If the Paris agreement falters and we are forced to wait another decade for a new one, we would have no way of avoiding a dangerous and increasingly unstable future. Far from damaging the US economy as President Trump argues, the Paris agreement offered it a lifeline. Sadly, it’s a lifeline that Trump has just thrown away.
It’s National Trails Day, so lace up the shoes, invite some friends, and #FindYourWay on the nearly 60,000 miles of trails that honor our country’s diverse landscape and history. One of the first in the National Trails System, the Appalachian National Scenic Trail is a 2,180 mile long footpath that stretches from central Maine to northern Georgia. The trail traverses the scenic, wooded, pastoral, wild, and culturally resonant lands of the Appalachian Mountains. It’s great for a short day hike or thru-hiking the entire length – either way you’ll enjoy some spectacular scenery. Check out more great trails: https://on.doi.gov/USATrails
Photo from Mcafee Knob on the AT in Virginia by Nathan Farber (http://ift.tt/18oFfjl).
You’re reading The Power of Positive Communication in Marriage, originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. If you’re enjoying this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles.
Think of your words as bricks. Each time you say something encouraging, you can add a brick. But each time you criticize, you have to take a brick away. If you had to build a house based on your current level of communication in your marriage, how long would it take?
Hopefully that illustration offers a glimpse of just how important positive communication in marriage is. We already know that validating and reinforcing positive behavior works to help develop children’s brains and promotes happiness. Why would that stop as adults? While our brains are like sponges as children, even as adults we are constantly learning and readjusting based on our experiences. If they are positive, then we react and build a positive life. If all we hear or experience is negative, while we can be pretty resilient for a while, eventually the bricks tumble.
So you know that being a positive person and speaking positively to your spouse are good things for your marriage. But what exactly does positive communication look like on a daily basis? Here are some practical applications and how much power they can have in your marriage. Practice them often until they become second nature, and the impact on your marriage will be amazing.
Maybe you think your spouse knows you love them; and surely they probably do. But hearing it really solidifies that feeling. It’s not easy for most people to say the words, so when you reach outside of your comfort zone and declare them whole heartedly to your spouse, it means the world. It makes them smile and melts their heart, and they realize that faults and all, they are the one for you. That’s powerful.
When you come together after being apart, even if it’s just at the end of the day when coming home from work, greet each other with enthusiasm. It’s really more in the tone than in the exact wording you choose. But make it a point to hug, kiss, say hello, and ask about their day right when you see them. It gives them a sense of belonging and makes them feel wanted. A person who feels like their spouse cares can get through any other negative issue they just left at work because they have full support at home.
Many times we listen in order to formulate our own response; we want to appear smart and be noticed. But that’s not the point of those times our spouse comes to us with a problem or concern. Most of the time, they just need a listening ear, and they need validation that what they are feeling is more or less normal. So offer a listening ear without thinking of a reply. Simple look into your spouse’s eyes and nod and react appropriately. Only offer advice if your spouse specifically asks for it. But even then ask questions to help your spouse formulate their own answer. Most of the time they already know what they should do, they just need your encouragement to go through with it. Listening is a powerful tool in marriage communication, so use it often.
There will be times when you don’t agree with your spouse—that much is certain. But how you handle it can lead to a negative outcome or a positive one. Let’s say you’re at the dinner table, and one of the children has acted out harshly. The two of you aren’t in agreement with how to punish your child. Rather than raising your voice or interrupting the other, listen carefully and see if you can negotiate a compromise. Better yet, take the discussion to another room so you can have a chance to think about it and come together away from your child. Don’t resort to negative behaviors to get your way; your way isn’t necessarily “right.” It’s more important to treat your spouse with respect. Your spouse will appreciate your kindness and the tone of your house will be so much more positive. That, in turn, will affect how your family treats others. Talk about powerful.
Remember the days when your mom would tell you how awesome your art project was, even though it didn’t quite rival Picasso? What if as spouses we could offer the same sort of praise or encouragement? Of course, we need to be realistic and not offer false hope; but we must tell our spouse how much we admire and love what they do. “You work so hard, honey. I bet you are the best manager they’ve seen in a while,” or “Thanks for dinner. It was sure delicious!” are just a few examples of ways we can praise and encourage each other in the everyday things. As a result, our spouse will feel good and continue on the path of behavior in that avenue. You can bet that spouse will work even harder at his job and be a positive influence on his co-workers, and you can bet that home chef will continue to look for great recipes to feed the family. A win-win for everyone, all thanks to positive communication in marriage.
You’ve read The Power of Positive Communication in Marriage, originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. If you’ve enjoyed this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles.
Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band turns fifty this week, the Beatles’ innovative and historic album — it was the first rock LP to win Album of the Year at the Grammys — released on June 1, 1967. Some musicologists argue that Sgt. Pepper is rock’s first great “concept album,” and many biographers agree that its most essential concept, given the Beatles’ love-ballad, tour-driven, fame-enslaved lives, was escape. The whimsy of having the Fab Four masquerade as an Edwardian show band came to Paul McCartney as he was returning from his own masquerade, a holiday in Africa during which he had traveled incognito. The group leaped at the chance to get off the road and into the studio, where they hoped to deepen the technical and cultural complexity of their music beyond the usual pop song constraints.
For Paul and John Lennon, says Steve Turner in Beatles ’66: The Revolutionary Year, the creative work on Sgt. Pepper was also an opportunity to get back to where they once belonged:
What gave the Beatles different ambitions? It had a lot to do with their arts education — Paul studying English literature and art at school and John enrolling in art college. It enlarged their frame of reference sufficiently enough that when they came to compose music, they were able to see themselves simultaneously in the tradition of entertainers and in the tradition of painters, sculptors, film-makers, poets, novelists, and dramatists. It was surely significant that when they made up their list of influential figures for the cover of Sgt. Pepper, the actors (14), writers (11), artists (8), and comedians (6) far outnumbered the musicians (4).
Turner establishes 1966 as revolutionary based on a handful of band-shaping events — not just the release of Revolver and the beginning of work on Sgt. Pepper, but George meeting Ravi Shankar, and John meeting Yoko Ono (and making the “more popular than Jesus” comment that helped to make that year’s tour their last). Jon Savage argues in 1966: The Year the Decade Exploded that the year was a cultural cluster bomb, each of the detonations set off or amplified by a wide range of music. Each of Savage’s twelve chapters is tied to a song; for example, the chapter on the Vietnam War is tied to Barry Sadler’s “The Ballad of the Green Berets,” which was released as a 45 rpm single in 1966, that being “the last year when the 45 was the principal pop music form, before the full advent of the album as a creative and a commercial force was heralded by Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band in summer 1967.”
The Beatles’ “Yesterday” is the top song on BMI’s list of the 50 most performed songs, 1940−90. Jimmy Webb’s “By the Time I Get to Phoenix” is #3, and his “Up Up and Away” is #27. For the title of his recent memoir, Webb turned to neither of these, nor to his equally popular “Wichita Lineman,” but to his 1968 hit “MacArthur Park” and perhaps the most mocked metaphor of the decade:
Someone left the cake out in the rain
I don’t think that I can take it
Cause it took so long to bake it
And I’ll never have that recipe again
Oh, no!
In The Cake and the Rain, Webb describes cruising the ’60s and ’70s in the fast lane — at one point, Glen Campbell was paying him in Corvettes — alongside some of the era’s most famous musicians, producers, and personalities. For many of them, Webb included, it was a bumpy, dependency-driven ride, the cake often commingling with rain in preposterous ways. Like the time Webb and record producer-engineer Gary Kellgren turned the Magnifico, a WWII hospital ship, into a floating recording studio and invited Harry Nilsson, Micky Dolentz (from the Monkees), a handful of legendary West Coast sidemen, and an armful of hangers-on for an overnight cruise up the California coast. After an afternoon of music and margaritas, the group ferried themselves to a seaside restaurant, leaving the sixty-two-ton ship, its lights ablaze to warn away intruders, anchored at sea — or so they thought. As everyone got lost in the wine, the cocaine, and Kellgren’s stories about his recording sessions with Lennon, Jagger, Clapton, and others, someone finally looked up to see “the lights of the Magnifico just disappearing over the horizon.”
The Barnes & Noble Review http://ift.tt/2rtLFPX
If genius means anything anymore—for me it is the union of inexplicably keen insight with an uncanny capacity to say or show what others fail to articulate but everybody knows—then the artist Raymond Pettibon is one, the man of the hour at minutes to midnight on the Doomsday Clock. Fittingly, two exhibitions this spring show an artist obsessed with the larger, grittier, and often hallucinatory contradictions of “this American life.”
Integrity is probably at the center of my core values.
If I’m not being generous, I’m out of integrity. If I’m not being honest, I’m out of integrity. When I’m not showing compassion, I’m out of integrity.
Another way to look at it is if I’m out of integrity, I’m not in alignment with what’s important to me. And to be perfectly honest, I simply can’t function when my integrity is out. My life just doesn’t work.
Now, whether my integrity is out or not is entirely subjective. Logic doesn’t come into it and I can’t talk or justify my way out of feeling out of integrity. If I’m out of integrity, I KNOW I’m out of integrity and no amount of sophistry, understanding, justification or reasoning is going to change that.
It sounds like I’m being really harsh on myself, but that’s not how it is at all. By working on getting myself back in integrity, I’m constantly moving further into alignment.
Things don’t flow when I’m out of integrity. Stuff doesn’t work and I feel blocked. It’s unpleasant when I’m that way. It feels like I’m wading through quicksand.
Half the time, it’s not obvious that I’m being out of integrity and that’s where problems happen. Because my integrity so intrinsically links with everything else, all I know is I feel out of sorts and things feel just not quite right.
I’ve felt like that for a few days now and it’s been getting more and more difficult to achieve or complete anything. Even writing has been difficult and, trust me, I usually have no problems in writing something.
Then I realized: I’m out of integrity.
I gave my word to do something and it hasn’t happened. The reasons for it not happening are completely out of my control, but it’s still my responsibility.
My word, my responsibility. No one’s fault, just my responsibility.
I told someone I’d do something and it hasn’t happened. I’ve communicated with the person and reset the event date 4 times now. It’s still not going to happen and I’m not willing to reset the date again. My integrity is out, not just on sticking to my word but also on another of my core values: fairness.
Even though the reasons are completely out of my control, I don’t feel like I’m being fair to the other person for constantly changing the plan. And I’m feeling awful about it.
I’m feeling awful because my integrity is out and I can’t do anything about it. The other person was very understanding, but it isn’t my fault and I’m not the only one to blame.
But, that’s not the point.
The point is that it’s MY integrity that’s out, therefore, it’s MY integrity that needs mending.
I want to feel good about myself, so I MUST take responsibility. The reason is simple.
I’m taking responsibility, regardless of the fact that not all things and people are under my control because I gave MY word that I’d do something.
Living with knowing that I can’t stand by my word is unacceptable.
I could go down the path of justification, reasonableness, and blame. After all, it’s not entirely my fault.
But, if I do that, then it’s like giving the power over whether I’m true to myself and my core values to someone or something else.
I’m giving the power about how I feel about myself to someone else. It’s like letting someone else have control over my life. And no one should have that power over anyone else.
Only WE know whether we’re being true to ourselves or not.
If you feel that something’s “off”, that life is hard work or just a bit icky, take a long, hard look at yourself. Find out where you’re not being responsible. No matter how ridiculous it seems or no matter how much things are completely out of your control, TAKE RESPONSIBILITY.
Take responsibility for knowing that you’re being true to yourself. Don’t leave it for years like I’ve done in the past. Look at it NOW.
See Also: Taking Ownership: Are You Taking Full Responsibility For Your Life?
I can pretty much guarantee that if life is feeling like hard work for you, it’s because you’re out of integrity SOMEWHERE.
It might be around your values or because you feel like your job isn’t the one for you. You might have given up on a dream, eating poorly or not exercising. You might be in a relationship that you know is not right for you. It might be due to all the things you’re saying in your own head.
So, have a close look and find out where you are running out of integrity.
Don’t waste any more time not feeling completely in the flow. Do something about it NOW.
See Also: Flow: Discovering The Secret to High Performance and Happiness
The post How Lack Of Integrity Can Affect Your Life appeared first on Dumb Little Man.
Sig Nordal 