» Relationships

Accepting misery might be your key to relationship happiness in 2008

Rebecca — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 09:00:02 +0000

It’s true. You might find that accepting a little misery might make you happier. A friend of mine had a parallel though, “You know Becki, sometimes you just know you are going to take a beating”.

How comforting.

Anyway, in a wonderful article from one of the world’s last bastions of independant news, The BBC, came this report from June of 2007. It’s good medicine for all our relationships in 2008. As published in the Journal of Marriage and Family Therapy, researchers from California State University, Northridge and Virginia Tech say expecting and accepting life’s miserable times are better than striving for perfection.

Some of the findings were surprising, if not shocking, so brace yourselves:

There is no way to avoid suffering in our relationships. You simply cannot have a perfect marriage, relationship or friendship

No relationships can be in a perfect state of happiness. All relationships eventually have very hard times

The mental health industry appears to be perpetuating the myth that with enough work (or medication) we can be always happy

It is “fantasy” that any relationship could be perfect and that striving for such an impossible state could lead to bitter disappointment.

You may read the full report at the BBC by visiting the article at their site here. The relationships experts recommended meditation as a help to ease pressure in expectations. One would think a good shot of bourbon might help too.

A little note can bring relationship strength

Rebecca — Thu, 12 Apr 2007 11:17:59 +0000

Okay, if you’ve had your coffee here’s a riddle…

What is one of the simplest things you can do for another person but it’s impact is larger than you’d expect?
Takes two minutes to write but two days to fret over what to say?
Can be sent fastest electronically but best by postal mail

Figure it out? Well it’s the simple “thank you”.

The “thank you note” seems to be fading into the distance as a standard tool of communication in business and inter-personal relationships but it’s one of the most important tools to strengthen a relationship with someone in any sphere (staff at Beck’s Cafe take note!!)

According to Kim Izzo, etiquette columnist, during an interview with Oprah on Thank You notes (see that interview at Oprah’s site here), “It’s making the effort. People really appreciate getting mail that’s not a bill, for one thing, and just taking that extra bit of time to write a thank you note really means everything.”

So how do jumpstart this so you to can say “thank you”?

Do it right away: That’s right, as soon as you’ve got a minute (and think consciously about making that minute by the way) do it. What’s the max time you can wait and send a Thank You? According to Ceri Marsh, etiquette columnist, “give yourself a week because if you wait longer then you put it off another week and then you feel dumb about acknowledging it. People like a thank you note more than they even like a gift”. (source: Oprah: Thank You Note Etiquette)

Write it by hand That’s right, even if you scrawl like a physician do it the old fashion way; pen to paper IF you know their snail mail address. If you don’t, then an email or e-card are reasonable fall-backs. According to Jill Bremer of Bremer Communications, a professional image development and presentation skills coaching firm, “The impact of a handwritten thank-you note is often overlooked in today’s fast-paced “why-write-something-when-I-can-email-it” world. A note written promptly and sincerely is an important ritual of etiquette that is much more effective and appreciated than a phone call or electronic message. Yes, we have a lot of technology at our fingertips, but just because we can do that way doesn’t mean we should”. (source: Thank-You Note Etiquette, Jill Bremer, AICI, CIP, Bremer Communications )

Do it for gifts, acts of kindness or friendship, or just because. Often times we don’t do it as we aren’t sure how. And usually the ideas on how to do it are tailored only for thank you notes for gifts. But substitute “gift” for act of kindness or friendship and any concepts on how to write a thank you note applies. Susan Dunn, MA, A Professional Life Coach has this advice (remember substitute the word “gift” for some other act of kindness and her advice applies universally too), “When you write the note, mention the gift or gifts specifically. Mention some way that you will use it, or what it meant to you, how much you love the color red, or how you’ve been wanting to read that book”. (source and examples: “How to write a Thank You note and Why“, Susan Dunn, MA, Professional Life Coach, Emotional intelligence & Etiquette

So get your pen in hand and paper on the desk today, you’ll improve your relationships with this simple act.

Thank You for reading

Move from voice to IM to cooldown a talk

Rebecca — Fri, 10 Nov 2006 23:15:45 +0000

You know when your conversation with your colleague is going down hill. Your voice pitch goes up and your focus on facts goes down. Your heart starts beating faster. If you have a stress ball nearby you start squeezing it such that your fingers leave permanent indents in the ball itself.

Generally the conversation starts well enough only to slowly climb the “Ladder of Conversational Intensity” as depicted in this hand graphic:

This does not sound or look like the description of a market beating collaborative session?

So what to do?

One suggestion is slip back to IM - yep, that’d be Instant Messaging.

The thought goes something like this. When your conversation is so intense, and escalates to such a degree that you can’t get past the emotions to have a very important conversation then you need to have some way to remove the friction points of emotion. You also want the conversation to occur in real time, not via email. Enter in IM. You could use Skype (my personal fav), Yahoo IM, GoogleTalk, MSN IM, whatever, but going to that medium can accomplish a few things:

It removes the emotions. You can’t hear the frustration in real time so while you might still “hear” the other person’s voice, you don’t actually hear it so that may reduce the intensity.

Typing makes you think. you have to slow down and think as you type. That makes you think twice about what your going to say.

Typing via IM makes forces your tongue and brain to come back into synch. Ever had a situation whereby your tongue started to let flow communication seemingly on it’s own? That’s what we are trying to avoid here.

So give it a try next time your relational interaction is getting too hot, a little IM may cool you both off and allow you to talk about the issue once again.

(Angry smiley face and source material for graphic courtesy of WP Clipart, thoughts to get me thinking on this from Phil Wolff over at Skype Journal)

Internet breaks not builds friendships - what’s your take?

Rebecca — Sun, 10 Sep 2006 01:42:25 +0000

It’s a pretty common, yet cyclical theme to beat on the internet as the reason why some parts of our society is in decline. I don’t know this for a fact, but I’d bet a tray of my chocolate chip cookies that the telephone and TV were probably blamed for damaging some part of our society too. Any new technology that comes onto the scene is, generally, neutral in it’s effect on society. It’s how people use it that determines it’s impact whether positive or negative.

So it came as no surpise to me see a recent article in Network World magazine entitled, “Study: Internet partly to blame for your lack of close friends“. The study, as you might have read in the June 23rd, 2006 edition of Network World or as originally published in the American Sociological Review, was done by by sociologists at Duke University and the University of Arizona.

In the study, the researchers conclude that:

Increased use of the Internet, along with the number of hours people are spending at work, are factors contributing to a drastic decline in the number of close friends that Americans have.

I don’t think anyone would argue about the hours at work piece. With downsizing, rightsizing and efficiency re-work programs in place, more people do less work now than ever before (or the work gets pushed down to customers under the guise of automated customer service, see a sad example of that practice at this article I posted on that topic at this link HERE).

But the internet reducing person-to-person contact? Lets look at that again. The researchers note that, “New technology links people over greater distances, but cuts into face-to-face meeting time, the researchers said”. I’d have to say that all depends on the sub-community using the technology and how they are using it. Certainly the risk for people living holed up not seeing daylight exists and cases have been documented. But what about communities of people that are already isolated by society anyway?

In communities that are already isolated,(perhaps by geography, or in case of the transgender community, or perhaps autism, or other non-mainstream sectors of our society where person-to-person contact is very important for figuring out what is wrong then doing something about it), I would suggest that the internet acts as a strong bridge that can bring together people for person to person relationship building. I can only talk to my experience in the transgender community of course.

When I was first coming to grip with what was going on I didn’t know a single person or even where to turn to for help. I thought I was really in trouble. Well, after some snooping on the web I found out that not only wasn’t I as messed up as originally thought, there were others out there too. Relationships started on the net and soon grew to in person. Fears had to be conquered, “what if they don’t like me in person”? Then our groups of friends introduced each other to others and the snowball grew. Did I have to be careful? Sure, that’s the common sense approach to any relationship building where it starts in a relatively anonymous manner like the internet. But over time I learned who was real and who wasn’t and today I’m face-to-face friends with these and many others. All because the internet provided a bridge to others that didn’t otherwise exist.

So what is your experience?

(Brunel Bridge pic courtesy of didbygraham’s photo’s, used under Creative Commons license)

Understanding and coping with mourning in transgender relationships

Rebecca — Mon, 12 Jun 2006 22:22:59 +0000

I don’t know when it hit me exactly, and frankly I’m still not sure I get it completely. But to a large degree those around me are mourning my death. Or to be more frank, the death of a part of me. That part is my male person.

What is hard to understand from my perspective is that I’m the same me I’ve been all along, indeed I’m more me than the me that was before (body wise there’s more of me too - but let’s not go there). There was a time not too long ago when my ability to function was greatly impaired and reduced to finding appropriate male models to work from in order to get through the day. That becomes embarrassing when you pick the wrong one and debilitating when you can’t find one at all. Bizarre as this sounds, this was my way of coping - then that didn’t work anymore. Fast forward to today and my current status as “trans-person”, not full time but definitely someone who is grappling with this issue on a day to day basis sometimes successfully and sometimes not. While it’s very common for those of us who are transgendered to focus on ourselves I’m often way more concerned about the people I love so much and what their reactions are and how they are doing through this. And you know what, sometimes their reactions are emotionally incredibly painful to me. And I think I’ve finally understood why.

What I’ve learned is that, for you or I who are transgendered, there is a grieving process for those around us with whom we’ve decided to share our unique nature. My therapist warned me of this but I never really listened I don’t think. I’m not an expert, I’m a learner, but some of this might be helpful to you too.

When you look for a listing of the stages of grief you’ll see there are five of them, and they have an order and a varying intensity depending on the person and what the scenario is. They are:

Stages of Grief

Grief Stage	Description
Denial	First stage in the grief process. Generally characterized as numbness, avoidance, isolation or direct denial. The stage of “simply cannot believe the loss (or news) is true”. The general line is, “you cannot possibly be like those transgendered folk.
Anger	Some of the denial has been gotten past, now it’s a function of anger. Angry at the fact the spouse or friend has GID, anger at the spouse or friend for being transgendered at all. Anger at this transgendered person, this stranger for upsetting everyone’s lives. In an odd sense, in my experience, the people who are angry at us in this stage are seeing us as two people and they are very upset with the “new” second person. In some cases, with male-to-female trans-folk, the wife may feel this other “person” is the other woman. That causes alot of strife in the home. In the end, someone or something is to blame and anger is levied.
Bargaining	Here there is simply an attempt to get back what was lost or further work to find who is to blame, who the culprit is. It’s not un-common to hear things like, “If only I had just â€¦.” or “I wish we could haveâ€¦.” or “Maybe if I do thisâ€¦.” In some cases the two (or three or more) who are bargaining with the trans-person may be coming to some point where this won’t be an issue for anyone, or some balance can be reached. Even the trans-person wants this. Somtimes that happens even. But the grieving process seems to occur anyway, even at some level. Somtimes what seems to happen is that there is one sided bargaining, “if you do not chage or adjust, you will lose “x” “.
Depression	You are simply, sad - and so are those who are grieving around you, with you, for you, because of you. It generally follows denial, anger, and bargaining when we feel helpless and hopeless to stop the loss. It may include crying, withdrawal, or any other way that expresses sadness.
Acceptance	It seems that before acceptance is reached, the grief cycle is in fact cycled through many times to lesser and lesser intensity. At this stage and to some extent, those involved have re-thought out what this loss is all about. This does not mean that sadness is gone, it may return from time to time, but the sadness is now a part sort of a part of those involved but does not keep people from functioning normally most of the time. Eventually, the intensity may fade but may never go away.

While this is a list, a linear, logical list, ordered for readability, grief is not linear. The grievers don’t just grieve about something then go to the next step and be done with it. It’s a cyclical sloping effect. See this chart for what I mean:

What this means is that the stages are cycled through again and again, with lessening intensity, until some level of completion is reached. But what can you do to help those around you? As the trans-person, you probably ache to help the ones grieving depending on where they are in the process. You may in fact be a grieving trans-person yourself. You might not be sure what is going on, what is happening with your emotions, even if you are not on hormone replacement therapy yet (if ever you even do that). You may be grieving the loss of your own self even or the fear of loss of what is around you. You may even be celebrating and joyous over your new found peace and wholeness, yet, you find you grieve the pain that others are going through trying to come to grips with who you are. This is very real for many of us in the transgendered community.

What to do?

Be patient with them and with yourself. This is going to take time. You cannot force this. I have and it’s not pretty.

Amputation is as ugly as it sounds. You can amputate the relationship of course - as the other person or persons can you. Sometimes it’s so painful you wish you were dead. But in my opinion, there is some potential growth here for everyone in the grieving process. But I won’t kid you, it hurts about as bad as anything you’ve ever experienced.

Never raise your voice, they may, you can’t, this is like pouring iodine on an open wound. A wound you did not cause - this is not your fault - but that is very real for some of those around you.

Don’t close the doors between you and the other person(s). Understand that a closed door does one thing - kill communication. I’ve been in abusive relationships before and sometimes you just have to walk away, but be certain this is what you must do.

You need a listening ear; and so do they. You need someone to vent to, cry with, complain with. You will sound like the proverbial broken record but you need people with whom you can confide and open up to about the grief you have and the grieving you are the target of. The other persons need people too. This took courage on my part as I was allowing others to actually out me publicly. I had to trust them. It was a gamble, but I hurt so bad for the others in my life and yearned for their own relief (even as I grappled to understand it) that I was willing to take a risk. I would encourage you to do so as well as you feel you can.

Pray. I know, I know, maybe I’m being overly religious and in no way am I a saint. But you might want to consider doing this. And if you can do it with the hurt person, you might find some walls slowly crumbling.

Please, drop a comment to let others who read this article know what you’ve done to cope, it will help someone I’m sure.

Creating Connections

Rebecca — Mon, 08 May 2006 01:34:00 +0000

“At the end of their lives, people never wished they’d spent more time at the office”. Well, how many times have you heard that one? And how many times did it impact you, cause you to pause a second to think, to reconsider what you were doing with your time. What I’ve found though is that as much as your heart intent, at that moment, is very real, the next step action is often either terrifying “what if they reject me?” or unknown. The internet “age” is a great thing. Hey I can publish right here at Beck’s Cafe and you, tea or latte in hand, can relax and read. Hopefully it’s at least entertaining! But there’s a drawback to this age we are in. It’s called isolation. True, the internet brings new connections with people we would not otherwise be connected to (and my life has been immeasurable enriched by such people whom I’ve only met through my blog, through their blog, or from online groups). But I personally love it when I can call a girlfriend up and then 60 minutes later we are sipping on Vietnamese soup and sharing our lives.

So a piece on Oprah’s website that was short and to the point, in slide show version, was a welcome read. Short on preaching and guilt and long on short practical reminders of what we all know to be true to keep relationships connected. I loved some of these snippets:

“No time for a family vacation? You can start connecting with loved ones by expressing your feelings more oftenâ€¦whether it’s with a big bear hug or a simple “I love you.” Cherish the quality time you have with your family and try to avoid petty disagreements. “

“Do you know the story behind your great-aunt’s secret recipe? Holidays are the perfect time to find out! Many families come together to celebrate major holidays and share foods that have been passed down from generation to generation. Ask your elders to share the stories behind your favorite family traditions and foods with the children at the dinner table. This helps instill a sense of family pride.”

Many of the suggestions apply to families. What if you don’t have a family? Well make one! A glib statement I know, but what I’m referring to is a family of friends, perhaps those who are also disconnected from their families who need to be with people instead of isolated and alone. You can reach the article on Oprah’s site at this link here.

(Photo used courtesy of Rat Ranch Photos, used under Creative Commons License)

Opinions? He’s got ‘em!

Rebecca — Tue, 26 Jul 2005 05:07:25 +0000

I was sitting in front of two couples while flying to Canada tonight. I was just finishing some work and I heard it, and I cringed.

Wife of 1st couple: “I think that’s our house isn’t it?”

Husband of 1st couple: “Nope that’s not it”

Wife of 1st couple: “I think it is, I really do”

Husband of 1st couple: “No way, I’m a pilot and know my directions cold and where we are at. Look we are going to start
banking now to prepare for decent”

Wife of 2nd couple: “we must be near York”

Husband of 1st couple: “nope, there’s no way. I’m very certain of this” < stating himself as the expert>

Wife of 1st couple: “let her say what is on her mind, she might be right”

I found the exchange humorous but grating. Actually it started humorous then grew to grate on my nerves and it made me think. Sometimes, it’s just better to get along than to be right. Some people (both men and women) have a tendency to want to be the expert - to be right. It’s nice to be right. I used to like being right all the time - then I found out I was actually only right half the time, the other times people were just humoring me.

Did it really matter if we were over York, or Peel or Saskatchewan? If we were in the pilot seat, yeah it’d matter a ALOT! But we weren’t. So maybe it’s not such a big deal if we don’t get our way all the time, if maybe we just say “Hey maybe we are over York”. You might be wrong, but it might make things just a little nicer for the other person (unless of course it’s the pilot!)