As Rivka Levy points out in The Relationship Priorities Matrix, “One of the biggest causes of stress is when we end up putting people who are low-priority ahead of those who should be top priority. Take that needy friend who is on the phone tying up your time and attention for hours while your kids start going bananas because you didn’t manage to get supper on the table, help them with their homework or maybe, even just say ‘hi’ to them and spend 5 minutes catching up on their day at school…”
Think about your relationship priorities matrix and prioritise your time and attention accordingly.
Typical relationship priority matrix for a couple with children is provided below.
“The idea behind it is pretty simple. The lower the number, the higher the priority. And if you’re spending a bunch of time and energy on people who are in the outer rings – at the expense of people who are in your ‘inner circles’ – then that for sure is going to be causing you some massive stress. And it may well be time to rethink what’s going on…”
What is your relationship priorities matrix and how do you prioritise your time?
“Become friends with people who aren’t your age. Hang out with people whose first language isn’t the same as yours. Get to know someone who doesn’t come from your social class. This is how you see the world. This is how you grow.”
“I often encountered the negative view that boys’ schools produce men who are unable to relate to women and who, because of their arrogance about being male – encouraged by the school – carry negative perceptions about the place of women in today’s society…. At the very least it has been suggested the boys leaving such schools are emotionally bereft and incapable of establishing and maintaining effective personal relationships with women…
It was uncommon for the fathers of some students, men who had themselves been educated at boys’ schools, to reflect that they’d been unable to understand or communicate effectively with members of the opposite sex when they left school. Some of them went on to conceded that the workings of the female brain remained a mystery to this day and I have no doubt they’re not alone in holding that view….
Their adolescent sons didn’t, however, appear to share their experience of not being able to communicate effectively with adolescent girls. Partly due no doubt to the greater degree of social freedom available to girls today, the boys appeared to understand their female counterparts much better than their fathers had.
Almost all boys I spoke to had close female friends within their immediate peer group – often referred to as ‘chick-mates’ – and many spoke of the value of the conversations they had with these girl friends about the ‘real’ stuff, the stuff they could not or would not talk about with their male peers.”
The same principle applies very well to mentoring.
As Prof. D Clutterbuck points out, ‘mentoring fulfills a desire most people share; that is to pass on their learning to help other people develop their potential.’
Dave Stein notes however that “mentoring is much more complex and complicated relationship than most people think. Mentors and their protégés need to take care to establish a mutually-beneficial relationship in order for it to be truly successful.”
Protégé must be willing to work hard at improvement. That means “defining and accepting their shortcomings and being open to changing or forming new habits through adopting new strategies and tactics.” They have to be “honest, objective, appreciative, motivated and have the courage to change.”
What’s in it for the mentor? Mentors not only get the satisfaction of helping someone who needs and wants their assistance. They also get to improve their own coaching, leadership, communication, and management skills. Mentors note that they “often get new ideas and insights from my protégés” and their protégés provide them with an expansion of their business and professional network.
This song touched my heart with its simplicity. Sometimes life takes you away from people who were once close to you. You slowly drift apart, drowning in the sea of everyday routine. Every now and then however you ask yourself: “I wonder how he/she is? Is he/she alright? If not, is there anything I can do for her/him?”
Or even worse – you suddenly learn that this person went through a very tough patch in life and you were not there for her/him. You had no chance to help or at least share the pain and now it is too late… You did not know, but that does not make that lump of bitter guilt inside you any smaller.
Even when you are trying to keep in touch with people who were once close to you, it often ends up in a superficial polite conversation about work, family, children, weather and lots of routine trivial things, while the most important questions go unanswered and often unasked. No words can hide the awkwardness and emptiness that speaks…
Are you alright? Do you have someone whom you can tell anything that worries you, anything that comes to your mind? Do you have someone to give you a hug whenever you need one?
Have you met such children in your life? Or, may be, you’ve been one of them?
I was not “removed” – I stayed with my family – well, with whatever was left of it by then… No one cared, no one noticed – it was better that way. I was ‘caught’ only a few times at school. Once I struggled with completing a test in writing because my hands were shaking too much. On another occasion I punched a girl. She saw my dad coming home drunk and started making silly jokes about that in front of the class. My fuse was short – my fist was fast… I was taken to the principal. He could not make any sense of it: “You’ve always been such a good quiet student, always getting the top marks, always listening to the teachers. I can’t understand why you did that?” I had nothing to say.
I never invited anyone to my place, I never talked to anyone about my family – except my only school friend Lucy and later Ivan.
I felt very sorry for Lucy. She lived with her parents and her only sister. Her dad wanted to have sons – no luck. Both children turned out to be female. He never got over it, blaming them and their mum for that. He was often verbally and physically abusive – with both girls and their mother. I felt much luckier – at least, my dad was not bashing me.
Lucy’s sister got married as soon as she reached the ‘legal’ age, which was 18 – just to get away from her dad. Lucy ‘lasted’ a bit longer. She phoned me before her wedding day: “You might be surprised that I’m marrying a man who is 10 years older than I’m,” she said. “While it was the norm a century ago, I know it looks pretty weird nowadays. With a more mature dad, I hope my children will be growing in a better environment and won’t see the hell I went through as a child…”
Ivan was raised by a single mum. His dad was complete alcoholic. I saw him only once. He was so ‘marinated’ after decades of drinking, that it was even impossible to tell when he was drunk or sober, if he ever was sober. He was trying to say something friendly to me, but I could not understand even a single word. Poor Ivan needed to ‘translate’ for me from Russian to Russian. I felt very sorry for Ivan – my dad at least could still talk properly and was not always drunk.
Alex never talked about his family. It looked like his family did not care about him at all. I had a feeling that there was a history of alcoholism in his family too, because Alex would never touch anything with alcohol, whether it was vodka, beer, wine or cider. Not a drop. For that reason, other lads were always mocking him with their usual ‘you are not a man if you are not drinking’ tune. My gender helped in those cases – as none of that ‘be a man’ crap applied to me I could easily get those lads ‘out of tune’ to shut them up.
Victoria was the only surprising exception. Her parents divorced when she was little. Her dad was married three times, her mum – twice. It always puzzled me how they all managed to maintain good relationships. Victoria lived with her mum, however if she needed her dad he was always there for her in a blink of an eye. She had very good relationship with all his children from other marriages – her half-sisters and half-brothers. Her step-dad treated her well too. May be, that’s why she turned into such a carefree chatter box with a beaming smile: always happy, always confident, always giggling…
I’m very proud of my friends. They did not have a good start in life, but they all managed to get their lives into a pretty good shape and provide safe, stable and loving environment for their children. They became wonderful teachers, doctors, train drivers, tradespeople. It was a hard work – and still is I’m sure. However they never complained, they never blamed their fate or difficult childhood, they never gave up and while steadily getting up on their feet, they never put anyone down.
I do admire their self-discipline, strength, determination and kind hearts. They are real heroes for me, the most beautiful people I’ve known.
With each day Comes fresh parting A brand new goodbye. Each one Leaves its mark, Makes me whither And sigh. Goodbyes can be long Or goodbyes Can be short, They can be said to people You’ve loved, and who’ve taught You to be who you are now, But once their work’s done, It’s goodbye from them, And so on, you must run, To a brand new beginning, Which will end in goodbyes. Yet further partings To try on for size. For people like me, Who find farewells so tough, A stream of hellos Cannot feel like enough To fill in the dark hole And to quench the deep need, To grip on to the ankles, Of those parting at speed. Each new hello, Is a goodbye to come. That’s why meeting new friends, Sometimes makes me feel glum.
From 
From .jpg)
From 
From 
From 
From
From 
From 
From 
Otrazhenie 