Hi all,

here is to wish you and your family a Merry Xmas!



Wishing that you can learn how to heal your relationships this Xmas and receive more love....

www.creativeconflicts.com

This has been a long period of preparation, but we have the pleasure to announce that the new blog about conflict and relationships is ready!


CREATIVE CONFLICT RESOLUTIONS IS NOW AT:

www.creativeconflicts.com

You are very welcome to browse, read new articles and be connected with your comments and suggestions.
Many thanks!

Hot Alpha Female: One Of The Most Powerful Ways to Create Attraction – And It Has Nothing To Do With The Way You Look Or What Car You Drive …

Hot Alpha Female: One Of The Most Powerful Ways to Create Attraction – And It Has Nothing To Do With The Way You Look Or What Car You Drive …

WHAT IS THE MOST IMPORTANT SKILL IN A RELATIONSHIP?

LEARNING HOW TO MANAGE CONFRONTATIONS, OF COURSE!!!

You can have a lot of grief in your interactions with a friend, or a loved one, going your way to a fast deterioration of the good feelings you had in the first period of the relationship, or you can get to know useful tricks to manage differences. Because fights are inevitable, it's better to be prepared and know how to difusse hostility, build bridges and promote understanding.

Conflict Resolution Model

The Conflict Resolution Model is one method you can use to act assertively. It involves five steps that can easily be memorized.

1) Identifying the Problem. This step involves identifying the specific problem that is causing the conflict (e.g., a friend’s not being on time when you come to pick him or her up.

2) Identifying the Feelings. In this step, you identify the feelings associated with the conflict (e.g., frustration, hurt, or annoyance).

3) Identifying the Specific Impact. This step involves identifying the specific impact or outcome of the problem that is causing the conflict (e.g., being late for the meeting that you and your friend plan to attend).

4) Deciding Whether To Resolve the Conflict. This step involves deciding whether to resolve the conflict or let it go. In other words, is the conflict important enough to bring up?

5) Addressing and Resolving the Conflict. In this step, you set up a time to address the conflict, describe how you perceive it, express your feelings about it, and discuss how it can be resolved. Then, come up with the best solution, decide who is going to do what, and end with a handshake.

We live in a world of interactions, all based on emotions. Either you acknowledge that all behavior is based on emotions or you deny it, attaching yourself to the myth of us as "rational actors" who make decisions in a rational way. There are no more options.

What is emotion, in this case? is the automatic perception of our being in the world as secure or threatened, of being accepted or rejected, and in this polarity hides the most basic orientation of our lives, towards which enhances our security, happiness and connection, and detaching ourselves from pain, hurt and isolation.

Along my work in conflict, I have seen every time that people get into confrontations because they need to feel either more secure, or recognized or appreciated than what they are getting at the moment. People will get into any kind of risk to receive some recognition of being valuable and admirable! so we are always seeking for acceptance and love, even when we pursue this need satisfaction through strange ways.

Getting in a fight? you can say that it is very strange, because it's an hostile activity. Well, let's say that fighting with someone is better than being ignored by that same someone, right?

Why is it so difficult to accept that we all need recognition? to begin with, there is our pride in between; we want to be loved without us having to ask for it! if we ask, then it doesn't count!!!

And so we go on along life, dancing this extrange dance of needing recognition, not asking for it, withholding it from our loved ones so they have to challenge us to express some positive comment....isn't it a bit sad?

Perhaps we can beging doing appreciation this very moment and see what happens? have you praised your best enemy today? No? why not?

New Anger-Powered Cars May Revolutionize The Way We Drive

What is Your Monkey up to today?

Stress has become a household word. I am not sure when that happened. It is written about, talked about in countless books, tapes and DVDs available, promising quick and lasting relief. Most of those gather dust on people’s bookshelves while their stressful life continues.

What Causes Stress?

Let us have a closer look. Where does stress originate? Where does it actually start? I can hear you say: it is caused by my boss, my spouse, my teenage children, living in the city, technology……STOP!

Stress is created in one place and one place only – and that is your mind. Your big toe can’t make you tense nor can your little finger make you tense. In your mind you create all your fears, worries, stressful ideas and thoughts. Even if you wanted to, you could not go to a shop and buy a jar full of fear.

Take responsibility for your own thoughts and feelings. It is much easier to blame somebody else outside of you. This is not where the problem originates! You are creating your thoughts and feelings.

All of these feelings cannot be measured or weighed, they are intangible. Yet, they create very real, negative results in your body. They can cause high blood pressure, stomach ulcers, insomnia, tension headaches and migraines, just to name a few.

How to Manage Stress?
To free yourself from physical and mental problems you have to tame your mind. You have to take responsibility for your mind’s actions. This might be difficult at first. You are the only one who can control your mind! You are the boss.

In a lot of the yoga literature the mind has been compared to a monkey, hopping around on a tree or from tree to tree, constantly moving and playing tricks on us. The mind is very restless, unable to concentrate and focus on one thing for any length of time. It creates ideas of fear, anxiety and guilt which turn into feelings.

Our body responds to those feelings by tensing certain parts, cutting blood flow to one area and sending more to another one, pouring out stress hormones which then cause blood pressure to rise and lots of other nasty things. This is just the tip of the iceberg.

How to Tame Your Monkey
• First of all, be gentle with yourself. It takes tame to re-learn the art of relaxation. Don’t feel bad if your mind wanders off, gently bring it back.
• Choose a method of relaxation that suits your personality and lifestyle. It is not going to work for you to buy a lovely 1 hour relaxation CD if you can only spare 10 minutes a day.
• Some simple methods to use:
o Buy a guided relaxation CD that you really like and feel comfortable with. Play it as it is or download it onto your computer or ipod.
o Create a quiet environment without disruptions. Take the phone off the hood and turn off your mobile.
o Make sure you are comfortable, sit or lie down. Don’t fall asleep.
o Keep bringing your mind back to the relaxation, no matter how often it wanders off. Keep persevering. In the beginning that might be very difficult.
o Join a stress management or yoga class; it might be easier for you to be in a group environment.
o Get private coaching or sessions with someone you trust till you feel comfortable working on your own.
o Get your partner involved. Have a relaxation session together. You then will be able to support each other during the day if you notice that the other person is starting to get tense or stressed out.
o Teach your children how to relax – you will have a much more peaceful household. They will be able to use the techniques they learnt before their exams.
o As time goes on, you will feel calmer and more relaxed overall. It will take longer to “stress you out”. You will be more aware of your body and where you hold your tension. Celebrate those achievements.
o Take action! No results without doing something. Do yourself and your family a favor and start “Taming your Monkey” today.

You will find a lot more helpful information, resources, support and encouragement on the website: www.yogahinahurry.com Remember that even the longest journey starts with that single, very first step! I wish you good luck on your journey
Connie from www.yogainahurry.com

Love, chocolate and dangerous things

It’s St. Valentine day again and you wonder where the love excitement in your life is? It’s just here!

We know the basics, right? When you fall in love, there are certain chemicals in your brain that make all your perspective shift into high gear…you really know that you are in love, because you feel it all the time. Your pulse quickens; your heart beats and this delicious feeling of anticipation gives a rosy tint to your (previously boring) life.

You also know that, once the first wave of excitement is gone, after 18 months, or two years, routine sets in…you have a secure companion, and this is a good thing. But at the same time, the pulse-quickening excitement is gone! Does it mean that the love itself is now gone? No way!...but this delicious excitement is dimmed. And you surely want it back.

The chemistry of love is based on the brain: every time we produce a feeling or a thought, we can be sure that it is based on a chemical track in our brain. The love excitement felt by the chemicals in the brain is highly addictive! And we all need that burst of dopamine in the brain that makes us feel alive, excited, connected and successful…

Are you going to search for this excitement by having a new love? This can be the solution if you are single, and you miss really the companionship and support of someone significant in your life. Then, this is a good time to take your wish for love seriously and put your call out for a new relationship. Be sure that this new relationship gives you the romantic feeling at the beginning, because without it, there is no gratification and being with someone would be more of a chore, right?

In search of excitement, are you going to have an affair? This is not such a good idea! It has the potential to give your brain a shot of the excitement you miss, for sure. By the way, it can be too exciting, and take you just to the verge of disaster, when it pushes you to risk the present relationship…now seen as boring and “lacking excitement.” You could be compared to the person who needs a new drug, or more of the previous drug dose, in order to feel excited again….Not a good comparison.

Being in love and being in drugs have something in common: the brain is actively engaged in the production of hormones that make us feel excited. As a matter of fact, this is the same mechanism that chocolate uses to make us happy!

So, do you want more love excitement/dopamine just in time for Valentine’s day? No need to take a new lover if the life you have with your present partner is good enough!

Here is what you can do: you need to generate in your brain (and hers) the dopamine-producing activity: both of you need to do something together that is completely new for both. This new activity, be it snow shoeing, trekking, ballroom dancing, etc. will provide the challenge to the brain to begin producing the results you expect.

It is even recommended that the new activity could be doing something so new, and never intended before, as to be a little challenging or dangerous…Nothing that resembles your sedated vacation plans, but more like learning to climb walls or going to Costa Rica to trek up an active volcano. Your pick, but please, for added security, take also a box of semisweet chocolate in your suitcase, and the excitement package will be completed!



Get a grip in your love life this year!
Coach Nora will help to you to see trough you personal life problems and put you on track to achieve your dreams. http://www.norafemenia.com

ACCENTUATING THE NEGATIVE

By Richard Conniff

One of the most daunting and widely repeated insights from recent social research holds, in essence, that your marriage is doomed if you and your spouse can't muster up five positive interactions for every negative one.

"Five seems like a lot," I suggested to a friend, who promptly rattled off five nice things he had done for his wife before leaving the house that morning to go for a run. It was easy stuff once you put your mind to it, he said, like making the coffee and getting the newspaper.

"Gee, that's terrific," I replied. And I immediately started thinking of his marriage as "The Gottman Wars," after the University of Washington psychologist, John Gottman, who came up with the five-to-one ratio. I imagined my insufferable friend and his wife creeping around the house before dawn desperately racking up positives to cushion the big fat negative that was burning a hole in their hearts. Meanwhile, I was having trouble getting my wife to accept that a grunt can be a positive interaction.

As a journalist, I have always regarded a willingness to state the negatives as a mark of intellectual honesty. Or maybe it was something not quite that admirable. A column I once wrote for The New York Times Magazine dwelt a little too gleefully on the pleasures of audacious speech ( "The Case For Malediction"). But now I had the sinking feeling that Gottman and my do-gooder friend were right.

I thought so because of another much less popular idea from recent social science, called "negativity bias." One reason we need to be so positive — to groom, to sweet-talk, to flatter, to bring home flowers — is that people discount the positives. They don't even notice them much of the time. It has to do with "the phenomenological paleness of comforts," according to Paul Rozin and Edward B. Royzman, University of Pennsylvania researchers who have written about negativity bias in the journal Personality and Social Psychology Review. People don't generally get pleasure from their central heating, for instance. But they notice when it doesn't work. Or as Arthur Schopenhauer, the 19th-century German philosopher, put it, "We feel pain, but not painlessness."

It is, in fact, our biological nature to accentuate the negative, to dwell on the one cutting remark rather than the three or four sweet nothings. We differentiate between negative and positive events in just a 10th of a second, and the negative ones grab our attention. For instance, when researchers show test subjects a paper with a grid of smiley faces on it and one angry face, the subjects instantly zero in on the angry face. Reverse the pattern, and it takes them a little longer to pick out the solitary smile. Likewise when a boss makes four positive comments in an employee review, and one quibble, the subordinate almost invariably fixates on the quibble.

This tendency might seem perverse. But neurologists say it's a survival mechanism. A heightened focus on what can go wrong helps us deal with danger. An angry face grabs our attention more urgently than a smile because it represents a potential threat.

Negativity bias got built into our minds during millions of years of evolution because early humans who were oblivious to danger often got a brief, bloody lesson in natural selection. As Rozin and Royzman delicately phrase it, "the threat of a predator is a terminal threat." Excessive blitheness tended to get cut short, and thus became less and less common in succeeding generations. Skittishness, or negativity bias, became a distinguishing characteristic of the survivors. And it continues to drive our behavior even now, when the biggest threat in our daily lives is likely to be a difficult boss or a disagreeable spouse.

An exaggerated emphasis on the positive — Gottman's five-to-one ratio — is apparently the natural antidote at home. A long-term study of corporate management suggests that it's true in the workplace, too. Despite the ample lore about fierce executives driving up profits with their "mean business" scowls, the study found that the most productive teams managed 5.6 positive interactions for every negative. Other research has demonstrated that even chimpanzees, despite their reputation for belligerence, actually spend about 15 to 20 percent of their time grooming one another and just 5 percent fighting — a three- or four-to-one ratio.

So it starts to look like a basic primate need: To cultivate good relationships, you need to ease the innate animal skittishness of the people around you and provide them with a sense of safety, comfort and reciprocity. This is not perhaps such a startling revelation. And it is unlikely to produce an epidemic of Scrooge-like seasonal epiphanies. But for me, there is something compelling about the idea that being nice is a biological imperative, and not just sentimental humbug.

Five good deeds before breakfast still seems like a bit much. But when I grunt at my wife these days, I am striving to sound less like a hungry predator.