Opinion

There are few more crucial tasks in a relationship than to be able to listen properly. If you have been listened to with consideration and compassion, you can remain in touch with what you truly feel and learn to believe in your core self. Speaking of listening, I got a call from a telemarketer. He said he couldn’t understand me. I told him to Press 1 for English.

Do you find yourself repeating dynamics that go in the wrong direction in your life? Do you notice identical patterns of behavior at work or at home? Perhaps you sabotage yourself at work, fearing that others will do it before you. Speaking of work, there’s a new rule: You’re not allowed to work longer than the number of hours you slept the night before.

What do you wish to do with your life? Did you go for a stable, reliable career or have you chosen something you truly love? It may be hard to muster energy for things in our lives that we feel we settled for. The safe, predictable choice may not always be the one that we have a passion for.

Do you have a healthy relationship with sleep? Are you careful about your bedtime?

“I’m pretty sure I have insomnia, but the good news is I’m not losing any sleep over it.” Uh oh. Did you buy those black out curtains and do you practice your meditation nightly? If you have a cavalier approach to bedtime, you may find yourself overwhelmed and utterly exhausted at times.

Do you feel forever tied to things that happened in your childhood so many moons ago? Indeed, your character seems to be determined by events that occurred in your family, does it not? Sure, you learned rules from your parents on how to behave - but you also learned an emotional language, sweet friends.

Have you ever had a chat about nothing in particular with a total stranger? Perhaps at a bus stop or on the grocery store line? Oh, and did you ever get all your grocery shopping done for the week on Sunday, and ate half of it by Monday? I feel you. Then again, you know what they say: Grocery shopping – where you spend half your time looking for things you need and the other half avoiding people you know.