One of the things I think we should all be prepared for is pressure. Pressure comes in a wide variety of shapes in our life - lack of sleep, hunger, a looming deadline at work, a baby screaming, physical pain, a growing debt, an accident, an illness, someone's death and so on. Each one of these presents a different challenge, but the common theme to all of them is that we are overwhelmed by emotion and all too often, reason goes out the window.

In a normal situation, when somebody cracks a joke at our expense, we may laugh along, but when we are under stress, we are more likely to lash out. Later, when we remember the situation, we may regret our outburst, but it is often too late to change its effects.

So how can we be prepared for times of stress?

First, we need to learn to pay attention, both to our internal universe and to how the world around us flows. Second, we should develop subconscious anchors that will help stop us before we do too much damage and allow us to remain productive even under pressure.

The Magician from the Judean Desert

This is an excellent book about an idealistic man who wanted to change the world when he was young and then married and lived an increasingly dull life, selling cosmetics for a living. He has a small apartment in the suburbs, two children and a cat. The mortgage weighs heavy and he falls asleep in front of the TV at night. The relationship with his wife has become mechanical and he has become short tempered…

An unexpected meeting with one of his childhood friends sets him off on a wonderful journey of personal growth and enlightenment. In the Judean Desert, he meets The Magician, a strange and spiritual sage who teaches him a simple way to achieve deep awareness and self-realization.

The Judean Desert Magician tells the man we go through life at top speed, but mostly on "autopilot", so we miss a lot of stuff, like what happens in our partner's and our kids' life. Have you ever found yourself driving for the 100^th time to a familiar place and noticing a part of the way for the first time? Have you ever noticed when you come in the door and your children rush to greet you, but you ask them to give you some space?

Our hero observes insects, hills, water and the wind, but also his own feelings, and learns to be aware of things he has long ignored. The Magician teaches him 5 steps:

1. Stop! Wake up! Remember! - instead of reacting automatically and out of habit, pay attention and remember you are on a journey to awareness. Do this as soon as you open your eyes in the morning, as well as whenever you catch yourself drifting. It would help to post these words where you can see them
2. Increase your sensitivity - observe those around you to practice being aware of their preferences and reactions. Spend some time every day watching people, both familiar and strange, and see how they behave and interact
3. Start things the right way - no matter what you begin, give it everything you have from the very start. Dress up in the morning, shave or put on makeup, make sure you have everything you need before leaving, arrange the room, check the lighting and do whatever it takes to set the scene for success
4. Watch the little things - gain perspective by observing nature and others in detail. Learn to appreciate what you have - size, strength, knowledge, skills, money, comfort, love, friends - by noticing how other creatures live without them. Focusing on the little things (like ants in the grass) is an excellent focusing and relaxing exercise. Just sit on the grass in a quiet spot, breath in the air and pay attention
5. See things from the present - instead of piling past experiences onto everything that happens to you, concentrate only on the present. To practice this, reject your first impressions and spend some time questioning them. Learn to bypass your programming, stop and re-evaluate
6. Reprogram - do things differently just to see what happens. Sleep on the other side of the bed, swap your knife and fork, wear unusual clothes, get up earlier, come to work late, take a day off in the middle of the week and see how your perspective changes

Integrate these steps into your life one at a time. Take as much time as you need to go through each of them and make it part of who you are. Gradually, you will start to respond to situations from the present and from your awareness of others, instead of reacting automatically.

Of course, as you get comfortable with these steps, why not involve your partner and your children too?

Personal power - hot vs. cold

In a charged emotional state, people first try to satisfy their immediate needs and act rashly. Unfortunately, this can be destructive. Little kids sometimes throw tantrums - they scream, jump up and down and fling their toys at the wall. In most cases, this should not change their parents' decision, but it may ruin a perfectly good toy.

Adults behave much the same, even if they express their frustrations in ways that are less physical. A snide remark may provide a temporary outlet, but the recipient may resent it, which would only escalate the pressure.

In most relationships, however, there are patterns of interaction and sources of stress that can be identified, predicted and prevented. For example, if you know you are cranky after only getting 4 hours of sleep, you can do something about it beforehand and save everyone from having a nasty morning. If you know one of your kids does not like spinach, you can prepare another healthy vegetable option for dinner.

Fundamentally, we should never assume our partner or our kids will be able to handle themselves well in "hot" situations and we should do some preparations while things are "cold" and everyone can see reason. Nor should we ever assume we will...

One excellent method with kids is to give them a 10-minute and a 5-minute warning before things are about to change - time for school, time for shower, time to go home from a friend, time to go to bed, etc.

With your partner, sensitive topics should be approached in privacy, when you are both relaxed and when there is enough time to work things out calmly.

But sometimes, things just happen when you do not expect them. For those times, it is a very good idea to agree while "cold" on a signal that reminds everyone to take a step back, collect their thoughts and separate the issue from the added pressure. This may be a phrase, like "Time out", a hand gesture, like the one students use in class to request permission to speak, a special effect, like ringing a bell, and even a hug. The sign must be known to everyone involved and practiced during mildly-stressful situations for a while.

Using the 6 awareness steps and finding ways to avoid and interrupt heated interactions are excellent preparations for what life throws at us from time to time.

Try them and let me know what you got.

Happy parenting,
Gal

You may want to read

• Disengage Your Autopilot
• How to Handle Pressure
• War and Peace are Personal

1. If you see a beautiful tattoo and you like it, say right in front of your kids that you think it is beautiful. Make sure you separate the beauty from the act of burning the skin. You do not want them to think you are old in your mindset and do not understand anything about beauty.
2. Let your kids express themselves. If they want to start putting makeup early, let them do it. Noff has had her own makeup kit since the age of 3. She used to go to daycare with her face full of lipstick (even as eye shadow). Makeup can be cleaned with soap, not with a knife.
3. Allow your kids to enjoy face painting everywhere they go. Learn how to do face painting yourself and do it from time to time. Each time their face is painted, ask them if they would like to have it for the rest of their life. Ignore the answer. You are only planting the question in their head.
4. Let them get Henna tattoos or airbrush tattoos. Let them learn the consequences of having a tattoo without physically hurting themselves. These temporary tattoos comes off within 3 weeks. Ask them to think if they could live with this tattoo for the rest of their life. Mention things like weddings, graduation ceremonies, standing on stage to receive a big award for scientific research, trying to get a job as a manager, etc.
5. Tell them never to hurt themselves to make someone else like them. Teach them that if they need to hurt themselves (smoke, steal, cheat, lie, do drugs, have sex, pierce themselves, have a tattoo or anything like that) to be accepted, they will probably never be accepted. It is emotional blackmail and it never stops. If someone can blackmail you emotionally once, you are their victim forever.
6. Show them every old person with tattoo that looks faded and wrinkled. It will help them realize that tattoos do not stay colorful and beautiful forever.
7. Whenever you see someone with a name tattooed on them, tell them about the name of your first girlfriend/boyfriend and ask, "Can you imagine how Mom/Dad would feel if I had her/his name carved on my chest". If they are teens, they may find it an amusing thought, but they will take the thought with them and question the justification for it.
8. When buying something that is very expensive, remind them that no matter what we buy ourselves, we change our taste, so in 5-7 years, we will likely search for a new dining room table or sofa. Every time you buy something new, ask them, "Can you imagine if we had to stay with our old sofa forever?" Again, it does not matter what they answer, as long as you plant in their mind that we change, our taste changes, fashion changes and luckily, we do not have to be stuck with one thing.
9. Show kids photos of yourself when you were young. Allow them to make fun of the "old" fashion. Your hair style, your glasses, your shoes and pants, and ask the question again, "Can you imagine if we had to be stuck with the same clothes today because they didn't come off?"
10. Suggest to them to walk with their favorite clothes on for 2 weeks (make sure they are washed). Tell them to go to bed with them, play in them, go to school with them. Have a discussion about our need for variety. Make them understand that no favorite thing stays a favorite forever (pop songs are another great example).
11. Encourage your kids to talk to other grown-ups and get a variety of inputs. Exposure to other points of view enhances their perspective. The more people they meet and discuss tattoos with, the more they will be convinced it is not just their parents' conspiracy but there is a high chance that more people will hold the tattoo against them. I am not saying it is right to disrespect or judge someone with a tattoo negatively. I believe that having a tattoo is not an indication of your skills or knowledge. However, as the director of the Together for Humanity Foundation, I am in the business of perception, impression and judgment based on external cues, and I am afraid to say the judgment in our society is really bad. Until we eliminate it, I do not want my kids to suffer the consequences.
12. Help your kids understand the difference between permanent and temporary. If they are fussed about their haircut, reassure them it will grow. I always say, "It grows back. It's not like chopping a finger or getting a tattoo". A haircut is not permanent, but making a hole in your tooth and putting a diamond in it creates permanent damage. Horrible-looking nail polish can be removed in seconds, but removing a tattoo is a much bigger problem.
13. Get your teens to read a bit about the cost and effectiveness of tattoo removals. This will allow them to have in mind the long process of laser or surgical removal and their cost before they make the choice to get a tattoo.
14. My favorite tip is to assure them you will provide them with an endless supply of temporary tattoo stickers and that they are welcome to put on as many as they like with the luxury of changing them, having them glittered and even having little bright "stones". When we lived in Thailand, I bought thousands of temporary tattoo stickers. They are stored where the kids can use them whenever they want. I put them on myself from time to time to show them that you can have a beautiful tattoo but you do not have to hurt yourself for it.

I love tattoos.

I do not love the idea of physically damaging your skin to have a tattoo.

I think that because I work very hard to help kids with challenges overcome the labels our society puts on them, I find it particularly challenging to carve that label onto their skin.

Long live tattoo stickers.

Happy parenting,
Ronit

You may want to read

• My Kid Wants a Tattoo: Short-term Thinking
• Troubled Teens: Disturbing Thoughts
• Ronit’s Parenting Bible: Role Model

Still, I have to say it scares me to think of my kids getting a tattoo. I imagine their soft skin that I bathed and touched being damaged and it really frightens me to think that people damage their skin to look pretty.

When Eden was a baby, I wrote her a life diary with her photo album and wrote her a long, long, book-size letter with a huge message. I knew that in-between the words, I needed to write the biggest message of all. My message was, "Never ever hurt yourself to gain someone else's attention".

After Eden was born, I had the first opportunity to examine my life and the lives of those around me and I discovered that all of us do things to gain other people's attention, love, acceptance, trust and respect and that we do it even if it means hurting ourselves. I decided I would examine my real motives for everything I did. Did I do it for myself or to please someone else?

Tattoos are a very sensitive topic. If you ask every person that wants to carve their skin and damage their body beyond repair on their motives, they will always say, "I like it!" or "It's beautiful", and I believe them. Some tattoos are amazingly beautiful. What I do not understand is having a beautiful tattoo that you cannot enjoy, because you put them on your neck or on your back and you cannot see them.

The problem with kids wanting a tattoo is that kids cannot imagine the future. They cannot imagine a time when their dazzling tattoo will become a problem. Unlike piercing in your ears, your nose or even your tongue, which you can hide by taking the jewelry out when you go to an interview or a tiny braid in your hair that you can cut off just before your wedding, tattoos are permanent and you cannot just make them disappear.

This week, some people told me their tattoo stories and I thought these would be good to share with you and other parents.

One of my clients is preparing for her daughter's wedding. She is very skilled with the sewing machine, so he is making the dresses for her daughter and the bridesmaids. The couple is gorgeous and has have been living together for a long time. In recent years, they have both found a passion for nature and have dedicated every second of their time to growing organic fruits and vegetable. The theme they had for their wedding was nature. Unfortunately, 4 years ago, not predicting that this would be her passion, her daughter decided to have a huge tattoo on her shoulder. Her mom said, "Maybe not so big, honey. Maybe get it in a hidden place that you can cover", but her daughter went and got at big one anyway.

All is well, except the daughter's dream was to have a strapless white wedding dress and she cannot. The tattoo does not match the nature theme or the white dress and she is extremely frustrated. The wedding is happening soon and everyone is offering ways to cover the tattoo - a scarf, a sleeve or heavy makeup - but she feels all the options are compromise.

Parents can help before, not after.

The other person I met was a manager in a very big company. One of his employees is a wonderful woman who is doing a wonderful job. She is a mother of two young kids and every day of the year, she comes to work wearing long sleeves. 15 years earlier, as a rebellious teen, she had many tattoos all over her body. When she left school, she discovered no one wanted to give her a job and was convinced it was because she lacked education. She went to university and got a degree with high grades. When she looked for a job again, no one wanted to employ her and she ended up working for a temporary recruitment agency for many years, shifting from one job to another that kept her employed from 1 week up to 3 months.

One day, she had an interview for a job for which she was convinced they could never find anyone with her skills, but still received a letter saying, "Thank you, but no thank you". She decided to call and ask why. The lady she talked to, who was very nice, said, "You were the best candidate, but customers form their opinion on you without exams or formal accreditation and your tattoos make a very bad first impression. Sorry, we cannot take the risk".

7 years later, after her kids were born and she went to find a job, she came into the interview fully covered. She has been working with this employer for 3 years and although her boss knows she has so many tattoos, she covers them, saying she cannot take the risk, because customers are not very respectful when they see them.

If only she could tell the future.

People are just human and they cannot predict the future. This is the same when you are very much in love and carve your girlfriends' or boyfriend's name on your chest. Every couple that gets married has a 60% chance of divorcing. Every person who falls in love has a higher chance of separating from the person whose name is carved on their chest than of staying together. Just imagine a guy walking around with his ex's name tattooed on his chest or his wife kissing him all over in bed, including the name of his old girlfriend...

Although people cannot predict the future, I believe that adults should be able to think of these possibilities. Children, on the other hand, do not have enough life perspective to imagine their future adult life and it is their parents' role to present the options to them.

Join me next week for tips in how to prevent kids from having the desire to get a tattoo.

Happy parenting,
Ronit

You may want to read

• My Kid Wants a Tattoo: How to Prevent
• Troubled Teens: Disturbing Thoughts
• Ronit’s Parenting Bible: Role Model

I must be adopted

"Maybe I was adopted. That explains the way they treat me. I've heard them saying I looked like Mom, but I look at my photos as a baby and I don't look like either one of my parents or even like myself today. They could have adopted me when I was just a baby. That makes sense. I think this is why they love my brother more than they love me."

What parents can do

Every child has this horrible thought at some stage. It is very natural to question your parents' behavior as that of adoptive parents. There is no real way to prevent this thought from getting into kids' mind, but there are good ways to make sure it will go away quickly, before it creates any damage.

Talk to your kids about their birth and talk about it a lot. Kids ask question about their pregnancy and birth to check if all the stories match. If Mom tells one story and Dad tells another one about the same birth, that will be odd, but if they tell the stories over and over and everything matches, they must be true!

Teenagers ask other family members about their birth to find out if someone has a different version of the story. As they grow up, they become more sophisticated with their questions and look for more contradictions. If Grandma says you were overseas just before the birth, it will make them question it. If you show them their photos of you (your partner) pregnant, their birth certificate and photos of you holding them in your arms as a newborn baby, that will help them accept that they are truly your child and not adopted.

Video is an exceptional way to prove your biological connection, because it combines the audio of using their name with the pictures of people they know and emotions that can help them feel loved and get past their doubts.

It's all on me now

"When we play cards, I beat Mom easily. I think I'm much better than she is at this game. I know more tricks than she does. Parents should know more than their kids do. If not, how can she take care of me? I need to take care of myself from now on."

What parents can do

Similar to the thought that parents do not always know things, it is very scary for kids to realize that their parents are not that skilled at everything. I remember the first time it happened to me. I was 15 years old and I went to the lake with my family. I left my watch next to our bags and went into the lake. When I came back, I could not find my watch, but I was convinced my parents would find it. They always had, so I had no doubt they would. I searched for it with them without any worry. When the time came to leave, my dad (who was very upset with me) said, "It's gone. We can't find it. We must leave now", and I thought he was joking. It was a very expensive watch and a gift for my birthday. Even when we had packed all our things in the car, I was convinced they would find my watch at home, but they did not. I was very sad for losing my watch and for a long time, I said to myself, "But they always find things. What happened this time?" I thought it was parents' special skill and was devastated to find out it was not.

To avoid this situation, ask for your kids' help and say, "You are better than me with this. Can you please help me do it?" When you talk about skills, talk about you and your partner as having different skills to show your kids that becoming a parent does not make you skilled at everything. Say, "Mom is much better than me at remembering things like that" or "Dad is very good at cooking this dish".

When your teen expects you to do something you cannot do, you can address their feeling directly, show empathy and help them relax and find another solution.

I'm growing old

"I looked at my mom this morning and saw she was not as pretty as she was when she was young. What will happen to me when I grow old? I don't want to lose my hair like Dad or become fat and wrinkled. How can I stop growing old?"

What parents can do

As kids grow, they become more aware of the way their parents look and the "right" look depends greatly on generation and age differences. When I look at my photos as a teenager or a young mother, I look funny in the clothes, the hairstyle and the glasses that were popular back then, but now seem old-fashioned.

Do not defend the old style by talking badly about the new generation. It is a sign you are not accepting change and it will make it harder for you to teach your kids to accept change. I remember my dad saying that the music we listened to was loud and screaming and that there was no value in it, but I listened to Julio Iglesias and Barbara Streisand singing with the Bee Gees and they sang soft songs about love.

Talk to your kids about fashion and about different generations. Talk to them about growing up, growing old and growing wiser to help them appreciate the inside and not only the outside.

Take a photo of them every year from birth to show them that they have changed too and that the fashion was different when they were kids.

I run workshops for student leaders at schools and senior citizens and both "sides" find the experience heartwarming and enriching. Encourage your teens to spend time with old people (grandparents are best) and take an interest in their story.

Fear of being old is a very legitimate fear and everyone has some versions of it. Kids experience the thought and your attitude will determine if this thought will stay or disappear.

I wish I could change the past

"I regret so many things. I wish I could back in time and change some things. Maybe my life wouldn't be so hard if we had lots of money or Mom wasn't sick or Dad didn't work so many hours."

What parents can do

Kids are born with a very weak concept of time. I know many adults that still have a very poor ability to understand, or manage time, as a result. When things are hard, kids (and people in general) search for easy, magical solutions to their problems. A time machine crosses everyone's mind and can be used as a fun way to talk about dreams and wishes.

If your teen shows lots of regrets and a desire to change the past, it is a sign they have an unfinished business that needs to be sorted. Kids take lots of blame on themselves when there is a family problem. This is why divorce always triggers in kids the thoughts "What have I done to make them divorce?" and "What can I do to bring them back together?" Even adults whose parents are divorced still often think that way.

Kids that live it the time machine dream have not learned from their parents to let go. This is often because their parents do not know how to let go themselves. They blame others for their problems, they have lots of guilt feelings and regrets and they use the guilt trip on others as a way to ease their own burden.

It is very important to understand that we cannot turn back time. That is life. A second that passes cannot be repeated and kids can learn this from a very early stage. Even a 6-year-old can learn that once things are done, they cannot be undone and we can only do things differently next time.

Teach your kids to focus on what they can change and let go of things they cannot change. There is no point regretting not talking your umbrella today, because you are not a fortuneteller. At every point in time, we make decisions based on the information we have and on who we are and we pick the option that seems most appropriate at that moment. Yes, we may find it was not the best option later on, but we cannot turn the clock backward to change our previous decisions. The clock only moves forward and our feelings about it do not really change its ticking.

I hate housekeeping

"I hate cleaning my room. I wish someone else did it for me. I wish I had a robot doing everything I asked it."

What parents can do

Asking for someone (or something) else to clean your room and serve you is a sign your teenager feels overwhelmed and that the tasks is making life too heavy.

I hated cleaning too and I think it is strongly connected to the way my mom treated cleaning in our house. We were five kids, so we obviously had to take turns, but she was so fussy about doing things in what she considered "the right way" that we hated these jobs. After washing the floor, she would point out the places that were not spotless. While washing the dishes, she would stand over our shoulder and say, "You need to wash this first", instead of focusing on doing what we can to keep our dishes clean for the sake of our health.

The reason I say it was my mom's fault was that at the age of 14, my younger sisters and I had a good discussion about this, in which we realized we all hated doing chores by ourselves and decided to do them together. So instead of each of us doing something different, we washed the dishes together, washed the floor together and cleaned each room together. After a short time, cleaning became great fun. We did not complain and we did not mind how long it took, because we loved being together. During that time, our house was very clean and tidy and my mom did not control us anymore. We had full control over how to do things. She could tell us what needed to be done, but she could not tell us who should do what or how to do things and we loved every second of it. Even now, cleaning the house on my own is not fun at all, but cleaning with Gal and/or the kids is much more fun.

Housework is part of life, not a form of punishment. Do not give rewards for cleaning or punishments for not cleaning ("You are grounded" or "You can go to the party only when your room is clean"). Try doing things together. From time to time, clean their room and instead of asking them to "pay" for it, think of it as an opportunity to be a role model.

Also, avoid asking them to do things on their own and involve them in scheduling their own chores.

Join me next week for 5 more thoughts teenagers have and explanations of how each thought is formed and what you can do to help your teenagers change it.

Happy parenting,
Ronit

You may want to read

• Troubled Teens: Scary Times
• Troubled Teens: Confusing Years
• More Control – Less Power

During the Easter break, we watched the movie Canvas with the kids. It tells the story of a family in which the mother has Schizophrenia. The father works as a builder for a rich jerk who buys speedboats and cars, but pays him too little too late, so they do not have enough money for medicine, which their basic health insurance refuses to cover.

The film shows how being poor and sick can have negative effects on your life and spin it out of control so quickly that it is super hard to recover. Because people expect certain behavior from adults, the mother creates a scene, which gets them thrown out of public places, like restaurants. Business owners may empathize with someone who sees imaginary people, but they still have a business to run.

The boy, being young, cannot truly understand what is happening to his mother. Unfortunately, neither can his schoolmates, who bully him for it. Also unfortunately, the father is a simple man who struggles to get by and lacks the emotional tools to help his son relax and cope with the mother's strangeness and absence, let alone the additional social burden he has to endure.

So next thing you know, the kid starts going nuts too, has a fight with the boss' kid, screams at his mom when she shows up at his birthday party with clown hats and a cake and skips school left right and center. Eventually, the principal and the boss catch up with the father and the father loses his job.

The whole time, I was sitting there, thinking to myself, "Don't they have a family? Where are the grandparents? Where are the uncles and aunts and cousins?"

But there were none. In fact, the woman who lived next door seems to want nothing better than for them to leave her neighborhood. When the mother runs outside and stands in the rain talking to people only she can see, the neighbor calls the police and they take the mother away to a mental hospital, where the doctors sedate her and test different drugs on her.

The only people who are nice and helpful are the father's friends from work - big guys who lend a hand and a smile. It is great at times, but it is not enough.

Working with clients, I sometimes try to convince them to invest in a solution that takes a bit more upfront, but saves and produces more down the road. In such cases, I often use the expression "Poor man pays twice" when comparing their options.

And it is true! When you have no car, you waste even more time getting to and from places. When you have no money for regular doctor and dentist checkups, your health problems grow until you have to treat them at any cost. When you have no steady job with a good group rate for health insurance, you either pay a lot more or have no cover until it is too late. When you have to work extra hours just to make ends meet, you neglect your family and you lose what little emotional support you could have when you finally get home (as long as you have a home, that is).

Ronit and I once went to give free hugs with our kids and some friend at an event for homeless people. The experts there told us that most of these homeless folks have some form of mental illness or substance abuse and others had some large calamity wipe out their financials. The homeless people you see on the streets, by the way, are not all of them. There are many people "crashing" at homes of friends or relatives, sometimes for a while and sometimes without knowing when they can get back on their own two feet.

Even people who are not officially poor can be devastated by some unforeseen event, like an accident, a major illness or the collapse of their shares portfolio. Pretty soon, they cannot pay their credit card debt in full and the exorbitant interest rate kicks in, leeching any money they can gather with no end in sight and crippling their chances of recovery rapidly.

The answer, my friend, is community.

A community is based on social norms, which means everyone works for the general best interest, without counting favors. As long as everyone is equally concerned about others' wellbeing as the others are about theirs, the community buffers harm and increases good.

When you move into a new house, a community welcomes you with smiles and some food, shows you around the neighborhood and offers to watch your kids when you need that. Nobody needs to tell you your services will be equally needed to complete the picture. You will offer them freely once you have settled in.

When your child goes to a new school, a community assigns a "buddy" to show them around and tell them "how things are done here". Their buddy introduces them to kids with similar interests and checks in on them until they feel safe. Other kids get excited to see new kids and invite them to social gatherings and parties as a matter of course.

Other communities can be the basketball club, afternoon art class, marching band, athletics team, religious organization, youth group, Scouts, Guides, the local chamber of commerce or trade union chapter and even the bank.

The biggest sign that these are not working very well for people these days is ... (drum roll) ... the popularity of social media sites, like Facebook. Human beings long so much to belong to a community, they join one online if they have to. They will exchange recipes with a person in another country if their neighbor stays behind closed doors. They will play online games with "friends" from half way around the world who may not speak the same language if their school is full of bullies.

The best thing about communities is that they have something in common - a sport, a hobby, a religious belief, a political opinion or a social cause. Sometimes, it is the place of work and sometimes, it is just the street everyone lives in. That common thing can unite very different people, if only they stopped long enough to focus on what they have in common.

So I say go out and meet other folks wherever you can. Pluck up the courage and reach out to other human beings, even ones you have never talked before. Join a club, become a member of an association, coach little league, cheer for the local team, bake cakes for the school's fundraiser, go to networking events to find people you like, ask your neighbors how they are doing, throw parties and accept barbecue invitations. If you prefer to start online, join communities that also meet offline (I personally like Meetup).

Because, really, we are all in the same boat. We all lose a loved one at some stage, we all need to make a living, we all try to raise our children the best we can, we all want to fulfill our dreams and we all want to feel like we belong.

As parents, not only is this going to provide your family with the support it needs, but it will show your kids how to build communities and give them enough practice at it to create a safer, warmer world for themselves one social circle at a time.

Happy days,
Gal

You may want to read

• Sharing and Caring
• Bullying (15): How to help bullying victims
• Bullying (14): How to help bullying victims

At the headquarters of National Semiconductor in Santa Clara, California, there was a sign posted on the wall of a corridor, which read

Doing no more than the average is what brings the average down

Let's say 10 people do their best work digging holes. On average, they dig 5 holes a day, because 1 digs 7 holes, 2 dig 6 holes, 4 dig 5 holes, 2 dig 4 holes and 1 digs 3 holes.

On their second week of work, they are told about the group's average performance. Those who dug more than 5 holes in the previous week feel like they gave more than the rest, so they all slow down and dig 5 holes each. So 7 people now dig 5 holes each, while the others continue as before.

The new average? 4.6 holes per person per day. So by doing no more than the (previous) average, a new average is created, which is lower, and this could continue until everybody digs 3 holes a day, like the slowest worker.

How is this related to the divorce rate?

In the past, divorce was unacceptable in many societies. Once people got married, which was often by parental arrangement, they were stuck with their partners for life. Marriage was literally "until death do us part". Being married for life was what everybody did. The average divorce rate was 0%.

Believing that ending their marriage while both partners were alive was not an option, the only available course of action was to make the marriage work. Sometimes, that was just as much fun as digging holes, but everyone dug 7 a day and kept their mouths shut.

Now, when you try to make a marriage work and you are committed to it for the long haul, you make decisions accordingly. You join bank accounts, split the responsibilities for best household performance and comfort, do your best to get to know your partner and try to be accommodating. In return, you could also rely on your partner to be there for you in times of difficulty, simply because he or she was as committed to the marriage as you were.

But even before the marriage started, young people (or their parents) spent time considering "the right person", the person they would commit the rest of their life to and that would commit theirs back to them. In every society, the values and preferred qualities were different, but still, there was more of an effort to make the best choice of partner.

At some point, perhaps because of exposure to other ways of life and alternative sets of beliefs, divorce became an option. At first, it was easier on the men, then it became easier on the women, but the floodgates were opened.

After that, the average started to crawl upwards. Knowing another person, maybe even a friend or a relative, who had divorced, gave unconscious permission to others to do the same. Celebrities' divorces started to make the whole thing fashionable. Why, if so-and-so could get a divorce and remain beautiful, rich and famous, anybody could.

Of course, when you think of your marriage as a temporary arrangement, from which you can always "bale out", your decisions are all different. You always have to cover yourself in the event of your marriage's untimely demise.

So you keep a personal bank account "on the side". Just in case. Who knows when you might need it? And you keep in touch with some friends from your past who have shown an interest in you. Just in case. Who knows when you might have to spend the night somewhere else?

But you also approach your partner in a more cautious way. On the surface, it may be presented as respect, but maybe there is more than a little bit of fear in it. Fear of causing a big enough fight, of losing the relationship, of losing the kids, the house, the comfort.

I know some people who live in "his house" or drive "her car". Living in someone else's house must feel like living on charity. It is not a good foundation for an equal relationship.

In "blended families", people may even struggle with the question "Whose child is this?" If a man marries a woman with a 2-year-old child, at which point does he become the kids' dad? Does he ever? What if he wants to tell the kid to go to bed at 11pm? Does he have the right?

And the more divorces, the more permission to divorce and the more divorces still. After all, "Everybody's doing it".

If this is not enough, divorces have created such a big market that dating sites provide a lot more than 50 ways to leave your lover. "Family" lawyers abound who will help you prepare such prenuptial agreements you will start suspecting your prospective partner before you even say, "I do", and you will have that agreement on your mind in difficult times to help you calculate the benefits of breaking up the marriage.

Of course, with a strong "prenup", you can jump into marriage with just about anyone, because you can always get out of it in a hurry too.

Kids? Nope, nothing in the prenup about them. Tough (for them, anyway).

Now, all of the above is my interpretation of how it works, but I can tell you there are people I know who demonstrate these differences in attitude so well, I feel it is about right.

Bottom line:

1. Forget what everybody is doing and do the best you can in your own marriage
2. If you are not married (again) yet, consider communication styles, love language, beliefs and values before joining hands (civil or religious, it does not matter)
3. Imagine a full life with your partner, including having kids, moving, making money, losing money, having a mid-life crisis (one each), kids leaving home, retirement and old age (may we all get to that in peace), and be ready for them
4. Commit yourself wholeheartedly to that one special person and decide to see your relationship as breakable only by death, and maybe not even that (who knows?). Make every decision within the marriage framework and make every decision count
5. Share ownership of everything you own officially. In our modern times, this is one of the strongest ways to demonstrate your commitment - putting your money where your mouth is
6. Invest in yourself as a person. It is much easier being together when you are happy
7. Develop your relationship skills and invest in your partner and your marriage
8. Children of divorced parents hurt for life. Remember your responsibility for your kids and always consider how your decisions affect them
9. Keep an image of your partner from when you decided to tie your lives together. This can be a picture or anything else that reminds you how you felt about him or her. Use this image to strengthen your commitment and to help you notice these things in your partner every day

Just to clarify, "marriage" is any exclusive adult relationship that involves living together and sharing resources, especially when children are involved.

Happy marriage,
Gal

You may want to read

• Anger Management: Be Prepared
• Crazy, Stupid, Love
• Ronit’s Parenting Bible: Gender

Couples that are still together do not have fewer difficulties. They sort them out before they get out of control.

In my relationship coaching program, I hear many couples use statements that make fun of commitment, mock stability and relationships and encourage giving up the marriage as an easy, accepted and preferable thing. They have read them on the Internet, seen them in "funny" PowerPoint presentations or watched them in video clips.

One of my clients is going through a divorce over something that could be easily fixed if both partners could sit together and talk. They had an argument over money. She wanted 150K, he wanted to give her 90K and to sort this out, they have had to hire lawyers, go to court and pay the 60K the argued over in fees. So forget about it, because divorce is never easy!

If you check the beliefs of divorcées about marriage, you will find that they always have the wrong ones - those witty, mocking, sarcastic beliefs.

My suggestion is to make sure you swap them with good beliefs. To help you do it, I have gathered the best marriage quotes I could find. I hope you will find some you like and can adopt, and I hope you can make good use of them.

What I've Learned

I've learned that you cannot make someone love you.
All you can do is be someone who can be loved.
The rest is up to them.

I've learned that there are people who love you dearly,
but just don't know how to show it.

I've learned that just because someone doesn't love you the way you want them to, it doesn't mean they don't love you all they can.

I've learned that we don't have to change friends
if we understand that friends change.

I've learned that two people can look at the exact same thing
and see something totally different.

I've learned that just because two people argue,
it doesn't mean they don't love each other.
And just because they don't argue,
it doesn't mean they do.

- Omer Washington

Chains do not hold a marriage together. It is threads, hundreds of tiny threads which sew people together through the years
- Simone Signoret

A successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person
- Mignon McLaughlin

A good marriage is the union of two good forgivers
- Ruth Bell Graham

Happy marriages begin when we marry the ones we love, and they blossom when we love the ones we marry
- Tom Mullen

Each divorce is the death of a small civilization.
- Pat Conroy

Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time
- Thomas Edison

Marriage, ultimately, is the practice of becoming passionate friends
- Harville Hendrix

To get divorced because love has died, is like selling your car because it's run out of gas
- Diane Sollee

Ultimately the bond of all companionship, whether in marriage or in friendship, is conversation
- Oscar Wilde

As for his secret to staying married, my wife tells me that if I ever
decide to leave, she is coming with me
- Jon Bon Jovi

They say it takes a village to raise a child. That may be the case, but the truth is that it takes a lot of solid, stable marriages to create a village
- Diane Sollee

I am convinced that if we as a society work diligently in every other area of life and neglect the family, it would be analogous to straightening deck chairs on the Titanic.
- Stephen Covey

Divorce is like an amputation. Sometimes it's necessary but it should be avoided if at all possible because it brings about a permanent disability
- Bill Doherty

Marriage, like a submarine, is only safe if you get all the way inside
- Frank Pittman

It is sometimes essential for a husband and a wife to quarrel - they get to know each other better
- Goethe

I have no way of knowing whether or not you married the wrong person, but I do know that many people have a lot of wrong ideas about marriage and what it takes to make that marriage happy and successful. I'll be the first to admit that it's possible that you did marry the wrong person. However, if you treat the wrong person like the right person, you could well end up having married the right person after all. On the other hand, if you marry the right person, and treat that person wrong, you certainly will have ended up marrying the wrong person. I also know that it is far more important to be the right kind of person than it is to marry the right person. In short, whether you married the right or wrong person is primarily up to you
- Zig Ziglar

I like not only to be loved, but to be told that I am loved; the realm of silence is large enough beyond the grave
- George Eliot

The goal is to have a conversation in a way so that you can have another conversation tomorrow
- Unknown

Marriage is our last, best chance to grow up
- Joseph Barth

Sex is a conversation carried out by other means. If you get on well out of bed, half the problems of bed are solved
- Peter Ustinov

For wherever you go, I will go,
And wherever you lodge, I will lodge,
Your people will be my people,
And, your God, my God
- Ruth 1:16

Love doesn't commit suicide. We have to kill it. Though, it's true that it often simply dies of our neglect
- Diane Sollee

If you live to be a hundred, I want to live to be a hundred minus one day, so I never have to live without you
- Winnie the Pooh

The success of marriage comes not in finding the "right" person, but in the ability of both partners to adjust to the real person they inevitably realize they married
- John Fischer

Many marriages would be better if the husband and the wife clearly
understood that they are on the same side
- Zig Ziglar

Life has taught us that love does not consist in gazing at each
other but in looking outward together in the same direction
- Antoine De Saint-Exupery

A good marriage is a contest of generosity
- Diane Sawyer

Let there be spaces in your togetherness
- Khalil Gibran

Be presidents of each other's fan clubs
- Tony Heath

In every marriage more than a week old, there are grounds for divorce. The trick is to find, and continue to find, the grounds for marriage
- Robert Anderson

If you made a list of reasons why any couple got married, and
another list of the reasons for their divorce, you'd have a lot of overlap
- Mignon McLaughlin

Choose your love, then love your choice
- Unknown

Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through
every circumstance
- I Corinthians 13:7

When marrying, ask yourself this question:
Do you believe that you will be able to converse well with
this person into your old age? Everything else in marriage is transitory
- Friedrich Nietzsche

Marriage, families, all relationships are more a process of learning
the dance rather than finding the right dancer
- Paul Pearsall

There is no greater happiness for a man than approaching a
door at the end of a day knowing someone on the other side
of that door is waiting for the sound of his footsteps
- Ronald Reagan

Marriage is our society's most pro-child institution. If you want kids to do well, then you want marriage to do well
- David Blankenhorn

The greatest weakness of most humans is their hesitancy to tell others how much they love them while they're still alive
- Olando Battista

The most important thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother
- Theodore Hesburgh

To love someone deeply gives you strength. Being loved by someone deeply gives you courage
- Lao Tzu

Unfortunately, there are too many sarcastic quotes out there that plant the seed of giving up. I hope the ones I included here will change this for you. Pick the ones you like and post them where you can read them every day. If you read them over and over again, they will eventually become part of your happy marriage.

Love and friendship,
Ronit

You may want to read

• Easy Divorce
• Crazy, Stupid, Love
• How to be Faithful

The problem with pressure is that it also damages our ability to reason and function severely. It interferes with remembering things, with being creating and with our perception of what goes on around us. We see the world through narrow slits in a thick armor, we see everything tinted bright red, we hear everything pitchy and sharp and very little makes sense.

Intense pressure can even make us feel like there is no hope and nobody to help us. It is as if we are invisible.

A long time ago, I saw a movie, I think it was Ordinary People, where a mother walked over to her teenage son, touched him gently and said, "I see you". That line stuck with me and I have used the idea in it many times with the people I love.

In another movie, Dune, people fight with invisible shields, which are very effective at blocking quick, strong sword movements. When fighting a person using this type of shield, the only way to defeat them is with a slow moving movement, like sticking a knife in while distracting their attention.

I think the "I see you" method works well because the other person is using an invisible shield that is very effective at blocking direct methods, like advice, jokes and uninvited help. It works especially well with teenagers, who see many things as threats to their identity and independence.

When we see someone we care about under pressure, we often try to help by finding out about their problem and then offering a solution. Other times, there may be a conflict between what we need and what the other person needs, which makes us focus on getting what we need. Both of these methods generally fail when there is enough stress involved.

You see, albeit irrational, most people translate having a problem to "I'm not good enough". If you try to help them, it just means they were not good enough to solve their own problem. If you focus on yourself, that is yet another thing they have to deal with.

A better approach is to validate the person, to make them feel good about themselves despite what they might be dealing with and to reassure them that they are not alone.

When Ronit and I go to bed at night, no matter what happened during that day, no matter what I still have to do the following day (and maybe even later), no matter if we talk about our challenges and find solutions or not, I still get to cuddle with her and all my worries dissolve. My body just lets go of the pressure and I surrender to the softness and warmth of her embrace.

Unfortunately for our kids, they have nobody to cuddle with in bed. Unfortunately for all of us, our daily pressures build up so quickly sometimes that going 16 hours until we can feel accepted and validated again seems like a very long time.

So in-between, we can send little signs of affirmation to one another, particularly when we can see someone who is under pressure. We can let them know that we see them, that we are there for them and that we care about them even when they are hard on themselves.

Here are some ways to say, "I see you":

• Catch their eye and smile
• Blow them a kiss
• Walk over to them and put your hand on their shoulder for a while. According to Reiki, this is a way to give them positive energy, which their body will use as it needs. This is a gentle way of distracting them from their mental down-spiral and giving them something warm to focus on
• Give them a hug and hold on until you feel them relax (typically, they will take a deep breath just before). If the person is sitting down, try something else first, but if they are standing, a hug should be great. Offer the hug without words, if you can. Stretching your arms out should be obvious enough. If you need to say something, rather than saying, "Give me a hug", say, "How about a hug?" and wait for approval.
• If you know they like it, stroke their hair, massage their shoulders or hold their face in your hands. As you do, try to turn their gaze upwards. Our brain is wired so that negative thoughts are only possible when we look down and looking up is all about the future
• Pressure is a lot easier to handle when you have had enough sleep, enough water and enough food. Cater to their physical needs
• Give them space by keeping things quiet and by taking care of things that might add to their burden, like making dinner or washing the dishes. When Ronit is particularly busy, she really appreciates the person who takes care of dinner, because it is one less thing she needs to worry about
• Give them a little note saying, "I love you", "I'm here for you" or even "Bad day?" You can also put a flower down beside them as a symbolic note
• Tell them, "I see you", and explain what it means when you do it the first time. This can become part of your "secret code" with your children and your partner

Whatever you do, approach slowly and gently and focus on making the other person feel good overall.

If you can relate to any of this, you can also share it with the people who love you and let them know they can help you in times of stress in the same ways. Although they want to support you, they may not know how and this will make everybody feel better at the same time.

Handling pressure is a modern-day necessity. By learning how to relieve other people's pressure, including your kids, you will also model kind and powerful behavior to them and equip them with the skills to be happy in life.

Happy days,
Gal

You may want to read

• How to Manage Difficult People: A Holistic Approach
• How to Manage Difficult People Using "Why?" and "What?"
• How to Manage Difficult People: Helping a Difficult Person

Now, I believe I know some of the reasons. Better yet, perhaps these reasons can lead us all towards a solution.

Almost invariably, you turn on the news or read the papers and find out about somebody who was caught scheming, embezzling or downright cheating. These people seem to have no regard for other people's wellbeing, possessions or money. Sometimes, people are killed over what seems like a minor conflict, because the killer values something else - their wallet, their leather jacket or their girlfriend - over their life.

In response to Ronit's posts on bullying, many readers have shared stories of workplace bullies who abuse their position, physical size or some weakness of their co-workers in ways that hurt them and ruins morale and productivity. Do these people follow a different value system to the rest of us? Given the rise of bullying, probably not.

While reading Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire with the kids (Eden and Noff have set a goal to read all of the books in the series together and I sometimes join them), I came across this lovely quote:

If you want to know what a man's like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors
- J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire

If you work, or have ever worked, in a big corporation or even in a large factory, you may have felt like a house elf sometimes - looked down on, continually given orders, criticized by people who seem to be doing less than you do and looking or feeling ragged despite your abilities to work magic, which nobody seems to notice.

But as a parent, I hope you realize this applies to you at home, too, only in the opposite direction. Kids are our inferiors in many ways and to know what we are like, one just needs to see how we treat them. I see children as magical creatures (they are also small, ragged and have big eyes), and all too often, I witness their parents belittling them, giving them orders and criticizing them in public.

So what is going on in the world? Has everybody gone mad? Is there nobody who still does the right things?

In his great book, Predictably Irrational, Dan Ariely presents a conflict between two modes of living: the "social norm" and the "market norm".

In the social norm, we follow rules like "love your neighbor", "respect your elders", "be honest" and other such codes of conduct. When a friend wants our help to move house, we arrive early in the morning with enthusiasm and a cup of coffee. When we are invited to a party, we always remember to bring a gift, a plate to share or a nice bottle of wine for the host.

In the market norm, everything we do has a value and in order for us to do it, we must receive compensation of equal value. If we have a moving van, we charge by the hour, plus distance, and we charge extra for insurance. If we have an events or catering company, we organize the food and our client pays the bill, while participants do not need to help or contribute in any way.

The problem is that these norms cannot co-exist and once the market norm is used, social norms are out the window, almost never to be seen again.

I grew up in a small town, where the living was simple for most folks. As a young child, I knew I was safe, because many people knew my parents and looked out for my sisters and me. At the supermarket, I would just hand over all my money and Tanya, the checkout lady, would give me the right change. I was too young to check, but I knew she would be honest with me, as did my mother.

Life operated mostly within social norms.

These days, however, life seems to operate mostly by market norms, even, I am sad to say, within the family.

When Eden was about to graduate from high school, she told us that some of her friends were very worried. She said their parents planned to start charging them rent for living at home, for using the family car and even for their share of the groceries. Those who had older siblings knew it was coming and feared the change.

From a practical perspective, what is the big deal? High school students are at school most of the time, so their parents pay their bills, but when they become adults, should they not "carry their weight", like their parents do?

Sure, but the concern was not a practical one, it was emotional. From an emotional perspective, these young adults were being forced to switch from living at home as part of a social group - their family - where they contributed as much as they could and benefited as much as was possible, to trading with their own family according to the market value of the assets and services they used.

One minute, the family is one unit, based on caring and sharing, and the next minute, the young person is on their own, haggling over the cost of petrol and bread and the value of a square meter of living space.

Going back to the workplace, most of the businesses in my hometown were small, were privately owned by a family and employed locals, often based on personal acquaintance. In that setting, everyone in the business worked together to keep the business running, to serve clients who were also connected to them in other ways, and to contribute to the economy of the town. People often joined a company for life, making it part of their identity and representing it proudly wherever they went.

Nowadays, companies are not loyal to their employees or their clients and often serve only the mysterious "share holders". Employees are hired and fired over petty cash, while their unique personal abilities are never explored. Purchases are often decided "on the figures" alone, without a long-term view or relationships in mind.

Life has changed from mostly-social to mostly-market.

By intensifying testing, measuring and comparing, school systems (in a social norm, they would be called "education systems") have made this problem worse and have started inducting children into the market lifestyle from a very young age. As if this is not enough, consider all those computer games, in which the aim is to collect as many points as possible and win, no matter what you have to do, including killing other humans, even if they are animated.

So what can we do about it? How can we make this world a more social place, if not for us, then for our children?

Fundamentally, we need to decide to prefer social values over market values. Then, we need to systematically apply our choice to everything in our life (within reason):

• Run your family as a social unit, where everyone contributes according to their abilities and availability and receives a fair share of the family resources. Pocket money can be used in small amounts to encourage "emotional stretches" (see Motivating Kids), but everybody should pool their efforts for the benefit of the family
• Instead of focusing on your kids' academic performance, encourage them to be happy, to have friends and to be driven by their heart in everything they do
• Kids being little mirrors of you, of course, use your own heart to make decisions, so they will have a role model. Choose to buy and participate in things that are good for the community and that make you feel good about yourself. Volunteer, pick a charity to support, be a Scouts leader, organize social gatherings and parties and participate in local community bodies
• Choose a moral code to live by. This can be a religion, a formal spiritual alternative or a personal set of rules, but it must be something you can use to guide your everyday decisions and make them easy. Deciding not to cheat or hurt another person when you are young and affirming these decisions regularly make your choice a no-brainer when the opportunity presents itself
• Social behavior is based on the assumption that everybody has a shared interest and that people are essentially good. Spend some time every day being curious about people without judging them. Find out more about them and count the good things they do for you or for others. This focus will make it a lot easier for you to do your bit in return
• Move to an area where there is a strong community, even if the houses are not the nicest. Send your children to a school with strong ethics, an emphasis on education and an active parent body, even if it does not produce Rhodes scholars every year
• Never ever pay your kids for academic performance. The rewards for learning are knowledge and an open mind. Never let your child compete for the best fundraiser. The rewards for raising funds are a better-equipped school and a good feeling
• [State elections are coming up here in Queensland, so] Vote for the political candidates who put people before personal gains and show themselves as true public representatives in action and not just in words. In fact, if you feel strongly enough about a candidate, help him or her get elected
• To paraphrase John F. Kennedy's famous words, "Ask not what the world can do for you - ask what you can do for the world". Join Avaaz, support Together for Humanity or The Global Learning Centre (Ronit works with both), loan money to third world small business on Kiva or promote any other cause that makes the world a better place. Whatever you do, also make your kids part of it, so that social behavior naturally becomes part of who they are

Together, let's make the world a place for everyone, where friendship and integrity count more than money.

Happy parenting,
Gal

You may want to read

• How to Manage Difficult People Using "Why?" and "What?"
• How to Manage Difficult People: Helping a Difficult Person
• How to Manage Difficult People: What They Really Need

If you lose your job, your certainty tank is emptied all of a sudden. If you divorce, your love and connection tank goes down so quickly your life will be hard for a while. If you have a new job and you need to work exactly at the same times of the day and you need to accumulate lots of working days until you can have a holiday, then your variety level is at risk. If you have just joined a sewing club, where everyone there is so advanced you need to catch up, then your significance may suffer.

Personal development is a very good way to learn to fill our tanks. We learn to balance ourselves by discovering who we are, how we think, how we function and what makes us happy and successful. It is very important to know that the balance is different from one person to another. What one sees balance might feel out of balance for another. When we consider needs, they also contradict each other sometimes.

Conflicting needs

Our four needs are in constant conflict with each other and require each person to balance them based on his or her definition of balance.

When we have too much certainty, things are always the same, it gets boring and we seek variety.

When we have too much variety, too many things change too often, it is overwhelming and we seek certainty.

When we have too much love and connection, when everything we do connects us with others, we no longer feel special enough and we seek significance.

When we have too much significance, we feel so different from everybody else it is harder for us to connect to others and we seek love and connection.

We continually shift from one to the other based on our definition of what the needs are and what balance is for us.

I can give you an example from my own life. When we travelled the world and lived in different places, everyone around thought we had too much variety and not enough certainly. I thought the balance was just perfect. My need for variety was very high and I got my certainly from being close to my family, having each other and having a good financial backup. So what seemed unbalanced to others was very balanced to me.

Difficult people have a hole in one of their need tanks or a very high tank that is hard to fill. I can tell you that my need for variety is so high that I change the direction of the sofa, my bed and the dining table once a month. I even choose work that has a variety of things, because I find it hard to do the same things all day, every day.

At different times of our life, our needs changes. When we moved to Australia, which was our most energy-consuming move, I felt I needed more certainly and stopped travelling as we did before. Recently, we started having "the itch" for travelling again.

If you want to find your highest needs, do the following exercise. Remember, the results are only true now. If you do it again in a month, you may find you have changed a bit.

Rate the needs from 1-10 (1 = low need, 10= high need):

• Certainty - I want things to be stable, predictable and reliable. I want to feel secure and safe
• Variety - I want things to be interesting, exciting and moving. I want to try new things and have lots of different experiences
• Love and connection - I want to belong, to feel accepted and supported. I want people to like me and enjoy my company
• Significance - I want to stand out and be special and unique. I want to feel exceptional, valuable and important

Your highest need is the one you have a hole in and that needs boosting when you are being difficult. If you are helping a child, remember to tell them that we all have these needs and maybe share yours with them, so they do not feel too exposed. Match the explanation to their level of understand and ask, "From 1-10, how much do you think you want to be special? How much do you want to feel safe and know what's going to happen ahead of time? How much do you want to be with other people who like you? How much do you want things to be different and exciting?"

Now, your goal is to fill the empty tank!

Holistic need fulfillment

People are holistic beings - our needs do not sit in the brain in separate compartments. I can get variety from making fun of people or get from changing the direction of my bed. I can get significance from showing off or from being kind. We can borrow from one area of life to use in another. Our tanks have no filters, so every kind of variety and significance is welcome.

Here is a list of things we can do to satisfy each of our needs:

Certainty

• Have a daily routine and do the same things every day, at least in the morning
• Keep a diary and schedule your appointments and activities in advance
• Have a spiritual faith and practice regularly
• Exercise regularly
• Have a stable job - same hours, same days, same tasks
• Plan a party before you have it
• Plane your weekly schedule on Sunday night
• Plan your food for the week in advance
• Keep a work roster - any planning gains certainty
• Keep your workspace, bag and room organized
• Clean regularly

Variety

• Play sports
• Go to the movies
• Travel to new places
• Have stimulating conversations about new topics
• Meet new people
• Do art - paint, sculpt, create
• Throw a party
• Go to concerts
• Take a holiday
• Learn something new
• Volunteer (may also give love & connection and significance)
• Go out to a restaurant
• Read a new book
• Break your routine, at least on weekends

Significance

• Become an expert and specialize in something
• Helping others
• Volunteer
• Teach
• Buy special clothes
• Be kind
• Be in a relationship - it makes you the most important person in someone's life (also good for love & connection and possibly certainty)
• Be a parent - oh, the pride
• Have a (great) profession
• Learn a (rare) skill
• Pursue a talent - solo music, art or individual sport
• Be a leader
• Get degrees and other formal qualifications
• Have a (special) hobby
• Collect something (rare)
• Be really good at our job

Love & Connection

All you need is love
- John Lennon

• Play team sports
• Join a club
• Go to spiritual gatherings
• Join a community group
• Be in a relationship
• Have children
• Teach
• Be a leader
• Have friends
• Help others
• Volunteer
• Have a party or go to a party
• Go out on a date or with friends
• Keep in touch by email, phone or Skype
• Send birthday/holiday cards to family and friends
• Spend time on social media sites and grow your circle(s) of "friends"
• Go to (or organize) family gatherings

If we can direct the difficult people to fill their highest need tank or create the circumstances that fill it for them, their demands will decrease. Our aim is to reach a point where the level of the difficulty is not so severe that others avoid their company. Remember, their difficult behavior creates a cycle of avoidance, which makes it even harder for them to notice and learn the social cues. We have to bring them back into society and interaction, because they will just keep doing everything they can, even if it is not comfortable to others, to fulfill their needs.

If you are a difficult person (at least in someone's view), I hope this series was helpful for you and you will now begin of a new life where others do not avoid your company. If you are helping a difficult person, I hope the tips here were helpful for you to support and help with grace.

As I said at the beginning, if you are aware of your difficulties, you can get help from a professional and you can get help from someone who loves you. Remember, you cannot force loved ones to help you. They need to be willing and they need to have the emotional stamina to be able to help you.

Your third option is to get a mentor - someone who is not close to you who is willing to stick around and help you go through this process. With awareness and persistence, the sky is the limit.

Happy life,
Ronit

You may want to read

• How to Manage Difficult People Using "Why?" and "What?"
• How to Manage Difficult People: Helping a Difficult Person
• How to Manage Difficult People: What They Really Need