The Greatest Love Letter of All

David, a young shepherd, strolls lazily up the knoll chewing dried Esfand seeds, thinking about the upcoming annual cattle auction. His thoughts are interrupted when he sees a cloud of dust in the distance. He can hear what the village chief had told them, the fearful tales passed on by Al-Adnan, a trader of spices who traversed the Silk Road. A new merciless military power from a faraway land was advancing towards Eurasia. The Mongols were known to annihilate everyone who stood in their path, Al-Adnan had told their chief. David stands paralysed, unable to count the thousands of warriors on sturdy horses galloping up the rising path. The scorching sun glints off their lances. The white light refracts through the dust rising from the hooves of the thundering steeds and, for a moment, David fears that a ghost army is marching up the slopes. Could he be hallucinating? A consistently secure attachment is the strongest resilience factor possible. The good news is that it only takes one consistently caring adult to provide this bond over a time span that may require several years! In order to develop a securely attached relationship, the good enough caregivers will often miss cues or be insensitive to their children's needs, but they are not purposely hurtful. It is impossible, and not even beneficial, to be perfectly attuned 24/7 in any relationship. According to Dr Edward Z.Tronick, chief of early development research at Children's Hospital Boston, caregivers are typically only attuned with their child about 30% of the time. When the dyad is not in synchrony, the baby will cry, reach out, or smile and point in an attempt to pull the parent's attention back into a rhythm. It's an ongoing process of matching emotions, mismatching them, and then repairing the mismatch through a happy reconnection. With every positive quick repair (an average of three to five seconds, according to Tronick), something new happens that causes growth in the baby's brain. The infant learns to trust the caregiver and to trust themselves to handle frustration with this temporary break in connection. In the long term this results in resiliency in children. They are extremely uncomfortable with unresolved problems, so their mind keeps thinking while they sleep;

Spirit Lifter When you are in a spiritually happy place, then you will naturally want everyone else to feel happiness as well. Your instincts are going to be to help every time you carry around a gift of love within your spirit, and you cannot stop yourself from wanting to help. Spirituality is the gift of love. Service to others is the discipline of love. Most of the time, your heart will have you helping someone without you even being aware of it; You do not stop and think about what you are going to do or how you can help; Empathetic Children When children are born empathetic, they will always have that feeling that they are different but will not have a clue as to why they feel that way. You still go to the comfort of your home in the evening, where you are safe and free to do whatever you want to. When you are in the place that makes you feel the most comfortable, take a look around you. Do you see the person who is causing you stress? No, they are nowhere to be found. They are off wherever they are, doing whatever they want. Give yourself the freedom to do the same. Do not give them the power to change the quality of your life. A big part of thinking positively is simply thinking that there is a possibility for good things to happen. Negative people have resigned to the idea that good things just aren't meant to happen for them, and therefore they do not attract those things in life. I'll illustrate this concept with an example. You don't have enough information yet to know if what you think they are saying is what they're actually saying.

Instead of getting angry, get curious. Doing so will radically change your relationships to people, ideas, and the world by allowing new perspectives to reach you that would have otherwise been immediately dismissed. It will change which kinds of dissonance spark anxiety across the board and will create space for the voice of possibility to be heard more frequently and clearly. Speak for Yourself Our ability to speculate about other people, their perspectives, and their reasoning is weak. Instead, invite everyone to represent themselves. One of the most surprising things I've noticed during my experiments in productive disagreement is how quickly things go off the rails precisely when people stop speaking from their own perspective and try to speculate about other people's perspectives. You may have heard in various conflict-resolution best practices that we should use I feel statements instead of You are or, even worse, You feel statements. Of course, it's one thing to nod your head to this and quite another to put it into practice. I couldn't believe it. My dream was in color. She sat with me and we talked for what felt like decades that night. We even went shopping for a bit. When I finally woke up I was in tears because (1) it felt so fucking real and (2) I wanted so desperately to go back to sleep so that I could see her once more. Just to be sure, I walked out in my parents' living room to say good morning to her. I was hoping this was all some terrifying nightmare, only to find her empty perfectly made up hospital bed. This, my beloveds, is my new normal. I find myself counseling other women who have lost their mothers, and there's always one common thread between us: this new normal. Once I understood that this new normal had to exist in order for me to survive and not want to take my own life, or someone else's for that matter, I felt like I had conquered my grief. Greg could have sympathized with Rita but also tell her that he is very impressed with Jane's work ethic and problem-solving skills.

Greg could have also indicated that Rita should talk things through with Jane. How to resolve conflicts. When you are facing a conflict with someone, it is good to bring in a moderator--a coach who you trust--and include them in the conflict resolution. The coach will ask you about the situation; Then you should discuss what outcome you expect from the conversation. A good coach will lead you to try to empathize with the other person's perspective and encourage you to explain the other person's actions and motivations differently than how you experienced them. For example, what if he just had a bad day and that's why he cut you short in your story, not because he doesn't care? Both of the involved parties should practice some coordinated self-reflection then and try to find their own contributions to the problem. Are there any requests each of the involved parties would like to share with the other? Whatever frequency your feelings are vibrating on is an exact replica of your outside world. If you are feeling prosperous, life will keep showing examples of you being prosperous: you'll receive a check in the mail, you'll find money on the sidewalk; That's how it works. We are all spiritually connected, and since we are connected, what I do to others has to come back around to me. This is universal law; Don't be afraid to give away large portions of money. The universal Law of Reaping and Sowing or the Law of Attraction states that what you give has to be returned to you. But for some odd reason, it's usually multiplied! Smiling at a random stranger or simply saying How are doing? A simple smile is a transference of positive energy to an individual, which causes a ripple effect. The Esfand seeds had induced him to see visions before, but they were never so potent.

David gapes at the invaders, disbelief holding him frozen. Adrenaline pumps into his bloodstream as thoughts of the foretold massacre floods his consciousness. The Mongols raise their giant catapults on the far range. A cadaver thuds down upon the ground, just a few hand's breadth away from David, jolting him out of his stupor. Scurrying down the slope he howls, `The Mon. Mongols are comingggg! At his cry, the settlement plunges into chaos. People run helter-skelter. Some collapse where they are standing, shrieking and wailing in terror; The difference between a secure relationship and one that is insecure is that when a mismatch occurs, the caregiver who consistently offers a friendly repair is able to create and retain a secure mutual bond. On the other hand, when ruptures in the bond are left unrepaired, the child is often left feeling ashamed and punished for expressing their needs and wants, or even for having needs and preferences in the first place! This is highly confusing to a child. The concept of attachment is biologically driven. We are all hardwired to connect emotionally. The young child's need for reliable security and protection is paramount to the development of resilience, curiosity, exploration, cognition, and social-emotional adaptation. If a child who was shamed for having needs and preferences is asked at school to make a choice by a threatening adult, depending on how early and dangerous the implicit (unconscious) memory is, they may automatically be triggered into a trauma-induced fight, flight, or freeze mode. If the student is then punished, the belief is reinforced that the distrust of authority was warranted. Thus begins a vicious cycle of breeding deeper resentment and more antisocial trauma-adapted behavior, such as justification for revenge. Luckily, teachers can play a dynamic role in helping repair insecure attachment patterns of traumatized students. Many of these children were raised by parents who showed hatred and resentment toward them.