Читать книгу The Woman's Book of Resilience - Beth Miller - Страница 8

who do you call at 3 a.m.? 2

I WILL PRACTICE AND INCREASE MY ABILITY TO CONNECT

A friend is one to whom one may pour out allthe contents of one's heart, knowing that the gentlestof hands will take and sift it, keep what is worth keepingand with the breath of kindness blow the rest away.

—ARABIAN PROVERB

CYNTHIA AND SUSAN were best friends, but recently Cynthia had begun noticing how often Susan spoke harshly and sometimes cruelly to her husband. This made Cynthia uncomfortable. She decided to bring it up with Susan. She approached the subject gently, suggesting that Susan's behavior was probably unconscious. After all, she knew Susan to be a sensitive and caring person.

Being confronted like this gave Susan the opportunity to soul search and look for a deeper feeling that might have been causing her to act out in this way Was there something in her marriage that was troubling her? Was she carrying over something from some other relationship and taking it out on a safer person? Was this a residue from childhood? Whatever the source and reason, Cynthia's willingness to speak the truth about something unpleasant gave Susan the opportunity to deepen herself and her marriage.

We all need people in our lives with whom we can tell our truths and wrestle with our demons—and to be available to them for the same.

You are inconsolable over losing someone you love, and the darkness of the hour is hounding you. You need a confidante, a best friend who has been around as long as well-worn bedroom slippers. You need the partner, lover, spouse sleeping next to you to wake up.

You have been fired unexpectedly, and you're ganging up on yourself, your self-worth plummeting southward. You need someone to talk to and express your feelings and experience as well as receive support, understanding, and help. Someone to walk along with you during the crisis or struggle so the trauma is not compounded by unnecessary loneliness. Someone who can help you sort out the real from the self-destructive.

Who do you go to for truth telling? Who can you count on to tell you the way it is, even risk upsetting you? Who do you trust enough to tell you the hidden truth that you would benefit from knowing and doing something about? Who do you call at 3 A.M.?

You just received a raise and new title. You are going to have a new baby or grandbaby. You just made a financial killing or your company went public. You are in love (and with the right person).

Who do you call in the afternoon when you are feeling so much excitement and joy you are sure you are going to burst? Who do you call to share your pleasure and accomplishments?

Who are your friends? Who is your support? Do you have a very best friend, an important confidante? Do you have a circle of friends, a web of acquaintances?

Strengthening these connections and opening ourselves to honest communication—these are the subjects of this chapter.

Some women—Oprah Winfrey and Anna Quindlen are a notable two—have best friends they speak with at least once a day. They keep an exchange going—keep the channels wide open for check in, banter, intimacy, and comfort. Some days it might be a quick hello, “I'm here, how are you?” Other days there might be time and need for a long chat or an intimate soul talk. But these women value each other deeply, know each other fundamentally, and can be there for each other in a split second's request—and at a level that can leave each shaking with the recognition of sacred meeting. They can say anything to each other and ultimately feel better for it. They can listen deeply and communicate love without saying a word.

We cannot become resilient in isolation. Not even introverts, recluses, and the deeply pained and shamed. We are social creatures, and we need to know where to go to connect and refuel. We need to have a community of at least a few people, animals, or nature who will always be there for us, no matter what.

Children who have recovered from severe trauma will often tell poignant and heartwarming stories of finding a receptive teacher, neighbor, or adult friend who, with a look, glance, respectful touch, or open arms, kept them alive, kept their spirits alive. One young woman, severely wounded from years and years of unrelenting torture at the hands of her parents, told me the story of making contact with a kind elderly neighbor who looked into the child's eyes and told her it would not always be that bad. The young woman said that this single gesture not only offered hope but assured her that she was not crazy or overreacting.

“Someone else was aware that there was something seriously wrong.” The young woman felt validated and strengthened. She credits this warmth of human contact with keeping her this side of insanity.

Other at-risk children, showing an instinct for connection, find creative ways to find support from kind adults. Shy, introverted children look to characters in books, images in mythology, or the quiet den of an introverted adult. The more outgoing spread their wings to meet generous souls in their extended world. However they manage it, these naturally resilient young people make sure to find a connection—a positive connection—because they know that they need other people who can mirror something positive back to them.

If we are lucky, there are several people who fill this role in our lives, and we choose to whom to go for support based on the kinds of issues we're dealing with. One client told me:

If I need a really good cry, I'll go to a friend who understands and is comfortable with emotions. She won't try to fix me and she is not afraid of strong feelings. If it's about relationships or finances or some catastrophe, I'll choose my friend who is best at those issues. Someone who has been there and knows the terrain and/or who knows me well enough to tell me the truth. Overall, though, I go to someone who will be honest with me.

Not only does this give us the best chance of receiving the kind of support we need, but it also preserves the quality of our relationships. No one person can be there for us all the time. That's too heavy a burden to place on any relationship. Too much energy coursing through a circuit will finally blow. Instead, the idea here is to spread the wealth, to have a circle of partners, friends, family members, mentors, people who've known you the longest and aren't afraid of your “shadow” material, colleagues for work-related issues, perhaps a therapist or spiritual advisor.

choosing who to turn to—and who not to

San Francisco Chronicle columnist Joan Ryan wrote a wonderful column about who to call when we're in need, in which she talked about a woman named Janie who reached out to a needed friend during an excruciating and dark time:

the night she fully understood her son would not recover from his severe illness. She was crying into the phone…when [her] friend asked if she could call her back. Janie, taken aback, said fine, and waited and waited for the phone to ring. Suddenly, headlights appeared in her driveway, and her friend emerged from the car in her nightgown. “I'll remember that for as long as I live,” Janie says now.

Friends have an inside track and often know just what we need: a young woman with whom I worked, going through an agonizing breakup with the man she had intended to marry, knew she had to talk and cry with her best friend. But she was bowled over with appreciation when this best friend, living on the opposite coast, flew out for the weekend, and regaled her with stories of hilarious revenge. “Let's collect mosquitoes and let them loose in his house!” “Let's order twenty-five pizzas to be delivered COD to his house.” They spent the weekend together going for long walks, crying and laughing together. When her friend left, the young woman knew she was loved and carried that with her as she felt the awful pangs of grieving.

On the other side of the coin are the grievous disappointments, the times we expect someone to come through for us and they don't. I remember working with a young woman whose husband had struck her across the face and, desperately needing comfort, she had called her mother, who lived 4,000 miles away. She was devastated when her mother said, “Oh, Tina, what did you do to get him so mad?”

Tina had been savagely beaten by both parents as a child and had lain shivering as she watched her father beat her mother dozens of times. She herself had gone through years of abusive relationships before marrying her husband, a passionate man who was devoted to Tina and their children. The marriage had lasted many years, but it was always tumultuous, fighting and making up, arguing and settling things. That particular night, however, her husband had lost control and hit her across the cheek. Tina was beside herself and without much thought reached out for her mother.

In a more calm and rational time, Tina would have known not to call her mother, but in an unguarded moment, and quite desperate for support, she forgot what she knew. Now feeling doubly humiliated, she showed tremendous courage by picking up the phone again and calling the friend who could and did help.

As you think about who you would want in your support circle, it's important to consider people's various strengths and limitations. Often we can intuit who will really be there for us and under what circumstances, but sometimes we find out the hard way. I think of Lydia. She is someone who sees the world through her emotions, and each time she turns to her friend Kathy for support she feels worse than before. Kathy sees the world through her intellect and believes Lydia is too sensitive to her emotions, a belief that is often revealed in the way she responds to Lydia's many crises. Understand, there is nothing wrong with either style, but if Lydia needs a “warm fit,” Kathy is probably not her best choice!

We need to find people who can really understand where we're coming from. If we've experienced something extremely painful, say we've lost a child or a parent or we've been battered, it can be lonely and disorienting to talk with someone whose only real experience with pain is rude drivers or loudmouthed bosses. Helpful and healthy communication requires a “good fit.”

connections and vulnerability

There is something about allowing ourselves to open up and be vulnerable to people when we're in need that often results in a deepening of the relationship. And these deeper, more intimate relationships, in turn, satisfy something within us that enables us to deal with the unbearable and discover larger and larger perspectives on our own lives.

I'm reminded of a piece I read, again in the San Francisco Chronicle, by Susan Parker, who writes a column about life since her husband, Ralph, was paralyzed in a bike accident. This particular column was about a trip she and Ralph had taken to see some old biking buddies who had moved to another state. It had been four years since they'd seen each other, but these were the people they had called right after the accident, the kind of people you want to have around when the chips are down.

Aimee and Patrick welcomed Susan and Ralph with open arms and hammers in hand. Patrick insisted on nailing the handicap ramp into their carpet. When Susan protested, Patrick responded, “We're going to replace this carpeting someday anyway.” The four proceeded to talk about what they would all do on this much-treasured visit. Among the many possibilities, Aimee mentioned giving Ralph a bath. “It will be fun,” she insisted. Aimee was a nurse and knew the difficulties Ralph faced in the hygiene department. Susan and Ralph did not have a large enough bathroom or the right equipment, and Ralph had not had a proper bath in a very long time.

Aimee knew the possible repercussions: skin breakdown and sores that can lead to serious health problems, so she arranged to use a wheelchair-accessible bathroom at a local hospital. After putting Ralph into a specialized, waterproof wheelchair, Aimee and Susan soaped him, scrubbed him, rinsed him, dried him, dressed him, and brushed his teeth. “Ralph treated the excursion as if he had won the lottery,” Parker wrote. “‘This is great,’ he shouted as we rolled him out of the hospital. ‘Wow, do I feel good.’”

Without much ado these wonderful friends had given of themselves practically, as well as nonchalantly, offering tons of love and attention, giving Ralph a special treat that would have been very difficult to do elsewhere or otherwise. Giving (and receiving) under circumstances so tender and prone to embarrassment or misunderstandings requires everyone to stand tall in the face of vulnerability and allow the interchange of intimacy and connection. It requires us to become sensitive and aware of our tender spots—it requires us to accept our humble humanity and allow our trusted circle to know us well.

It is in our closest friendships that we can fully realize who we are. Anna Quindlen, novelist, relays it thusly: “I only really understand myself, what I'm really thinking and feeling, when I've talked it over with my circle of female friends. When days go by without that connection, I feel like a radio playing in an empty room.”

As our friendships deepen, we often reveal parts of ourselves that have been tucked away or hidden, even from ourselves…and when somebody reaches out to us, we often discover that we are truly seen. In Chinese Zen, the concept of intimacy is synonymous with enlightenment or realization. Through vulnerability and intimacy, we come to know ourselves and the world. I know this from my own experience:

One day I was at a party with some women friends. I was in a playful mood and began teasing two of them about knowing something they did not know. From my peripheral vision I could see Sandy reaching across to me. Her hand was up, face level. Without any thought and in the flash of a second I reacted. Sensing danger, I pulled back, ducked, and cringed; and because I had no time to hide my vulnerability, I was suddenly exposed. Over the years I had become masterful in covering up my childhood terrors, and I am not surprised when close friends tell me they cannot see the effects of my early life. But when I saw Sandy's hand come toward me, my instinct was to recoil and protect myself.

As it turns out, of course, Sandy was only reaching out to pat my face affectionately; she was totally dismayed by my reaction. And what a shock it was for me to see my terror reflected on the other women's faces. The look of their faces remained burnt into my awareness for a long time. Suddenly my friends got a glimpse of the intimidated, frightened part of me that I had always kept so hidden.

The unexpected benefit was that I now had witnesses for my experience. People I cared for saw what had happened to me. I was no longer alone in that realm—and I was safe. Mixed in with the embarrassment was a tremendous sense of relief. By showing my vulnerability, I was unwittingly exercising my resilience muscle.

the power of support groups

We are social animals. We need each other for our very survival. Nowhere is this more evident than in concentration camps, in military compounds, in dens of slavery, in repressed regimes, where prisoners will use every ounce of their human ingenuity to get messages to each other to ease their loneliness and despair and share their suffering. Communication, their only possible form of connection, gave them the strength to survive. Stories have been told and studies generated that show our pure genius for making contact, even in the most extreme of situations. The creating of Morse codes, the banging of objects on the ground, the singing of spirituals, the call of whistles—whatever it takes to remind us that we are not alone.

Often what we need most in upsetting or threatening situations is a way to compare our emotional experiences with others. We need to hear that other people share our feelings, that our emotional reactions to terrible times and our feelings of having reached our limit are normal, not a sign that we are pathologically weak.

Of course we don't have to be political prisoners to understand this need for validation and support. A woman I work with lived with debilitating anxiety because she felt ambivalent about having children. Living in a culture that places such a high value on motherhood and maternal sacrifices, she felt sure she was a freak for not being sure if she wanted children. We were both delighted when she found a workshop for women who wanted to discuss this issue in safety and confidentiality. After attending the workshop, Roberta returned to my office visibly lighter, relaxed and smiling. The weekend was a success; she met several other women she respected and learned from, and she felt fully engaged in all the exercises. She loved the free time to talk between sessions and over lunch. She had time to think and reflect, time to tell others how she felt, and time to hear other stories. She left feeling a great relief, not because she had made up her mind about having children but because she felt peaceful about being ambivalent. She was not alone in her distress, and she could now trust herself and the process of working it out over time.

Finding group support doesn't necessarily come through organized workshops. In the middle of winter I was invited to celebrate my friend Cindy Walker's sixtieth birthday. The invitation announced that the “queens” would be arriving: dress would be evening wear (tiaras acceptable), and we were to come prepared to spend the whole evening; there would be no early leave-taking.

And so, seventy-five women from all over the United States descended on a sparkling, snow-covered Salt Lake City, Utah, ready to celebrate our friend Cindy. Here we were: friends of hers from kindergarten, her bridesmaids from umpteen years ago, a friend she had met as an exchange student in Poland, her daughters and daughters-in-law, her women doctors, her neighbors, friends from her book clubs and church groups, every woman friend with whom she has stayed in contact through countless moves around the states.

Cindy is a no-nonsense woman; one could even say she's a force to be reckoned with. She is passionate and outspoken and accomplished and considers it frivolous to be concerned with appearance. So imagine our surprise when we discovered that she had hired a woman to come to her home the day before her party to offer manicures and pedicures to her family and friends. She not only was the first to have her nails done, but she had her makeup done as well! She was turning sixty, and she decided was going to do something for herself she had never done before.

Cindy had planned a sumptuous feast and a singing revival of her favorite songs. After she presented a carnation and story about each woman in the room, she had me say a few words about resilience. For obvious reasons, I chose to emphasize friends and support and helping each other through rough times. I talked about this group and how we were an embodiment of a spontaneous support group, how every one of us was connected to this amazing woman, every one of us called her a friend and meant it from the heart.

I then asked the women in the room to share their thoughts about why Cindy was their friend. (This was not on Cindy's agenda; she told me later how stunned she was—and how much she surprised herself by not putting a stop to it!)

One of the first people to get up was Cindy's daughter Kathy, who told a story about standing in the receiving line at her wedding, when her new husband leaned over and whispered, “Everyone your mother introduces me to says they are her very best friend!” Kathy then looked around the room and said the same thing to us that she had said to her new husband that day. “They are!”

Jeannine, Cindy's daughter-in-law, stood and said, “Cindy, I will never forget one of our first heart-to-heart talks when I joined your family. You told me that if Aaron and I had an argument and he came to you with his complaints you would not automatically take his side. You would give me the respect to include my point of view as well. That has meant the world to me because I knew then that I could trust you.”

The stories went on, leaving us all crying, laughing, ooohing and aaahing. Eight hours later, the police called looking for an elderly woman who was attending the party. “She is never out this late,” her husband had told the police when he called, worried that something had happened to her. We all went home with tremendous smiles on our faces and warmth in our hearts.

Cindy still talks about how the evening was the single most important healing experience of her life:

Ever since that night I feel okay in a way I have not felt before. I don't have to measure up; I am okay as I am. I sincerely believe I could not have accepted the teacher of the year award with such dignity and confidence if I did not have the reminder of my dear friends' love and respect.

I have always been quick to turn the attention and care to others; if I had not been forced to do otherwise that night I would not have heard and felt how much people cared for me. Seventy-five people cannot be wrong. I know how deeply I feel for everyone who was in my home that night; hearing and believing how much they care for me was profoundly and lastingly healing.

The power of that connection for Cindy allowed her to stand tall and resilient when she next had to face, for her, the awkward and difficult situation of accepting the teacher of the year award. Rather than convincing herself she did not deserve such recognition, she could rely on the genuine response she had received from her “closest” friends.

our health depends on it

It turns out that having the support of a group doesn't just feel good; it is, empirically, good for us, especially during stressful times. As we learn more and more about the connection between mind and body, we are also becoming aware of the link between illness and social isolation. When people in stressful situations do not have someone in whom to confide, their immune response apparently weakens. In James Pennebaker's study of 2,000 people who had suffered trauma, including physical abuse, rape, or the death of a loved one, those who managed to confide in someone about the event were found to be healthier. Those who hadn't discussed their experiences developed more illness of various sorts—from headaches to lung disease.

We have discovered that when stress is high, people without psychological support suffer as much as ten times the incidence of physical and emotional illness as do those who are able to get such support. As I was preparing this chapter, in fact, a new study from Yale came to the public's attention. Lisa Berkman, a public health specialist from Yale, monitored 200 older men and women who had suffered heart attacks. She found that those with the most support from others lived the longest after the attack. Dr. Berkman explains that emotional support contributes to healing for physical reasons, “If you feel like you have emotional support, you may be less stressed. Your blood pressure doesn't shoot up, and your heart doesn't race.” The comfort and solace of connection makes a difference.

Whether our connection is to lots of people, to family members, to a very special person, to nature and all her gifts, to the deepest part of ourselves through meditation and prayer, or to the divine on a mountaintop as we exclude ourselves from the rest of humanity, there is no doubt that we need to be in contact.

Whether we are introverted and savor those few meaningful meetings of like kind, or extroverted and thrive from the stimulating interactions of lots and lots of people in a small room; whether we like to be around other people all the time or whether we need time alone with infrequent, but comfortable and intimate, shared time with someone else; we all share the essential need of healthy connection and contact.

a skill worth mastering

Being connected, of course, is a two-way street. We need not only to be willing to be seen and known in deeper and deeper ways but to know and see the other person and be as open to them as we can, too.

Since most of us are conditioned, from an early age, to protect and guard ourselves, this requires taking risks, being flexible (resilient!), trying on different beliefs, and not giving up when communication gets messy, painful, and possibly raw. This kind of sophisticated communication is a skill, an art; it can (and must) be learned, practiced, and mastered. The rest of this chapter is devoted to the skills of communication.

Overall, practice observing and listening with keen attention. As you interact with others, try to watch and listen to what they respond to and what makes them defensive. Observe when you become defensive.Watch for those instances of masterful timing where an exchange between people approaches a well-choreographed ballet. What communication skills do you observe? What can you take away and practice as you cultivate your own connections?

befriending your imagination

One of the keys to this kind of sophisticated communication is imagination, the ability to construct internal images of situations and see through various possible outcomes in “our mind's eye.” It has been found that people who show natural resilience in difficult situations use precisely this imaginative function in order to structure and sequence the event and adapt accordingly.

Sports psychologists confirm this further in their reporting of the effectiveness of imagining the perfect golf swing or foul shot. We know that with practice, imagined practice, athletes show marked improvement because mental practice turns on most of the brain circuits that would be used in swinging or shooting for real.

Now, let's put this together with neurobiology's reports of the differences between a peak performance and a mental collapse. Whether we respond to a situation or failure by panicking and saying “I don't know if I can do this” or by embracing the challenge with “I've been preparing for this all my life” determines which chemical will course through our systems. In the challenge response, the body is flushed with adrenaline and sugar, creating a heightened awareness and the flow people mention about a peak performance. The fearful response produces hormones laced with cortisol, which not only impairs performance but also does damage to the arteries and liver and can lead to depression.

Imagination allows us to see all the views of the situation, the varying pieces of the puzzle, and gives us the opportunity to arrange and rearrange to our heart's content. We can imagine the possible consequences of “If you say this or do that” as we include the potential responses you will receive. We can imagine how we might feel if the deal goes one way or another, gauging the levels of comfort we have with the different scenarios. If Tina had been able to use her imagination regarding a possible conversation with her mother, it is likely she would not have called her. She would have called her helpful friend first.

Within the context of imagination we can be as creative as we have the capacity for—finding absurd, humorous, outlandish, conservative, ridiculous, and traditional solutions. We can try out how these responses will or will not help, and we can even imagine letting go of any attachments to outcome, giving ourselves the inner freedom to show up at the dialogue table with tremendous inner conviction and ability to listen to other parties.

Use your imagination and see the process through. Become aware of the pitfalls and strong emotions and see yourself ordering and mastering the sequences of the interaction.

 Are you up against a stressful talk with your husband or partner and worried sick about how it might go?

 Are you planning a big event for work or a wedding for a family member?

 Do you want to ask for a promotion and a raise?

 Is it time for a serious talk about drugs or sex with your teenager?

 Do you need to fight for a cause, personal or civic?

 Are you faced with a medical issue and need to be assertive with the doctors or insurance?

You can have a say in how you respond to life's challenges, and your imagination can be one of your best allies. Imagine healthy communication, imagine intimate conversations, imagine navigating angry disagreements, imagine a series of hard compromises, imagine staying calm during stormy fights, imagine a loved one misunderstanding you and being able to try again, imagine being open and vulnerable when it is hard and frightening. And when it doesn't work out and there is a real mess, imagine learning after the fact and imagine how differently you would respond the next time the same thing or something similar presented itself.

choosing wisely

As you work on strengthening your connections with others and developing your communication skills, I ask you to consider the following pointers:

Choose people you can trust.

Choose people who want and bring out the best in you.

Choose people who accept you for who you are, including your faults and foibles.

Avoid people who raise themselves by lowering you.

Know what you are asking for, and practice asking in a straightforward manner, free of manipulation, undue aggressiveness, or attempts to make the other person feel guilty.

Check out what might be going on instead of making assumptions: “I think you are upset. Are you? Is it something I have done?”

Practice letting go when you cannot get what you want.

I imagine this type of straightforward, nonreactive communication as a martial art. In the arts when someone comes at you, the form is to let the energy be absorbed or moved aside. The other person is then left with their own energy source, not able to get caught up in your reaction or fight, and assuming it is because of you that they are behaving in such and such a manner.

As your connections deepen, keeping the following points in mind will further facilitate the martial arts of communication.

 Know how others perceive you. A psychologist expert in group therapy once trained me to lead groups. He is very tall, large, with a full head of white hair and a full white beard. He had long ago figured out what projections he received whenever he walked into a room, especially when he was doing the training. He knew he would be seen as the all-knowing father figure, or the authority who dictated all things, or the omnipotent and all-caring protector. He knew he would be seen this way even if he didn't carry any of these attitudes or traits within or didn't agree with these perceptions, and this knowing gave him the chance to voice these projections and deflate many unconscious assumptions. On the other hand, I worked with a woman who did not know how others saw her and continually misinterpreted their behavior toward her. She is a strong and very efficient woman who walks down the street in a bold fashion. She manages to hold down a prestigious position in a law firm while raising three children. She had often found other women to be unfriendly and had her feelings hurt when she assumed they did not like her. A good friend took her aside and informed her that others saw her as unavailable because she was so busy and conceited because she accomplished so much. She knew she was friendly and accessible; now she needed to understand the misperception so she could reach out.

 Listen well. Good listening is an art form and cannot be underestimated. Listen without interruption, listen with intended focus, and listen without forming a response in your mind. Listen to the sounds and meaning being offered. Listen to your own inner being, listen very carefully to those people near and dear to you, and especially listen well to those who are not on your side. Listen to the world you inhabit, keep open to nature and the rhythms of the universe.

 Hear what is being said and hear what is being implied. Be open to what is being said, sung, screamed, smiled, moaned, and cried.

 If you are not being listened to, demonstrate an inner conviction by sustaining your point of view in a heartfelt and nondefensive manner; be secure enough in your position to be open and sensitive to the other's needs and concerns.

 Know when to retreat and replenish. In the Buddhist traditions of Southeast Asia there are twenty-one different words for silence: the silence between thoughts, the silence of a concentrated mind, and the silence of awareness. In this fast-paced world of ours, give yourself time for contemplating, a quiet time, an inner time. Communicate with silence, with your inner world. Take time to listen to the sounds of nature; have time go slowly and involve you with mundane tasks and empty space to allow the deeper heart to come to light.

 Know when to hide away, when you are feeling overly sensitive or vulnerable and any comment or interchange will sting.

 Learn, practice, and master genuine interest in others and the world around you. Ask people about their dreams, their successes, and their families. Be open to another point of view; find what you can learn from it. Listen carefully when someone is unhappy with you or your behavior; distinguish if the person is for you and allow yourself to be communicated with.

And remember this: In the final analysis, no matter how well you communicate, there are no guarantees. No matter how well you do, others will still disappoint, disagree, refuse, and possibly get angry. That's why it's so important to practice letting go, detaching from the outcome without blaming yourself or the other person. Remember you did your best, and with genuine detachment you can begin to imagine alternatives. And with alternatives you are practicing resiliency.

Communication:

The ability and willingness to clearly express what is on your mind and in your heart and to actively hear the response

The ability and willingness to hear what is being expressed to you and take it in before reacting

The ability and willingness to make a connection

exercise

REFLECTION

Use a journal, artwork, and/or imagination to help you connect with your answers to the questions below (see the exercise in chapter 1 for more explanation).

Remember a time when you felt criticized, disappointed, or embarrassed, and ask yourself these questions:

What am I feeling? What do I need? How is this experience affecting me?

Is this a time to reach out to another person? Is this a time to listen to my inner knowing? Can I be still and hear myself?

Where was the breakdown in communication? What was being said to me? How are my feelings clouding the issue?

Remember a time when you had difficulties in a relationship or discussion, and ask yourself these questions:

What do I do with the information that this conversation or relationship is not going well? What are my expectations? Overestimating myself and the environment? Underestimating myself and the environment? Reasonable? What would make them reasonable?

When it is not going well, do I know how to resteer the car between the white lines and get back in the lane?

Do I get the exact same response or reaction from my spouse, my friend, my boss, or my partner whenever I mention a topic, a subject, a feeling? What can I figure out about the exchange? What do I know about myself?

What can I learn from listening carefully and deeply? What can I learn from not criticizing or judging myself or the other person? What can I learn from wanting the communication to lead to compromise?

How can I learn to be clear and straightforward in my communication and be a respectful, effective listener?