When Traveling to Mexico…

Before you do anything…

Learn Spanish.

Are You Talking to Me?

A little voice said to me once: “think before you speak”. I dare to go further and say: Listen before you think!

Have you ever noticed when you´re with someone, a co-worker, a friend, an acquaintance and it just seems that they just talk and talk and talk…you´re sitting in front of them and yet it feels like they haven´t even noticed you there? When they pause after they ask you something you reply, as if you were paying attention, “what? ”. You try to come back to the moment as you come out of your own thoughts. The listener is not listening because the person talking is not willing to listen either! This is the main reason why conversations tend to turn into a shoving match of “me, me, me”. What could be a pleasant exchange of ideas, emotions, words and life suddenly turns into nothing. Just words flying around.

How many times have you had a disagreement with your mate over something so silly and insignificant that grows and grows until it becomes an obstacle and creates distance between the two of you? You´re talking but, are you really listening?

Begin improving your communication skills by listening first. The first step is to stop talking! Listen to your mate. Listen to your friend, co-worker, whomever it is you´re with at the time. By listening I don´t mean to just give them the time to sit in front of them and nod politely while you´re thinking about something out of this planet, or wondering about his or her motives for saying what sound like blah, blah. By listening I mean observing with your eyes and ears, the tone of voice, see the body language, feel the person´s breathing rhythm and finally hear the content, the words themselves.

The tone of voice is very important to gauge the mood of the other person. This will give you a clear sense of what they are trying to tell you, and not what they are saying. There is a difference. Communication expresses two very important things: emotions and thoughts. If you can mix the two together when you communicate you will have the power to make people sway to the sound of your song. But you´ve got to start by listening. Our voice comes from deep within, and every once in a while it lets out a little bit of what wanders in our soul. See what is in the soul of others.

Human communication, much like that of other animals, is about 60% based on body language. Have you heard this before? Hear it again. A person could be reciting Shakespeare in your ear and telling you they love you, but if they´re holding a machete in their hand it is difficult to feel the romance and more than likely, you will be getting a different idea of what the person in front of you may really be thinking.

Look at a person in front of you. Look at his heart, see how it beats, feel the rhythm of her breath. Feel your own breath. You can see all that on a person´s chest if you look closely, if you´re listening. When you begin paying attention to all these little things you haven´t seen before, you will notice time slows down. The sounds become longer. Clear. You feel connected.

Begin to practice with yourself. Listen to your own words, your own voice. You will learn to enjoy one of the most beautiful things in life: knowing yourself by getting to know those around you.

Listen…

Never Run After a Bus!

This wise old saying bears the following thruth: if you´re running after a bus, you´re probably late for something, and if you´re late for something, chances are you´re constantly late for other things.

The point here is that if you´re running to your next event you probably have an issue with managing your time and this is one of the factors that creates stress.  Keep the stress out of your life by doing just a bit of prioritizing in your day, then your week, then your month until you have a good time management plan.  You´ll probably find many gimmicks and books for time management.  Save your money and just focus on doing the important things at the time you´re scheduled to do them.  Avoid procrastination!  In the long run the things you´ve put off for “later” may come back as an unwanted mountain of errands and grief.  If you catch yourself running after a bus, STOP!  Your health is more important than getting there on time.  Re-schedule, and organize your time better.  It´s simple, just take one step at a time.

Enjoy, live well.

Breathe!!

The human body is an apparatus which constantly improves its own design, it regenerates itself and performs feats that will boggle the mind. The main fuel for this finely tuned biological wonder is oxygen.

Breathing is what we do most often without eve knowing it. The problem is that most people don´t breathe correctly, this may produce negative side effects such as low energy and anxiety and in the future may lead to unwanted wear of our body.

Practice the following excercise at least twice a day:

Breathe in through your nose, starting with the diaphragm and then filling up your lungs. Count as you´re breathing in. Once you´ve filled your lungs you will hold your breath four times the breathe count. If when you inhaled you counted to 4, then you will hold your breath until 16. Then you will exhale through the mouth slowly as you count half of what you held your breath from, in this particular case 8. Push the air out, control the flow with your mouth, not your lungs. Do it now….do you feel relaxed?

Your Parents or Mine?

The question that began the War of Troy when Helen and Paris asked themselves…”Shall we dine with your parents or mine?”

The most important people in a relationship are two: You and your mate.  Say and repeat.

The sure way to begin an argument with your mate is to begin defending why the two of you should do whatever with “your parents” and not “your parents”.  Remember that most of us tend to take things in a personal way, so, even if your mate thinks his mother´s cooking is terrible and has told you so in many ocassions, do not bring that up.  This is not to say that you should not express what you think, you should, absolutely.  My point is the following: the third solution.

The third solution implies a satisfactory result for both which satisfies each individual.  If he wants to do have Thanksgiving dinner at his parents, and you want to go to your parents ask yourself the following: what is the important thing here?

Sure your parents will be happy to have you, and his parents too.  Whose happiness is more important here?  Yours and your mate´s.  A third solution to this dilemma is to bring everyone under one roof and break an old tradition to start a new one.  If someone´s parents can´t deal with that then that´s their problem.  For those thinking of the mayhem that would cause, there´s another third option.  Thanksgiving for two.

The important thing here is to look for the third solution before limiting the decission-making process based on the preferences and satisfaction of only one person in the relationship.  This way you can avoid future resentment and unhappiness.

Be happy, the possibilities are infinite.

The Best Advice of All On….What Men Are Not

I am a man. I have spent the latter 20 years of my life understanding some aspects of women´s behaviour toward men. I have found there are some things that women seem to share when relating to a man, or men, with the exception, of course, of the interactions in violent and psicotic relationships that end up in court rooms with lawyers appealing life sentences. By this I by no means imply that women are all alike, that´s nonsense. However, I do believe that many women, not all, have become victims of a generalized social trend to find some sense in one´s own existence by comparing it to the weapons of media bombardment, namely movies, tv series, etc. the breeding ground for that social malaise called

I´m sure you´ve seen a movie which claims a formula of How To Get Rid of A Man in 10 Days. It´s a funny film, if you´re into that sort of humor, and it shows certain obvious patterns of behaviour that would not only get rid of a guy but also put into question the young woma´s sanity. But how about the other things some women do? The things that are unexplainable and yet so powerful that they create conflict, confusion and mayhem, how about those patterns? How can someone become a millionaire writting a book that tries to cconvince us that men and women are so different they even come from different planets? Women and men come fromthe same planet, this one. Anything else is just…the new marketing scam.

From my experience in this planet, please allow me to share with you the following advice:

Women:

Before you do anything, please understand the following: what a man is not.

A man is not: the manifestation of all the nonsensical sit-com characters, grandma´s comments, your best friend´s ex-boyfriend, your ex-boyfriend, the fairy tale guy, the movie action hero, the centerfold of Playgirl magazine, the scumbag that grabbed your ass on the subway, the guy who shot Bambi, James Bond, your friend´s drunk uncle, the sweet guy from 7th grade, Mr. I´ll Give You the Night of Your Life at the local bar, a walking erection, the inventor of the Stiletto pumps, your knight in shinning armour, “just like all the other men”, only thinking about sex, the guy who botched your latte, a must-be millionaire, rotten to the core, “just waiting till I´m not around to cheat on me!”, hitting on all your friends, ATM machines, stupid boys that like sportscars, and all the other “ideas” you have heard throughout your entire life about “what men are”. We could be here all day. Some other time perhaps.

So, think of how you´d like to be seen as a woman, as yourself, and I can bet you a flight to Paris that a man also has ideas of how he´d like to be perceived as a man, as himself. A man is an autonomous individual. He is what and how he is, he will be what and how he chooses to be. I recommend that you begin to discover the man in question before jumping back to the comfortable assumptions and prejudices you may have about previous experiences with men. Getting to know a person is one of the most fascinating aspects of our existence, it is like finding out a new world within ourselves that we did not know before, that is, if we pay close attention. People in our lives are like mirrors of our self.

A man is just another human being with his own experiences, likes, dislikes and in his own quest to find who he is. He´s also been affected by this false identity bombardment and would probably be very happy to meet someone who is also tryign to find her true self.

Be good, enjoy.