Quick answer: When someone won’t listen to another opinion, arguing rarely helps. A simple pen-and-paper exercise called “two trees” — where you and the other person each draw a tree, then notice that both are valid even though they look different — can open a locked mindset by making the […]
Relationships & Connection
59 posts
It felt like they were trying to earn my approval, my love, my acceptance. That if they just did things right, then I would give them some sort of a royal nod of approval. Earned love, I believe, is not really love. Earned acceptance and approval always has this fear […]
Every now and then I get a taste of Zimzum. A sense of a contraction and a making of space for me and others. I’ve always been puzzled about how the voluntary creating of space for another person has a deep effect on the other, especially those who have experienced […]
When we don’t slow down and seek to understand, it’s easy to shoot our wounded. My plea is ‘Don’t Shoot. I’m wounded. I’m different/divergent.’ I recently watched this video of a pair of horses being very frightened by a rabbit. The two horses were walking down a narrow country […]
We are created for connection, so feeling rejected can be harsh and cold. God gathers up the rejected. I think I was the only one who saw him shrivel away under the rejection of others. He had tried to do something different. He wanted to be part of the […]
I know some people who have a pig on their farm. They feed it food scraps and grass. They don’t throw it pearls. Some people don’t have the capacity to hold precious things. They simply don’t have the wisdom to hold them well. In short: Not everyone who receives your […]
Can you live with a narcissist? Yes, but it might just kill you. Or it might just starve you from savouring life to the fullest. One of the most interesting quotes I have come across about stress is this one from French journalist Jean-Louis Servan-Schreiber What I fear most about stress is […]
The first time I heard the Polish proverb “Not my circus, not my monkeys,” I felt quite shocked. But digging deeper, I understood what they were saying. I heard it said by a husband about his wife. It felt callous. It felt cold, and I still think it was. He […]
They had got so used to the intrusiveness of others that they didn’t even care anymore, but slowly a line in the sand appeared, then a fence and then they built a wall. I enjoy being kind. I am generous, probably to my own detriment, but sometimes I feel […]
She crossed a line with her words, a line that was getting thinner with every wag of the tongue, but what could be done to help them both? It was the evening of the very first day of the year (2025). A beautiful summer’s day here in New Zealand. […]