Free TeleSeminar on Radical Self-Care
Saturday, April 16th, 1:30-2:30 PM EDT

The question is:

One a scale from 1 to 10 (with 10 being the highest), how well to do you practice self care?

We want to hear your challenges, situations, and best practices!

For more information on the TeleSeminar, please visit: http://drlyndaklau.com/selfcare.html

To register, you can contact Lynda directly:
email: Lynda@DrLyndaKlau.com
phone: 212.595.7373

I invite you to come to OPEN SPACE – a chance to have your voice, share your passion, create a collective map and more. Friday or Saturday night, March 25th and 26th, from 7:30PM-9PM!

Why would we offer anything else at the end of a very full day?

As a day closes and a conference is completed— when you’re filled with passion, excitement, and rich new connections— where does all that energy go?

If it’s not caught and harnessed, oftentimes it will be lost.

OPEN SPACE is a forum in which you can raise your most burning thoughts, questions, and desires, and then invite others to join you.

This is NOT another prescriptive workshop or keynote presentation. With OPEN SPACE you create the program according to your needs.

As facilitator, I will invite you to share your most pressing interest, allowing you to state clearly how you most want to use the space. From here, others can select which ideas resonate with them most strongly, and then organically divide into sub-groups. This can range from debriefing about the conference to starting a new conversation, developing the vision for a collective project, forming a regional or local community, or even doing yoga, dancing or sitting silently together. Finally, we reconvene as one group for a communal sharing.

In this way, OPEN SPACE allows you to embrace the unplanned and the unexpected, channel the energies of the conference, and even create new possibilities for the future.

You asked for them; here they are….

These indispensable tips were written with romantic relationships in mind, but with a little modification you can apply them to your friendships, family and even work relationships.

1. Create a safe environment where you can trust and share openly without being afraid.
This means: don’t interrupt, even if you need to put your hand over your mouth to stop yourself. Learn to fight fairly. No name-calling. Don’t make threats. Apologize when you know you should. If you’re too angry to really listen, stop! Go into another room, take space for yourself, breathe, and “calm down.” Remember: your partner is not the enemy.

2. Separate the facts from the feelings.
What beliefs and feelings get triggered in you during conflicts. Ask yourself: Is there something from my past that is influencing how I’m seeing the situation now? The critical question you want to ask: Is this about him or her, or is it really about me? What’s the real truth? Once you’re able to differentiate facts from feelings, you’ll see your partner more clearly and be able to resolve conflicts from clarity.

3. Connect with the different parts of yourself.
Each of us is not a solo instrument. We’re more like a choir or an orchestra with several voices. What is your mind saying? What is your heart is saying? What is your body saying? What is your ‘gut’ saying? For example: “My mind is saying ‘definitely leave her,” but my heart says ‘I really love her.’ Let these different voices or parts of you co-exist and speak to one another. In this way, you will find an answer that comes from your whole self.

4. Develop Compassion.
Practice observing yourself and your partner without judging. Part of you might judge, but you don’t have to identify with it. Judging closes a door. The opposite of judging is compassion. When you are compassionate, you are open, connected, and more available to dialoging respectfully with your partner. As you increasingly learn to see your partner compassionately, you will have more power to choose your response rather than just reacting.

5. Create a “we” that can house two “I’s.”
The foundation for a thriving, growing, mutually-supportive relationship is to be separate and connected. In co-dependent relationships, each person sacrifices part of him or herself, compromising the relationship as a whole. When you are separate and connected, each individual “I” contributes to the creation of a “we” that is stronger than the sum of its parts.

6. Partner, heal thyself.
Don’t expect your partner to fill your emotional holes, and don’t try to fill theirs. Ultimately, each of us can only heal ourselves. Your partner, however, can be supportive as you work with yourself, and vice versa. In fact, living in a loving relationship is healing in and of itself.

7. Relish the differences between you.
The differences between you and your partner are not negatives. You don’t need to be with someone who shares all of your interests and views. We may sometimes fear that these differences are incompatibilities, but in fact, they’re often what keeps a relationship exciting and full of “good fire.”

8. Ask Questions.
All too often, we make up our own stories or interpretations about what our partners’ behavior means. For example: “She doesn’t want to cuddle; she must not really love me anymore.” We can never err on the side of asking too many questions, and then listen to the answers from your whole self—heart, gut, mind and body. Equally important is to hear what’s not being said— the facts and feeling that you sense might be unspoken.

9. Make time for your relationship.
No matter who you are or what your work is, you need to nurture your relationship. Make sure you schedule time for the well-being of your relationship. That includes making “playdates” and also taking downtime together. Like a garden, the more you tend to your relationship, the more it will grow.

10. Say the “Hard Things” from Love.
Become aware of the hard things that you’re not talking about. How does that feel? No matter what you’re feeling in a situation, channel the energy of your emotions so that you say what you need to say in a constructive manner.

An extra tip for you:
Make a regular appointment to share appreciations and resentments on a regular basis. Be concrete. For example: “Last Thursday night, when I asked you to take out the garbage, you made a face and once again avoided doing it.” Think of this like cleaning the gutters, as well as planting new seeds.

Your tip:
Do you have a great relationship tip of your own? If so, please share it with me. I look forward to reading your comments here on the blog.

There you have it. Be kind to yourselves. Remember: change takes time and every step counts.