I’m going to teach you what to say and do to win a fight. Sticks and stones may break your bones, but words will never hurt you with this street-wise 15-tip guide to shield yourself from verbal brutality:

1. Use mental rehearsal. Psychologists for years have known the power of rehearsing an event in one’s mind before the real thing takes place. By visualizing a conversation before it occurs, you become strong, stubborn, and unmoving to the faults of another person’s illogical logic.

If you know your spouse will accuse you of always thinking about yourself, shout back a time your partner was selfish. If you know your laziness will be sniped, think of all the times you were busy and overworked. Visualize exactly how you’ll start the conversation and counter-attack their moves to corner the person and guarantee yourself victory.

2. The best defense is the best offense. Keep this in mind at all times. Whenever you’re cornered, vulnerable, and prone to damage, enter rampage mode. The mindset here is to steal the ball from the person’s hands and go hard, doing as much damage as you can to make your initial actions look good.

Did your partner spot you sneaking a peak at that young waiter? Tell your woman you wouldn’t oogle at hot women if she wasn’t so boring. The guilt you’ve established in her will make you the victor.

Did your friend accuse you of stealing his beer? Tell him he shouldn’t be a jerk all the time.

Did your boss catch you snooping around on his laptop? You better put your boss in a defensive position before he can fire you. Tell him to let you go free otherwise you’ll report him for the stash of drugs you placed found in his drawer.

3. Dodge like a butterfly… then sting like a bee. When you must be defensive, get ready to dodge. Change topics if you feel you’re losing the fight. Default phrases to help you slide in another topic for discussion include, “That reminds me… “Speaking of…” “Funny you should say that because…” Laughter is another good tool that releases your tension and shows you don’t care even though you’re collapsing inside.

Politicians are your idols at dodging bullets. Model your favorite evasive politician by slipping in random comments that shift the conversational subject to something you desire to speak more of.

4. Build allies. Not all relationships are bad. Relationships are useful when ally parties join to fight for your cause. Establish an ally of coworkers to single out the problematic coworker. Reinforce your point to a stranger by teaming with friends. Martial arguments can be easily won when the children are on your side. With people comes protection and strength.

5. Generalize, distort, and delete what you hear. Good listening is poison to good relationships. Should you accurately hear what someone says, you might discover the truth and start connecting with the person. Yuck.

It’s best you minimize good listening by manipulating information intake with these three tactics:

1. Generalize. Turn one statement into an overarching belief with exaggerations that disorient your victim. They ask, “Can you do the dishes?” You say: “You always make me do the dishes”, “You never do the dishes”, or “All-the-time you control me”.
2. Distort. Alter what they say so they’re the villain and you’re the victim. They say, “I need you to be home on the weekend.” You say: “You don’t want me to have fun”, “You’re trying hard to make me avoid friends”, or “Man, you hate me”.
3. Delete. Simply skip important information. Ignorance is key here. “To succeed in life,” said Mark Twain, “you need two things: confidence and ignorance.”

6. Be extraneously attentive. Just because you should generalize, distort, and delete information when listening, doesn’t mean you fully ignore someone. It’s best you adhere to what teacher of conscious living Richard Moss said: “The greatest gift you can give another is the purity of your attention.” Give people your well-developed attention if you want to win a fight. Your motto here is to “Know more about the enemy than he knows about himself”.

One way to do this is to pick on intricate details that display the person’s imperfection. If you know a girl is insecure about her front teeth, tell her she’s an ugly Bugs Bunny. If a guy mispronounces a word, point it out. If your spouse stumbles over the carpet during an argument, call your uncoordinated other “clumsy”. Be attentive to drill out flaws.

7. Always be right. You’re a perfect human being. Everyone else is a jerk. The moment others learn this, your life will be easy. Until then, you must criticize and complain about other people’s (incorrect) opinions.

Ignore the principle of consistency. You’re not weighed down by past decisions because you’re a clear, rational human being. If other people fail to see how you’re right, it’s because they’re dumb.

If you’re explaining what one plus one equals – and you get it wrong – your job is to contend why one plus one equals a window or how it equals three because of synergistic principles.

8. Never fix a problem you made. Remember, you’re always right, which means whatever you do is how destiny is suppose to play out. Anyone that makes you think otherwise must be verbally stoned. Since there’s no modern day option of a public stoning, you can publicly humiliate them by drawing attention to their faults like how the person has wronged you.

Did your friend accuse you of stealing his girlfriend? It was hardly his girlfriend if she cheated on him. Don’t apologize or amend a mistake because that concedes defeat and makes you look weak. Apologizing has no benefits. It’s in your best interest to leave forgiveness to religious followers.

9. Be your own person never dependent on others. Weak people depend on others, but not you. You’re strong and independent. When you know people are untrustworthy and it’s a dog-eat-dog world out there, the only person you can trust is yourself.

If you want something to get done, it’s up to you. Getting other people to do things is slow anyway. Successful, happy individuals like Bill Gates do everything themselves to ensure things get done the right way.

10. Block out emotion. You’re an unemotional being because emotions have thwarted your survival in the past. Darwin would be proud of your unique evolution.

Crazed females, asylum attendees, and the weak are the ones controlled by emotion. Smart people are the best communicators because they communicate with logic. If another person gets emotional, it’s best you feign ignorance as it’s an attempt to derail you from supremacy. The only time you want to be emotional is when you repeat words at a louder volume.

11. Use superior vocabulary. No one can win an argument against you when you pick apart their delusional misconstructions of rationale at present. Slotting in large words within your vocabulary gives you the added benefit of talking longer, making you more likely to convince another person against his or her will.

12. Be respectful only when you’re respected. When you’re verbally punched, break the rules of good relationships. Throw in a low jab then bite the persons ear because their actions justify your retaliation. Only treat people well when they treat you well. Relationships are an Enron investment to be avoided. Minimize your costs in relationships when possible.

13. Advanced name-calling. Children call others names like “Stupid-head” and “Big ears”. You’re more mature. Use degrading terms, but give them a righteous foundation with clear logic. Think through an insult to leave your opponent prone to follow-up attacks.

14. Start a meta argument. You may run dry on ammunition leaving you with little to attack someone. In these desperate times, shift the argument to a meta state by arguing about how they’re arguing.

If they’re slow to respond to a point, use a Major Payne line, “Ta, ta, ta, today junior!” If they don’t change their mind, call them “thick”. If they misunderstand you, tell them they’re “ignorance is laughable”. With this infinite supply of ammo, you’re guaranteed to shoot down your enemy.

15. Walk away. If all the mentioned techniques fail to win you the argument, give up in disgust and walk away. The person is stubborn, not you.

If you hadn’t figured it out already, this article was a fun jab at our bad habits amidst conflict. If you read just one tip nodding your head in agreement and planning your next conquest, your people skills are in need of serious surgery. Please for your own sake, get my Communication Secrets of Powerful People program.

Other Articles That Might Help You

1. How to Correctly Apologize
2. The Complete Nonviolent Communication (NVC) Process for Compassion, Understanding, and Peace

To survive and thrive in the workplace, at business, and around family you must know how to deal with people who prefer to negate “negative feelings”; overlook the reality of tension, disagreement, and resentment; and put a rosy-glow on everything. Conflict is unavoidable even to those who avoid it because our differences in culture, values, needs, and perspectives make us human.

If you or others aim for conflict avoidance, it isn’t avoided or somehow solved. Problems escalate, resentment builds, and relationships die. What gets avoided is a healthy workplace, a happy family, the true depths of human beings, and reality. You must therefore learn effective ways to resolve conflict when others prefer to pretend perfection.

Why We Fear Fights, Feuds, and Fall Outs

The primary reason we avoid conflict is it’s scary. Why? By definition conflict is opposition, incompatibility, struggle. Not very sexy.

Avoidance is just one way to deal with a scary situation. Conflict creates a stressful environment that invokes primal responses of freeze, fight, fright, and flight for survival. We freeze to go undetected, fight to kill, respond with fright to intensify awareness, and take flight to live another day. Most responses in these categories lead to destructive interactions.

Your past experiences with conflict are likely the most painful moments of your life. Maybe conflict made you divorce, break up with your partner, quit work. It may even have lead to death because someone couldn’t handle a problem any longer. Is it any wonder people avoid conflict? Our hatred towards conflict is strong and real!

Conflict is often destructive, other times disruptive. Projects at work get delayed when disputes exist. A group momentarily stops enjoying a party when friends fight. A family shuts each other out for the remainder of the night after a disagreement over dinner.

The Surprising Importance of Conflict Resolution

The purpose of conflict resolution isn’t to avoid it. Conflict resolution aims to solve problems to met the needs and interests of each party to stop destruction, minimize disruption, and enhance the relationship. With this in mind, you can frame conflict in an inviting manner unlike the fear and frustration we normally associate with conflict.

“Conflict can be seen as a gift of energy,” said conflict resolution trainer and Aikido teacher Thomas Crum, “in which neither side loses and a new dance is created.” It can be a gift you love to receive. My friend and conflict mediator Gary Harper even has a great book titled The Joy of Conflict Resolution.

When you take the step of courage to resolve conflict, you enter a moment to understand another human at a deep level. Self-understanding occurs, creativity is stimulated, and relationships deepen in the face of conflict resolution.

Conflict rarely solves itself so you must be proactive about its resolution. I wish there were a way to totally avoid conflict and still get the benefits of resolution, yet there’s no such route. You can get a human services degree and make significant money solving family conflict because it’s difficult process to handle. What you need are the following effective conflict management techniques that transform fear, fights, feuds, and fall outs into resolution when others (and sometimes yourself) avoid conflict:

1. Make it Known Problems Are Okay

Perfection shuts down workplace and family communication fast. In response, managers and parents want small talk tactics to open up communication, but that’s like trying to light up a dark sewer with a match stick.

A core part of my Big Talk Training Course helps you uncover what’s called the “shadow image” to truly open up group conversation. Once you know how to talk about the things people prefer to avoid, conversation effortlessly flows.

“Nice people” block out their dark side where the shadow image resides. They suffer with communication by not feeling anger, sadness, or fear. Resentment, frustration, and an inability to deal with conflict surfaces because they refuse to deal with what they block out. They literally avoid parts of themselves by avoiding conflict.

An effective technique to bring the shadow image into the light is to let others know mistakes, problems, disagreement, and expression are not “okay”, but needed. Mention differences, misunderstandings, and unmet needs will forever exist so it’s vital each of you talk about what you’re afraid to discuss. Tell them it’s normal to be in conflict, yet what’s rare is the healthy ability to face conflict.

You can say, “Problems, mistakes, and imperfections are good. We learn from them. They make us human. I need to know what you see and feel otherwise what affects you is ignored. Will you help each other with that?”

2. Encourage Open Communication

One way to encourage open communication is to make it known problems are okay. Other ways popular in the workplace, which can also be used with families and friends, are feedback channels.

A feedback channel I like is having a session each week or month where praise is shared and problems must be mentioned. Goals can be made where each coworker or family member must praise one thing and mention another subject that concerns him or her. Everyone is to share, listen, and avoid criticism to create a safe environment for expression.

Open communication is a good habit to practice. When an important issue rises, you are then prepared to face it and minimize conflict.

3. Observe Body Language

An effective technique to encourage open communication and face conflict when someone avoids it is to observe people’s body language. Emotions show through attitude, behavior, or expression. All three are nonverbally communicated.

Nonverbal communication doesn’t just hint at what’s going on inside a person, it is what’s going on inside a person. Even when a person avoids conflict, their emotions are visible through bodily expressions. If a guy doesn’t say what he feels (“I am angry”), you’ll see the emotion in more potentially harmful ways of attitude and behavior like sarcasm, avoidance, gossip, and forms of addiction.

Comment on the specific body language signals you pick up on. If you just say, “You look frustrated. Is there something you want to tell me?”, the nice conflict avoider will reply, “No”. Be specific by saying, “When I said I need you to work overtime, you turned your head then rolled your eyes. It seems you were bothered by my request. That’s okay. Share with me what’s on your mind.”

4. Lighten the Moment

Life can get too serious. Lighten conflict when appropriate and people can more openly face differences.

Humor is one-way to reduce tension. In fact, humor is often a release of tension. One company owner in a meeting observed the secretary verbally dominate the marketing director Jim over a tactic to acquire customers. The owner interrupted his secretary: “Okay. We could settle this in the boxing ring, but the board of directors will probably fire me for employee abuse… What do you think Jim, about the tactic to acquire customers?”

Another way to lighten conflict is with a tactic from the first chapter of my Communication Secrets of Powerful People program: use padded words. The technique softens what can be harsh. Examples of padded words include: “I feel there’s a small issue to face…”, “It’s not much, but I’d like to…”, and “Maybe we can…”

Do not overuse padded words otherwise it blurs the issue and causes your message to lose its intended meaning. Be aware that softening up conflict can be another form of avoidance. Balance the two by keeping it light yet be sure to address the issue.

5. Provide Positive Reinforcement

Conflict is avoided because of negative reinforcement. Attempts to change are met with defensive behavior resulting in learned hopelessness. Name-calling, ignorance of feelings, shouting, abusive tactics, and violence act as punishment to unconsciously tell someone, “Avoid similar situations in the future otherwise suffer again.”

The way to solve this using Skinner’s behavioral theory is to provide positive reinforcement. Do what you can to consciously and unconsciously make someone want to address conflict.

When someone takes the step into the scary unknown of open communication by confronting conflict, it’s important to reinforce the desired behavior with effective conflict management techniques. In the absence of these methods, you could end up making the conflict destructive and further reinforce the person’s patterns of avoidance.

You can also welcome different perspectives by asking for the person’s opinion. Listen then thank the person for expressing himself or herself. Everyone loves to feel listened to, understood, and appreciated.

Conflict avoidance doesn’t have to destroy your workplace, marriage, or family when you use the above five ways to deal with conflict. Just be sure to not avoid what I’ve given you.

Other Articles That Might Help You

1. 40 Ways to Make a Good First Impression
2. 10 Almost Guaranteed Ways to Fail in Life
3. 16 Email Mistakes You Must Avoid: Email Etiquette
4. Principles and Tips to Deal with Difficult People
5. Controlling People – Signs of a Controlling Person and How to Deal with Them

Alicia didn’t think her boyfriend was someone with a controlling personality – two years later she is still confused about her boyfriend’s behavior. She tells her friends that Randy controls what she does and how she feels, but they say it’s typical for men to behave that way. She has gone to a counselor, but everyone says to work on her relationship more. Alicia sometimes also thinks if she loves Randy more, he will change, which is a complete myth.

Few people know the signs of a controlling personality. You could even be unaware you’re a controlling person. By the time such behaviors are evident, years of misery pass in the relationship and sometimes verbal and physical abuse surfaces. The sooner you can identify the signs of controlling men and women and how to deal with these people or yourself with the advice I’ll give you in this article, the better you’ll protect yourself from a dangerous man or woman who can potentially create an abusive relationship.

How a Controlling Personality Develops

How we perceive and judge information is the secret to understand controlling behavior. Psychologist Carl Jung discovered that people have four psychological functions:

1. Sensing (“It smells nice”, “I need to touch it first”, “Let me see it”)
2. Intuiting (“I have a feeling something bad will happen”, “I bet today is going to go wonderfully”, “I sense there’s something special about you”)
3. Thinking (“Lets look at the problem logically”, “It doesn’t match the set criteria”, “That happened before”)
4. Feeling (“I feel pain”, “I love the energy in this room”, “It feels right”)

The sensate and intuit functions gather and perceive information. The thought and feeling functions evaluate and judge the information. You can see the four psychological functions and their relationships represented in the below diagram.

You might know these functions through the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). All four functions serve an important part of the healthy human personality. The MBTI states that we have predominate functions and rely on other functions to a lesser degree. You rely on the sensate function by trusting your five senses (“I love the taste of this new recipe”), but at the same time you still receive messages from your intuition (“Customers are going to enjoy this new recipe”).

While the healthy person is connected to these four functions, the controlling person is unaware of one or more functions and unaware of one’s dictating behavior. Patricia Evans, author of Controlling People, says a controlling personality begins when one of the four functions are blocked, which leads to poor self-understanding and a blindness to one’s behavior. Once the person loses a connection with oneself that forms his or her reality, control is pursued in the exterior world.

Men typically control others when their feeling function is blocked. Males have been told: “don’t feel pain”, “real men don’t cry”, “you’re too sensitive”, “men must stay strong”, and “if you get emotional, you lose”. A young boy cuts his knee and cries, for example, to which the father responds, “That doesn’t hurt so stop crying.” Gradually the boy disconnects from himself and ignores his feeling function. The boy’s inner reality is negated by others who tell him his feelings are wrong.

Disconnection is natural, yet ongoing disconnection is dangerous. It is necessary for soldiers to block their feeling function to get through the blood and brutality of war, but if the temporary blockage becomes permanent, the person loses awareness of the feeling function. The soldier “forgets” how to feel pain and joy and struggles to empathize with someone in distress. Trauma, culture, and parents are the primary reasons people disconnect.

The four functions are necessary for survival. Without attention to bad-tasting food, a vibe that warns you of a dangerous location, obscure rationale, and another’s feelings, one’s safety is jeopardized. A soldier deeply connected to pain in battle will struggle to persist in survival.

When a person permanently disconnects, however, an identity problem arises. The person’s psyche has been violated. Once a person cannot believe his or her own senses, intuition, thoughts, or feelings, what consistency can be established to form the person’s identity? Identity and control must be established in the only other possible way: by controlling others.

Evan’s terms this a “backwards connection”. If people are not self-aware of inner experiences, they form their identity from the outside-in instead of the inside-out. While healthy people construct their identity from experiences via the four functions, soon-to-be controllers construct themselves by a desired self-image or what others think one should be like. Intergenerational behavior leads them to treat their partners or children the same way they were treated. Controllers begin to define another person’s reality.

Ignorance of Authenticity

Healthy, authentic persons realize authenticity in others. Controllers on the other hand, hate authenticity. Their experiences are unknown so they circumvent others from their experiences.

The controller molds his or her partner or child into the desired person and connects to that fake person. A controlling husband can say he loves his wife, but he really loves the perfect wife constructed in his mind. Victims are so blinded by this pretend love, thinking the person who defines and controls him or her is truly in love.

Controlling and abusive relationships are common in marriages because one spouse does not fit “Prince Charming” or “Princess”. It is impossible anyway for these personas to be realized.

In our example, Randy creates a backwards connection by connecting to the fake Alicia. She has senses, intuition, thoughts, and feelings Randy ignores because her experiences fail to match up to the idealized princess. This leaves Alicia feeling confused, invalidated, and ignored.

The ideal image knows what the controller wants, feels, and thinks. Controllers assume “one mind” with their victims. If the controlled person fails to behave congruently with the ideal image by mind-reading the controller, the person is often ignored, abused, argued against, or told what to be, say, and feel in an attempt to negate authenticity and be molded into the unattainable image.

Victims like a woman who try to be the perfect wife based on the abuse received from her controlling husband cannot consistently be the idealized image. Moments of genuineness always show – they are who the person really is after all.

Controllers do not see their behavior for what it is, however. Most are completely dumbfounded as to why they control others. If you are a controller, you will not know why you behave hurtfully towards one or two victims of your controlling behavior while most people see you as a beautiful, nice, caring person. Pleas for help can easily go ignored for the behavior is deceptive.

Blame blinds controllers. Rapists, murderers, and others convicted of assault say it was the victim’s fault because the victims showed authenticity that stirred the perpetrator to eliminate. Controllers never take responsibility for their behavior and instead accuse their victims who “deserved it”. Battered wives are blamed, beaten-down, and belittled by abusive husbands who believe their spouses are responsible for their rage. Criminals can sit in their prison cell and still blindly conclude their victims are the reason one is imprisoned.

Signs of a Controlling Relationship

The best sign to identify a controlling man or woman is to see if the person assumes one mind. I would assume one mind with you if I became angry over you not knowing what I wanted.

One-mindedness is a warning sign of a controlling person because the ideal image knows what the controlling person wants, thinks, and feels. The moment this perfect understanding is brought back to reality with a question, rage can form. If Alicia asks Randy, “When will you be back?” “Why do you treat me like this?” and “Why can’t I satisfy you?”, he could show controlling behavior like avoiding, arguing, or abusing her.

A second major warning sign of a controlling person is they define you. I would define you by telling you what you think and feel.

A controlling person defines victims based on the ideal image. Authenticity is neglected – what a victim really feels and thinks is replaced by the controlling person’s definition. The definitions form a fantasy, trying to pull the victim back into the perfect persona. You can see this in the following situations in which Alicia is defined by Randy:

• Alicia says, “I want to order chicken teriyaki.” Randy replies, “Don’t get it because you won’t like chicken teriyaki.”
• Alicia says, “I’m trying.” Randy replies, “You’re not trying!”
• Alicia says, “Please don’t treat me that way.” Randy replies, “You always try to blame me for what happens to you! It’s your own bloody fault you get treated that way!”
• Alicia says, “I’m feeling sad.” Randy replies, “Stop trying to manipulate me.”
• Alicia says, “I want to work again.” Randy replies, “You don’t know what you want.”

Randy defines Alicia. He destroys her authenticity by molding her into his idealized image.

Most of the responses defining Alicia are paradoxical. Controllers create the exact opposite of what they try to achieve:

1. They try to get close by barking orders, but their controlling behavior creates distance
2. They try to show power by belittling others, but their controlling behavior shows inferiority
3. They try to show wisdom and intelligence by disproving a victim’s point of view, but their controlling behavior shows incomprehension and shallowness
4. They think their perception is clear, but it is unclear

Intimacy is a paradoxical outcome avoided. The controller attempts to fulfill a need of closeness with the victim, yet true closeness is never achieved when the connection is with an inauthentic person. You cannot be intimate with a controller. Intimacy requires two persons to understand their feelings and connect with each for who they really are, which controllers cannot do because they lack four operational functions.

If you control someone, seeing theses signs is usually enough to make you see firsthand the false reality you are living in and what you need to bring yourself back into an authentic world. Some recovering controllers see the severity of their behavior and cannot kill it so they respect their victims by ending a relationship to seek healing.

How to Deal with a Controlling Person

Now you can recognize and understand a controlling person – maybe you even identified some characteristics in yourself – I’ll share with you the secrets to manage a person who tries to control you.

The first step to deal with a controlling person is to believe no one knows exactly how you feel and think. Victims of abuse can have their self-esteem pummeled heavily into the ground that they believe abusers more than themselves. Someone cannot define you – not even a psychologist. It is vital you acknowledge and believe your self-understanding over what a boyfriend or girlfriend, husband or wife, father or mother, manager or employee tells you.

The second step to deal with a controller uses the one-mindedness warning sign, which is to identify when the person trespasses your “psychic boundary”. Similar to the first step, detect trespasses by seeing what someone does when they attempt to define you. While the first step is an acknowledgment and belief before any controlling behavior surfaces, this second step reinforces the first step the moment someone controls you.

The third step is to speak up. You cannot shatter the idealized image placed on you until you speak up to face the problem. Though you are a victim of someone’s hurtful behavior, you are responsible for your response.

The fourth step uses the “What?” technique taught by Evans who says victims fall into the false reality controllers create by arguing with them. Most people respond to controllers by trying to contradict the nonsense such as: “I do love chicken teriyaki!” “Far out, I try so hard!” “I am sad… You don’t know how I feel!” Here is a sample dialog between Randy and Alicia who sticks to her habits by arguing with Randy, which is ineffective:

“I want to work again,” says Alicia.
“You don’t know what you want,” replies Randy.
“I do want to work again. I have a desire to pursue my photography career.”
“You don’t really like photography! Keep doing what you’re doing now.”
“No! I’ve been looking at some photography magazines and I really want to do it!”
“Where are those magazines? GIVE THEM TO ME SO I CAN TEAR THE DAMN THINGS UP YOU F***** B****!”

Instead of arguing with a person who defines you, Evans recommends you do not even validate what they are saying through argument and instead ask, “What?” or variations of it repeatedly. Other responses Alicia and you can use that do not validate a controller’s remarks are, “Cut it out”, “Quit that”, and “What are you doing?” Here is a sample dialog between Randy and Alicia who uses variations recommended by Evans:

“I want to work again,” says Alicia.
“You don’t know what you want,” replies Randy.
“What?”
“You don’t know what you want.”
“What?”
(For the first time Randy realizes something is going on.) “Cut it out. You heard me. You don’t want to work again.”
“Nonsense.”

A word of warning using this fourth step: do not use it on a dangerous person. It is too threatening to use on someone who can potentially go into rage. Protect yourself, protect your children. Be careful when you deal with a controller because they fight to keep their reality alive – a cut to their reality is perceived as death.

No controlling person is going to change their behavior through one conversation, but the above dialog between Alicia and Randy, for example, is the start of healing. Controllers need to see for themselves the backward connections they have created with others.

Leaving a Controlling Relationship

If you decide to leave a controller, their fake reality weakens. They may not change, but many do realize what their behavior did to themselves and the lives of their victims.

There are shelters that help sufferers of abuse should you leave a controlling spouse. Other options you can consider is to stay with family and friends and contact the police. Do something about the problem for the safety and happiness of yourself and your children.

Children in controlling relationships need help otherwise they are at risk of dictating others later in life. The moment a child’s fundamental needs remain unfilled, the child escapes to a fake world where those needs are met.

Psychotherapists say a common object in which a child obtains these needs is from a toy like a teddy bear. The bear is spoken to as an idealized person, always listening, always knowing, always understanding the child. The teddy is defined by the child and is one mind with the child. Later in the life the toy is projected onto others who get controlled by the person.

The intergenerational transmission of control cycles again unless it is stopped. Now is the time to deal with a controlling person and take control of what is controlling you.

If you suspect someone is in a controlling relationship, possibly the greatest gift you can give them right now is an understanding and freedom from controllers by telling the person about this article. You can click the “ShareThis” link below to email the article, post it on Facebook, or share it in the many other possible ways.

(To discover more on one-mindedness, checkout chapter three of my Communication Secrets of Powerful People program, which reveals this communication barrier many people use. You can learn more about the program that can help you better communicate in your relationships here. If you want to become whole again and connect with suppressed parts of yourself so you can easily connect with people, my other program Big Talk: Effortlessly Talk to Win Friends with the Real You is a breakthrough solution you can discover here.)

Other Articles That Might Help You

1. Principles and Tips to Deal with Difficult People
2. Top 15 Dumb Mistakes People Make in Relationships
3. How to Manage and Deal with an Aggressive Boss
4. How to Not Care What People Are Thinking About You – and Release Your People-Magnetic Self Into the Conversation
5. The Heart of Effective Communication: How to Love People

We make many dumb relationship mistakes, which I have noticed after years of study and observing communication and human behavior, that all cannot be listed here. I use the term “dumb” not to put people down, but only because a lot of people repeat the same blunders. Put an end to these 15 relationship mistakes, in no particular order:

1. Withhold Feelings

Men are more guilty than women in withholding feelings from their partner. If something ticks men off, they may hide their irritation instead of revealing what it is that annoyed them. Women are indirectly guilty of this relationship mistake. While women are more emotional than men, they withhold feelings in the sense that they blame or criticize others to indirectly express their emotions. “I hate you for…!” is not an example of expressing your feelings. An expression of emotion is, “I feel sad about…” “I’m feeling happy you…” “I am angry!”

2. Reject Emotions

We may withhold feelings from someone because we reject our emotions. It is uncomfortable for most people to feel guilt, shame, anger, sadness, and even love so they reject these emotions by thinking positively or generally suppressing them. You feel whatever you do for a reason – accept it. Your relationships deteriorate if you suppress anger, for example, because you will resent and behave bitterly with people.

3. Blame

The failure to healthily express emotion can show itself through blame, a common relationship mistake. Look at an argumentative couple to see each person blaming the other for relationship problems. Neither acknowledges imperfection, preferring to be right. Each person thinks people ought to change instead of taking the responsibility for self-change. Victimization is a relationship mistake unhealthy for either person.

4. Gossip

People gossip about their relationships mainly for self-pity. They seek validation that the other person is to blame for relationship problems. If you have a relationship problem, talk with the person you share the problem with and stop complaining about it to your friends or coworkers. The other person is not the cause of your suffering; you are because of your ignorance to the problem through gossip. If a gossiper just turns the mirror on himself, he would realize the rumors hurt his relationships. A gossiper is no better than the originator of the problem. Neither roles create resolution – both compound it.

5. Interpret Behaviors Negatively

A gossiper is one example of a person that blames others and interprets their behaviors in a negative light. Each little behavior signals a conspiracy against the cynic. If you think your husband is having an affair, anything he does will be filtered through that perspective.

Give people a margin-for-error because you don’t know every detail. Each of us hold a piece of truth discoverable through communication. The best way to resolve your worries is to ask the person by showing interest in their life.

6. Show A Lack of Interest

Do you know what happened to your partner today? When was the last time you watched a friend play their weekly sport? When did you last ask what someone did at work? Get curious about people’s lives by asking a lot of questions and displaying attentive body language. Communication often lacks in relationships because neither person takes the initiative to learn about the other person. Interest in people’s lives makes them feel important, builds the relationship, and teaches you a lot of great stuff in the process. Think of something a person important to you enjoys then go do it with them. You may even want to take up a new hobby together like dancing or yoga.

7. Exert Excessive Control

We hate being controlled and told what to do. The worst managers micro-manage, dictating employee behavior. Many angry employees echo similar remarks.

The greatest leaders give team members freedom. The same is true in families and interpersonal relationships. If you order your teenage daughter to not smoke, research shows she is more likely to smoke. One study that looked at how values transmit through families found that children with authoritative parents have different values to them. When the parents are supportive rather than restrictive, the children agree and accept similar values.

8. Try to Change People

Whenever we try to change people, whether it be through manipulation, criticism, orders, threats, or rewards, they take on strange behavior. Do a test in a safe environment. Intentionally tell someone what they are doing is wrong and the person could not change, become suddenly quiet, resent you, gossip about you, or purposefully do what you said not to do. We always try to change people, but rarely succeed.

9. Remain Unchanged

We expect people to change while we remain unchanged. Rigid perspectives on money, family, work, emotion, and the relationship creates severe friction that can destroy a relationship. “If my coworker stopped…then I’d be able to…” “If my son stopped…then I could…” “My partner should…then I’d feel…” I’ll give you an if-statement to remember: if you don’t change, you have no right to expect people to change.

10. Keep One’s Point of View

What is your honest estimate of the percentage you think you are right in an argument? 80? 90? 100%? I estimate most people say 95%. That means a fighting couple’s righteousness totals 190%, a formula for conflict. It is logically and mathematically irrational to conclude one can be right 95% of the time. We are not divine beings knowing of truth.

Each of us possess the truth that we must be flexible enough to explore. The cure to any couple’s problem is held by each person because their point of view is 50% of the relationship.

11. Deny Flaws to Show Perfection

Because we don’t change and like to keep our original point of view, we deny flaws and show perfection. When a mistake arises, we freeze about being found out. A simple sit-down discussion where the two of you each admit three flaws about yourselves helps keep destructive perfection at bay while encouraging growth. You do not fear imperfection when mistakes are encouraged to surface.

12. Absence of Admiration

Relationships are easy to take for granted. We devalue what we have while desiring what is out of our reach. Put some effort into the relationship. You can show people you value the relationship with them through admiration. Give a compliment. Send a gift. Thank someone for a task they did. Phone one person now and thank them for something specific.

13. Be Judgmental

We love to judge people. As described in my Communication Secrets of Powerful People book, there are four judgments: criticism, labeling, diagnosing, and praising. We criticize (“You are no good at helping me”), label (“You are a jerk”), diagnose (“Stop being rude because you don’t get what you want”), and praise (“You are the sweetest person for doing that”). Each judgment has its own problems too deep to described in this article.

14. Send Solutions

It is counterintuitive that solutions kill relationships. After all, don’t solutions cure problems? More often than not in relationships, solutions create problems. We feel inferior being controlled and the problem-solver often overlooks the real issue. Solutions are usually manifestations of other dumb relationship mistakes like blame, gossip, trying to change people, and sticking to one’s point of view.

15. Avoid Concerns

The most frequent dumb mistake people make in a relationship is avoiding their partner’s concerns. Look at any bad relationship and each person will tell you their needs are not being met. They are not being listened to, understood, cared for, loved, whatever. Good communication is the key to overcoming these problems and meeting each other’s needs.

There you have 15 mistakes people frequently make in their relationships. Follow this advice then hopefully the next time you ask someone what one mistake you do in the relationship, no walls break because walls are nonexistent.

(If you are reading this and want to eliminate the communication mistakes that hurt your relationships, and to learn more about judgments, sending solutions, and avoiding concerns, read my Communication Secrets of Powerful People book to discover the 12 barriers of communication. Nearly all of the dumb relationship mistakes can be avoided when you understand the 12 barriers.)

Other Articles That Might Help You

1. 4 Reasons Advice and Other Solutions Kill Relationships
2. Barriers and Mistakes in Apologizing
3. 40 Ways to Make a Good First Impression
4. Controlling People – Signs of a Controlling Person and How to Deal with Them
5. Principles and Tips to Deal with Difficult People

Why It’s Hard to Communicate Well in Conflict When Stressed

If you’re like me, you find it hard to communicate in stressful moments. Scientifically, it is impossible to communicate well when under stress. The body experiences a primal response that agitates people in conflict. A stressed guy will tense his facial expressions, breathe shallowly, raise his voice, respond faster, and not think clearly. (If you controlled these, you wouldn’t be stressed). Not only does the tension hurt your communication, it also creates a viral effect as the emotional rigidity infects those you talk to.

Conflict is probably synonymous for you with stress. To be in conflict with someone is to be stressed. For me, however, I can have my mental and physical tension under control so I can communicate effectively to improve my relationships. If I don’t manage my stress, it inevitably gets the better of me, as it will to you.

Stress makes us mentally ill. A psychiatrist could diagnose you with depression, mania, psychosis, bipolar disorder, or another mental illness when you are stressed. The difference between you and someone diagnosed with one of these mental health problems is the time you and they spend in those states. A person diagnosed with depression feels down for most of the day while you may temporarily be depressed only when you are under loads of stress. No wonder it’s difficult to communicate well when stressed.

Fight, Flight, or Freeze Response

Stress in conflict evokes the fight, flight, or freeze responses. An argument, disagreement, or confrontation elevates tension as you yell, withdraw, stand confused. You do things you later regret.

Aggressive behavior towards another person temporarily feels okay, but then reality kicks in as you feel even more stressed from hurting the person. When you are submissive as you try your best to hide the tension, your suppressed emotions eat at you, which then hurts your relationships.

When under stress, your communication style will change in response to the situation. You can go from a cool, collected person one moment, yet when a stressful situation impinges your tolerable threshold your calm style can quickly shift to aggressive or submissive behaviors. What behavior you fall back on in stressful situations is the one comfortable to you in the past that offered momentary protection.

When someone has surpassed their tolerable degree of tension, telling them to get their act together or how ineffective their current communication is, does not work. It won’t work for you either. It’s human extinct to block out external factors, such as other people’s feelings, and listen to internal ones as your interpersonal communication skills decline. Better communication in intense conflict is a matter of managing stress otherwise it is next to impossible to deal with conflict.

“What Did I Say?” – Memory Loss and Other Dangers of Stress

Stress motivates us to take action, but it too often works against us. We yell, withdraw, or shut-down in tense communication. Our bodies produce cortisol, known as the “stress hormone”, to compel us into action. Without this double-edged hormone, we would accomplish little. If you are completely relaxed in conflict and untrained in good communication skills, you could overlook the problematic issue or give an unsympathetic response.

Research has shown cortisol to improve cognitive functioning. Too much cortisol, however, causes impairment. If you have ever forgotten what you said in a verbal fight, cortisol has literally shut off short-term memory. Cortisol obtrudes neurotransmitters that are chemicals responsible for communication between neurons and other cells. That is why you can memorize a speech 50 times and forget it when you present it. A stressful crisis temporarily results in a blank mind.

Stanford neuroscience professor Robert Sapolsky found that cortisol also causes long-term memory loss. When the receptors for cortisol located in the hippocampus, the part of the brain responsible for long-term memory, gets flooded overtime, it melts like microwaved Swiss cheese.

The affects of stress are too numerous to list here. From rapid aging of the body and heart disease, to poor sleep and skin conditions, the effects are real. You need to learn techniques to manage your stress; not just for your communication, but also for your health.

Stress Reduction Tips: 9 Key Lessons for Intelligent Stress Management

Because we have primal responses that arise deep from within our neurology, we need to attack the issue at that level. Thinking positively or talking yourself through stress isn’t going to reduce tension. I have developed nine effective ways and techniques to manage stress that you can use to keep calm in stressful moments so you can communicate better and live a happier life:

1. Prevention is the best cure. The best technique to deal with stress is to stop it before it begins. Create the appropriate measures, boundaries, and strategies to interrupt rising tensions. If the tension between two people rises beyond a safe level, one strategy is to pause, walk away, punch a pillow, and take slow deep breathes before commencing the conversation. You can incorporate other stress management techniques listed below into your plan to be more calm in conflict.

2. Accept your feelings. Never tell yourself you shouldn’t feel what you do. Do not say, “I shouldn’t be feeling stressed right now.” You must accept your feelings otherwise they will persist or repress into forms that severely affect your mental health and ability to effectively communicate. When you accept your stress, you move one step forward to taking personal responsibility.

3. Accept responsibility for how you feel. It is tempting and too easy to release your stress on other people. Do not treat people inappropriately. If you treat people in a way they don’t want to be treated, you make them tense, which they will be happy to put back on you.

Blame can only make you more stressed because anxiety is directly related to events within your control. What is beyond your reach makes you anxious. If you blame a spouse for making you angry by yelling, the only visible solution to you is for your spouse to lower his or her voice. Your anxiety and stress will continue to rise because you have little direct influence over your spouse’s voice.

When you accept responsibility, you eliminate blame. You live in truth. You do not become a victim of others. You take control of your feelings. Your new levels of responsibility cause you to do something about how you feel.

If someone causes you stress, address the person. Explain to them how you feel, why you feel that way, and what can be done to fix the problem. Do not worsen the problem by blaming them for how you feel, but focus on the problem. Be problem-oriented; not person-oriented.

4. Breathe. When tension in your body rises, you automatically take shallow breathes. This is one of the first stages prior to full fight, flight, or freeze responses that hurt effective communication. When your stress levels rise, take several deep, slow breathes and you will instantly reduce your stress levels.

5. Take time out. A walk away is guaranteed to refresh your mind. Don’t call for the travel agent to book a Caribbean cruise though, because a temporary break is all you need. Go for a walk or workout at the gym. Be active to release hormones that counter stress. Exercise is the body’s emotional reset button.

Absence from the situation that created the tension takes your mind off the problem and gives you clearer thoughts to attack the problem. Be sure to address the problem after your time out, however, otherwise you will only have temporarily avoided the real issue.

6. Be flexible. Stress is like the sunrise and sunset. It is inevitable. It is a part of your human body. Therefore, the best way to deal with it is to change your behavior and communication.

Be soft; not brittle. Recognize signals of stress by reading people’s verbal and nonverbal language, then adjust yourself accordingly. Be flexible by going a bit out of your way for them to assist their temporary needs and wants. Don’t run around the world for them, but do be more aware and respondent of them. This can lead you to less stress.

7. Discuss the problem afterwards. Combine this tip with the prior tip of remaining flexible and you have two keys to manage tense people. You need to address the problem following the stressful moment otherwise destructive, repetitious behavior occurs. Also, if there is someone you know that finds it difficult to manage their stress in communication, you can refer them to this article by clicking the “ShareThis” link at the bottom of this article.

8. Ask others about your responses in stressful moments. You are to do this because you cannot provide an accurate self-assessment when stressed. Your short-term memory loss makes it impossible to recall information.

Also, an awareness of your behavior can trigger a pattern interrupt. If the person says you consistently yell when stressed, raising your voice can trigger an awareness that your stress needs to reduce before the conversation continues.

9. Listen to binaural beats. Discovered by Heinrich Wilhelm Dove in 1839, binaural beats describes the low-frequency pulsations in the brain created by different frequencies played into each ear. The brain integrates the two sounds to form a third sound that relaxes the mind.

In terms of stress, binaural beats is a miracle. A correctly made binaural beat will scientifically make your brain produce alpha waves, which is the same brain wave you have when resting. That wonderful feeling you have when lying in bed almost asleep can be produced by binaural beats. Imagine how better your life would be by simply putting on a headphone the next time you’re stressed as you enter a relaxed state at will!

If you’re after binaural beats, Paul Kleinmeulman has a good program that includes a series of binaural beats for different purposes. You can check out his program here, where you will learn more about the proven science behind binaural beats, which can make you motivated, sleep better, intensify your focus, learn efficiently, and keep relaxed.

Conflict does not need to be synonymous with stress. Neither has to make you miserable. Stress can be a good thing – just like conflict is good for creativity, openness, and growth – when it is controlled with the above tips.

Your body experiences stress because it is threatened in conflict. Do something about it. You don’t want to feel the same way in a fight as you do when watching the Simpsons. Harness this primal response and you will be communicating more effectively in your next confrontation.

Other Articles That Might Help You

1. How to Manage and Deal with an Aggressive Boss
2. The Complete Nonviolent Communication (NVC) Process for Compassion, Understanding, and Peace
3. The Benefits of Communication Skills
4. How and When to End a Long-Term Relationship
5. Getting Over a Relationship Break Up

Principles do not change. Water is two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom – this will not change. The North poles of two magnets repel – this will not change. Gravity rips you down to Earth – this will not change. The unchanging laws of science are parallel to the unchanging principles and laws of communication to deal with difficult people.

If you have a difficult person in your life, you may think he or she is impossible to deal with, yet the person is not an impenetrable rock. It’s human! And humans follow laws of psychology and behavior you can benefit from. This article will provide you with judo-like principles to convert seemingly impossible forces of a difficult person into tips to effectively deal with them.

The world is filled with stubborn people. The difficult people – and not so difficult – even think you’re at times difficult. Learn the following tips (taken from my Communication Secrets of Powerful People Program) to deal with difficult people in your everyday life:

What Doesn’t Work

Sending solutions. Common phrases that indicate solving include: “What if you…” “Stop doing… and start…” and “Why don’t you…” Telling people what to do does not work. Solutions are the problem. The more you push solutions on people, the more they pull away from you and your suggestion. Real solutions, commitment, and desire for change come from participation.

Moralizing. Common phrases that indicate moralizing include: “You should….” “It would be good for you to…” and “Stop doing wrong…” Chapter eight of my program defines moralizing words as “using what is right and wrong, good and bad, black and white to further your logic.” Manipulation from guilt and other emotions that arise from moral words do not change difficult people – yet alone anyone.

Complaints. “I wish Bill wasn’t so damn annoying.” Bickering is mental masturbation. Creation comes from being proactive. If you complain, you’re the difficult person. You become no better than the person you try to change.

Criticism. People criticize to build change. “I’m results-focused. I criticize people to get things done.” Similar lines of thinking drive the 12 communication barriers (criticism, labeling, diagnosing, praise, orders, threats, questions, moralizing, advice, reason, reassurance, and deflecting). Avoid criticism because it is not charismatic persuasion. Criticism intensifies conflict. Criticized individuals feel diminished, unworthy, and less important.

What Does Work: 10 Principles and Tips to Deal with a Difficult Person

The following principles and tips are not short-term tricks to transform an annoying person. Endless articles have been written on the Internet that provide frivolous advice on this topic. When the core problem is addressed, however, colds get skipped and the cancer is cut out. The advice in this article gets down to the core of what really matters when dealing with a difficult person and does not change from situation because the advice is timeless.

1. You see the world as you are. Stephanie Rosenbloom for The New York Times hit the heart of difficult people; or rather the people who think someone is difficult. Rosenbloom says the issue “is not the difficult people themselves. It is you.”

Most articles that provide tips to deal with difficult people focus on difficult individuals (“They’re the problem”); hence they miss the real problem (“You’re part of the problem”). You play a role in a difficult person’s behavior. Problems transmute from your perception, then your reaction. Carl Jung said we repress certain characteristics often due to our attempts to fit in with people, which manifest in discomfort around people we repulse. Jungian psychoanalyst Edward Whitmont writes:

“Ask someone to give a description of the personality type which he finds most despicable, most unbearable and hateful, and most impossible to get along with, and he will produce a description of his own repressed characteristics – a self-description which is utterly unconscious and which therefore always and everywhere tortures him as he receives its effect from the other person. These very qualities are so unacceptable to him precisely because they represent his own repressed side; only that which he cannot accept without ourselves do we find impossible to live with in others.”

What characteristics in people do you hate most? What do these characteristics say about you? Who doesn’t find the person difficult? What can you learn from people who don’t find the person hard to face?

A chronically difficult person is rare. Your self-image makes people difficult. I strongly encourage you to notice as often as possible what you deny in yourself because this could be a repressed image, a shadow you see in others, that you have ignored in the past. “In the end,” says Rosenbloom, “the specialists say, we cannot control other people, only our response to them.” (The first chapter of my Big Talk training course taps into this deep, dark psychological theory that stops us from enjoyable conversation. When you connect with your full self, it becomes easy to connect with people and make friends. This is cutting-edge material you can discover more about here.)

2. Lose the need to be right. When you enter a conversation with the intent to fix someone, you become difficult. Stephen Covey in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People says you must open yourself to be influenced to influence. Quit thinking you’re right because this drives your resistance to be changed and change people.

3. Clear your heart, open your mind. Too often our experiences with people hurt our current conversations with them. It takes time for someone in your negative light to shift under a positive spotlight – even when the person hasn’t been difficult for a while.

Forgive to clean your heart then keep an open mind as to why someone is difficult. Stop hopping to conclusions by portraying the problem as the person’s difficulty. You blockade truth with judgments and fear of self-analysis.

Perhaps you are the problem, their father was diagnosed with cancer, or they are in financial trouble. Acknowledge that you do not – and will never – know all reasons why someone is difficult. An open mind that welcomes a person’s point of view to enter possible explanations for their behavior creates a cushion to soften harsh judgments.

Listen to the difficult person and let them express their point of view – it will help you see why they are difficult. This tip alone can be enough to deal with the person as you see the reason for their behavior. Listen honestly, actively, and empathically.

4. Want difficult people. It’s scary, but wanting a bothersome person helps you. Difficult people create conflict – and this creates change. If organisms faced no challenges, they would have no reason to evolve. Difficulties challenge you, compelling you to evolve into a superior being.

Does this mean you can be difficult? No. There is people who find you difficult enough. The diversity of human nature brings with it differences that catapult humanity through difficulties.

5. Be proactive, not reactive. Reactive persons blame circumstances for their reality. They reciprocate bad behavior. They reason other people need to change.

Proactive persons create what they want regardless of constricting circumstances. Create a value in yourself to be proactive and treat people with respect. Once you stop reciprocating bad behavior, you feel proud, empowered, and in control of your life – regardless of whether you successfully handle the situation. Make the fundamental decision to commit to the advice given in this article.

6. Be responsible, not a victim. Don’t blame people for how they make you feel. The degree you’re a victim of someone’s behavior controls the impact it has on you.

Take responsibility for how you feel. Prevent people from entering and exiting your emotional state at will. Eliminate blame to free yourself from a person’s difficult behavior.

You don’t have to be burdened by people’s problems. You will work towards a solution faster and be less emotionally exasperated when you lose the victim mentality and stop thinking people are villains. My friend Gary Harper has a good article on this where he also discusses similar principles to this article.

7. Be problem-oriented, not person-oriented. Difficult people have a difficult problem and are trying to fulfill a need the only way they know possible. It seems elusive, but even they want to live in harmony.

People are not the problem. Focus on the problem and not the person. A helpful tip for this is to disassociate the problem from the person. Their behavior, even you, or something else is the problem.

8. Find the unmet need. Difficult people have an unmet need. Whether somebody is angry, unhappy, depressed, loud, or anxious, they try to fulfill a need – though it is often done poorly. Notice a hidden need beneath someone’s difficult behavior, and you will see another human being. This will allow you to compassionately communicate. The Nonviolent Communication Process is a model that gets you focused on, and fulfilling, other people’s needs and your own.

9. Be interdependent. Dependency is unhealthy. To overcome this, self-help experts teach independence. According to most people, independence is health, freedom, and power. By itself, nothing could be further from the truth.

According to Robert Greene, author of 48 Laws of Power, a powerful individual living in isolation destroys his power. John O’Neil in The Paradox of Success confirms Greene’s remarks. O’Neil says leaders and other individuals in powerful positions destroy their success and happiness with overt independence. Such persons do it all, have chronic obsessions with work and difficulties getting their mind off work, and easily become irritated by others who disagree with their decision-making.

A powerful communicator knows how to distribute decision-making for freedom. He or she knows how to seek help because the person is not afraid to admit failure and learn. This is the interdependent standpoint you need beyond solitude. “When we try to pick out anything by itself,” said famed conservationist John Muir, “we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe.”

You don’t need to solve all problems by yourself. It sounds simple, but talking to a parent, manager, or human resource department is helpful. Other people bring knowledge, skills, and persuasive power to handle a difficult person. However, be beware of risks associated with making a private problem public. It’s your responsibility to respect a person’s privacy concerns, but at the same time you need to request another’s help when necessary.

10. Be detached from an outcome.

If the above tips and principles fail you, it’s not because they don’t work – it’s because you disobeyed them. The principles and tips given to you cannot fail because they are the foundations for good communication.

If you lose the need to be right while remaining proactive, for example, you deal with the difficult person. Stop thinking the only way to deal with a difficult person is to change them, such desire only makes you difficult.

When you attach to an outcome by seeking a specific result from an interaction at all costs, your rigidity causes resistance. The most common outcome people attach to when they converse with a difficult person is their need to be right and change the person (principle #2). Going into a conversation with the righteous intent to change a person guarantees failure. You must detach from an outcome.

If the principles and tips do not bring you the result you’re after, be prepared to walk away. Give the two of you some space to think the problems through. By doing this, you clear your heart and open your mind, remain proactive, and keep problem-oriented. A tough issue can be solved at a later time. Another day can bring different possibilities. Emotions, thoughts, and attitudes change all the time.

Unsuccessful conflict resolution of an issue with a difficult person can often escalate the problem, but adhere to these principles and tips to deal with a difficult person to make the difficult more manageable. “Many are stubborn in pursuit of the path they have chosen,” said Friedrich Nietzsche, “few in pursuit of the goal.”

(If you are reading this and found the above principles and tips to deal with difficult people helpful, you will enjoy my “Communication Secrets of Powerful People Program” where the principles for this article were extracted. Click here to learn more about the program and how you can develop your communication skills to charismatically have cold-hearted persons wanting to change. You can also discover more about Big Talk, my training course that lets two persons openly and freely talk with one another, here.)

Other Articles That Might Help You

1. Controlling People – Signs of a Controlling Person and How to Deal with Them
2. Review of Difficult Conversations by Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton, and Sheila Heen
3. How to Manage and Deal with an Aggressive Boss
4. How to Not Care What People Are Thinking About You – and Release Your People-Magnetic Self Into the Conversation
5. Review of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey

“Hang out the washing”, “Stop moping around and cheer up”, “Fix what you broke”, “You need to improve your skills with customers”, “You need to get a new attitude”, “Obey your mother and father”. There are four reasons why such statements kill your relationships.

4 Reasons We Hate Receiving Solutions

The most common communication barrier people use to send solutions is advice. We give advice to help a person or to get things done, yet the outcome is destruction. Whether you’re a child or parent, brother or sister, employee or manager, we hate receiving advice and being told what to do for four reasons:

1) Loss of control. The other person takes the reigns of our life as they control what we do. No one likes being controlled – it impedes their freedom. To be in control of one’s life is a fundamental human need. Psychologists say the more you’re in control of your life, the happier you’ll be.

If you get controlled, you respond with rebellion. Humans seek to reestablish freedom by engaging in a threatened behavior. You may refuse to carry out the order, do the task poorly, procrastinate, or blame others for the task not being completed. Your response to being controlled is natural human behavior, unhealthy for relationships. Rebellious behaviors strain relationships – pulling on the fabric that binds a peaceful relationship.

An insurgent individual causes the person giving advice to continue giving their solutions because no change has occurred, which furthers defiance. The problem is not the nonconforming person, but the stubborn person blind enough to continue controlling the individual. “They just keep doing the same goddamn thing that doesn’t work and worsens and perpetuates the problem,” says Robert Fisch, author of Brief Therapy with Intimidating Cases: Changing the Unchangeable. “What people are doing is ‘common sense’ to them. People say ‘it’s the only thing to do.’” We need to stop attempted ways of changing people that fail to work.

2) Feelings of inferiority. A side-effect of being controlled is feeling inferior. We feel like a lesser person when we lose control of ourselves. Solutions and advice prevent people from feeling good about themselves and developing a healthy self-esteem.

We seek to feel important. To make a man hate you, simply take away what makes him feel good about himself. Tell him what to do, when to do it, and how to do it, then you’ll have yourself a lifeless human doing, not a human being.

3) The problem is not obvious. Humans are complex creatures. Even our simple processes are complex. Has someone ever given you a piece of advice on a serious emotional problem? The person tried to help you, but you became frustrated because he or she “just didn’t get it”.

Chances are you didn’t change. You probably rebelled against the person to regain freedom. As a result, things got worse. You became angry, silent, or defensive. Perhaps the person then tried even harder to assert their way of thinking was right, but this only pushed you further from where they wanted you to be. They didn’t understand what you were going through. I know, I’ve been there.

Advice subtly communicates the solution to your problem is obvious. It communicates you must be stupid, incompetent, and inferior to overlook the solution. Aeschylus, an ancient Greek playwright in 500 BC, said, “It is an easy thing for one whose foot is on the outside of calamity to give advice and to rebuke the sufferer.”

When you’re tempted to send a solution to someone, remind yourself that you don’t know the whole story. Even when you think you know the truth, you probably only know one side of the story – your story. Why? This leads us to the fourth reason people hate receiving solutions from others.

4) People are oblivious to the truth. Human behavior and everything we experience is like an iceberg. An iceberg’s visible tip is 10% of the entire iceberg because the ice’s density is less than the sea water’s density. The remaining 90% of the iceberg is below the water’s surface, not visible to the common eye. How the 90% of the iceberg is shaped cannot be determined by looking at the iceberg’s tip.

Our likeness to an iceberg is a double-edged sword. On one side, most people never concern themselves with understanding the 90% of a person or story difficult to see upfront. They prefer to focus on themselves, stick with what they know, and never seek to fully understand people. We don’t follow or become inspired to change by someone that doesn’t understand us.

On the other side of the iceberg of human behavior is tremendous potential for you to connect with people in a way they have likely yet to experience. People’s poor ability to understand others stores further energetic potential to have them connect with you. When someone hides what matters to them in the dark from fear of being told what to do, your understanding through empathetic communication shines a light on their life to open them up.

Unfortunately, very few people know these secrets of communication. That is why they are secrets. Most people try to make knock-out blows by giving advice, criticism, and other communication barriers. They hope to change people and their relationships through solutions, yet all this does is make people hate them and resist change.

What I have discussed here is only the first of five solving barriers people use almost everyday in their communication. This is not even 1% of information I share in my communication secrets program that teaches you how to become a charismatically persuasive people magnet. There is more to the advising barrier, four other solving barriers, and an additional seven judging and avoiding barriers people use to kill their relationships, reduce their persuasive power, and decrease their charisma.

If any of this resonates a message in your life, you’re sick of misunderstanding people, and you’re tired of people resisting your helpful advice, and you want to know the true way to change people, I encourage you to learn about my Communication Secrets of Powerful People program here.

Other Articles That Might Help You

1. Top 15 Dumb Mistakes People Make in Relationships
2. Just Be Yourself – Why It’s Bad Advice: Being Yourself is the Problem
3. Job Interview Advice to Ace Any Interview
4. Principles and Tips to Deal with Difficult People
5. The Decision Tree of Effective Leadership to Create Freedom and Independence

See if you can find a link between the following short scenarios: Your partner leaves the room in anger after another argument; A friend lashes out at you despite you having done nothing wrong; Your children’s constant disobedience makes you extremely frustrated and causes you to yell and do things you regret.

Why do the above scenarios, or similar situations, constantly play out in your life? There are thousands of situations like the ones listed above that all have a common thread. We know there is a better way to handle the situation, but we cannot figure it out. Our emotions often get the better of us as we poorly handle the situation. We know something is wrong and that we can fix it, but how? The answers to these questions and the secret human need I will show you how to fulfill is through a method of communication called “nonviolent communication”, also known as NVC.

An Overview of Nonviolent Communication: Your Key to Compassionate Communication for Shared Understanding

The process I am about to discuss in this article is one created by the Center for Nonviolent Communication. The organization is a nonprofit organization founded by Marshall Rosenberg, author of Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life. Rosenberg and a couple hundred other NVC trainers, conduct workshops throughout the world where they teach people their nonviolent communication model. The NVC process has changed millions of people who learned the techniques directly from trainers or Rosenberg’s book, and people who have been fortunate enough to have those trained in the NVC process use the model on them.

If you are after a process that changes a person’s behavior, NVC is not the best one to use. NVC builds a deep intimate relationship and connection with effective communication by satisfying people’s needs. It achieves a level of connection most people never experience. It can be used to change a person’s behavior, but the primary purpose of the process is to help people face what matters with compassion to connect at a very intimate level.

Once you have sufficiently gone through certain steps in the process, then you can use your negotiation skills to persuade the person. If you try to persuade the person upfront before you use NVC, you will often find the person resists you and ignores what you have to say.

When a person disagrees with you, refuses to comply with a request, or is angry at you, a poor communicator tries to firstly express oneself. The person seeks to be understood before seeking to understand. An NVC user, on the contrary, seeks to understand the person, which in turn leads to their own need of being understood. Once you understand others, they will want to understand you.

The commonality amongst the situations I mentioned earlier, and hundreds of situations you experience throughout the week, is people’s desperation to be understood. Your angry partner wants to be understood. Your friend wants to be understood and will have almost zero frustration once you understand. Your children want to be understood, which will naturally compel them to talk with you about intimate issues. Nonviolent communication helps you understand people and have them understand you.

The need to be understood is possibly the greatest unmet human need. Fulfill this need and you will trigger new experiences, intimate sharing, and connect with people at the heart. Thanks to Dan Kennedy, a great marketer that I intently learn from, I came across a quote by Cavett Robert, founder of the National Speakers Association, who said, “Most people are walking around, umbilical cord in hand, looking for a new place to plug it in.” If you can be that “socket” by understanding the person and empathically receiving their needs, you automatically share an electrifying connection with the person. Something about the person will change before your eyes. They will know something deep is going on without knowing what you are doing.

Unfortunately, the majority of people never arrive at this stage of electrifying intimacy. Answer this question truthfully: How many people truly understand you on a frequent basis? Think about the question for some time because it is important to understand understanding.

I ask this not to make you blame others for their failure to understand you, but to show you the scarcity of people who seek to understand. If you are like most people, you will not have one person that frequently and truly understands you in conversations. Few people care about understanding others, which causes themselves to be misunderstood. People who complain that “no one understands me” are constantly misunderstood because they live on a one-way street seeking to receive before they consider giving.

Violence is widespread because one person or group desperately wants to be understood while another party they are in conflict with also wants to be understood. The failure to see each other’s needs means neither gets one’s needs fulfilled. The result is an outbreak of emotional or physical destruction. So much pain in the world is caused by misunderstandings.

The anger and frustration present in everyday situations appears to be irrelevant to deeper issues, yet it is our inability to effectively face conflict that contributes to a global scale of war and hatred. Our everyday wallowing in resentment, frustration, and misunderstandings has as much – but probably greater – impact on peace and love than kind actions. If you cannot resolve your minor nuances in relationships that are suppose to be intimate and love-filled, you cannot expect nations who have hated each other for centuries to resolve major conflicts. To understand another person is a secret of world peace. “Peace cannot be achieved through violence,” said Ralph Waldo Emerson, “it can only be attained through understanding.”

The nonviolent communication process is a simple once you know the process; though it’s not always a fun slide to ride on because emotional pollution clogs your use of it. With practice, you will become better at NVC and be more successful in your communication and relationships. Over time, provided you continually practice the techniques and polish your skills, you will become excellent at the process.

The Four Step Process

The process has four steps: observing, feeling, needing, and requesting. There are really eight steps, however, because you firstly apply the four steps to the other person, then you apply them to yourself. Remember what I said before about seeking to understand before being understood? The first four stages make you understand people so you can be understood when you apply the four steps on yourself. This is the most critical part of the concept to grasp.

Unless the person is a compassionate communicator, go through the four steps first on the other person otherwise he or she will not listen to you. Use the visualization of a vacuum empathically “sucking up” the person’s communication. Until the person feels “cleaned”, you will be unable to clean yourself. Once you have sucked up the person, and hence understood them, you are then ready to use NVC on yourself.

Most people identify a few problems in firstly focusing on the other person. If you have not identified one of these now, you will as you continue to read about the process. The biggest concern I had with NVC is that you forgo your own needs, concerns, and emotions like anger. NVC prevents destructive expressions of anger and frustration via harmful attitudes and behaviors (think of the sarcastic teenager or the employee who does poor quality work). The process encourages you to express intense emotions – especially anger – in a healthy way that fulfills the underlying need.

At first glance, I understand the model may overwhelm you, but keep at it and reread the pages in this article to refine your ability to understand people and be understood. The NVC process as described in this full article will give you a good idea of what to expect in my Communication Secrets of Powerful People Program should you want to invest in it. It could be one of the greatest investments you make. Once you know how to understand people and help them understand you, you can mold your relationships however you want. It is time to kick into the first stage: observing.

Other Articles That Might Help You

1. Review of Nonviolent Communication by Marshall Rosenberg
2. The Heart of Effective Communication: How to Love People
3. How to Manage Stress in Relationship Communication: Keep Calm with Scientific Stress Management
4. The Benefits of Communication Skills
5. The Greatest 15 Myths of Communication

Our relationships often determine the sweetness of our lives. Just like the great fruit a lemon can be when it compliments other ingredients even when it might not be great with others, so is our relationships filled with the greats, the inevitable negatives, and despised break up.

The lessons I share in this article will not be easy to accept. If you are after tips like “go see a movie with friends” to avoid the dark, deep secrets of working through emotional pain, go read the hundreds of crap articles about this topic over the Internet. The lessons in this article are hardcore. I will show you true mental and emotional strategies to get over your ex so you are ready for independent happiness.

The Uniqueness About Your Situation

Not every break up is the same. Some create intense emotions of sadness, depression, and anger, while others are complete relief. I categorize relationship break ups into three groups:

1. You initiate the break up. This type of break up is the easiest. It will give you fewest troubles. Often the decision will make you happier than being in the relationship.
2. They initiate the break up. This is the hardest type of break up to manage. It is the main focus of this article.
3. Mutual break up. The rarest type of break up where both individuals often care how the other person feels about the decision. The two of you talk the process through and conclude splitting up is the best option. Reasoning, openness, and future plans are common.

When your ex decides to end the relationship, it is like a loved one passing away. Psychologists actually concur that a relationship break up is like experiencing grief. If we contrast grieving with a break up, in both cases you lose someone you loved and you’re unwilling to psychologically let them go.

As with death, break ups are a part of relationships and life. Death is inevitable. Break ups are inevitable. You need to firstly acknowledge relationships end all the time. As simple as that statement appears, do not mistake simplicity for power. Your ego blows personal problems out of perspective causing you to think what is common in the world is unique for you.

We think an ending relationship will be the end of our wellbeing. If you talk to a friend about getting over his or her relationship break up, however, you will not have this ego problem. You will see from a healthy perspective that break ups happen. This strategy is similar to disassociation where you look at your difficulty from an observer perspective. It is the first technique you can use to get over your ex.

You would be unable to experience the wonderful feelings you had with your recent ex if you stayed with your “ex ex”. The same can be said for your future partner. You will be unable to experience the wonderful times and emotions with them if you do not get over your broken relationship. It is as simple as that.

Deciding to get over a break up is often not that clear-cut. Sometimes you undergo a painful recurrent uncertainty when splitting up as you wonder if the two of you are actually apart. This leads us onto the golden rule to get over your ex.

The Golden Rule of Moving On From Your Ex

Once you have truly realized that break ups happen and, more importantly – that they will happen to you – tell yourself the golden rule of getting over a break up. Affirm and reaffirm to yourself, and internalize the belief, that you want to get over your ex. Why is this golden rule important?

Let’s put it this way. How often have you seen someone want to get over a break up yet they are resistant to actually breaking up with the person? It happens too often. You see them caught in the emotional turmoil, a tug-of-war game they can only lose.

What is even worse than being resistant to getting over the person, yet wanting to not get over them, is not being aware of the mental tug-of-war game. The internal conflict leaves you frustrated. You may think you have some weird psychological problem. You will be uncertain about getting back together as you unwilling move on and fail to fully enjoy life. When you want both lifestyles, you achieve neither. Commit to a decision.

If you have a choice to fly to Paris or Sydney, and you hesitate because you want to visit both cities, you will never make a decision and miss out on both cities. There is a Russian proverb that says, “If you chase two rabbits, you will not catch either one.” By not being 100% clear with what you want (this goes for every other goal in life), you achieve little and remain frustrated. You become uncertain of yourself because you never critically think and investigate your feelings and thoughts to know your true desire.

You have to be certain of what you want. Do not destroy the golden rule. Ask yourself questions and be fully aware of what is making you resistant to emotionally releasing yourself from the person. You can ask yourself questions like, “What makes me still attracted to the person?” “Why can’t I get over him/her?” and “Am I just afraid of loneliness?”

Discover the cause of your emotional pain. I cannot emphasize that enough. People are unconscious of their emotional awareness in a break up and never know why they experience pain. Conduct an “investigation” making it your goal to discover as much about yourself as possible. Gather as much information about yourself from self-talk and other people to solve “the crime”.

(To additionally help you overcome this problem, I recommend you check out an article I have written titled “1. Principle of Influence: Commitment and Consistency” to discover a powerful influence that makes you stay in an unhappy relationship.)

You Can Decide What is Right

Maybe you are still uncertain of whether you should break up. There are simple actions you can take to see whether a break up is the better option.

Do not worry about going to university and studying a degree in psychology to understand when you’re in a bad relationship. There are clues you’re probably already aware of that hint your relationship is more like a lemon than lemonade. Ask yourself these practical questions:

• Are you and the other person feeling the same emotions as you were at the start of your relationship?
• Do the two of you share the same important values like religious beliefs?
• How often do you communicate with one another?
• When you do communicate, what things do you talk about?
• Do you enjoy being together?
• Do you perceive being single in a better light than being in a relationship?
• What causes the two of you to fight? Little things that show hostility or big problems like an affair?
• Do you have a fear of hurting the person? Why are you putting yourself through misery in not wanting to hurt the person?
• Are you in the relationship because of guilt or love?

Ask other people what they see and think about your relationship with the person. Take their opinions into account. Do not base your decision solely on what they think because the most important factor is how you feel.

Most women in bad relationships remain in them because they would rather be in a bad relationship than be alone. They feel comforted in awful relationships. They see married couples and envy their relationship. The thoughts about getting back together or just finding any guy then start racing through their mind.

Another common reason for remaining in a bad relationship is love. Are you using the excuse that your feeling of “love” is keeping you from breaking up? Love is an intoxicating emotion. It is blinding. Even if you think you still love the person, ask yourself the many questions above. The questions act as objective judges to the situation; contrasted to your subjective emotion of love that intoxicates your understanding of the situation.

Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) teaches that people often fail to distinguish between various emotions. For example, excitement can be misunderstood as fear. How do you know that you feel love? Does your answers to the above questions sound like love to you? What specific events let you know you are in love? What physical responses do you have that let you know there is no love? Asking yourself these questions will make it crystal clear whether you really do experience love.

Even if you are sure you love the other person (remembering to be thinking objectively about this with the questions asked), love alone is not a good indicator of a good relationship. Love is not a relationship; it is an emotion. Without other aspects like time, happiness, and communication, what you feel is love does not comprehend a healthy relationship. Do not become intoxicated by affection, attraction, or love.

Remember that relationships can be repaired, of course, so do not conclude that you should break up just because things are sour at the moment. If you still have a relationship with this person where you can communicate, talk things over with your partner in a safe environment. Even if you are certain the relationship is over, ask yourself the list of above questions to reinforce your thoughts to fight away “what ifs” and “maybes” you might have in getting back with your ex.

Emotional Baggage Holds You Back

Emotional baggage occurs when you carry emotions from one relationship to another, much like you would carry a backpack as you travel from one destination to another. You carry it around because you fail to let go or you fear reliving emotional pain. It is easy to carry emotional baggage from one relationship to the next.

People protect themselves all the time in new relationships by withholding their full emotional selves from the relationship. They say things like, “I don’t want to get hurt again”, “I’m still hurting”, or “I’m not over it.”

There is no denying you can be damaged when you place trust in someone, yet holding yourself back makes you miss out on the joyful rewards of an intimate relationship. You forgo the risk of being hurt again when you protect yourself, but you also miss out on full happiness with your partner.

You do not have to quickly “dive into” a relationship. Solid relationships build over time. You can “dip your toes” into the relationship and gradually, but surely, immerse yourself. Gradually drop your emotional baggage onto the ground. Doing so will ensure you experience full intimacy that otherwise was unachievable with emotional baggage.

Take the Lessons with You

I am a firm believer that every person can learn a lesson from almost every person and situation. A relationship break up is no exception. You can learn vital lessons and experience personal growth instead of personal decay from your difficulty.

Your main goal in relationships is finding your perfect partner. Someone you can share love and feel connected in unison. You cannot achieve this with emotional baggage and failing to learn from your mistakes. It makes perfect sense to learn from a break up. I know you want to progress forward and find your ultimate partner; instead of remaining stuck in an old relationship where you waste time, intense emotions, and energy.

It is too easy to find the negative to strengthen negative beliefs instead of looking for the positive in a break up. This mindset is damaging as it causes a chain reaction of negative building on negative until you are completely emotionally unavailable. The negative reinforcement prevents you from becoming smarter and stronger for future relationships.

To learn from your experience, I recommend you take responsibility for what occurred. In many break ups, each person blames the other. Rarely is one person mutually agreed to have caused the split. Take responsibility and do not play the blame-game.

I can almost guarantee you did something seriously wrong in the relationship, which contributed to the break up – you just may be unaware of your contribution due to a lack of knowledge. Maybe you do not know how attraction works, how to effectively listen to your partner, or how to assert yourself to address a problem that concerns you. Can you see the powerful role you may have played in the break up?

It is important to know that getting over a break up is more than moving on; it involves learning from your past for a better future by accepting responsibility for what occurred. Look at the situation as a experience to learn from in your journey towards finding your ultimate partner.

Express It

There are many things you can do to get over a relationship break up, but one of the most important things to do is to have a support group. For most girls this will come easy. For guys, it will be difficult because society makes us think we are not masculine if we talk about our emotions.

If you are female, you can communicate to your closest friends and talk to your parents or brothers and sisters – provided these people will listen to help you get through this difficult time. Let them know you are only after a listening ear to avoid having them turn into an amateur psychologist (a term I use in my communication secrets program to describe a person’s inclination to judge and project solutions). By letting them know you want them to only listen, they will be more willing to “absorb” the pain you feel. You want a support person or group not for relationship advice, but to help you express yourself and feel your emotions.

As for guys, you can use the same principles, but chances are you will not want to talk to your guy friends about the break up. Remember that if it’s not expressed, it’s repressed. You need to have a support group or at least a support person. You will find that accepting your emotions and expressing them will allow you to heal. (If you are a guy, and simply want to get your girlfriend back, there is a good guide here.)

How to Move on From Pain: An Exercise to Heal You Now

By this stage we have clearly defined what you do and do not want to remove the confusion often created by a broken relationship. You have also learned about love, how to release emotional baggage, the importance of learning from the past, and how to safely express your pain.

Naomi Eisenberger, a University of California neuroscientist, discovered that the feeling of rejection in a break up switches on the same part of the brain as physical pain. The anterior cingulate receives an intense boost in activity. This is why a break up can be very painful. A punch in the nose is as threatening, according to your brain, as rejection in a break up.

Physical pain can be cured by a doctor. However, does a doctor actually heal your wounds? No. The doctor helps your body get into a state of healing so it can heal itself.

The pain you experience from the past is irreversible. There is nothing you can do about it. You need to put your mind and body into a state that allows it to heal itself. One way to achieve this is time, but I am sure you do not want to waste ten years of your life in pain.

Another option is seeing a therapist. Should you choose a therapist? It is up to you. There is no shame in therapy. All therapy works for different people in different situations. Even no therapy is therapy because time itself is therapeutic.

Before you decide to spend thousands of dollars on someone who will listen to your problems, I want you to do this exercise. The exercise I am about to share with you is powerful because it does not change the content of your experience. Your experience has happened. You cannot change it. What the exercise does change is the process. The exercise changes the attributions you make to the past and future.

Think of a pleasant experience or imagine a pleasant experience you would like to have in the future. See the image. As you see the image, make it larger. Make the image bigger, brighter, and clearer. Take your time as you see the image increase in size. Step into the image as if you were living it from a first person view. As the image changes, notice how you feel.

After you have done that, move the image in the opposite direction. Take your time doing the exercise. Gradually make the pleasant image smaller, dimer, unclear, and distant from you. Step out of the image as you observe yourself in the situation. Again, as the image changes, notice how you feel.

Once you have done that little exercise, how did you feel when the image is bright and large in size? How did you feel when the image was small, dim, and far away from you? Most people experience intense emotions when they see a bright, large image in first person. On the contrary, they experience little emotion when they see a small, dim, distant image. You can probably see how this will help you move on from a break up or any painful memory.

If you make unpleasant images large, bright, and up close, while making pleasant images small, dim, and distant, you will be an expert at feeling miserable! On the other hand, if you make pleasant images large, bright, and up close, while making unpleasant images small, dim, and distant, you will be an expert at feeling happy! Apply this concept to your relationships. Your unpleasant images are the break up movies you continually play in your mind, while your pleasant images are pleasurable events. (If you’re trying to forget good memories with your ex, you can make the images dim.)

Shrink the unpleasant images. See the images move away from you. Next, intensify the pleasure you want. Constantly feel, think, see, and even touch and smell pleasurable images. See yourself touch your wonderful surroundings. Imagine yourself with a big smile. Feel the joy within yourself. Think how great it will be to have overcome your break up. You will be able to get over your relationship much faster by intensely imagining your desired five senses.

It is Time to Make You Your World

Unfortunately for many people, their relationships determine their level of happiness. They do not burst with joy and happiness when single. When they are in a sour relationship, they become sour. It is a dependency trap. This neediness eventually deteriorates the relationship and scares away their partner.

Many individuals desperately want a partner. They think the person will solve personal problems like boredom, unhappiness, and feeling unattractive. If a person goes into a relationship like this, he or she will destroy it.

If you do not have a great single life where you wonder how to fit a relationship in, I question whether you should be in a relationship. You need to become your own source of energy and be in control of your emotions instead of being dependent on others for things like comfort, happiness, and emotional security. This view is the opposite perspective to a time-consuming, miserable, codependent relationship.

I cannot emphasize enough how important it is to make a big change in your life right now. You could work harder to get a promotion, exercise, read self-help books, take a new course, socialize more often, or go out with friends. You need to create a single life where you are happily busy and question whether you want a relationship with someone. Such a great single life will attract a future partner for you.

I believe a break up can be one of the greatest things to happen to a person if they are aware of the potential held in the moment. Learn from the break up. If splitting up encourages you to undergo a lot of self-help, the change can excite you.

When life throws you a lemon with a bad relationship, do not try and divulge the lemon. Look at the lemon from a different perspective to see you can make lemonade. You may feel bitter right now, but follow the advice in this article and you will look at a break up from a more empowering perspective. Soon, you may even wonder why you were in a relationship because single life can be so great.

(If you are reading this article, single because of your recent break up, feeling a sense of depression, and still want to get back with your ex, pay attention to what I’m about to share with you before your ex finds someone else. For a full course to get back with the person you love, I highly recommend guys get this course while girls read and get this course.)

Other Articles That Might Help You

1. How and When to End a Long-Term Relationship
2. How to Manage Stress in Relationship Communication: Keep Calm with Scientific Stress Management
3. The Heart of Effective Communication: How to Love People
4. The Complete Nonviolent Communication (NVC) Process for Compassion, Understanding, and Peace
5. Finding the Art of Forgiveness: How to Forgive and Be Forgiven

Carl Rogers, a pioneering psychologist in the 1950s on human relations, said love, genuineness, and empathy are three essential pieces to constructive communication. Many studies since then support Rogers’ theory. When we fail to love people, it is hard to communicate in a way that supports ourselves and people. Love is the core of powerful communication. Think about it for a moment and I’m sure your experiences will confirm that love is the heart of effective communication.

It is unfortunate we are not taught how to love people. Instead of learning how to love, we learn to fight. Instead of learning how to love, we learn to defend ourselves. Instead of learning how to love, we learn to get our point across and debate. It is no wonder society is deprived of the core energy – love – that drives humanity.

This article will help you love people more. It is not about falling romantically in love with someone, though the advice can help you in that sense. You will learn how to love people to empower your communication. I will give you a logical eight lesson plan that you can easily follow. Loving others will bring an abundance of love among many great things into your life.

What is Love?

“One word frees us of all the weight and pain of life: That word is love.” – Sophocles, 496-406 B.C.

“What most people need to learn in life is how to love people and use things, instead of using people and loving things.” – Author Unknown.

“Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails.” – Bible, New King James Version, 1 Corinthians 13:4-8.

Love is a tough subject for anyone to address. Not many people agree with a common description of love. As Haddaway’s classic hit is titled, “What is Love?” Some say it is a willingness of sacrifice, some say it is blindness to flaws, while others say it is unexplainable. Some say it is an intense devotion or affection, but that can be neediness.

Just hearing about the subject of “love” makes me cringe. Love is twisted by society – not only by younger generations who are often picked on in this area – into a form that destroys its pure meaning. People think they are in “love” because they feel attraction or have been in a relationship for many years, but this does not comprehend pure love.

I’m not particularly fond of most material on love because the subject tends to be categorized into romance. “Do nice things like give gifts and the person will love you.” Romance does not describe love – not even an act of love because romance by itself can be superficial and manipulative. Love is beyond actions. Love is beyond reactions. You don’t wait for love to be created. Something deep works in pure love.

Psychologist Robert Sternberg attempted to explain love in his triangular theory of love. The theory is applicable for interpersonal relationships. It categorizes love using three scales: 1) intimacy, 2) passion, and 3) commitment. Variances in the three scales produces types of love. It is only when all three are present that a pure form of love, known as “consummate love”, can develop. Consummate love is the ultimate form of love an individual can desire.

A more applicable description of love to the style I am writing about in this article is explained by Susan Hendrick and Clyde Hendrick in their love attitude scale:

1. Eros love is based on physical appearance. It describes superficial love.
2. Ludus love is a game based on conquest. Pick-up artists (PUAs) often experience this type of love. PUAs love to conquer women. When one succeeds at getting a woman into the bedroom, he quickly loses interest in her.
3. Storge love is gradually built from similarities and friendship. The transition from friendship to love is often unclear.
4. Pragma love is more rational than other types of love as it is based on practicality. An extreme form of Pragma love is prostitution where financial gains rationalize attachment.
5. Mania love is very possessive and unstable. Strong feelings of insecurity, neediness, and jealously are experienced.
6. Agape love is selfless, unconditional, and often spiritual.

Agape love most accurately describes the type of love we wish to have towards family and friends. We want to unconditionally love those with whom we desire to effectively communicate; not just when these people do something nice for us or when we are in a good mood. Agape love does not change when the mood or circumstances change. Agape love remains when the person you feel agape love for does something mean to you. It is unconditional and withstanding – almost divine. It is our goal in this article to develop an agape form of love.

The Role of Self-love

The selflessness in agape love we wish to develop is one beyond sacrifice. It is beyond confining boundaries and a lack of concern in fulfilling one’s needs. Selflessness is about focus, attitude, and action towards others while retaining self-love. It is not about sacrifice and ignoring your needs.

Rarely are selfless actions self-less. Selfish actions misinterpreted as “self-less” fail to remove the self from the action. Unselfish actions that overlook the giver’s needs builds emotions like resentment that destroy the selflessness in the action. When the person ignores his or her own needs or desires, the person feels invaded and discounted. The person being self-less may be a people-pleaser quietly harboring dangerous amounts of resentment that will kill a relationship.

Unhealthy selfishness worsens by its supposed solution of selflessness. Selflessness in an area you lack resources can lead to unhealthy selfishness. Neediness comes from poor self-love. There is nobody more unloving than one void of self-love. Desperacy for love diminishes the love you give and receive.

Be selfish in the healthy sense before you are selfless. Ignore your parents and teachers that say selfishness is wrong. Greediness is different to healthy selfishness. In mathematics and life, you cannot give what you do not have. (Most people, however, wait to be loved by others.)

To give love you must firstly have love. You can only be truly selfless when you love yourself. It is in selfishness and the selflessness of agape love that we get our first lesson on how to love someone:

1. Love yourself to love others

If you are not into religion, the most reliable source for love is from yourself. You do not need to approve of everything about yourself, but you do need to accept yourself. You will always have flaws you dislike. Accept it. Only by loving yourself can you love others.

Give-Take Relationship of Love

As babies, we were entirely dependent on our parents or guardians. We would cry to be feed, cry to be warmed, and cry to be loved (some adults have hardly changed). We wanted to receive without giving. The only thing we gave was emotional warmth and love, yet that was out of our control, accidentally created from people’s perceptions towards us. Perhaps the only true thing we gave as a baby was regurgitated food.

As we began to age, we became more “independent”. We were able to feed ourselves, make ourselves warm, and put a shelter over our heads. Rarely does our growth extend beyond this independence or dependence. We are still that crying baby who wants everything without giving.

On the rare occasions we give, we do so in hope of receiving something of equal or greater value in exchange for our gift. Our giving comes from reciprocation. A part of this problem comes from our teachers and parents advising us to avoid people who take advantage of us. We get conditioned to not be conned by someone who fails to return a favor.

The principle of reciprocation is a double-edged sword that can empower you. It states that humans have an inherent desire to return favors. When something is seen as a favor, not an obligation or expectation, we react by reciprocating something to the person of equal or greater value. By giving we usually receive more than what we gave. Give love to others to receive things you cannot comprehend.

Unfortunately, when we do give and do not instantly receive, our giving stops. The expectations we create are the demise of our giving. Our expectations, which exceeds results, makes us dissatisfied. If you think you need to receive love from others in order to give love, you are living reactively. The more you get, the more you want. Neediness disables a person from loving people.

Stephen Covey in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People says most people interpret love as a feeling, a reaction from events. We are driven by Hollywood to think love is a product of a circumstance – a feeling out of our control. People who live reactively to their environment blame others and situations for a lack of love.

Covey says “proactive people make love a verb”. They create the life they want. The greatest lovers in the world are people who live by their value of giving love instead of reacting to the moment. It is through loving that love is created. This is our second principle:

2. Simply start loving to love

We live in an interdependent society reliant on people, as they are on us, so we need to give. When we love others, they in turn love us, but not necessarily in the same form as our love. It is much easier to love someone who first loved us. The purpose of loving yourself is to create love in your life so that you can love. An active creator of one’s personal universe does not wait for the right circumstances – the person does what he or she wants done.

Agape love is not dependent on firstly receiving love. Agape love does not have limiting conditions. It gives without receiving. Mildred Norman Ryder, also known as the “Peace Pilgrim”, nicely said, “Pure love is a willingness to give without a thought of receiving anything in return”. This gives us our third lesson of loving someone:

3. Give love without any expectation of receiving love

I know people fear giving love and receiving none in return. Rejection is scary, but protecting yourself blocks the flow of love into your life. The need to receive love in exchange for love is needy, approval-seeking, and destructive. Reduce your need for someone’s approval to empower yourself to love the person. Remember, agape love is unconditional. Loving someone without the expectation of being loved in return, takes you one step further towards radical personal responsibility and unconditional love.

Daniel Goleman in his revolutionizing book Social Intelligence, which looks at the science of human relationships, emphasizes the need to go beyond ourselves. When we overcome self-absorption, we can connect with people and love them. “When we focus on others, our world expands,” says Goleman. “Our own problems drift to the periphery of the mind and so seem smaller, and we increase our capacity for connection – or compassionate action.”

Scarcity and Abundance of Love

The worry of giving without receiving comes from scarcity. We fear being conned, taken advantaged of, and receiving unfair treatment. Scarcity assumes love is a limited resource. It means there is a finite amount of love in the world so you had better keep what you need to yourself. No wonder we keep what we can to ourselves because our survival becomes dependent on it.

Extend your self-love to others. Self-love is one step forwards to an empowered giving of love compared to the limitations of giving it from guilt, ego, and scarcity. “Love wasn’t put in your heart to stay,” said the singer Michael Smith. “Love isn’t love until you give it away.”

Though scarcity can work against us when loving others, it can also work for us. The principle of scarcity states that we value a resource more when it is rare. Knowing love is scarce in the sense it can be lost, will make you value it more. This gives the fourth lesson to love someone:

4. There is no better time to love than now

Those who have lost loved ones know the value of love. Some people are too late to express their love. They regret failing to communicate their love to someone no longer with them. Do not become someone who devalues what is in their life until it disappears. A love-filled person knows their love in a person’s life counts.

Transforming Pain Into Pleasure

Change your perception of scarcity into abundance to start transforming pain into pleasure. If you struggle to feel grateful to transform this aspect of your life into pleasure, something that always helps me is to think about the meaning of “appreciate”. To appreciate is to increase in value. Therefore, to be grateful for everything in your past and present, you increase your feelings of value towards your experiences and the world around you.

You need to overcome feelings of anger, blame, and resentment before you can feel grateful and love those who hurt you. When you experience these limiting feelings, you fight an uphill battle that discourages you from loving the person who “caused” you these feelings. Remove the pain to experience the gain. The elimination of emotional pain gives us our fifth lesson on how to love someone:

5. Remove blame and resentment to make love possible

Anger is not bad – it signals a problem. When you blame someone or feel they cause your anger, that is a sign you lack radical personal responsibility. It is a sign you are reactive rather than proactive. Men who complain that women are “bitches” and women who complain that men are “jerks”, are two examples of people who lack personal responsibility. Once you accept radical personal responsibility, you no longer blame others and possess feelings of anger towards people.

Will the acceptance of radical personal responsibility remove all anger? No. It is not about the removal of anger, but about removing the victim mindset that people cause your pain. You will feel anger towards someone sooner or later, but that is just a sign you lack personal responsibility. Every second you decide how to respond to the world. Use the part of you that has you behave beyond everyday annoyances to help you accept radical personal responsibility.

Resentment comes from blame, but it needs a mention by itself because of its destructive capabilities. Resentment is an unusually powerful emotion that builds in size when you fail to forgive someone or take radical responsibility. Learn the art of forgiveness to erase resentment. We think we hurt others with an attachment of resentment against them, but we only hurt ourselves.

Love is Not Liking

When I teach people to love others to improve their communication, they often complain they cannot love, forgive, or even like certain people in their life. They think there is something unique in their history that excludes them from being able to love. While this hints that the person is yet to forgive, they may mistake love for liking.

Love is not liking. You can dislike someone you love. Jewish philosopher Martin Buber saw that love is a choice while liking is more reactive. We don’t really choose what we like, but we can choose who and what to love. Love is not a series of feelings, but feelings often accompany love. Hollywood tricks us to believe that love is a reaction out of our control. You can make the choice to love people and want the best for them just like you make the choice to love yourself because that is best for your wellbeing. This gives our sixth lesson:

6. Want the best for people and constantly remind yourself that loving is not liking

See the Abundance of Love

Here is a useful exercise to help you love people you resent. It will make you grateful for everything in your past and present, and create an abundance of love in your life. This exercise will create our seventh lesson:

7. Be grateful for everything in your past and present

Think of the significant positive and negative main events in your past. Summarize them on a piece of paper in separate rows. If you have a painful memory of how your parents brought you up, you could summarize it as, “I dislike my upbringing by my parents”.

Once you have listed the significant events, write down what you are thankful for about the event besides its summary. Identifying a lesson in a problem is difficult – and you may need to think about it for sometime – but it does exist – it always exists. What do you appreciate about the “negative” or positive event? If you disliked how you were raised by your parents, you could be thankful for:

• The independence they created in you
• Your new knowledge on how not to raise children
• The desire they gave you to lovingly raise your children

People who value lessons and opportunities, instead of being absorbed in pain and problems, are sometimes accused of delusion. Negativity and pain is no more real than positiveness and pleasure. Hate is no more real than love. You decide to be grateful for everything in your past and present. You decide to be loving. You decide to communicate well.

Being grateful for everything in your past and present removes pain. It makes you aware of the abundance in your life that you previously ignored. Now we have our eighth and last lesson on how to love someone:

8. See abundance and you will be exposed to an abundance of love

Love is everywhere. It is in our past and present. It will reside in our future – more so if you follow the advice in this article. “Although humans inherit a biological bias that permits them to feel anger, jealousy, selfishness and envy, and to be rude, aggressive or violent,” says Harvard psychologist Jerome Kagan, “they inherit an even stronger biological bias for kindness, compassion, cooperation, love and nurture.”

It is your choice to see the abundance of love because it is real. It is also your choice to use your biological gift of compassion and love to bring an abundance of this precious energy into your life. “Only when we give joyfully, without hesitation or thought of gain,” said love expert Leo Buscaglia, “can we truly know what love means.”

Other Articles That Might Help You

1. Review of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey
2. 101 Conversation Starters People Love
3. The Complete Nonviolent Communication (NVC) Process for Compassion, Understanding, and Peace
4. Why People Remain Quiet, Shy, and Non-Assertive: The Benefits of Passive Behavior and Communication
5. Why Smart People Have Poor Communication Skills – and What to Do About It