tonality is like, do you need the word “please”, in order to continue?

Conversely overuse of the word “please” or phrases such as “pretty please” can make things sound a little over the top. Sometimes simply altering your tonality, looking at the person whilst you are speaking to them (eye contact is not always necessary – some people think better when they don’t look you directly in the face). Looking at people is often useful; especially if they have hearing problems and many people do find hearing clearly in situations where there is background noise, conversation or music difficult. Looking at them makes it easier for them to locate the fact that a) you are speaking and b) that you are speaking to them. And then asking the person “if they would” do something for us, or “might do”, is actually more effective and less obsequious, as long as you are congruent and definite (not aggressive).

Now “sorry”. Sorry is one of the easiest words to say in any language, what is difficult to do for a great many people, is actually to mean that they are sorry and to either act on what they have said or even to carry it out.

What does this mean for a relationship? Well it’s really constructive for a relationship to be very careful with your use of the word. I had a lodger once (I’ve had several lodgers over the years –it’s often good to have someone to take care of the house or help out in other ways) – this lodger was a young woman who had experienced some interesting things in her life. Anyway she believed “sorry” was an answer for everything, “sorry I’m going on holiday and I can’t pay you the rent for 2 weeks, cos I need it for spending money”, “sorry my boyfriend climbed up the drainpipe last night and it broke off”, and many, many other sorrys. The thing was many things then happened again and again.

Do you or does someone you know use “sorry” as a throwaway word and then just either carry on doing whatever it is “squeezing the toothpaste tube in the wrong way”, “eating your chocolate”, “reading your paper first/or folding it the wrong the way”, or worse, and then they keep on doing it again? Well we can’t change the way other people act, but we can change ourselves, so if you say “sorry” frequently, how about changing that into “oops” or whatever you might choose to say and explain what you’ve done wrong, actually putting your hands up to having done something wrong is a big thing, and believe me it’s actually much easier, as you don’t have to live with the guilt or the thoughts of “I wish I hadn’t done that” and you can also do something about making up for what you did, or doing something differently!

Thank you, remember to say thank you and sometimes it’s useful to show your gratitude, but if someone doesn’t “pay you back” – “buy you a coffee” because you bought them one – it doesn’t mean that they are ungrateful, it might mean they simply said “thank you” and they meant it. Also please bear in mind, most people do things for you just because they want to – it doesn’t mean you have to “spend the same amount of money”, “cook the same meal”, “buy them the same kind of present” – if you want to do something for them – remember you talents. What could you do for that other person? Wash their windows, dig their garden, take their dog for a walk, take some photos, give them a lift somewhere, wash their dishes for a week (yes please). And you can always write them out a “promise to ………………….”, tie that up in a red ribbon and give it to them.

More on Always, Everyone, Every Time

Now often we forget the facts, and in relationships we allow the fog – stuff that someone says (someone, could be ourselves, partner, the media, TV soap characters, our family, convention …..need I go on?), past experiences (remember the baggage and what to do with that?), laziness and complacency and more to get in the way.

As I was talking about this book and the ideas behind it to someone else, we’ll call her Jane (that isn’t her name) – I noticed she was making some comments and whilst I watched her thinking (I know her pretty well and how she processes thoughts and experiences) – I asked myself – mm what nerve am I touching here? So I asked her “Jane, you know I wonder just how many people who have been in relationships for a long time – meaning 20, 25 years or more (nowadays I sometimes think 10 years is a long time for many people, but that’s another subject and maybe this book will help some people to revisit their relationship and think again and strengthen the relationship with their once loved one?), well I wonder how many people grow apart because they hide behind the fog?”

“Fog” – now there’s a word – what do I mean by that? Well I’ve used that as a generalisation for times or words or actions that we hide behind. In any relationship we grow, and we change, over time we can then become complacent and often we are complacent in the way that we lull ourselves into thinking we are right, the other person is wrong, we have done everything we needed to, we should do and we don’t actually sit down and talk, or ask questions, or think we might be the one who is doing something wrong. We have our own interests and sometimes we think they should come first and really it’s just a way of hiding from confrontation.

Talking is good, arguing can sometimes be good, and making up is a really good idea. So finding a good and resourceful state and saying calmly what you want out of life, and from your partner is a really good idea and perhaps if they’re not willing to listen, or talk and compromise then perhaps they’re not the right person?

The problem with words is they do not have fixed meaning; they have the meaning we attribute to them. Ask 3 or 4 or more people in the same room to describe each of these things separately - Elephant, Alarm, Velvet, Lemon and Smoke – I guarantee you that you will come up with different interpretations and even if some of them sound the same, then ask a few more questions about their description as people’s understanding will give different pictures, sounds and feelings. Simply ask them to describe in more detail. What implications does this have for everyday conversation?

Tonight my partner on the phone to one of his daughter’s asked me “do you like pork” – I answered “we had pork for lunch” – which meant in my head “yes dear, of course I like pork, don’t you remember?” – he relayed “we had pork for lunch” – daughter said “we can have something else” – err no, that wasn’t what I meant – argh!

When we use language, we set frames of reference - these frames establish our reality or models of the world. Language is a symbolic system and for that reason never becomes reality. To deal with the world we choose the information that suits us and we use this choice to move through life - in doing this we use what NLP calls Distortions, Deletions and Generalisations. We need to do this, we couldn’t survive otherwise – information overload.

So we delete – we chose to remember bits of what we experience and leave parts out. We either don’t register them or write them off as unimportant. Have you ever looked for your keys then found them in a place in which you already looked (or wondered who ate the other half of your biscuit)? That’s how deletion works.

So in a bad mood, or on a day when something has thrown us, we only hear the negative in what others say and delete the positive, even when they are both in the same sentence.

We distort – we change our experience, exaggerate it or reduce it and see it in different ways, like those funny mirrors at the fair.

If we weren’t able to distort we wouldn’t be able to be creative. It is useful to be able to imagine what something will look like when it is finished, redecorating a room, decorating a cake for example. Those are positive aspects of distortion. If you make the decision that the way someone says, or writes something, or looks at you, means that they don’t like you, you run the risk of creating a distortion of reality and distorting your response. “I know you don’t like me, you’re looking at me the way my mother does when she’s angry (and it might be the sun’s in their eyes). Fantasy builds on fantasy.

We generalise, we take aspects of an experience we have had as representing a whole class of experiences and ignore any exceptions. This can be useful to help us respond to new situations on the basis of similar ones in the past. It causes problems if we generalise wrongly or do not stay open to a new experience. Beliefs are examples of generalisations. I used to believe all men were useless. My son told me, I hadn’t met ones who were useful yet, and of course I was concentrating on the wrong thing.

When we generalise we do it in order to make sense of the world and to help us to know what to expect. This means we know that things shaped like chairs will be something to sit on and give us support. It is part of how we learn. But the same process can be disastrous, if we have had a difficult relationship and decide on that basis that all men and women are the same – untrustworthy for example, then this generalisation could stop you from forming any relationship with anyone who is an exception to your rule that you have created.

People who distort their experience can be a constant surprise with their interpretations of your actions and words. They make unusual connections and tend to “read your mind” or “know what you are thinking” and assume they know your thoughts and feelings from what you say. Artists and writers often use distortion to create fantasy worlds; of course we can use distortion to get things so wrong in life!

People who generalise a great deal can either be very sure or very unsure or insecure. The world can seem very simple to them - black and white, shades of grey are not so easy for them to work with, an experience for them has to be one thing or the other

Always, Everyone, Every Time - How to keep the relationship

Whilst I was writing this, I had a learning moment or a few days actually, I decided I wanted to leave my relationship. _____ Keep on reading.

I had a crisis, well I thought I did. Part of it was down to the fact that I deleted some bits of information, and I distorted some others, and I generalised a bit and best of all (some sarcasm required here!) I repeated some or at least one pattern, or we might call that a habit.

The main details are not important here, what is important - goes in this order.

The next day I emailed a friend, a good friend, whom we had been out with 2 nights before, and I said to her – “I don’t think I’m qualified to write this book anymore, because I think I made a mistake and I want out of my relationship.” Linda, I’ve mentioned her before, wrote back, “well perhaps that’s something you need to include in the book anyway. It’s not just about how to find the relationship, it’s also important to keep it. So perhaps you could work on that.”

Mmm, interesting I thought. And I thought some more, and I went over what had happened the previous day. And I realised I was worried about something over which I had no control. You know those things, you can think of one or two. And then I realised there were a few things that I had got angry about (you know those kind of things – the kind of things the ones that “make you” react in a certain way, the things that people say that “make you” do things). Well did you also know that only you have control over you, only you can allow your buttons to be pushed; only you are driving your bus? The bottom line is you have the choice to decide how to react. Now so often in the past we have reacted in a way that has not been useful. We like life to be easy, so we react that way again and again and as in the case of the beliefs – it just happens and we get the same reaction from us and others as we have always had. So when your partner behaves “just like your ex”, or “just like everyone else”, or you “just knew this would happen”, or “all men or all women are the same”. Well basically it’s because what we expect to happen will happen, so when we “play safe” and “expect the worst” – then guess what? That’s just what we get. (Remember Beliefs!)

Think about it – if you smile others will smile, “laugh and the world laughs with you, cry and you cry alone”. If you snap at people, they will not like you.

So back to me. I realised, when I thought about it, that my relationship was at “that stage, for me, where I hit a bump”. So then what happens is, that something happens in my life and I go into the depths of despair and look for everything that is negative and bad (in my own world) and I delete all the good things, I distort a few things out of all proportion and I generalise a thing or two. Have you seen the film “The Holiday” - beautiful young woman wants to run out of a relationship - know that one? I thought that was a great film in respect of relationships and so are “Bridget Jones” Diary”, “Sleepless in Seattle” to name another two, you can think of more.

And I forget all the things that attracted me to my partner, and I forget the warmth and strength, oh yes and that he’s attracted to me, and I forget I have good friends and I forget I do good things with other people and I forget to have patience.

I also occasionally forget to use the stuff I’m good at, which includes listening and understanding and questioning what others mean when they talk to me. So in our relationship we both have our own understanding of what we mean by “relationship”. I would like to is get married (living happily ever after is not a given), and my partner’s idea of relationship is that we are good company, and fortunately that also means that grumpiness is allowed and it’s mainly me that’s grumpy (he’s a man of the world). He only really gets annoyed about being overcharged and bad driving (that’s another story – did you know we all have blind spots?).

So what I’m saying is it’s important we learn to understand the bits of conversation we all (and that’s a generalisation too) delete. Some questions for improving understanding:


“What is the most useful question I can ask, right now?”
“What don’t I know yet that could make the most difference?”
“What is the most useful way to think about this?”
“What wants to happen here, and which question is the key?”
“What question can I ask that will be most useful to the other person?”

Ask yourself these questions or one of these questions in your head. Spaces in conversations are fine and whilst you’re thinking - put aside any assumptions you might have about the other person’s face pulling, grimacing etc., and those thoughts you “just know what they are thinking” (there will be times when ”knowing what the other person is thinking is useful” – however when you have a heated discussion this kind of knowing or assuming is not useful, believe me).

Like some suggestions?

“What is the most useful question I can ask, right now?”Sometimes it’s about stopping thinking about me and instead thinking about the other person, you know they might have had a hard day at work, they might be feeling really bad because someone has scraped their car, or they might be tired. So questions like “how are you?”, “how was your day?”, “what can I do for you” – and then like the answer even if it is I’d like to be alone for a while (leaving someone alone saves arguments), or if they ask you to do something you don’t want to do at that point in time, negotiate it for later, would it be okay to do that later.


“What don’t I know yet that could make the most difference?”Well the answer to this could be one of the above questions. But it just might be for example if you have reacted badly to some other person in your partner’s life, that this other person is important (even if you don’t like them, can’t stand them – interfering is not good you could lose your relationship – the better part of valour is to say okay, and in a quiet voice I don’t like them, and let them go to wherever it is). [I do the Mickey Mouse thing here – see next chapter]. So it might be find our how much this person, this thing in the house, this ritual means to your partner and work out how you are going to cope with it.

“What is the most useful way to think about this?”I suppose I could use the last piece as an example - I put it on one side is one thing. I also remember that I can use it as an example if my partner objects to something I do (said of course in the “pass the salt tone”) “remember you do your paper delivery”. (He delivers a paper to a long-standing friend – don’t ask me why, but notice it’s a long-standing friend and that’s important to him). What does it mean to the other person? Are you big enough to accept it is good for them and it’s not detracting from who you are or what you do and most importantly from your relationship.

“What wants to happen here, and which question is the key?”Well what might it be useful to do, walk out the room? Calm down, come back, say you are sorry.

“What question can I ask that will be most useful to the other person?”
One of the best things I have ever said in my personal life - when I was really at my wits end and unable to put my best professional thinking head on, or be a “fly on the wall” and look at what was happening between us from a different perspective (with a lot of practice it can be done in a heated discussion) – I said “I really need you to help me, I need you to talk here – because I just don’t know what to do.” And the answer I got was so far removed from anything I could have expected, or “known”, or assumed, because it had absolutely nothing to do with me, and it explained my partner’s problems and gave us a basis to move forwards and things became even better for both of is, because we knew we could talk even more and do something. Instead of getting stuck in his reasoning, which we had been and that was according to him - we had a problem, because he had been on his own for a long time and was stuck in his ways.

Facts were, he wasn’t stuck, and he was using that as an excuse to stay in a comfort zone that is a pattern for not having to deal with something. And the other very real fact that came straight into my head when he said that was – excuse me I’ve “been on my own a lot longer than you”.

More next time.

Being okay with being you

Or having self-esteem, my friend Lucy asked me to write something about self-esteem and about how to happy with yourself. So I thought I would mention this in this separate section, although I do make references to being okay with being you in various places. Have you noticed them as you’ve been reading?

So what does it mean, well it’s about knowing that you can survive and be happy without a partner, so I don’t need a man to be a whole person, I can exist without a man in my life, that is one to live with or be a partner with. In spite of my friend Monica telling me I see you as being in/needing a relationship. Well only if it doesn’t drain me/wear me out, do I want to be in a good relationship. And I want that relationship to be good. Good for me and good for my partner.

So if this person you meet says things that you don’t like, picks on you because of your size, your accent, the fact you are a little afraid of something, the fact you don’t like something, then say I don’t like that, that upsets me, I feel unhappy about that, I feel insecure. And if they laugh at you or pick on you even more or just won’t let it drop, then it’s time to leave, refuse to see them again.

Never allow someone in a relationship, let alone in a relationship you want to have, to persuade you to do something you feel uncomfortable with, unhappy about, you know is wrong (even if they disagree). No-one is worth spending time with if they tell you “you would do that if you liked me”, “show me how much you love me and do ……..”, “you can’t possibly like me/love me because ……………” anything like that is blackmail and manipulation. People do things for other people because they want to, of their own free will, because they like the other a person.

A lot of people end up in bad relationships because they think “they’ll never have another chance”, “they’re too old, fat, thin”, “there’s no-one of my own sex, faith, race,” “I’ll go just this once, it’ll be okay,” “I’ll do it, it’ll be okay, nothing will happen,” or anything of that kind.
So remembering the things you can do, from your list, and remembering that you know to create a good and resourceful state, and be in the present and you can cope with your baggage from the past. Then you can now breathe deeply and stand tall and face the world, being kind, and at the same time firm, and have good self-esteem.