The Relationship Handbook

For one thing, I want Paula to want to have a child, too. It has to have her blessing too or it wouldn’t be right.

This recollection is bound to bring back the painful feelings that accompanied that event. Now you are both troubled, and you feel distant from the speaker because your attention is on your memories, not on him. Were you to listen to the same story with compassion, you would identify with the general feelings of caring and concern the father feels

If I am with a person and I entertain negative thoughts about how that person lives or is, my positive feelings begin to disappear.

Do you recommend mates helping each other to change? Few couples get away with helping each other to change. Here’s why: to help mates to change, you must totally accept them, as they are. Otherwise, they will resist your judgmental attitude. The inevitable result is an interesting paradox: those who have accepted their mates have low motivation to

Here is an example of high mood therapy in action:

Insecurity is what causes habitual behavior. When Ron feels unsafe or insecure, he lapses into distraction. When he feels secure he finds it easy to be in the moment. We’re all that way.

think

If your mate becomes stubborn, you have to reapply for permission. You need to get a new meeting of the minds.

When thoughts of incompatibility cross our minds, they signal that we are in a low mood. If we were in a high mood we would view differences from the positive end of the chart. In low moods, we would be thinking the statements from the negative end.