₦airaland Forum

How it all adds up....

In all of these hidden issues thereis a common theme, whether care, or respect, or interest, or play, or attention, or power: acceptance . We are social creatures and the central question of all human existence is:Do you accept me? Am I OK with you? Do you embrace me, or do you push me away? What is my future with you? Are you a refuge, a safe harbor? Or do I have to worry about being alienated from you?


At the core of the human psyche and soul is the yearning for the continuationand fulfillment of the unconditionallove often provided for us as infants. We are born of parents whom nature, at its best, provides with instinct and wisdom that they may lovingly respond to our needs--simply because we are. Beginning within the womb and beyond, when things go the way nature intended, we experience ourselves as given-to as though we were a pure gift of joy to our human companions who are pleased with us and we with them.


This is the imprint by which all our social life, and most centrally our marriage life, is measured.

Attention:

If you are to learn better to attend and be attended to, you must become aware that listening, indeed, is your deficiency. You need to check out your narcissism to see just how self-absorbed you are and how effectively you take in what is real about your partners.


In many households, persons go weeks without ever so much as inquiring after their partners feelings or even their everyday experiences. Are you one of these? And if you feel you are rarely attended to, pay close attention to your experience, are you often wishing for more or different than your partner can give? If all else fails, ask your partner if he or she feels attended to and known. If you and she are not reassured by her response, then undertake a course of training--with friends, therapists, family, books--to see if you actually want learn and develop the courage and skill of empathy.

Play:


Play is the purest and fullest expression of joy--the most basicpositive emotion. There are many forms of play. Sexuality may headthe list, but not far behind is walking around the block, enjoying family rituals, laughing over the comics, watching a child grow up, matching rhythms and harmonies with one another.


Play is pure; it is without pretense; it aspires to be nothing but itself. Itis nature's way of letting us knowwe are in the flow of experience. To play together is both to be in sync with the world and one another. We become couples, in large measure, because we play well together. Whether we are attending a lecture, going to the beach, or venturing into Eros, the compelling meeting between two persons can best be described as play. Persons are attracted to each other, not because they work well on projects together, but because they enjoy playing with one another.

Interest:

A common way of describing a relationship is when persons acknowledge being "interested" in each other. "Interesting" covers alot of territory. Though nature may have first created interest to assure replication of life, sex, recasts as interest, extends far into realms as diverse as intellectual complexity, athletic skills, winsome personality, and playing a mean game of chess.


One of our strongest drives is thecompulsion away from boredom. Losing interest defines depression. Research indicates that affairs are seldom primarily sexually motivated. Most often they are persons' attempts either to stimulate their life, or having lost a feeling of being desired in their relationship, discover if one can still be attractive to other partners.


Nothing flattens a couples energy more than to have lost interest in one another--if the trend continues downward, persons can lose interest in being alive. How can you make the uninteresting interesting? By paying acute attention. Anything looked at up close and personal isinteresting. If something is interesting it sparks our creativity, it brings out our most primitive organismic sense of pleasure in relating to reality outside of ourselves. Interest brings us into heart and mind augmenting connection with the world. And persons are infinitely interesting for they are in continual ferment, discarding old and taking on new forms in a cacophony of novelty and growth.


Love is continually renewing interest. How many good films do you see where there is no "love interest." (Note, "love-interest"--it's almost a single word.) Interest is the life of relationships. Lose interest, deathof the relationship. How do you retain and engender interest? By being willing to be open for it. By not expecting the other person to carry the full responsibility of being "interesting" to us. It is just as true--and perhaps a truth of more import--to say that you are responsible for your own ability to be interested. The lazy brain is the uninterested brain.


Further if you are not interested you hardly accept the other as he is, for you are always looking for"something else" to carry you outof your stupor of disinterest

Respect:

Respect means liking and affirmingyour partner for who he or she isin the world. Of course, being separate creatures with our own prejudices and definitions, some things about others we like, somewe do not. But loving relationshipsthat are truly satisfying are founded on mutual respect. We need to feel that others believe the attitudes we have, the professions we pursue, the charities we support, the jokes we tell are, for the most part, pleasing to them. If this is not happening, then there is a major problem brewing. People kill each other when they feel disrespected, and couples kill theirmarriage when disrespect prevails. If you feel that respect in your relationship is becoming thin, takea long look at yourself and attempt to understand just how deep this disrespect goes. Have you, for some time, been feeling negative about how you partner leads her life, and have you been less than direct about it? Or perhaps you can look within yourself, at your own values. If you are failing to respect your partner, you may want to examine your behavior and see if you are emphasizing negative things to the detriment of the positive.


Sometimes things are correctable, but you must address problems before the toxins of disrespect have ravagedyour connection. If you want to develop respect, there is no better way to begin than frankly talking with your partner about your failings in this arena and beginning to construct a new basis for respect. If you can't findit, then you are indeed in trouble.

nature-em:
How Care, Respect, Interest,Play, Attention, and Power Determine Success and Failure in Our Relationships. Money, sex, in-laws, vacations, communication, children--these head the list of explicit concerns couples struggle with in their marriage. But there are deeper and more significant issues. Often these are hidden from direct discussion or awareness. Care, respect, interest, play, attention,and power are the real issues couples have. These are the themes that make for happiness or misery, that fulfill or destroy dreams. Couples who have harmony in these realms have relationships that hold together, breed vitality, and foster creativity. We are creatures driven by invisible currents, often imperceptible to the casual or theinattentive observer. A case-in-point: What may seem to be a couple's routine argument about which movie to see may be a hidden power struggle. One partner feels that she has been capitulated too many times to herhusband's preferences, even though in a less competitive moment his first choice would also have been hers. In this article I will define and illustrate what I consider to be six below-the-surface issues in marriage and offer observations on how we might approach consciously living-out these themes in less destructive and more positive ways.

care:

Caring is the constant and tenderministrations that we all look for in our partners. In many couples the most fundamental question is:Does she or he care enough?


How precious is the statement that"He really does care." How poignant the transparent defensive posturing, "I really don'tcare what she does." We need forpersons to intend the best for usand to have us in their minds andto carry out acts of caring. The absence of caring breeds shame and worthlessness. Explicit issues of being home for dinner when expected, taking out the garbage, driving slowly when one's partner is anxious about speed, or speedily when one's partner is anxious about dawdling, are not "little things" but significant carriers of caring feelings. These are as intensely important, as urgent as the deepest demands of the human heart. In fact, that's what they are. "I care for you." "He doesn't care for me." These are among the tenderest, most sought, and mostfeared sentiments persons express to one another. When caring behaviors become sparse, couples are fading in their vital attachment to one another.


Caring behaviors are those acts subtle or blunt by which we convey to the other that we wishhis or her happiness, safety, fulfillment. It is caring to feel deeply for our partner's most searing fears and griefs; it is also caring to listen to her talk about her high school reunion. Caring is wishing the person well and actingto back up that wish. When we care we go the proverbial extra mile.


Caring also conveys, implicitly,commitment, for caring is being present to the other as long as we are needed. We "are needed" a long, long time. Few in-love couples pre-arrange their breaking-up. Take a look at your relationship. Do your feel cared for? Do you care deeply about your mate? Talk with your partner and let him tell you how he feels. Summonthe courage to hear that she may not feel nearly so cared about as your have imagined.


In fact, you may have forgotten actually to care, and you may have become so used to being in an uncaring marriage that you aren't even paying attention to the state of caring between you. Examine what has happened to your caring. Did it evaporate? Was it ever there?. How does your caring interweave with other themes of your relationship--with power and respect, for example? What do you need to do, to have your partner do, before caring can be revived? Do you need the help of a guide or therapist? Is it worth your investment of energy? Are you really serious about trying? And if so, how will you begin? Howmuch energy will you give to realizing this possibility?

How Care, Respect, Interest,Play, Attention, and Power Determine Success and Failure in Our Relationships.


Money, sex, in-laws, vacations, communication, children--these head the list of explicit concerns couples struggle within their marriage. But there are deeper and more significant issues.


Often these are hidden from direct discussion or awareness. Care, respect, interest, play, attention,and power are the real issues couples have. These are the themes that make for happiness or misery, that fulfill or destroy dreams.


Couples who have harmony in these realms have relationships that hold together, breed vitality, and foster creativity. We are creatures driven by invisible currents, often imperceptible to the casual or the inattentive observer.


A case-in-point: What may seem to be a couple's routine argument about which movie to see may be a hidden power struggle. One partner feels that she has been capitulated too many times to her husband's preferences, even though in a less competitive moment his first choice would also have been hers.


In this article I will define and illustrate what I consider to be six below-the-surface issues in marriage and offer observations on how we might approach consciously living-out these themes in less destructive and more positive ways.

Gen 1 v 1, inda beginning God created heaven & earth.

My advise 2 all u muslim brethens. Pls in d name of Allah ask ur middle east leaders to translate d holy book Qu'ran in its original version to a language u all can understand like ur mothers tongue and read. I promise u all by d time u r tru reading u all would prefer to b a sango wosshiper than u being a muslim because its full of darkness that are being kept away 4rm u n that is why u all r not recognised as muslim by d middle east.

Half of d populace will be dead already Crazy kuntry

When late MKO and IBB decided to bury a ship fully loaded with bible a single leaf didn't drop. Must every reaction be violence?

Filmmaker's fake identity unravels quickly The man whose anti-Muslim film ignited a wave of violence is not Israeli — nor is he named "Sam Bacile." - yahoo

maasoap: You should talk to him anytime he comes out from his hide out. Nobody said the killing was okay or justified in any sense but the producer and the sponsors of the movie knew what they were getting into. Okay, what were they trying to achieve, or what point were they trying to make?

lets hope dis die down and doesn't lead 2 world war 3.

maasoap: Islam means peace but you've got to respect peace. When you disturb peace, you get crisis, unrest and insecurity. Don't you get it that you guys are disturbing peace? This insane christian man spent 5million US dollars just to disturb peace and you never even wonder why he would that.

should u pple kill because of dat e fit b ur family.

maasoap: Okay now, it has been confirmed he is a christian using false name. Any new line of defence?

he's not a christian he's a jewishAmerican

Tension mounts in Kaduna and Jos over movie protest. Alot of houses burnt and u pple say Islam is peace.

This thread don catch fire. The viewers too many as if na ucl final

bodman4us: A frnd cald me dis mrng dat d list is out...getn 2 d cafe d site is nt openin.hpe d list is 2ruly out.

when u get a confirmation let us know

They're planning 2 start d third world war

Do any 1 have d link 2 d video

Topso1: Tomorrow is my birthday may be d list want to cum out tomorrow as my birthday gift.

we hope so and HBD in adv.

Very funny thread

Just a prove that technology rule d world[color=#006600][/color]

Pls guyz, the photocopy required for is it coloured or black and white?

hi guyz, had 60% going 4 bus edu and my catment is 60 can i appear on merit list?

Guys my agg is 60% am going 4 Bus Admin what are my chances?

i have 60 percent and i want 2 study bus admin what are my chances

I need help to clarify my thoughts about my girl, everytime she tells me she loves me but her actions does not justify that. Everytime i ask for her phone that i want to send some pictures and music, she would rather do them herself than to give me her phone. Fortunately for me, we both sat together outside our church compound with some friends when she stood up forgetting that she had dropped her phone. I decided to check her phone only to discover that she's been sending and receiving alot of heart touching love sms from 4 other guys but everytime we talk we discuss most about the future together. Please, what do i do about this love confessing girlfriend.

Am greatly in need of a computer engineer in abeokuta which i can do my IT with.