Influences In Creative Thinking #1

I have had a lifetime of benefits from using de Bono's creative thinking ideas, even though I have merely enjoyed the humble success of an interesting and creative life. My choices have led me to put time to be creative ahead as a priority, which has turned out to have been a rewarding, satisfying and happy choice.

I'll start out with how I used de Bono's thinking skills in the first five years after I ran into them from reading one little book called "PO". This book was the start of many inspirations to seek out "new perceptual assumptions" during the course of my life. You'll also read a number of additional points about how de Bono's ideas affected me as an adult - (I am now 55.) I still enjoy seeing many parallels between de Bono and other brilliant observers - great minds often think alike.

Let me tell you some of the first ways I used these ideas when I was a teen. The first book I read of de Bono's affected me deeply. It was "The New Word, PO" that I stumbled across in the Riverside, CA library when I was fifteen, (1970.) The effect of reading "PO" on my personal life was immediate. One of the first expressions of problem solving that I applied as a teen was for the challenge of getting along with my group of friends.

Thinking skills as way to ask for participation
By far the greatest advantage for me that ran through the book PO was that I could now had ways to ask others to play thinking games with me. The many de Bono books that I later read, continued to give me terms for asking for participation in many of the thinking skills that I had already innately been doing, but had never been able to describe to others. These terms also helped me to explain to others my motives for using thinking skills. It helped to minimize authoritarian resistance to the question of who defines the priorities & criteria of what constitutes improvement. In short, it stopped conflicts over who had or wanted to have control.

Interpersonal relationship problem solving
At the time it was obvious to us that we teens had no clue how to deal with interpersonal relationships, so we were quite open to new ideas. When interpersonal relationship problems would occur for us, it involved many members of our whole group. So we problem-solved as a group. From reading de Bono's book, we separated the description and expression of our problems from what we were going to do about them. Then we could try out various solutions and improve them. We discarded what didn't work and redesigned other experiments until we did find some useful processes.

The form of problem solving we stumbled on was similar to co-counseling - (many years later published and popularized by an adult psychologist who had the same idea independently.) But our way had an additional value. Somehow we figured out how to work together toward continuing improvement without inciting further conflict with each other.

After we had listed all of what might be bothering us or speculated possible causes of internal and external conflict in each of us, we united as a group and categorized those concerns which seemed to be about similar issues, noted those which seemed to be unique and connected those which seemed to be related to our relationship with each other. This activity put us on the same side of the question.

Because of the reversal example in the book PO, (and because of the story of the pan being used to iron a shirt;) we figured we had made assumptions that could be at the core of our misunderstandings of each other. So we actively looked for a way to uncover what those assumptions were.

We noted how each person's explanation of shared situations differed. As we listened, we found ourselves coming up with various conclusions or judgments. These conclusions became a signal for us that there must be an operative assumption underneath them. Until we noticed the provocation of a reaction, these assumptions were hidden. We decided we didn't really know enough to determine conclusions and pass judgments. That is when and why we decided more experiments were needed and this had to be an open-ended solution that could be improved.

Once we had all the pieces of the content, we came up with ideas how to deal with the issues (which included our own illogical feelings,) including problems of how to implement our bright ideas in real time when they were most needed.

Our teen discoveries
We decided that "truth" of what "really happened" didn't matter and was a dead end. Each of our points of view about what happened were valid, because of the emotional content and because of how important we were to each other. So in a sense, we invented a concept of "emotional truth."

For instance, one of those problems was how were we going to deal with deciding if we should do what we had said we were going to do as a group together when one or some of us were distracted. Nobody wanted to be left out and nobody wanted to be rejected. So we came up with a codified way to notify (or give a "chance to listen" as we described it.) This phrase was designed to give distracted members of our group a chance to answer back with a momentary "date" ("give me 5 min. then I can pay attention to what you're asking.")

If or when anger would come up, we learned a great deal about how little awareness the angry person had about how they were affecting others before they realized they were angry. So who was starting a reactive fight became quite an interesting question that held rather surprising answers for all of us. To find this information out, some of our experiments were quite volatile! During our experiments, we managed to remain friends - two of these women I am lucky to count as lifelong friends over the last 40 years.

Designing independent study courses
As a teen, another form my creative thinking inspirations took was to dare to propose an independent study of history credit during my first semester of my sophomore year in high school. After reading a specific historic account, I compared how various history books had described it. This research taught me some miraculous insights about point of view, bias and persuasive language. It taught me specifically to recognize exactly how language may be used to promote certain invested interests. Later I understood that teachers use language in this way to bring about an experience for their student, so manipulation and promotion wasn't all bad. (Of course, as a teen , I was quite reactive at that time to being controlled by adults.) From this experience I realized that going through a process could have results that I could not foresee.

During college, I was also led by a curiosity about perceptual assumptions to explore how behaviorism and animal trainers seem to be at odds with each other in a college independent study communication credit at USIU, Poway, CA. Since my final paper explored some of the possible differences between the Whorf-Sapir ideas as well as issues of inter-species communication, I invented what is now called mind-mapping to express and synthesize these divergent results in pictures and flow-chart style.

The skill of reasonable motives
As an adult, most fascinating to me were the de Bono ideas about encouraging speculation for what was motivating people in mysterious situations. I really took these mysteries to heart. At first, speculating about unknown but reasonable motives was useful for my own entertainment in people-watching situations. Later the skill took on another useful result.

This creative ability of finding positive, reasonable explanations, (requiring deliberate, skillful practice,) saw an unexpectedly handy use. Strangely enough, the skill became useful to get people to behave in a civil manner. These were difficult people who were complaining, acting mean or were apparently pursuing revenge. Whether it meant the person suspected I was incurably gullible or that I was merely stupidly hopeful didn't matter. My creative skill to come up with a perfectly compassionate and understandable explanation made difficult people motivated to not disappoint in the future.

Probably in hind-sight this was a mixed advantage, but it was one that I was attracted to nevertheless - so having practiced this skill offered me useful means of avoiding and mitigating difficult situations. Projecting positive outcomes had the effect of negotiating how "difficult" people should treat me in a civil fashion. Of course, in most cases I had to actively guard against violation, set boundaries and enforce them. However, I was able to work personally with seniors, the disabled & homeless, despite their culturally disenfranchised.

F.M Alexander skill training & de Bono's thinking skills
Building a separate new perceptual assumption frees creativity, as does uncovering self-limiting patterns of thought. Positive, forward thinking movement during creative thinking is indespensible - this is absolutely the same with F.M. Alexander's work. I became interested in Alexander Technique in 1976, and have been a teacher since 1985. I see these as parallels exist between de Bono's work and the principles of F.M. Alexander's. Alexander Technique provides a tool for carrying thinking into action that includes training a new perceptual assumption - proprioceptive assumptions. I was also happy to note additional interesting parallels between Alexander Technique and de Bono's work in the Masterthinker series.

Plus, Minus, Interesting, Unknown
I have since used the Cort thinking skills in many situations where decision making was tricky. I especially found useful the Plus, Minus and Interesting to help me explore many factors to stop them swimming around within my concerns. Over time I came to add another useful section to this activity, which was "Unknowns." Having this "Unknowns" section, (Positive-Negative-Interesting-Unknown,) got me to form questions about what was missing. Having questions helped to point me in the direction of where to go next to get these missing elements. Not knowing where to go next is often a great deal of the content that tends to result in unproductive resistance. Sometimes the unknowns were what was stopping me from acting.

Thinking skills taught patience for extending questioning time
Knowing what my questions were also motivated patience. Meaningful questions can become virtually unanswered, but many questions require patience for answers to arrive. Some unknowns are not answerable at once, because the time when they could be answered hasn't arrived yet. It's impossible to anticipate everything, but that shouldn't be a reason to stop the project. There are many times when you must stand on the step of where you are going to be, in order to see ahead.

Thinking skills revealed, extended and developed my natural talents
Before I ran into what de Bono had written on creative thinking, I wasn't very creative in a practical sense; I was only able to identify a happy accident - to be creative accidentally on purpose. I had always been a fast learner, but I mostly learned through osmosis and imitation. Once I had structure to hang my brain on such as the ones proposed by de Bono's ideas, I became deliberately creative. You can head out to www.franis.org for the long list of my multiple creative abilities.

Creative thinking welcomes improvement
I decided to enter this competition because my 97 yr. old Alexander Technique teacher Marj Barstow had called me the most resourcefully creative person she had ever met, (and she had taught many professionally creative performers during the course of her life!) Possibly what makes me notable as a creative thinker is because I am not intimidated by social constraints as has limited most women that stops them. I can problem solve when being criticized, angry or emotional. This characteristic in myself was no doubt the result of some great parenting, but I believe in part it has been from the benefit of having run into de Bono's ideas at an early age. Without that, I never would have learned how many benefits there were to being blessed with the ability to think.

Testimonial toward effectiveness
For the ability to manifest my creative thinking, I owe a great deal to de Bono's ideas. They have been a significant and fascinating benefit to me, my relationships and my work during the course of my life in the last forty years. Without thinking skills, intelligence and multiple talents are mostly a nuisance, spawning wild ideas that never culminate into results.

If you'd like to check out Edward de Bono's new forum for thinkers:
http://www.debonosociety.com/forum

Reactions Fascinate

Had an old friend of mine (gone now) who would say self-deprecating things out loud to people, and it was hilarious. He'd chase someone down who had fled when the conversation lagged for a moment...he'd ask them, "Ahhh, does that mean I'm not interesting enough to hold your attention long enough for you to say good-bye, or did you just need to run away for another excellently secretive reason?"

People who "rile", strangely enough, fascinate. Noticing a reaction sometimes points me to a value that I wouldn't have known was there because I took it so much for granted. Humans only seem to notice "mismatches" or "contrasts" that stand out, so anyone or any situation who brings something like this to my attention is offering me a strange, back-handed sort of gift.

Sometimes the assumption is mine, sometimes it's theirs - but it's always interesting to stop and do what you imagine would be a good idea for the other person to be doing. Then if you do it yourself, they will tend to follow your lead - especially if you have some degree of self-possession to determine your own motives and examine your own assumptions.

But sometimes, it riles them! It helps to explain your motives before you step into areas where defensiveness may occur.

Women, for instance, have many ways they establish "we're in the same boat" attitude as a base agreement. Sometimes women do this with mutual complaints or bitching; sometimes by addressing what is most commonly a cultural assumption about motive-in-common, (such as all women are trying to lose weight, beauty, want money, have problems with men, etc.) Sometimes women try to negotiate an agreement to not tear each other up competitively or pass judgments on each other, to not gossip, etc. Seen in this light, pretty much all these "nasty & thoughtless" topics listed above are, in fact, positive intent.

For instance, if someone is bitching about how bad things are, the best response (as Barbara Sher suggests) is to take the bitch far beyond "normal" bounds to where it gets hilarious.

If you don't fit social expectations, you'll get weird routine comments from people over and over again, "you don't look like dumb enough to want to get sweaty...except in bed." If this is the case for you, this is your chance to come up with a quip (or many quips) that can become a stock answer(s): "Yeah, athletes with brains have to hide it because they don't want to threaten those who feebly try to compete."

I have a standard reply that can make people groan and also get them thinking about assumptions. When they meet, people will commonly ask: Where do you come from? I learned to answer..."Like most people, I came from my mother, originally." Then when they repeat the question, I can say, "Oh, you mean, where was my mother located when I was born?... In a canyon." This helps them to be more specific with their questions to me. Then I can tell them that the hospital where I was born was torn down to be rebuilt across the street when the highway was widened. My mother would point to a bare spot in this canyon when we would drive over a bridge and she'd say, "that's where you were born." I have a chance to explain to them, this is why I'm motivated to examine assumptions and to question people who are questioning me what they mean, exactly. I want to set this person up from the beginning to understand that I do not question their assumptions in order to get them to defend themselves. I ask questions merely because it is all too common to misunderstand.

My intent is to gain information and to get people to think for themselves - not to incite defensiveness. To defend is the more common reaction for people who wary to being "snubbed." Defense cuts off creative thinking ability and directs the blame on to the person who "incited" the defensive reaction...which of course, I do not want them to think about me. I want to encourage people to feel free to talk to me, not shut them up.

Well, sometimes I want to shut them up. As the woman who looked for her license as the cop tried to engage her to get her admit she had a "good excuse" to be speeding, I've used the ruse that I am preoccupied if the person offers me the wrong lead. I'm using the word "lead" here as in the leading the conversational intent somewhere where I know I do not want to go because I know that it is not positive or constructive. There's a rhythm to who gets to lead, when - so watch for this rhythm and redirect when it is your turn.

But if you determine that someone knows your boundaries, and they are still "testing" these boundaries, now it's a Training Issue. If the person, (who knows better) is intentionally "messing with you," if you don't slap them down in the moment, you'll just be encouraging them to blithely disrespect you again and again. You've expressed your preferences and limits, and now you must enforce them... or cut off the relationship. Assuming that you'd like to keep the relationship going, you can try other tactics: distraction, humor, a "pattern interrupt" action. Other bright ideas are to change your pacing, slowing down or speeding up the tempo of the exchange, communicating with body language & actions...all these are handy. Some of the time, they actually work.

Communication is a tricky thing, but you get relationships out of it.

One of my rules of both thumbs is "Never Say What You Don't Want Them To Do - It Confuses The Animal." It helps to remember to "Keep Your Eyes On The Prize" and state what you do want. It allows other people to play what I'm playing, but it makes me feel a little like I'm selling something.

If I want to inform someone that they have jumped toward making a mystery assumption and I'd like to know what they did, maybe I'll ask about their motive with a story that explains why I'm so insatiably curious, (such as the one above about my birthplace).

Even if their motive was apparently a "mean" one that they suddenly are having a very hard time explaining, I've found that coming up with an innocently positive explanation for their rather obviously "nasty" comment will make them behave better towards me. Every time, (whether they are secretly imagining I'm an insufferable "PolyAnna" optimist or stupidly gullible,) as they choose the more positive explanation that I've dangled in front of them, they are acting as if they are a much nicer person. Whether they are a "nice person" or not, they're getting trained to be - by me.

Where Are People Who Are...?

The short answer to this is that great relationships are made and not found. You make relationships that are based on ethical, positive, encouraging and forward-seeking interactions on purpose. There are people around here on this forum who are just like that - you're not SEEING them! There are people around you LIKE THAT, you're not noticing them.

One way to recognize people like that is to talk to anyone you believe is "like that" on the phone using Skype, if you can't find people close to you. Once you have some of Those People to talk with, then you'll get better at recognizing them when you run into them in person. That's what I've been doing lately.

Partly, I recognize people like this because they have other friends and aren't isolated. But sometimes, that's not always true. People who are good at relationships have lots of friends - usually from all walks of life. People who don't have lots of friends sometimes find themselves in that position because they're in a situational bind, have moved house to a new location...or sometimes these are older people who have out-lived their passel of long-time friends. Or sometimes they've gone through a breakup, grief, etc. Interesting to note that one of their characteristics of people like this is that they are not people who put accomplishing things in front of their friendships. Relationships come first, then accomplishments. Of course, there's always a trade-off.

The other thing is that people who are ethical usually had a pretty OK childhood...OR they HAD to put out quite a bit of "inner work" to change the effects of bad conditioning for themselves. Although an interest in "inner change" can outline the gaping, jagged edge of where someone falls short and continues to fall short, sometimes it's at least an indicator of intent. So if you get this agreement from people, you can be on the road together, forgive the shortfall in each other generously, and have fun along the pathway to continuing self-improvement.

I learned quite a bit from books and websites. Whenever I saw someone doing that "Take On Personal Challenge" in real life, I would sidle up to them and get to know them personally. For instance, I met Dennis Rivers at an ongoing David Bohm Dialogue group. Dennis was able to get the group to try things that nobody else could convince them to do because someone would always object - Dennis' ways of communicating could quiet people's objections and defensiveness! What he has to say about this on this website is brilliant: http://www.newcoversations.net He's also got a free "workbook" to help teach better communication.

But watch for this; lots of people who can write do so as if they have the answers. But they cannot deliver because they are lousy teachers. What they say is the way to learn what they are doing will not work...or won't work for you if you do not have identical point of view compared to theirs. The way to learn from these people is to get in their presence and "soak it up" from them...while disregarding their confusing presentations. Look for those who offer their content from a sense of being on a mission to better the world...sometimes this does NOT include being "market savvy."

The short list of books that helped me recognize people who are forward-thinking and capable of having long-term relationships are:

"Don't Shoot the Dog" by Karen Pryor It's a book on why reinforcement works during training - both positive and negative. It brings together the intellectual ideas of behaviorism with the practical experience of training, which is communication through example and action rather than language.

Check out all the books by William Ury and Fisher that are in the series on negotiation skills, such as "Getting Past No" and "Getting to Yes" , etc. There is a new book I think it was Fisher just wrote about the emotional factor that is brilliant. Here's an article:
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/118596957/abstract?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0
These books on negotiation make you realize that you are building tacit agreements when you start any relationship that can become problematic or be a foundation later on...at times it's not possible to "think ahead" when you don't know what you are doing...so this is how to re-negotiate tacit agreements before they become problematic enough to require professional intervention.

The area of non-violent communication is also an interesting field...Also is the "Speaking Circles" authenticity work by Lee Glickstein
http://www.speakingcircles.com/Programs/SCIprograms.html

Learning As Loss

Sometimes a person doesn’t know what they have to gain from a course of action until they do it. Sometimes it's not possible to see ahead until you stand on the next step that you can see ahead. By stepping up to a challenge, perhaps that is the only way to find out for yourself what you are getting from it after you have done so. Sometimes this finding out takes time to allow its effects to seep in enough to show up. This is especially true when the course of action involves losing something intentionally - sort of like losing weight.

Learning from intentionally subtracting a course of action is a "Very Weird Experience." As adults, we're so used to adding things. We don't think of undoing them.

I guess the religious practice of Lent is somewhat applicable here, where people intentionally give up something to experience the lack of it. Perhaps it's a course of action designed for the result of sacrifice or gratitude when you get back the activity or consumable that you gave up. Perhaps the Easter holiday this weekend is making me think of such things. Probably it's merely how much I used Alexander Technique and David Bohm style Dialogue both to practice subtraction for sharpening my own self-awareness.

It's a odd characteristic: as you are giving up something, you know well what you are giving up. What you may have to gain can feel like only a promise; an uncertain elusive conviction of faith or a whisper of potential. Often, you can’t have both - you must choose to continue either the old comforts you know well - or make the leap of faith. Because sometimes, you can’t go in two directions at once, having your cake and eating it too.

I have experienced myself leaping into the unknown. It feels like a complete willingness to risk everything. To me - it feels great, even if it's a little shaky from being a new thing. Sometimes there's a cost. But at least I've decided.

Creative Problem Solving: "Jack's Notebook" Review

Teaching creative problem solving is so often done with diagrams, acronyms and theories. Many good systems exist, but key would be remembering to use their points at moments when new ideas are needed. Did this hunch to write a story that also teaches work as advertised? Turns out that linking the steps of using a process to drive the plot of a story makes new points memorable. I've started three businesses from scratch from pretty much nothing. This story had a great deal in common with my own personal experience of start up - containing both the serendipity of how priorities are established & reinforced, along with why investors want to endorse your particular idea so you might get a better idea of who to approach among those people you already know to make your business idea available for their financial backing.

This story is a fun one to read because it portrays a young man who learns how to gradually become an entrepreneur instead of the wage slave he has been trained to be. From having a couple of dead end jobs, Jack seizes a way to make his many dreams come true from a seemingly random meeting with an interesting person who offers to help him with advice and new thinking strategies. Exactly what "help" means becomes more and more fascinating and involving as Jack's story unfolds.

Applying one of the creative thinking techniques from this book spurred me to re-read it from the point of view of the mentor. Culturally, we don't have many examples of people who use their authority compassionately and thoughtfully; this mentor character portrays an example worth emulating. Many would use the term of "Angel" for a key person who is in the position to open doors for us. Reversing that, it struck me how unusual it seems to be to find even one learner who would actually take advantage of what a mentor has to offer wholeheartedly. What makes the mentor character believable is his ability to choose how he is going to react to circumstances. This mentor has rather humbly learned to trust the value of observing, thinking strategically & creatively under pressure, when survival instincts usually cut off options. But this old guy knows how to open the conduit to ideas by suspending fear & judgments - and he teaches how.

This book struck me how, no matter what my age is, what if I had the opportunity of a lifetime dream staring at me in the face now - could I recognize it on the front end? What resistance in myself would I need to answer? What are the opportunities to make my dreams come true now that are going over my head? Does there exist now among people I know an effective mentor for me? Are there other people who could offer me the sort of support and information that I need, the sort of support and good ideas that this young man in this story got at the right time and way? It even had me thinking of how would I recognize a student who wants to learn what I have to teach.

That this new form of using fiction to illustrate a learning process would spur me to ask these questions for myself made Jack's Notebook meaningful for me. Perhaps this story and its teaching information will work that way for you too. Jack's Notebook is highly recommended.
Here's a link to get the book on Amazon: http://tinyurl.com/ca92bt

Why I Hand Out Compliments

My father had just turned fifty in December in 1941. He had wanted company to celebrate New Year's Eve with, but instead had found himself alone and bereft of friendship at all.

He carefully considered his state of affairs. He observed about himself that he had been focused for a great deal of time during his life on what other people had thought of him.

He considered what he was going to do about this, because it made him unhappy not to have the pleasures of lasting personal connections. Perhaps the answer might be to offer to others what he so desired for himself. There were many people he knew who were amazing people. They had amazing qualities that came to them as naturally as breathing. So he decided to show people how much he thought of who they were, what their special innate qualities were and to express what all of these meant to him.

He settled in San Diego where he met my mother, a woman 25 years younger and married her, starting a new family and a new life.

As his youngest daughter, I got to see firsthand how he expressed his resolve to bring out people's better qualities many decades later. I was there when he brought a woman to our house so he could show her an antique painting that he'd collected.

When she entered the house, it was obvious that she was a self-conscious person who was shy about even shaking hands to greet our family. She had tried to make herself look more presentable. Evidently she was not comfortable with the the fact that she did not match the current social opinions of what was considered "attractive."

My father ushered her up to where the painting had been hung. From a fascination with lighting and also to protect the pigments, he had located the painting in a very dark room with its own light. The woman took off her sunglasses.

My dad pontificated a bit about the painting while he pretended to fumble for the light. "We have reason to believe that this painting was the last of this style for this artist of that era. Some believe it was his 'masterpiece.' The title inscribed on the back was 'Love's Folly.'" He clicked the light on that illuminated the painting and stood back.

The painting depicted two hands; a man's hand reaching over the wall to hand a flower to a woman's hand which included many rings.

My dad backed off to admire the painting, and took his visitor's hand in his to invite her to walk closer to examine it. "This artist, in the masterpiece of his career, chose a woman's hand that looks remarkably just like your hand for the subject to depict the most stunning, irresistibly beautiful shape for hands that he could imagine."

My father held her hand up next to the hand in the very realistic painting. She couldn't deny her hands could have been the artist's model.

The woman sputtered. She was used to compliments from others that she could turn aside as untrue, because she was certain of her "ugliness." But this compliment stared her in the face in a way that made brushing it off impossible.

After being admonished with a comment from my mother of "Oh, he just does these things to people," the woman decided that it was an entirely admissible possibility to accept such a compliment from a happily married man. She managed to finally be able to leak out a meek, "Thank you."

She had a much different smile on her face on her way out the door than when she arrived.

Tacit Agreements & How to Change Them

We love to work, play and live with people who "read our minds" successfully. Like playing music together, tacit agreements coming from a shared subculture can sometimes give a very pleasurable conviction of bonding. It's is pleasurable how easy it can be to “read” each other's intentions and needs in the context of shared values and circumstances. However, tacit agreements can be tricky to manage if they need to change.

Many of these circumstantial "agreements" and tacit understandings are made below the awareness level of their long-term effects that can cause unintended conflict somewhere down the road. This can happen for many reasons.

• The people involved may be playing a role that may or may not fit who they really are – or who they are becoming or have become.
  
• Perhaps an extraordinary circumstance goes on and on that later comes to emphasize differences between the two people's values or situations when previously they felt similar.
  
• Perhaps a person wants to be the best of who they can be, so their intent is to step into their dreams of who they want to be - no matter that they aren't quite there yet...and the other person decides they're a "lying poser" because they're in the position of cleaning up after the mess left behind.
  
• Perhaps someone is going through a phase in their life where situations are changing; later they settle into what they will become that could be much different than how they were - when they were poised on the edge of the act of changing.

It's really handy if another new tacit agreement can be allowed to evolve so it can take the place of an outdated one. This benefits from taking some thought to what has worked splendidly in the past. Many of us have trouble observing and spelling out what we have done as naturally as breathing; but this is quite valuable to groom as a skill.

For instance, a couple who worked and lived together found themselves always arguing about differences they once regarded as advantages. They decided on a three-point approach to their problem; every time conflict rose up, to apologize and note down what they wanted to communicate immediately and save it to be delivered all at once at a regularly agreed time. They decided when the concerns and complaints, although some of them needed to be communicated, were too volatile to be delivered in person, they would write them down. They also decided to use classic co-counseling techniques. Then, they brainstormed to figure out what was a guaranteed fun time they could share together regularly as a break in their work day. Since they had been together long enough so they couldn't go back to "dating" per se, they decided to learn something new that they could do together. This gave chances for new experiences to happen that emphacized harmonious, constructive experiences that re-newed the significant connections of the constructive difference of the two people that had been previously making them fall apart.

How people feel about changing things usually need to be factored in. As many people know, it's sometimes easier to ask for forgiveness than it is to ask for permission - especially when the answer will always be "no" or "I'm scared." The challenge in tacit agreements is to find out how much it matters to the people involved if the agreements are done differently or are not done.

Being able to do this artfully will avoid the ritualistic ways of fulfilling the expectations of a relationship that most people must fall back on. Relationships can go sour when a person must play a role instead of being themselves because, so many roles are like jobs that can be done by others. Better for the people involved to have a means for ongoing delightful surprises and potentials that change with the times.

Sometimes the whole idea will make you feel like a turkey.

When starting a relationship and with your every action concerning the other person, you are evolving a tacit agreement of how people are supposed to treat each other. Problems come when you tacitly agree to match slightly different cultural standards, causing what could become endless confusion where these differences overlap. In that situation, tacit agreements may require you to do more than you really want to continue doing, or to accept or assign a meaning that you don't want your actions to have. This is why it's handy to clarify tacit agreements.

There are a number of ways to clear up tacit agreements gone bad.

One way is to conduct a situational 'test' that involves what the person might do if you do this or that to see what they do. Now, many of us aren't very practiced at designing these tests or interpreting them. So the longer you can go on without decided what the results are, the better, because then it allows for more experiments to be done before the conclusion is delivered.

The next step is to conduct these "tests" and indicate clearly in a positive way what you'd like the result to be or why you're wondering why they always do the same thing. This is a way to see if the person is willing to go for what you propose. You can tell them what it means to you and if they are paying attention, this may help the two of you get on the same page. A good question is how can each person have free rein to invent ways to address each other's concerns, without having to read minds?

At some point with relationships where tacit agreements are being established, you'll need or want to find out how much what you are doing matters to the other person in proportion to how much trouble it is for you. If either person can't make changes for implied or expressed agreements with their partner, it’s not good for either of them or the longevity of the relationship. Either way tacit agreements can lead to big disappointments when people figure out that the deal they thought they were making or definitions of bonding in friendship or love was quite different for their partner than they expected.

Accident Of Birth

Beautiful women must make peace with how others react to them at some point in their lives. Problems coming from other women must be dealt with as well. Lots of people wouldn't have much sympathy for these sorts of problems; like having to deal with being rich. But they are very real.

I speak from experience. Once I was young and stunningly beautiful. I did not need to hear about how beautiful, how skinny, how I looked like a model, how my nose was perfect, my lips were so luscious, hair so easy to manage, how I should just wave my ass to get guys to do things for me, anything I wanted.

Heard it every day of my life from someone, if not in words, in the looks they gave me. Wildly resented being born by an accident of birth and defined as sexually beautiful by my culture. Then the odd looks when I commented that it was very strange to be beautiful and to always wonder if someone was doing something for me or with me merely because they liked looking at me. It was sort of like being rich and wondering if your friends liked you because of what you had or because of what you could give them at some point in the future.

My response when I would get these admiring and sometimes cutting, envious comments from other women was to use humor. I would declare some platitude about the nature of comparison of bodily parts and it's wiser to compare yourself to yourself... in a suitably stupid and lousy Indian accent. I learned to trot this one out by preparing it ahead of time. To finish off the humorous effect, I tell them, Oooops, again I must have been spontaneously channeling Baba Hagen Daas. They will laugh and that will be that.

Now I'm not-so-happily fat while being treated for a hereditary hyperthyroid problem that has swung my weight to the other extreme. It's helping me to remember my reply to other women about how did I stay so skinny: "Probably something WAS wrong with me" - and it turned out to be true! Funny, huh? Not a bad idea to watch how you reply or react in this situation because by making the comment I made, perhaps it was "installing" some program with the reaction. Sometimes I wonder if this was true for me...but that's pretty obviously superstition. I was probably just stating facts.

To make peace with being beautiful by confronting the whole idea dead on, my first idea was to so what people told me I was: become a model. This did not work. Turns out I hated dealing with the sort of people who really were only concerned with how I looked and had no idea that who I was inside. They didn't get how the inside me was connected to what they saw on the outside. With a natural charisma that I had no idea how to turn on or off, when I walked into a room, everyone turned to look at me - and I did not know what to do with the attention. Hated the idea that beautiful women were trained to manipulate to get what they needed. Couldn't get rid of the attention I got, no matter how hard I tried to hide myself. I dressed in the most trashy, bulky, loose clothing I could find. It was an era of my life I would never wish on anyone.

A number of coincidental things happened to me in that era. I read Laura Huxley's "You Are Not The Target." It stunned me. At that point in time I was also learning Alexander Technique by attending daily teacher-training classes. As I learned to see postural expressions of character in other people, I realized that others could see my own postural attitudes and how they expressed who I was on the inside as well. Realized that people were probably responding to my own body language that expressed my internal character on some level - as well as the fact that I was a young, beautiful woman. Even if these guys were not conscious how they could discern this information, they could respond to it anyway. I had to give them credit for that, whether they knew what they were responding to or not.

Suddenly, getting this attention became my fault, instead of being an accident of birth. Learning that piece of the puzzle suddenly made my own attractiveness to be a little bit of my fault rather than just an accident of birth. Voila! A turnaround. I was so relieved.

Upon examination, I realized that men seemed to be handing women the power to make or break getting attention. In the past, I didn't want that power. Now that I knew what was going on, I could play with the energy handed to me when my natural charisma was turned on. In the past I was desperately trying to hide my own beauty and the power and interest it generated. I realized that I was making myself responsible for their story. Once I realized men were handing me power and then getting mad at me for having it, I could let that go. I could hand back the energy. It was OK that my interest in them was going to be construed by them to be a sexual interest - that was their business. All I had to do was to make it clear that wasn't what was happening for me on my end and move on. It had been essentially a virtual question posed by many men that I was refusing to answer. Now I could answer it.

Another interesting piece of the puzzle for me was a book about the differences in the way that men and women use language to establish rapport or trade information. She's written quite a few - the author is Deborah Tannen. Any one of them will do, but the one called "Talking 9 to 5, Power and control in the Workplace" is the one I'm thinking about that would be relevant to your situation.

In my life, I had hung out with men mostly in your life and probably adopted their speaking style to a great extent. Because of the company I kept I misunderstood what women are doing and why they are doing it. Women are so often looking to do the "trouble-telling" approach in order to establish rapport as a ritual. They are expecting another woman to say, "Hey, I've got other problems as serious as your weight stuff, check this out." Perhaps they are curious what you will do since you do not have their same complaints or objectives that are so obvious with them...

Anyway, interesting topic. Although many people feel that the question of women's liberation is a "been there, done that" subject, it's still very operative in our culture. Currently the topic has receded into the background - which makes it even more important to remember its cultural influence and power.

Time Flies & Slows

This year is the year of the boar, (if I've gotten it right.) Got to participate in pageantry by holding up a forty foot Chinese dragon. It was quite a challenge physically because I was near the front, untangling bamboo spines and hoops, but was quite a fun time.

I was born in the year of the water snake in the Chinese astrology, in the hour of the dog - which makes me an awfully sociable snake lady. Do you know your Chinese astrological sign?

Was thinking the other day how time seems to speed up and then slow down, back and forth during the course of my life. What reason it does it do that? What do you think about this?

Perhaps, the more events being noticed means more of time slowing down. When nothing in particular stands out, the faster time speeds up...

There's a species of tick that sits around on a branch for up to nearly 17 years in a state of semi-hibernation. ...Until a nice warm body happens to come within jumping reach and it seizes opportunity. In only a few days, it feeds on blood, makes babies and dies. Can you imagine what its perception of time would be?

How does time work for you?

Make Time: Sleep Less

Sleep less and you'll have the time to be creative, make more money at a second job or whatever you want to do. But don't just deprive yourself of sleep - get smarter about it.

When I was going to Alexander Technique teacher training school and had to pay for it myself AND live an hour commute away, I came up with the brilliant idea of a split sleeping schedule. Went from nine hours a night sleep to a daily total of five hours with no ill effects. After around three weeks to get used to the schedule, it worked beautifully. I had no trouble keeping it up for over a year - so my experiment stood the test of time! Now whenever I want to stay up late for music or dancing, I can switch into that schedule without having to "get used to it."

I've become a "happy napper"! To my mind, the ability to nap is one of life's secrets.

The best schedule was a split sleeping time. Heard this hint from learning about a study with college students where the minimized sleeping schedule of 12 hours apart was the most common cycle tolerated by the most people. Decided to be sleeping 12 hours apart. For most people, how long to sleep two hours apart would be determined by the timing of their own sleep cycle. After experimenting with how awake I felt after sleeping certain amounts of time, I observed that the best sleep cycle for me turned out to be 1 1/2 hour plus a little time to get deep into falling asleep. So two hours was a good minimum cycle for me that gave me much more sustaining energy than a random "nap."

Rather deliberately because it worked into my schedule, I chose the actual times from 4am-7:30 twelve hours apart, which gave me two cycles each. It turned out that I could get by with the afternoon cycle being only two hours; from 4pm-6pm. It worked elegantly in practice. I would go to sleep at the end of the day and wake up, having all night to be awake...then go to sleep at the end of the night and be awake to have all day.

The only thing I missed is that I never got to see the sunset during the winter.

The trick to start the routine is to pick a time when you want to take a nap anyway. Turn off the phone, lock the door, make the room dark if possible - and it also helps to go through your nightly "routine of going to bed" rather than just treating it as a nap.

With this schedule, you could have two jobs, have more time for the internet or for doing your creative projects, have time for yourself while the kids are sleeping, etc.

Warning: don't let friends who show up from out of town talk you into skipping your sleeping times. You can't "catch up" later once you establish these times. You'll have to sleep ten hours if you get knocked off your routine; or at least I did the two times this happened to me.