The bottom line is that relational thought is much more complex than associative thought because it allows us to fabricate relations in the abstract and combine them into vast networks.

Language was not learning to associate, it was learning to relate.

Thank you for sharing that with me, for trusting me with it. I feel closer to you when I know what you feel, even when what you are feeling is hard for you to share and hard for me to hear.

I developed a variation of this method for use in large workshops that you could do with a few trusted friends. I ask people to line up facing each other in two long lines, say of twenty or thirty people each, and I request that they each look at the badge of the person in front of them for a few seconds and consider the pain and damage that the

What this often leads to is that we create stories about ourselves and our lives that block out the discomfort and ambiguity of the true complexity of situations.

Disappearing into the now is not what we mean by mindfulness—rather it is attention to the now that is flexible, fluid, and voluntary. It allows us to consider the past, and the future also, but to keep bringing our attention back to the present.

Instead, exposure assists with developing a new relationship to the source of pain or fear by being able to observe, describe, and accept our emotional reactions.

The first step in making the pivot is to become aware of just how automatic and complicated our thought processes are.

Second, rigidity makes it more difficult to learn from your emotions.