Posted by Jason Thu, 24 Apr 2008 14:02:00 GMT
I know there haven't been any articles for a while, and I'm sorry... I've been working a LOT of overtime, and have been running close to the edge of burning out. I haven't had any mental resources left over with which to write.
Things are slowing down a bit now, so soon I should be able to get back to writing on a regular basis.
Again, I apologize... expect a new article soon, though.
Posted by Jason Tue, 25 Mar 2008 18:45:00 GMT
The first thing to do when you need to deal with a controlling person is understand that the need to control comes from a place of fear, of weakness, not of strength. A person operating from a place of strength has no need to control others.
The fear that causes someone to be controlling is generally one of two kinds: fear of failure (if I'm not running everything, then it will all go to pieces) or fear of showing their weakness (if I don't control this person, they will find my weaknesses and control me). The way to treat those fears differs, although both involve letting go, but this isn't about how to fix someone being controlling, it's about how to deal with them.
Controlling people have a sliding scale along which they place each person they encounter, a scale that runs from vastly inferior to vastly superior, with the very center being those that are unknown. People on the low end of the scale are safe to manipulate, while those at the high end are to be obeyed (and maybe even feared).
People are placed on this scale (and moved on it) based on their behavior... if your behavior shows strength and confidence, you move up the scale, but if your behavior shows weakness and uncertainty, you will move down it. Much of this behavior is subconscious, and is even shared with many types of animals.
The girl in the picture, for instance, is clearly showing her submission... leaning away, head tilted downward, eyes raised and barely able to look at the man. The man, on the other hand, is showing aggressive, dominant behavior... leaning forward to look down on her, teeth bared, finger in her face, etc.
There is also a place between these two extremes... your behavior can show your dominance without being aggressive. If you stand with your back straight, confidently meeting the eyes of whomever you encounter, speaking strongly and clearly, then you will come across as being high on the scale, without having to be a jerk (though being a jerk to someone who is controlling can often place you above them on their scale, it is a temporary placement... they will not respect you, and without respect, they are simply looking for a way to maneuver around you to a superior position).
If you want to stop someone from controlling you, then, you need to adopt behavior which shows them that you are higher on the scale than they consider themselves (or so strong that you actually are off the scale, but that's much harder both to learn and to do). You can easily figure out what that behavior is by mentally picturing someone of strength and confidence... picture them standing, moving, and reacting. The behaviors you picture are the ones that you should aim to adopt.
When you first change your behavior in this manner, the controlling person's first reaction is often to try to drag (usually through guilt) or push (often through angry reactions) you back down the scale to where you were. Don't back down, though... even if you don't feel the confidence you're projecting, their very reaction shows that you are having an effect, and when you understand that, and that they are indeed seeing what you are projecting, that itself can cause you to grow into that very confidence. In people behavior and attitude are interdependent: as your attitude changes, so does your behavior, but the reverse is true as well... as your behavior changes, your attitude slowly follows.
The new strength and confidence that you find as you change your behavior can help you across all aspects of your life, too... it may give you the confidence to ask for a raise, or the strength to do something about the state of your relationship.
So, in parting, I'll leave you with a small list of things that can help you project that image of the strong, confident person that you want to be:
And a mental one:
More detail on that list may be forthcoming in another article in the near future.
Posted by Jason Mon, 24 Mar 2008 16:00:00 GMT
Want to make today a better day? It's not that hard, it just takes a little prep work.
It won't take long, but you do need five minutes in a place where you can sit quietly. You'll also need a pen and paper (you can type, but pen and paper work better).
Sit down and picture something that makes you happy... happy like the baby in the picture. If you want an example, here's one from my own life: making a daddy sandwich. That's when my wife lays on one side of me, with her head on my shoulder, and my daughter lays on my other side, with her head on my other shoulder.
Visualize it as clearly as you can in your mind... sight, sound, smells, touch, even the way it makes you feel (as in emotions). While you're visualizing that, write it down. The visualizing and the writing reinforce each other... writing it down sets the memory more clearly, while the memory associates with the actual written words (which is why a pen and paper work better).
When you have it written down, repeat the process to find at least two more things... five is better, but you don't want to go overboard, because if you get to having too many items, it will dilute the power of each one. Now, if you did use pen and paper, fold up the paper and take it with you.
When something bad happens during the day, pull out your list and bring one of those memories back. When something notably good happens, do the same. If you have a few minutes when you're not doing anything, bring it out again.
When you do it isn't important... just spending the time to really remember something that truly makes you happy takes all (or at least a lot) of the sting out of something bad happening, and makes something good even better.
If your happy memories involve your family, it also makes you feel closer to them. Whatever they involve, though, it brings more happiness into today than would have otherwise been there.
Which, of course, makes today a better day.
By the way, here's my list (at least for today):
That's mine... can you tell that I'm a family man? Does anyone else feel like sharing? Sometimes just reading what makes other people happy can bring up related memories of your own that make you happy, too.
Posted by Jason Thu, 20 Mar 2008 16:00:00 GMT
When is the last time that you had real time off? Real time off doesn't just mean time when you don't go into the office... it means time when you feel no rush to do anything, time when you feel like you can take time, and not in specified amounts, to do what you want to do.
Real time off means you don't have to go to the grocery store, or buy your kids clothes, or take them to practice, or fix something around the house (unless that's what you enjoy). You don't have a vacation with a tight schedule, and for that matter, you don't really have any schedule at all... you truly have leisure time.
I can't really speak for ages past, but in the modern day, it seems to be harder and harder to disconnect and take time off from everything. You have demands on your time coming from all sides... your job, your spouse, your kids, family, friends, people trying to sell you something. It just never seems to stop.
You can, of course, make it stop. Your time is your own... no one else can have any of it that you don't give them (short of kidnapping you). It's all a matter of priorities... the higher on your priority list something is, the greater claims it can make on your time.
The problem is that we often forget to put ourselves on our priority list, or if we're there, we're way down near the bottom. We need some of our own time, though.
When you don't get any of your own time, when it's all taken up by the demands of others, you begin to feel drained, and the longer it stays that way, the worse the drain is, until you feel absolutely empty inside, as if you were nothing but a shell. The only way to get over that empty, exhausted feeling is to bump yourself all the way to the top of the priority list and take some time for you.
When you take this time, it doesn't mean you have to sit around and do nothing (although that's a valid choice, as long as it is a choice). You can do anything you enjoy, just don't give yourself a set time limit... don't do something for just an hour, do it until that emptiness starts to fill, or hopefully fills completely, although that might take more than one time.
You can read, go fishing, play basketball, do something creative (write, paint, carve, etc.), or work on something that you enjoy. The key is that it has to be something that you're doing just because you want to, just because you like to do it, not because you feel like it's something you have to do.
It also doesn't have to be alone, as long as having someone with you doesn't make you feel like the time is not your own any more. In particular, I know that I can certainly feel like I have time of my own while still being with my wife. That being said, I do occasionally enjoy some time that is just mine, with no expectations of me at all.
It's been a while for me since I had time that I felt was my own. I've been working a lot of hours, and of course that leaves little time for taking care of all the other things that need taken care of in a life. I think soon I may take the time to grab a pole, go out to a lake, and see if I can find some dinner.
And I think I'll give my wife some time off soon, too... I'll take care of the kids, and give her time to do whatever it is that she wants to do.
That's it... don't forget to put yourself on your priority list for your time. You can thank me afterward :P
Posted by Jason Wed, 19 Mar 2008 18:25:00 GMT
That is a question that many people have, particularly young people... and it actually can be read two ways: "Am I too young to get married?" and "Have we been together long enough to get married?"
The answers to both questions vary from person to person, of course, as does nearly anything so personal. There are some general guidelines that it wouldn't really hurt for anyone to follow, however.
To be honest, giving an age would be silly, because the real answer to this question is not based on age, but on experience... more of a mental maturity level than a measurement of the amount of time you've been on this planet. There are certain times in life that tend to push this maturity level higher, though some people react in the opposite manner.
There are many of this type of event, and some of them can happen at wildly different ages. There are two that tend to happen at a relatively young age, though, that I think are good to go through before getting married: graduating from school and living on your own.
Graduating includes both high school and college. Graduating from high school certainly brings changes, even if you are going to college, but the real changes are felt when you are done with school entirely, when you are pushed to enter real life. This is also often the time when you first move out and live on your own.
At that point, you have the freedom, and responsibility, of choosing your own job and your own path through life. You have the choice of where to work, what to do, and what work ethic you are going to have.
With this freedom, of course, come the consequences of acting upon it. These consequences may be good or bad, but either way, they fall on you directly as a consequence of your own actions, rather than it filtering through your parents or teachers, forcing you to mature as you learn to deal with the impact of your actions directly.
Both of these events can, and often do, happen at about the same time, and both of them make you more aware of the world and yourself. That makes you better able to judge whether someone is right for you, your soul mate with whom you will spend the rest of your life.
So there is no "magic age" at which it is okay to get married, and you don't even need to wait for after you graduate and move out on your own. The real secret is the maturity level, and if your maturity is high enough without those experiences (and only someone who really knows you could tell you), that's great. If your maturity is low enough, even being well into middle-age is not really enough.
This is the other side of the question, which also seems to come up more often for young people. There is no universal answer for this one, either, but I have a couple of suggestions to make.
The first one, which I suggest VERY strongly, is that you wait for at least six months before you even get engaged. The reason for this is simple: the first few months of a new relationship are filled with euphoria, happiness, and a general tendency to not just overlook but actually blind yourself and deny that the relationship, and the other person, is anything less than perfect. This can make you think you want to get married to someone, and spend the rest of your life with them, when a few months later you would see more clearly and know that you're just not right, long term.
It's also relatively easy to pretend to be someone other than who you are for a few months, but as time goes by your real self tends to come out, at least occasionally. Seeing that in your significant other can really make you want to back off quick... which is considerably more difficult if you are engaged, and even more so if you are married.
My other suggestion is that you be engaged for six months or more before you actually tie the knot. This gives you time to adjust to the idea of being together forever, which can alter the relationship and the way you interact with each other. Taking the time while engaged lets you see if the idea of being together forever holds up when it is a lot more real.
No one can really make that call but you. That being said, the advice above, if followed, can help you to be more ready for marriage, and more able to determine whether or not the person that you're with is the one for you.
Marriage is the biggest thing in your life, once you enter into it... please take the time to make sure you get it right.
