Picked this up off of my mother's bookshelf over Christmas. In grad school, I focused on Narrative, and Solution Focused Brief Therapy approaches to the detriment of others it seems. I have enjoyed learning about Virginia Satir's work and how she conceptualizes her ideas. Family sculpting, Survival Stances, Congruence and Family Reconstruction are ways that she has developed to help people understand their interaction patterns and how to make changes that last.  She believed that there is nobody in the world, no matter what the conditions are on the outside, that cannot change. She believed that human beings can fulfill what they were meant to fulfill; that they can use themselves more positively, more effectively; and that they can have more choices for greater freedom and power.Satir's work is rooted in early development of self esteem and how we learn to communicate based on how our personal efficacy was fostered or suppressed by our primary caregivers,  environment and experiences early on.
Congruence is one of her primary tenets . This resonated with me. I try helping others move toward more clearly communicating their needs. I also try to be as congruent as possible in my own life.  Congruence refers to a state of being as well as a quality of communicating. At the first of three levels, congruence entails acknowledging and accepting our inner experiences(sensations, interpretations, and consequent feelings about those feelings) and being able to express them. Congruence at level 2 involves listening to our perceptions and expectation, and translating those into a responsible pattern of meeting our needs by tapping our yearnings. At level 3, we move into harmony with our spiritual essence, or what Satir called the universal life force. 
I am hoping to incorporate some of these ideas into my work. By interacting congruently, we are able to clearly communicate our needs without influence by underlying survival stances. By understanding survival stances and how they have manifested themselves, we are able to bring clarity to the patterns that underlay disconnected relationships then move together into finding mutual goals for changing those patterns.

Satir's therapeutic beliefs:
1. Change is possible. Even as external change is limited, internal change is possible.
2. Parents do the best they can at any given time.
3. We all have the internal resources we need to cope successfully and to grow.
4. We have choices, especially in terms of responding to stress instead of reacting to         situations.
5. Therapy needs to focus on health and possibilities instead of pathology.
6. Hope is a significant component or ingredient for change.
7. People connect on the basis of being similar and grow on the basis of being different.
8. A major goal of therapy is to become our own choice makers.
9. We are all manifestations of the same life force.
10. Most people choose familiarity over comfort, especially during times of stress.
11. The problem is not the problem; coping is the problem.
12. Feelings belong to us. We all have them.
13. People are basically good. To connect with and validate their own self worth, they   need to find their own inner treasure.
14. Parents often repeat familiar patterns from their growing up times, even if the   patterns are dysfunctional.
15. We cannot change  past events, only the effects they have on us.
16. Appreciating and accepting the past increases our ability to manage the present.
17. One goal in moving toward wholeness is to accept our parental figures as people and   meet them at their level of personhood rather than only in their roles.
18. Coping is the manifestation of our level of self-worth. The higher our self-worth, the   more wholesome our coping.
19. Human processes are universal and therefore occur in different settings, cultures, and   circumstances.
20. Process is the avenue of change. Content forms the context in which change can   take place.
21. Congruence and high self-esteem are major goals in the Satir model.
22. Healthy human relationships are built on equality of value.
 
Pretty amazing work. Wish I had spent more time with this in school where I could have had the opportunity to have dialogue with others. 

tk

I watched this video after reading the below Q&A with the author. I was intrigued to learn more about communicating warmth and how that affects  peoples' perception of our trustworthiness.  I believe strongly that we are much more effective at being successful in what we set out to do when we are real with others.  Real selves, real fears, real human, real emotions, real expectations, real thoughts, real communication for real reasons, etc.  In my work helping others be in relationship with one another, I try to use this to bring about mutual goals that are genuine and collaborative.  This helps clients buy in to the process and can create generalizable change. Virginia Satir called it interacting with "congruence." 
The video speaks more to her work on the effects of body language on the production of Testosterone and reduction of Cortisol in the brain and how you can influence the way you feel by adopting "power poses" before facing situations where you might be prone to stress reactions. Very interesting. 
I also love her personal story at the end.  Yet another testament to the fact that we can do whatever we set our minds and bodies to,  given the proper attitude.  "Fake it until you become it!" 
Watch the video and read the Q&A below. Both very informative and pretty cool. 

tk

Power. It's that intangible thing that so many people strive for. For some people, feeling a sense of control -- over themselves, others, situations or all of the above -- is a natural thing. For others, it doesn't come as easy.

In her TEDTalk (above), social psychologist Amy Cuddy shares an easy way that anyone can change not only others' perceptions of them, but the way they feel about themselves -- spending two minutes "power posing" with their arms or elbows out, their chin lifted and their posture expansive. Cuddy's research, done in collaboration with Dana Carney, has shown that adopting the body language associated with dominance for just 120 seconds is enough to create a 20 percent increase in testosterone and a 25 percent decrease in the stress hormone cortisol. In other words, adopting these postures makes a person feel more powerful.

But for those who already project power and competence to the world through their bodies, there is another, perhaps harder challenge: communicating warmth.

In October, Cuddy sat down for a Q&A with the TED Blog and made a truly fascinating point: that many leaders focus so much on demonstrating power and competence that they fail to communicate warmth and trustworthiness. And as Cuddy explains, warmth may actually be a truer, deeper source of power to begin with.

Says Cuddy, "You must understand the people you're trying to influence or lead by building trust first before demonstrating competence and power. You must be able to show them that you understand them -- and, better yet, that you can relate to them. By doing that, you're laying the groundwork for trust. And it's only then that they can really hear you and be open to your ideas. Trust is the conduit for influence; it's the medium through which ideas travel. If they don't trust you, your ideas are just dead in the water. If they trust you, they're open and they can hear what you're offering. Having the best idea is worth nothing if people don't trust you.

You want to feel that you have the power to bring your full, spirited self to the situation, stripped of the fears and inhibitions that might typically hold you back.

It's not uncommon for people to overvalue the importance of demonstrating their competence and power, often at the expense of demonstrating their warmth. I think it's especially common for people striving for leadership positions -- in politics, business, law, medicine... you name it. Too many people try to be the smartest guy in the room -- the alpha -- and that's not actually how you become persuasive or become a good leader. It's a mistake. People judge trustworthiness before competence. They make inferences of trustworthiness and warmth before competence and power. And the reason is that it answers the question, "Is this person friend or foe?" With a stranger, you first want to know what their intentions are toward you, and then you want to know, "Can they carry out those intentions?" You have to connect with people and build trust before you can influence or lead them.

Women -- Hillary Clinton, for example -- have faced a kind of treacherous double bind when it comes to being seen as both competent AND warm. Women are much more likely than men to be seen as high on one dimension and low on the other (the sweet, incompetent, fragile, feminine woman vs. the strong, cruel, inhuman, masculine woman who doesn't have a heart). I do quite a bit of research on this phenomenon, and I could talk for hours to this point. Women in the public eye are really penalized for deviations from what society has prescribed for them -- which is usually to be a warm, soft caretaker -- and they have to work double-time to manage that. It's pretty unfair.

But to come back to this point: People make the mistake of over-weighing the importance of expressing strength and competence, at the expense of expressing warmth and trustworthiness. I know this may seem to contradict what I say about power posing, but it absolutely doesn't. It's really important to separate what you do before the interaction, from what you do during the interaction. You want to feel powerful going in -- but that does not equal dominant or alpha. You want to feel that you have the power to bring your full, spirited self to the situation, stripped of the fears and inhibitions that might typically hold you back. I believe this allows you not just to be stronger, but also to be more open and trusting. But nonverbally displaying power during the interaction -- now that's another thing with different prescriptions and outcomes. I'm definitely not an advocate, as I think I've made clear by now, of going in and power posing in front of people in order to intimidate them. Yes, use strong, open nonverbals: Don't slouch or make yourself small, and be as big as you can comfortably be. But don't use alpha cowboy moves, like sitting with legs apart and your arm draped over the back of the chair next to you. That can directly undermine the trust you need to build.

So I think it's more interesting, especially when watching leaders, to look for warmth and trustworthiness nonverbals. Look for natural smiles, for body language that is inviting, positive, and that signals interest in the other person or people. Even a gentle touch -- one that's appropriate, of course -- like when one candidate gently touches the other on the shoulder. A nice, relatively recent example is watching Obama when he sings the first little bit of the Al Green song "Let's Stay Together." Not only does he have a surprisingly good voice, but when I watch people watch him break into that big smile, I watch them melt -- I watch them warm up as they're watching him. It's contagious and hard to avoid. Obama has become pretty good nonverbally on both dimensions, although I think his ability to convey warmth has gotten much better as he's become more relaxed. You see more of those natural smiles. He comes across as strong without seeming like an over-aggressive alpha. And I think he knows when it's time to be really powerful nonverbally, and when it's time to play it down a little bit."

Life changing.  Absolutely life changing and couldn't have come at a better time.  I had read one of his other books a few years ago but must not have been in the same space as now. I think I will be re-reading that one. 
Tolle explains how the mind tricks us into feeding our fragile Egos by keeping us stuck in the past or worrying about the future.  Once we become aware of the minds purpose, we are able to   become the "watcher of the mind."  This is done through being present in the now.  All things are only relevant in the now.  They can't be anything else.  Things in the future haven't happened.  Things in the past are open to re-interpretation and judgement.  Stepping into a way of living that focuses oneself on the present and what Is, can free you from mind and ego and creates joy. 
I don't even begin to do this book justice with my words.  Suffice it to say that I was shown some wisdom that I have applied for the betterment of my soul.  It was my time to read this book. I hope you read it and experience similar insight.

tk 

Anthropologist Helen Fisher speaks at a TED conference about several interesting observations regarding love and brain chemistry. She jumps around a bit, but I really like the idea that there are three main "drives" involved in the idea of love and relationship. Sex drive, Attachment related drive, and Romantic Love drive. Each of these intuitively represent different areas of relationship dynamic and conflict, and can easily get out of alignment. In my experience helping couples through relationship difficulties, these areas are frequently lumped together as "being married." It helps a great deal to be able to talk about the different needs each represents and how each person can support the other in accessing the underlying drive and all it is designed to do. Misunderstood emotions can be really fracturing in relationships, especially marriage where there are social "norms" that have been constructed over centuries of human existence.  These "shoulds" and "should nots" permeate our lives and contribute to all sorts of internal conflict. Add difficulty having open communication about vulnerable areas of our lives and we have the recipe for much relational strife. Assumptions about why a person did such-and-such a thing get mixed into the total experience and sometimes become major sticking points. As a therapist, I work with my clients to find mutual goals that we will reach for. As we unpack the behavior, I find it useful to wonder about what is driving the particular hurtful feeling and what the intention might have been for a certain behavior or interaction or comment. Many times we discover that there are underlying fears that get triggered by the interaction. These fears can then be explored together in the context of the mutual goals. 
Attachment related fears are frequently a source of conflict when couples have lost a connected feeling. Romantic love related fears come in all varieties in that the absence of "that feeling" within the relationship or the addition of confusing feelings toward others brings questions about the meaning or our own lives and how things have gotten to where they are. Sexual/sexuality fears tend to feed the other two in that we as humans have been conditioned to attend to the socially constructed views held about marriage and sex in general. These can be difficult to work with. Massive amount of emotional weight is placed on the significance of the sexual relationship and what it is supposed to be/not be and whom it is supposed to be focused on at all times within committed relationships. Helen Fisher talks about the underlying chemistry associated with sex and the impetus for sexual drives from the anthropological lens of mating, mate selection and species proliferation. These are embedded in our nature as biological beings. The complexities involved when you mix assumptions, norms, emotions, fear, control, possession, expectation and entitlement with natural drives, biochemical reaction, physical and visual stimulation, and being socially connected as humans are can be very explosive and damaging to interpersonal connection. The speaker does not advocate for indiscriminate sexual expression, but in the context of couples therapy, it makes sense to understand the underlying biology of the drive as a way to stay focused on the mutual goal committed to by the couple.

tk