3 posts tagged “love”

Emotions Revealed: Recognizing Faces and Feelings to Improve Communication and Emotional Life
a book by Paul Ekman

"What is he really feeling?," you ponder as you search his face. If you knew, you might get along better. For recognizing true emotions -- yours and others' -- read this book. From the preeminent expert on reading faces and on deception comes his most complete book yet.

I have a friend who looks judgmental when he's in contemplation and a client who appears angry when she's tired. With this book you can become more adept at reading others' emotional signals. Also learn to alter your own feelings through recognizing them sooner. Book includes photos and exercises, such as how to recognize a genuine smile. Ekman's clients range from the FBI to Pixar animation studios.

"There hasn't been a book on this subject of such range and insight since Darwin's famous Expression of the Emotions" is how Oliver Sacks describes this book that culls from 40 years of research.

Everyone from lawyers to teachers and salesfolks can use Ekman's insights to better understand human behavior.

As you learn to recognize emotions -- yours and others -- you can also learn to sidestep conflict and bring out the best in others by reading LikeAbility. You can download it right now.

Don't stop there. Enjoy becoming more clear, compelling and quotable by listening to 100 communication and persuasion tips in Make Yourself Memorable.

In a civilization when love is
gone we turn to justice and when
justice is gone we turn to power
and  when power is gone we
turn to violence.

Failure is no more fatal
than success is permanent.

Opportunity is often inconvenient.

The fun is in discovering how the sum  of us can be greater than apart.

Coercive power saps energy
from everyone.   Shared power
showers energy on everyone.

Some people control by defining
the rules of the relationship.
You can choose to define the rules
of how you will relate.

Being defined by others
gives them control.
Defining yourself
gives you choices.

Power resides not in
aggressiveness but
in conscious choice.

You can't empower or
disempower someone else.

As you fix the problem,
you won't have to
fix the blame.

Holding onto your anger is like
clutching a vibrating pole.  
The harder you hold, the more
every part of your being
vibrates in reaction.

Strengths spread
just as fears do.

The stronger the signal
you send  yourself of your
highest purpose, the higher
the priority you assign to that area.

Think well of yourself.
The subconscious
can't take a joke.

We do not see things as they are.  
We see them as we are.

Beliefs shape your experience,
not the other way around.

Your eyes see what
they are trained to see.

Your body speaks to you constantly,
telling you what your own needs are.

Problems seldom exist
on the level at which
they are expressed.

It is easier to act your way
into a more positive feeling
than to feel your way into
a positive way of acting.

You can't develop
positive people with
negative feedback.

What you praise in others,
you'll encourage to flourish.

Praise others when they are
around people who most
 matter to them.
 
Unflinching kindness in
the face of cruelty  is
your strongest protection.

Quiet the chattering mind
promotes directed action.

Point out to someone that
they are acting like a jerk
they will go out of their way
to prove it to you some more.

People like people who like them.

All that we are is the result
of what we think. All that we will
be is based on our ability to
feel and to think with warmth.

Our emotions fuel our energy.

You are the medium
for your message.

Resenting someone is
a way of never leaving them.

Look to their positive intent,
especially when they
appear to have none.

Act as if the world is
going to treat you well.

What you do not say
often says it all.

If I say you are a bad person
I can almost see you worsen. 
Funny how my words for you
have a way of becoming
true in my mind.

Our emotions fuel
our energy.   Strengths
spread just as fears do.

The person who chooses
from the broadest range of
possible actions usually
becomes the peacemaker.

You can disagree with an argument,
but not with a personal experience. 
You cannot defect from an insight.
You cannot unsee what you have seen.

Better to see something once than
to hear it a hundred times. 
That's why actions are often 
more powerful than  words.

A personal experience shapes
your opinions without
your conscious willing.

Whoever most vividly
characterizes what a situation
is about usually determines how
others see it, talk about it, and
make decisions about it.

Speak like it tastes good.
Offer verbal  snapshots that
penetrate the mind and the gut
in an instant then linger, leaving
a bright after image.

If you are arguing for more
than ten minutes, consider that
you may not be arguing about
your true conflict.

How we do our tasks
may  have more impact
than the tasks themselves.

Whatever you press against
will press back.  However hard you
press against it, it will press back
at least equally hard.

Shut people out
and they shut up.
Bring people in
and they open up.

In most cases stress
is caused not by the event itself
but rather by our response
to the event.

Forgive all who have
offended you, not for them,
but for yourself.

Act genially in the
face of rancor.
You may be the only
angel in that person’s life.

Happiness is a state
of minimum regret.

You only and always
have three choices
in any situation: 
change, accept or leave.

Take each step with reverence
as if it is the axis on which
the whole earth revolves,
slowly, evenly, without rushing
toward the future.  Only this
actual moment is life.

The sweetest revenge
is a well - lived life.

            Love is not always power; that may be as
        good a description of the human predicament
                               as we are likely to get.

Remember the many
compartments of the heart,
the seed of what is
possible.  So much of who
we are is defined by
the places we hold for each
other.  For it is not our ingenuity
that sets us apart, but our
capacity for love, the
possibility our way will
be lit by grace.  Our hearts
prisms, chiseling out the
colors of pure light.
 

Men aren't born passive.  Women aren't born wild.  We just have that effect on each other … too often.

When and why does a conversation become one-sided, or dissolve into conflict, and how can you turn it around and stay sane?  

Here's some gut instincts research-based insights on:
- why things often go sour between the sexes, followed by
- four suggestions for smoother, more satisfying ways to stay connected:

At work, the man is often active, articulate, assertive, and usually successful in his conversations, especially with other men.  

But at home he can become inactive, inarticulate, and withdrawn.
He becomes passive with his wife – especially in certain situation.

Yet even when the woman works outside the home she tends to communicate in a more active way at home - and instinctively wants the same style from her mate.  

His apparent passivity drives her crazy.  

In the face of his further retreat, she goes wild. *
Then he becomes more still, and escapes at the first opportunity.

In personal relationships women often want too much talk, as men sees it.  
She feels resentful, complains, keeps asking questions, talks more, may even act bitter.  

He feels he can’t meet her needs and ends up feeling guilty and sulks.  
They both end up blaming each other.

He thinks:  If only she’d shut up.
She thinks:  If only he'd talk to me.

Here’s four ways women are more likely to engage men in the positive, lively conversation we crave:

Suggestion #1
“Stop Talking Sooner”
Or, less politely, "shut up sooner. As a child my mother washed my mouth out with soap for saying “shut up” yet that’s sound advice for women in trying to connect with men.   Women are usually immediately aware of our feelings, able to express them, usually comfortable in explaining, and asking, and elaborating... in considerable detail.

Our verbal agility can inadvertently create a wall, as women, if it gets us out of sync with men. At times, in personal, social and work situations, men and women will get closer if the speed of the conversation and the amount of words slows down.

When women feel that men are not listening, we tend to “rise” to the occasion by raising our voice and verbiage.  That is we tend to say more, faster, more intensely and at a higher volume. It is as if we are thinking, “What I said and how I said it did not work so I will do more of what did not work, and expect a different outcome.”

Our pace in conversation is faster and more multi-dimensional. We rush past and around most men.  

We need to allow a man to respond, a point at a time, at his pace, without interrupting or finishing his sentences.

If the strongest complaint women have about men is that they do not listen, then we must work hardest on leaving the time for them to speak.*

Suggestion #2
“Sidle”

While women prefer to talk, face-to-face, men pefer to sidle, standing side by side.  Research shows that both women and men like each other more and get along better when standing or sitting side-by side.

Suggestion #3
“Get Moving”
Any woman who wants better relations with a man should “walk it out”: talk while walking to the meeting, around the block, etc.

Further, when men and women are walking or eating together their body motions become more similar so they get more in sync.  Even vital signs (heartbeat, skin temperature, eye pupil dilation) become more similar) so we are more likely to feel a natural, easy kinship.

In motion we tend to experience the best, rather than the worst side in the opposite sex.  That's good news.  Yes?

Suggestion #4 “’See’ the Situation Their Way”
Women crave longer and more continuous eye contact than men.  
To help men feel more comfortable let go of that unremitting eye gaze.  Glance away sometimes as a man is inclined to do while thinking.  
His glance away does not necessarily mean avoidance so don’t act as if it does by a your harsh tone, words or glance.  
He may be trying to gather his thoughts.