What Do You Do When The Person Who Offended You Will Not Apologize?

The following are four sensible, healthy reasons why you may decide to accept, forgive, and reconcile with the person whom has offended you, even though he or she refuses to make amends:

1. You have to interact with this person regularly and find that it takes too much energy to remain cold and distant.

2. When you act cold toward them, you feel cold inside, alienated both from him and from yourself. The rupture between you compromises the quality of your life. Having no relationship with this person feels worse than having some, no matter how limited or superficial.

3. You benefit strategically from an ongoing relationship. For example, you choose to get along with your boss to protect your job, even though you may not respect him.

4. You hope to have new, corrective experiences that might repair the relationship.

Popularity: 28% [?]

Rejection: Don’t Take It Personal

Rejection occurs when someone says, “no” to your idea, request, or action. Some people need the approval of other people. They are vulnerable when told “no.” But the assertive person accepts “no” as a denial in a specific situation and doesn’t think that he is being rejected as a person.

Communication is the expression of another’s perception. “No” is not a rejection of you. It is the rejection of an idea. Don’t take it personally. This only complicates your ability to communicate and decreases your effectiveness and understanding of the situation.

Though there are some dishonest manipulators who say, “no” and mean it as a direct rejection of you, most people want the same things from communication as you do. No one likes to be talked down to. Nobody likes rejection. But honest and straightforward clarification of criticism or rejection helps you to resolve the conflict. Concentrate on remaining objective and not giving in to your emotions.

Conflict caused by criticism and rejection can be resolved by clarifying the situation with yourself and the other involved. Don’t store up bad feelings of rejection and anger only to have them resurface at a later time. Clear the air. Express your feelings. Accept the feelings and information of the other person. Then move on.

Popularity: 23% [?]

Organize Your House For Order & Neatness

A great way cut down cleaning time by changing organizational patterns is to plan not to let things get dirty. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cleaning up. Thus, you can put rugs both inside and outside the entrance doors so that dirt and trash will get caught there before being dragged into the house. You can put foil on the bottom of the oven so that if anything spills, all you need to do is change the foil rather than clean the oven. You can use cook-in bags for things that might splatter. If you don’t have a cook-in bag, at least use a pot with very high sides.

One of the hardest problems for me to deal with was soap scum in the bathroom from the hand soap. It melts into the soap dish and foams over the side, hardening into semi-cement. I hate it. Luckily, just at the time I was ready to do something about it, soft soap became popular. That was my solution. The only problem is that it is quickly used up by my teenagers. So when it is time for a refill I fill the container with dishwashing liquid. Sometimes I put slivers of bar soap in it together with a few drops of perfume. It works fine, making a perfumed creamy soap. This way, too, I can get rid of those pieces of soap that are too little to use but which I am too frugal to throw away.

Another method to speed up cleaning is to spot chronic problem areas and look for a solution. I had a trash can for throwing away food in my kitchen. It had no top because I thought it would be too much of a problem to remove the top each time, and it would be too difficult to do with scraps in my hand. The can was not very satisfactory because it was unsightly and the food kept splattering onto the white wall behind it, requiring frequent wiping with bleach and soap.

When I finally awoke to the fact that this was a chronic problem which needed a solution, I was tuned in to solving it though I didn’t have any idea how I would do it. Soon afterward I was wandering through a discount store and saw a garbage can with a lid and a foot pedal that opened the lid. This kept the food scraps covered and when the top lifted back it protected the white wall from streaks and spots of garbage entering the can. I had seen these cans frequently but, until I had identified my specific cleaning problem, I had not really noticed them. If you identify a problem with a view to solving it, often the solution soon comes knocking at your door.

Another way to organize for order is to put things away. This is a very hard habit to get into, but it is a top priority. I learned a little about this on the day after Thanksgiving. The shopping center was really crowded. The shoe store salesmen were bustling around. Shoe boxes and shoes were everywhere, some piled by the customer and some where the customer had been before. When I asked him how he kept all these boxes and shoes straight, he gave me these tips which can also give you ideas for your home:

1. Don’t let too much time go by between straightening up. Keep things up.
2. Each salesman has his own area of the store for his responsibility so the manager has an idea who is falling down on the cleaning job when he sees what area is messy.
3. Every time a salesman goes in the back to get another shoe, he takes something with him whether it is his or not.
4. The fourth thing he did not tell me - I saw it. It was that he had his standard and he personally saw that the system worked.

Popularity: 19% [?]

Overloaded Voice Mail: 3 Ways To Organize & Reduce Your Messages

One of the biggest complaints about voice mail is that people get too many messages, and it takes too long to listen to them. Here are some tips that can help you deal with this problem:

1. Increase the playback speed of your calls. When you listen to your messages, speed them up so that you can get through them quicker. (This feature may not be available on all voice mail systems or home answering machines.)

2. Limit the length of time for each message. If you’ve got long-winded people, limit the length of time that a person can leave a message to 60, 90, or 120 seconds at most. (When you record your message, tell callers that they have only 60 seconds to leave their messages.)

3. Limit the number of calls your voice mail box can hold. I know this advice may sound like it’s defeating the purpose of the voice mail system, but if you’re getting too many calls, try limiting the number of calls that your voice mail box can hold. When your box is full, the caller will be told something like: “This voice mail box is full.” Now the caller will have to call someone else, call back later, or send a letter or e-mail message.

Popularity: 27% [?]

Standing up to your partner’s criticism

Many men and women often feel unfairly criticized by their partner, yet find themselves powerless to defend themselves. If you are having a similar problem, then the steps below can help you rebuild your self-esteem and regain your footing:

1. Remind yourself that you are entitled to your feelings. You have every right to stand up and say: “I am extremely offended by what you said and I do not appreciate it!” If the problem persists, then walk away, as this will send a powerful message back to your bickering partner.

2. The worst thing you can do in retaliation to criticism is to respond back in the same negative manner. This escalates the argument and creates more of a power struggle. Most often the people who criticize their spouses feed off of return anger, so do not be angry, simply walk away and ignore them.

3. Ask yourself (and be honest with your answer) if there may be a shred of truth to what your partner is saying when they are criticizing you. They may have a valid point but just does not know how to peacefully get that point across without using criticism. If this is the case, then you should be the better person but being honest with yourself and consider what your partner is saying as possible truth.

Popularity: 15% [?]

The Treasure Chest: A Secret Weapon To Making Your Dreams A Reality

When you choose to have something new in your life - a new wardrobe, car, house, more money, better health - it takes time, energy and work to get it. Time and energy are needed to find the items you want and buy them. It takes even more work to keep things in good condition for continued use and beauty. It is the same with a dream. In order to have your dream work, you will need to do some dream work.

Once you have set your goals and prepared a dream (wish) list, the most important thing you can do next is to become very clear about what your dream will look like. It is time to create a Treasure Chest - a symbolic visual representation of your dream.

Creating Your Treasure Chest

Once you have identified in your mind who you are and where you are going in life, a focus and sense of purpose will wash over your entire being. Your confidence levels will explode and you will start to attract into your life the tools necessary for obtaining your dreams and goals. Your self-esteem will come from within, without being dependent upon comparisons with anyone else. Now it is time to put your dreams into pictures on what is called your life Treasure Chest. As it takes form, you will begin to treasure the ideas you are creating, and the picture can be worth a thousand words! Your Treasure Chest will take you one step further, beyond who you are now to what you could become.

Look through magazines and cut out pictures and words that portray your dream. If you have artistic talent, you may prefer to do your own drawings and designs. Arrange these on a piece of poster board to create an attractive picture of the you you want to be. Include pictures or photographs of the aspects of your life - your ideal body, family, friends, relationship, home, car, work, accomplishments, finances, leisure activities, vacations - anything and everything that’s important to you!

All around us, ads and commercials lure us to identify ourselves with slender, sexy bodies leaning against newly purchased sports cars, reclining in fantasy dream homes, and lounging with adoring partners on luxury ocean liners or pristine tropical beaches. Commercial advertising is predicated on the powerful effectiveness of such images to get us to bring these desirable experiences into our lives. In creating your Treasure Chest, you are designing your own ad and picturing your own perfect life. Be as creative as you like, but follow one rule: you can only paste in a picture when you are willing to take the action required to make it a reality. Be sure that the images you select belong to you - don’t borrow ideas from someone whose values differ from yours.

Popularity: 12% [?]

How to communicate with your teen

Raising children in today’s world is not an easy task, and this is especially true when they become teenagers. And your number one job as a parent is to communicate effectively to your son your daughter the best you can.

Of course you may go through some very rough times as they are getting through their teenage years trying to find their way, but this is the most important time of their lives, also the most confusing, and they need you.

It’s been said that raising a teenager is a lot like being an Air Traffic Controller and some of the rules below could apply to both situations:

1. Keeping the airplane (your teen) on the radar screen at all times is vital. You cannot lose track of the direction in which your child is moving in. You do not want to be overbearing to the point of them running from you, but at the same time you want to make sure you are keeping good tabs on their social life, their academics, and their behavioral patterns.

2. If something is wrong with the airplane (your teen), then it is your duty to bring the flight in to fix the problem. If your son or daughter appears to be having problems, you must know how to communicate well with them so that they will realize that they can always go to mom and dad whenever they have problems.

3. When the plane (your teen) hits turbulence and things get rough, you cannot leave your post just because you do not like the situation. If there is a major problem and the issue is giving both you and your child a rough time, your duty as a parent is to stick it out and be there for them, regardless of the pain you may be going through to help.

4. The biggest danger you have to face is losing communication with the airplane (your teen) on your radar screen. In other words, in addition to doing all you can to keep communication open with your teen, you must also do everything possible to re-establish that communication should it become lost.

Popularity: 24% [?]

The Cat and the Crow

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Popularity: 13% [?]

Teaching Your Children Memory Games

Very young children have no trouble using their imagination and forming ridiculous pictures. They not only do it easily, they think it’s lots of fun. If you have children, acquaint them with some of the ideas that you can find throughout our memory articles; you can harness that lively imagination and help them sharpen their sense of concentration - without their realizing what you’re doing, of course.

For example, there is what is called a “link system” that helps strengthen memory in which you link objects to whatever it is that you want to remember easily. Make a game out of the Link system. For example, during an automobile trip, see who can remember a list of items faster, or who can remember the most items. It is fun and the children are learning a useful skill at the same time.

If you want to play the game of remembering items by number with a child who’s too young to learn the phonetic alphabet, there’s a way to teach him ten “Peg Words” almost instantly. They are easy to learn because they rhyme with the numbers, and most of them come from a song your children probably know. For example:

1. one—run
2. two—shoe
3. three—tree
4. four—pour
5. five—hive (picture bees)
6. six—sticks
7. seven—heaven
8. eight—gate
9. nine—sign
10. ten—hen

Some of the words from the song have been changed to words that are easier for a child to picture. Teach the youngster to picture the item running, for 1 (run); being poured out of something, for 4 (pour); in the sky, for 7 (heaven); and so on.

The number-word rhymes make it easy for a child to learn the words in minutes. Once he has been tested on them, and knows them, he can be taught to associate (don’t use that word; the children won’t know what you’re talking about) any item to any of these Pegs. If you mention banana for number 6, the child will think sticks and, perhaps, see a bunch of bananas tied like a bunch of sticks. Give him a suggestion or two the first few times.

Here’s another way to use the Link as a game. Place eight or so items on a tray and cover them with a cloth. First remove the cloth for a short time (a minute or so), then replace it and have everyone try to list all the items. Each player receives one point for each item listed correctly; the more a player lists, the better his score.

Or you can show the items for a moment, then remove a couple of them without letting the players see which ones have been removed. You expose the tray of items again for ten seconds or so. The first player who correctly lists the missing items wins.

Popularity: 10% [?]

You Might Fear Success & Not Even Know It

Do you fear success? Most people don’t have to fear success, because they don’t understand it. They don’t appreciate how painful it is for you to keep dropping the ball just when you were about to carry it across the line. They don’t understand why someone with your abilities keeps messing up terrific opportunities. It’s a mystery to you too.

You know you’re gifted, because you get noticed. You’ve been offered a lot of chances, and the people who’ve offered them weren’t wrong. They saw what you were capable of. Yet whenever you get near what you want, something happens - you lose focus at a crucial moment and turn your energy to something unimportant, or your mood mysteriously drops and you get tired just when you need energy the most.

You’ve got to find out what that something is, because what you don’t know is hurting you. Take a careful look at your life and you’ll probably see a history of missed opportunities that stretches all the way back to your childhood. Your past won’t determine your future if you can find out why you have such an odd relationship with success.

Popularity: 12% [?]

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