I do strongly believe that we get what we give. That what we do to, or for, others comes back to us eventually. I don’t believe that has anything to do with magic thinking. It is just a basic principal of nature, when you plant apple seeds you don’t sit there waiting for a peach tree to grow.

“What you sow, so shall you reap.” It is said in hundreds of different ways in every major religion, throughout every age of man. What you give to others will soon come back to you. What you take from others, will soon be taken from you. What you do unto others...

There are many people in this world who plant the seeds of contention and keep expecting love to blossom. They plant the seeds of greed and self-interest, and yet expect generosity from others to come to them. They keep planting seeds, and are always surprised when they reap the harvest.

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All of us have a vision problem, some of us just don’t realize it. We all see the same things, but we see them in different ways. I strongly believe we create our own realities, but that must always be tempered with the fact that we are not capable of creating other peoples realities.

What we see, we believe. What we believe we see. We see what we choose to see.

When we were kids, the grown-ups told us there was a Santa Claus, and we believed them. We had no doubt he was real. When he left presents for us, that was all the proof we needed of his existence. Some of us figured it out on our own I suppose, many, if not most of us, were told by others older and wiser than ourselves. Someone else burst that illusion bubble for us.

We didn’t want to stop believing at first, we held on but we were no longer looking for signs that he existed, we were looking for signs that he didn’t, and, we found them. Isn’t it amazing how we tend to find exactly what we are looking for?

When I first started reading the series of books written by Michelle Weiner Davis, beginning with “Divorce Busting” I didn’t really believe that. I saw what I saw and there was no way around it. How could I suddenly not see all of the bad things in my marriage, in my life?

It’s not about ignoring at all, it is about shifting your focus. It’s about accepting that you are looking for the negative and switching that around to looking for something positive.

Instead of saying “the next time they do that *thing* that drives me crazy I am going to let them have it.” You just shift your focus a bit to “The next time they remember not to do that *thing* that drives me crazy, I am going to remember to say thank you.”

After I got the technique down, it became easier to do. Yes my husband still does those things that drive me crazy, but they just don’t seem as significant anymore because I’m not watching for the negative. The cool thing was teaching him to do the same thing.

It doesn’t just transform marriages, it transforms children, it transforms jobs, it transforms lives. I read a few other books in the series, but really once you have the concept down you can use it in any situation. So one or two books are all you need to get in the habit.

In my Amazon picks to the right you can scroll until you find two of her books, “Divorce Busting” and “Change Your Life and Everyone In It.” I highly recommend either of them if you have a situation in your life in need of change.

Just remember, we do tend to find exactly what we are looking for in life, or in another person. So why not choose to see the positive?

Blessings my friends, until tomorrow!

It is amazing how many factors go into communication, not just the words spoken, or even how they are spoken, but the lenses we each view those words through. Some of us are sensitive to certain words or concepts, but other people don’t even give those words a second thought.

Communication is difficult at best. My husband and I are both native English speakers, we speak no other languages, so we should be able to understand each other fairly well. Yet most of our disagreements stem from a simple miscommunication of ideas.

It is usually something as simple as how we each define a word. We come from different families, in different states, with different religious backgrounds. He comes from a family of males, I come from a family of females. What I consider important, he considers irrelevant, and the other way around.

Some of my online friends are fluent in English, some are just learning and many lie in between. Even native English speakers sometimes have difficulty understanding me because my use of the language tends to be flowery. I use words in unorthodox ways, and that can make it very difficult to communicate with a non-native English speaker.

I love words, and I love to use them but I don’t always realize that not everyone shares my fascination with the English language, or my habits of weaving words together in new ways. It does make me difficult to understand at times.

There are always cultural differences to consider as well. For instance in my background it is considered rude not to look at someone when they are speaking. Yet I spent part of my life just off of the Navajo reservation. To the Navajo, looking at a person while they are speaking is often considered rude, a sign of mistrust. Both parties believing the other to be rude could lead to some very awkward conversations indeed.

So many individual factors come into play, how you feel about another person or how they feel about you can taint attempts at communication from the start. If you feel defensive, it is easy to find something to defend against. If you regard them highly, is is easier to accept their words as fact without a need for evidence.

The funny thing is, communication seems so simple. Even animals can do it, a two year old child has the capabilities, but as adults we struggle with it. Perhaps we figure we have been communicating for so long that it is now just instinct.

Yet how often do we find ourselves explaining what we really meant when we said... ???

Communication is an exchange, it requires that two or more people be willing to observe the rules of positive communication, to be willing to understand and accept the differences between the parties involved and how those differences might affect the message being exchanged.

To communicate effectively you must take all of these things into account, and be clear about your goal. If it is just getting your message across to others, then it is not communication. You can do that by yourself.

It also involves being alert to the possibilities of misunderstandings and a willingness to work toward correcting them on both parts.

Communication is a relationship and relationships worth having always take work.