Tag: friends

Trouble is part of life!

This week’s QUOTE FOR STRESS:

“Trouble is a part of your life, and if you don’t share it, you don’t give the person who loves you enough chance to love you enough.”
Dinah Shore

How often do you hear people say “I don’t want to trouble you”, or “I don’t want to be any trouble”.

The 3 stages of Dependence:

Dependence: As we are growing up we’re dependent on others, parents etc. At that point in life we’re not conscious that we could be causing anybody ‘trouble’.
Think Terrible Two’s!

Independence: Adolescence is the time we start fighting for independence. At this stage many a parent has cried buckets of tears for the trouble their wayward teenage kids have caused them!

Interdependence: Once we’ve attained adulthood and independence, we move on to interdependence, the realization that we’re all connected and we all need each other, we are interdependent. We’re meant to share our lives with each other which means sharing our good times as well as the bad.

Romans 12:15 says “Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn”.

When you share your trouble with me and make yourself more vulnerable, you are actually giving me the opportunity to truly love you more. You are doing me a favor – now that’s a different way of looking at trouble, isn’t it?

Accepting Compliments

This week’s QUOTE FOR STRESS:

“I can live for two months on a good compliment.” Mark Twain

Do you enjoy receiving a compliment? I know I do, but I didn’t always …. There are many people who just seem unable to accept compliments. When a friend or colleague compliments you on your shirt or a dress, do you tend to reply something like this “Oh, this old thing. I just pulled it on because I couldn’t find anything else to wear.” Well these might not be your exact words, but you get the gist of what I’m saying. Essentially you’re rejecting your friend’s compliment.

When someone gives you a compliment they are really giving you a gift. And the appropriate thing to do when anyone gives you a gift is to say thank you. You don’t decide whether you like the gift or not before saying thank you, do you? And you don’t return the gift to the giver if you don’t like it. So when someone gives you a compliment, just remember that this is a gift and say thank you. It really doesn’t matter whether you agree with the compliment or not. Use it is an opportunity to show love to your friend. It’s a wonderful chance to make your friend feel appreciated.

If you reject compliments enough times, they’ll stop coming your way. Mark Twain can survive for two months on a good compliment. Make a conscious effort to accept compliments when they come your way, and keep your negative thoughts to yourself! Your happiness level will start spiraling upwards!

We need each other!

This week’s QUOTE FOR STRESS

“Everything depends on you and at the same time you cannot reach the final goal by yourself.” Author Unknown

So many people prefer to do a task on their own without any outside help. ‘Nobody can do it as well as I can’, ‘better to do it myself, then at least I know it’s done properly.’ Aren’t these such common refrains especially from a perfectionist?

We start off life as babies, being totally dependent on others – we can’t walk, we can’t talk, we can only cry to get our needs met. As we grow up that changes. We want to do things on our own. We want to master the skills of living and we strive for independence, which is good. However, the next phase is interdependence, which is even better! This is the stage of accepting that we all need each other because we all have different skills and talents to get a task done. We’re all a ‘link in the chain’, so to speak! Trying to do everything totally on your own just leads to burn out!

We might have a goal in mind, but to reach that successfully, we need to allow some fellow life travelers to help us along the way! To acknowledge that we do need others is also a wonderful way of showing love to others, and meeting another person’s ‘need to be needed.’.

Seeking to be Understood

This week’s QUOTE FOR STRESS comes from John Gray.

“A woman under stress is not immediately concerned with finding solutions to her problems but rather seeks relief by expressing herself and being understood.”

Often the best imaginable advice is no advice at all! There are so many times when we just want to be heard. We really don’t want any fix-it-up advice, however well-meaning it might be. Our communication can be on an emotional level or on a task or problem solving level. The person listening needs to discern where the other person is coming from before deciding how to respond.  When someone is ranting off about their problems, they’re coming from an emotional frame of reference so it’s really unlikely that they’re wanting your advice! Don’t just presume they want a solution, even if you strongly believe you know what they should do. Give advice if its asked for. If in doubt, ask the other person if they would like you to give them a possible solution. Don’t be surprised, or offended, if they say no! It is not a ‘problem’ for which they are seeking an answer.

Coming from an ’emotional’ side, the person first needs to be met with empathy, their emotions need to be heard. So instead of giving solutions, try to work out what emotion the person is feeling and then respond to that. So words like, ‘I can hear how frustrated/ angry/ disappointed that made you feel is far more helpful than any advice. In fact ‘naming’ the emotion without giving any advice at all will be the best help you could possibly give! The person can then move on and work out the solution to the problem themselves!! Try to hold back on fixing up other peoples problems. The only message that really come across is that you don’t think they know how to live their lives.

Is the person seeking advice, or just wanting their emotions to be heard? To be loving, answer this question before pouring out your advice!

Appreciation!

THIS WEEK’S QUOTE FOR STRESS:

“Appreciating each other is a true family value, one that will bail out much of the stress on the planet and help strengthen the universal bond all people have.” Sara Paddison

Isn’t it true that we all like to be appreciated. When someone appreciates what I’ve done, it certainly motivates me to go the extra mile in a relationship. Relationships are marked by something called mutuality. I feed good things into your life and you do the same for me. Stephen Covey in his book “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People”, refers to this as the ’emotional bank account’. You first have to make deposits into the other person’s emotional bank account before you can make any withdrawals. Withdrawals are times when you are thoughtless or lacking in appreciation towards that person. You can only get away with this if you’ve made enough deposits of good-will, loving actions and appreciation.

What a change we could make in this beautiful planet of ours if we start looking out for the good in people, rather than just focusing on the negative. What a wonderful universal bond this will create in our world!