Tuesday, January 29, 2008

How about...

"How bout getting off of these antibiotics
How bout stopping eating when I'm full up
How bout them transparent dangling carrots
How bout that ever elusive kudo

Thank you India
Thank you terror
Thank you disillusionment
Thank you frailty
Thank you consequence
Thank you thank you silence

How bout me not blaming you for everything
How bout me enjoying the moment for once
How bout how good it feels to finally forgive you
How bout grieving it all one at a time

Thank you India
Thank you terror
Thank you disillusionment
Thank you frailty
Thank you consequence
Thank you thank you silence

The moment I let go of it was
The moment I got more than I could handle
The moment I jumped off of it was
The moment I touched down

How bout no longer being masochistic
How bout remembering your divinity
How bout unabashedly bawling your eyes out
How bout not equating death with stopping

Thank you India
Thank you providence
Thank you disillusionment
Thank you nothingness
Thank you clarity
Thank you thank you silence."
BY Alanis Morissette

The above lyrics are the property of the respective authors, artists and labels, the lyrics are provided for educational purposes only. If you like the song, please buy relative CD to support the artist.

Thursday, January 24, 2008

Can Marital Fights Be Beneficial?

By: Rick Nauert, Ph.D.
Senior News Editor

Reviewed by: John M. Grohol, Psy.D. (from Psych Central)

A good marital fight appears to have beneficial health effects. The finding comes from a study that discovered couples who suppress their anger when one attacks the other, die earlier than members of couples where one or both partners express their anger and resolve the conflict.

University of Michigan researchers looked at 192 couples over 17 years and placed the couples into one of four categories: both partners communicate their anger; in the second and third groups one spouse expresses while the other suppresses; and both the husband and wife suppress their anger and brood, said Ernest Harburg, professor emeritus with the U-M School of Public Health and the Psychology Department, and lead author.

The study is a longitudinal analysis of couples in Tecumseh, Mich.

“Comparison between couples in which both people suppress their anger, and the three other types of couples, are very intriguing,” Harburg said.

When both spouses suppress their anger at the other when unfairly attacked, earlier death was twice as likely than in all other types.

“When couples get together, one of their main jobs is reconciliation about conflict,” Harburg said. “Usually nobody is trained to do this. If they have good parents, they can imitate, that’s fine, but usually the couple is ignorant about the process of resolving conflict. The key matter is, when the conflict happens, how do you resolve it?”

“When you don’t, if you bury your anger, and you brood on it and you resent the other person or the attacker, and you don’t try to resolve the problem, then you’re in trouble.”

Of the 192 couples studied, 26 pairs both suppressed their anger and there were 13 deaths in that group. In the remaining 166 pairs, there were 41 deaths combined.

In 27 percent of those couples who both suppressed their anger, one member of the couple died during the study period, and in 23 percent of those couples both died during the study period.

That’s compared to only six percent of couples where both spouses died in the remaining three groups combined. Only 19 percent in the remaining three groups combined saw one partner die during the study period.

The study adjusted for age, smoking, weight, blood pressure, bronchial problems, breathing, and cardiovascular risk, Harburg said.

The paper only looks at attacks which are considered unfair or undeserved by the person being attacked, said Harburg. If the attack is viewed as fair, say an abused child or woman who believes they deserved the attack, then the victim does not get angry, Harburg said.

Harburg stresses that these preliminary numbers are small, but the researchers are now collecting 30-year follow-up data, which will have almost double the death rate, he said.

Saturday, January 19, 2008

Relationship Counseling: Does It Work?

By Coulson Duerksen

Everyone knows that having excellent relationship communication is vital to your relationship. In many forms of relationship counseling, relationship counselors will bring up relationship communication as part of relationship counseling. Since statistics show that 60 percent of marriages end in divorce, one reason may be that many couples don't seek relationship counseling until it's too late. Most people who have tried relationship counseling believe it works, and couples who have split often say they wish they had tried relationship counseling first to help improve their relationship communication.

"Most people realize that getting rid of your partner does not get rid of the problem because half the problem is yours," says Dr. Bonnie Eaker Weil, author of Make Up, Don't Break Up (Adams Media Corporation, 1999). "You can walk out on your marriage, but you can't run away from yourself — no matter how hard you try," she says.

One of the biggest challenges for most couples is learning how to stop blaming each other so that they can work through the troubled times without the power struggles. Relationship counseling offers a safe haven for couples to express their needs and fears and effectively resolve anger and conflict.

"More relationships break up because people don't know how to validate each other," says Dr. Eaker Weil. But with the right counseling and a little practice, couples can learn the skills to save their relationships.

A Conscious Approach to Relationship Counseling
Gay Hendricks, Ph.D., and Kathlyn Hendricks, Ph.D, authors of The Conscious Heart: Seven Soul-Choices That Inspire Creative Partnership (Bantam, 1999) and Conscious Loving: The Journey to Co-Commitment (Bantam, 1992), have worked with thousands of couples over the past two decades. They're the first to acknowledge that success depends upon a number of factors, including the approach.

The Hendrickses take a "whole-body" learning approach. They look for the physical "dance" that's going on between partners, and ask couples to notice what's going on in their bodies. Is there tension? If so, where? Is their breathing shallow? By identifying actual body sensations, such as "my heart is racing," people accomplish two things: 1) They change their state of consciousness, and 2) begin to communicate on a level that is unarguable. Communicating in a way that is unarguable is the most valuable skill you can learn, according to Kathlyn Hendricks, because it allows you to communicate without blame. "Identifying body sensations is the foundation for identifying how we create (and resolve) conflict," she says.


Relationship Counseling: Something for Everyone
The Hendricks's method is not for everyone because it means that each partner has to take 100 percent responsibility for their experience in the relationship. But with the overwhelming number of approaches to relationship counseling available, just about everyone can find one that works for them.

Christiane Northrup, M.D., author of Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom (Bantam, 1998) and The Wisdom of Menopause (Bantam, 2003), has tried and recommends the Hendricks's approach to relationship counseling. "I am a big fan of marriage," she says. "I think everyone can use a little help with beliefs and behaviors when it comes to relationships." Although divorced, Dr. Northrup advocates doing all you can to make your marriage work, unless it's a physically, psychologically or emotionally abusive relationship. If so, you need help, not relationship counseling. Organizations such as Family Crisis (1-800-537-6066) are available 24 hours a day.

Dr. Northrup also recommends Michele Weiner-Davis's approach to relationship counseling, along with her book, Getting Through to The Man You Love: The No-Nonsense, No-Nagging Guide For Women (Golden Books Pub. Co., 1999), and Dr. Phil McGraw's approach, which is outlined in his book Relationship Rescue: A Seven-Step Strategy for Reconnecting With Your Partner (Hyperion, 2000).

Weiner-Davis, an internationally renowned relationship expert and psychotherapist, has said that everything a woman needs to know about changing her man can be learned from a good dog-training manual. Weiner-Davis, who only counsels women, teaches skills to help women create the type of relationships they want.

Dr. Phil, a psychologist, takes a more confrontational approach to stopping the "blame cycle" by asking couples to decide to be happy, not right. His seven steps involve: Defining what's "wrong" with you and your relationship; ridding yourself of "wrong" thinking; switching from negative thoughts/behaviors to positive thoughts/behavior; internalizing new personal relationship values; developing a winning "relationship formula"; reconnecting with your partner; and learning to maintain your relationship.

With all the help available today, most experts agree: There's no reason to resign yourself to a bad relationship.

found at: http://health.discovery.com/centers/loverelationships/articles/relationshipcounseling_02.html

Friday, January 11, 2008

Time to breathe in and let everything out

The official lyrics aren't posted anywhere at this time to this upcoming release by Sanctus Real (due out Feb. 08), but you can listen to the entire song and part of the interview on the Air1 Morning Show page - click on "Interviews" (Sanctus Real - Oct 07). 10/29/07
Air1 Morning Show--http://www.air1.com/Connect/MorningShow.aspx

Working title: "whatever you're doing"
By Sanctus Real

"It's time for healing
Time to move on
It's time to fix what's been broken too long.
Time to make right
What has been wrong,
It's time to find my way to where I belong.
There's a wave that's crashing over me
And all I can do is surrender.

Whatever you're doing inside of me
It feels like chaos but somehow there's peace
And it's hard to surrender to what I can’t see
But I’m giving in to something heavenly.

Its time for a milestone
Time to begin again
Re-evaluate who I really am.
Am I doing everything to follow your will?
Or just climbing aimlessly over these hills?
Oh, show me what it is you want from me…
I'd give everything… I surrender…

To whatever you're doing
Inside of me
Oh it feels like chaos but somehow there's peace.
And it's hard to surrender to what I can't see,
But I'm giving in to something heavenly…
Something heavenly.

It's time to face up,
Clean this old house,
time to breathe in and let everything out…
…that I've wanted to say for so many years,
time to release all my held back tears.

Whatever you're doing inside of me,
Oh it feels like chaos but I believe,
That you're up to something bigger than me…
Larger than life…
something heavenly.

Whatever you're doing inside of me
It feels like chaos
But now I can see,
This is something bigger than me
Larger than life
Something heavenly…
Something heavenly.

Its time to face up,
Clean this old house,
Time to breathe in and let everything out…"



The above lyrics are the property of the respective authors, artists and labels, the lyrics are provided for educational purposes only. If you like the song, please buy relative CD (once it comes out) to support the artist.