August 31, 2010 – 7:49 am
What is fidelity? What is monogamy? Helen Fisher makes the point in several of her books, that we commonly misuse the term “monogamy” to mean a marriage to one person that involves a commitment of sexual fidelity to that person. But, Fisher argues, monogamy truly only describes the state of marriage to one person, and the commitment of sexual fidelity is not a necessary component.Fidelity describes being truthful and loyal. Those “hi-fi” sets that Playboy Magazine taught us all about back in the â70’s (I read the articles – didn’t you?) were called high-fidelity because of the degree of accuracy in the recordings reproduction of the original sound or musical performance. We say that someone has committed infidelity, when they have sex outside an agreement of sexual exclu…
August 30, 2010 – 3:02 pm
The good divorce or downsizing is a rarity in our personal and professional lives. The divine downsizing and loving divorce seems to border on the ridiculous. In the words of an ancient rock ân roller, “breaking up is hard to do.” But as I illustrate in Transforming Toxic Leaders, successful leaders must increasingly figure out ways to steer their employees and organizations through the land mines of a recession and difficult workplace realities. We need no convincing that terminating a lover or an employee is quite unpleasant. But how do we explain a couple pledged to continue on as lovers while attorneys type up their divorce decree? What logic explains a CEO committed to transforming a massive downsizing into golden opportunities for her soon-to-be-departed engineers? It is all about …
August 29, 2010 – 11:38 am
”I tried to drown my sorrows, but they floated.’ ~ Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.As a mood altering substance, alcohol often makes people feel good in the short term so it is understandable that someone going through a tough time such as a divorce may want to “numb out” and forget about their troubles in a bottle.Alcohol literally deadens parts of the brain so the immediate result is a forgetting, a not caring and a dulling of the pain. It also triggers the release of dopamine which is a neurotransmitter known to make us feel good. These are perhaps the only pros of turning to alcohol. They are very short-lived (apologies to those of you who thought there might be more positive things to say about alcohol) and they actually create worse proble…
August 26, 2010 – 5:26 pm
When the relationship ends, where did the love go? Did it wear away gradually, like when dripping water knuckles a hole in a big flat rock, or did it wash away suddenly in the wake of a big wave? Time and again, mystified heartbroken people ask how a lover who had seemed so smitten at some earlier point, could turn so cold. Could that stone-cold person get the love back if he really really tried? Is it possible to resurrect romantic love?When a relationship ends suddenly out-of-the-blue, it’s even more bewildering. Forty-one year old Carolyn, married sixteen years, said that while her husband was in the process of telling her that he was leaving, her eyes wandered over to the vase on the dining room table containing the dozen roses that he had given her two days earlier, together with a ca…
August 25, 2010 – 4:17 am
Apologies can be enormously effective when it comes to resolving conflict, repairing hurt feelings, fostering forgiveness, and improving relationships in both our personal and professional lives. They increase relationship commitment and satisfaction, employee loyalty and satisfaction, feelings of trust, and cooperation. An apology can even keep you out of the courtroom. (Despite the fact that lawyers tend to caution their clients to avoid apologies like the plague, fearing that they are tantamount to an admission of guilt, studies show that when potential plaintiffs receive an apology, they are more likely to settle out of court for less money.)But as anyone can tell you, apologies don’t always work. (Ask Michael Richards, for instance. Or John Edwards. Or Trent Lott. I could go on and on…
August 23, 2010 – 5:29 am
Picture it. You step into the elevator and your boss is standing there. He asks your opinion on a big deal your company is putting together – something about weighing short-term payoffs versus potential long-term gains – and you have less than a minute to wow him with your thinking, reasoning, and decision making skills. What predicts whether you will panic or get through the encounter without losing your cool? New research suggests that one factor is your relationship status.People who have strong social support systems are less likely to be stressed out by anxiety-provoking situation such as having to give a speech, take a big test, or pitch to their boss, Dario Maestripieri and colleagues, researchers at the University of Chicago, recently showed.1 These researchers investigated cortiso…
August 23, 2010 – 5:29 am
Picture it. You step into the elevator and your boss is standing there. He asks your opinion on a big deal your company is putting together – something about weighing short-term payoffs versus potential long-term gains – and you have less than a minute to wow him with your thinking, reasoning, and decision making skills. What predicts whether you will panic or get through the encounter without losing your cool? New research suggests that one factor is your relationship status.People who have strong social support systems are less likely to be stressed out by anxiety-provoking situation such as having to give a speech, take a big test, or pitch to their boss, Dario Maestripieri and colleagues, researchers at the University of Chicago, recently showed.1 These researchers investigated cortiso…
August 20, 2010 – 6:20 am
Do you remember the sting of your first break-up? Perhaps right now you are trying to get over someone who no longer wants to be with you. Talking for hours to friends about your ex? Obsessively checking Facebook for updates? Praying for the phone to ring?Many people vividly recall the pain of a break-up. The deep thoughts of despair, of longing, of thinking you will never find another person to love. Sometimes it can feel like rehab is needed to overcome the craving for an ex. New research into the brain offers evidence that these feelings and emotions are a biological response to heartbreak, similar to a response one experiences when suffering a cocaine addiction.Dr. Helen Fisher, an evolutionary biologist, studied the brain of 15 men and women who reported they were still “intensely in …
August 17, 2010 – 4:51 pm
Something Positive for the ChildrenI have written on several occasions how important it is to include children in family rituals, to respect their need to be part of the family drama. All of the family, each in their own way, struggle with the new reality that follows the death of a parent or a sibling. When I talk about grieving children (of all ages) needing care, continuity and connection, it is my way of being sure they are included and their needs considered.. I was recently reading about children’s need for approval, for recognition of things well done. Too often this need may get lost in the overwhelming grief that dominates family life after a death .but it is essential to what I mean when I talk of children needing care.A grieving family lives with sadness and often a great deal o…
August 17, 2010 – 2:48 am
I rarely admit this (and frankly, I wonder why I’m doing it now), but I am a very defensive person. I can be quick to feel challenged or threatened by perceived criticism. When that happens, my typical responses range from somewhat testy to downright hostile. It’s not an attractive quality. I’m not proud.I have wanted to do something about it for a long time, but I figured that in order to stop being so defensive, I’d have to do something drastic, like stop caring about what other people think. That sounds great, but it’s an awfully tall order for most of us, and not a realistic option for me.Thanks to a recent set of studies of defensiveness, I now have a far more practical strategy for dealing with my defensive tendencies. When I suspect criticism may be coming my way (for instance, whe…
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