If you feel as if you are being hurt, unjustly accused, if you feel angry, feel as if you want to lash out, remove yourself from situation temporarily, but immediately. This means put on your shoes and coat and walk out door. Go for a long walk. Go shopping. Go to a movie. Go have a cup of coffee. Go sit in your car and call a friend. Do something that feels good and removes you from situation.

5. Once things are calm, don't ignore what happened.

Don't let sleeping dogs lie. In other words, once you have peace back, don't walk around on eggshells in order to prevent triggering another overreaction. Don't avoid talking about what happened in an open, honest, non-hurtful way.

Initiate a conversation to better understand what happened. Start with something like, "You had a very strong response to our last conversation."

Then, if your partner seems open, ask questions such as: * What were you feeling? * What did I remind you of? * What did situation remind you of?

Listen to everything your partner has to say. Remember compassion. Do not defend yourself, or negate anything your partner is saying. This is not about you.

6. At a later point, continue discussion.

At a later point, discuss with your partner how you are similar and different from person who originally caused him or her pain. Clarify what you meant by words that triggered overreaction. Discuss ways to deal with overreaction in future, perhaps some key phrases you can say to each other to stop overreaction.

If you can follow above guidelines, you will find yourself in an intimate relationship with fewer fights and overreactions and much more closeness, intimacy and trust. You can use same process in any relationship, business or personal, with same trust-building benefit.

Handling overreactions in others or in yourself is hard work, and you may find yourself wishing you had help. If this is case, I am available to help, in both a one-time coaching session format or for ongoing coaching. For more info on how you can get help, go to http://www.whatittakes.com/Coaching/coachingservices.html

Wishing you an overreaction-free week!

Your Relationship Coach, Rinatta Paries www.WhatItTakes.com

(c) Rinatta Paries, 1998-2002. Do you know how to attract your ideal mate? Do you know how to build a fulfilling relationship, or how to reinvent yours to meet your needs? Relationship Coach Rinatta Paries can teach you skills and techniques to attract and sustain long-term, healthy partnerships. Visit www.WhatItTakes.com where you'll find quizzes, classes, advice and a free weekly ezine. Become a "true love magnet(tm)!"

Now go and open new file, it will be in EXCEL, adjust columns and print out.

NETSCAPE Users:

Basically you use same steps to sort as an Outlook Express user; however, wording is slightly different:

>>CLICK on Communicator >>CLICK on Address Book You will have more columns and you can even add more columns to sort on by clicking side arrows at bottom of your address book. You can also use VIEW. I did not see an Export Function in Netscape.

AOL Users:

I used a friend's AOL account to check out AOL's email functions and found email addresses were already sorted in ascending order. I did not find a way to sort or export. However you can edit and delete.

ACT! Users:

More then an E-Mail program, yet you can sort by CLICKING on EDIT and then CLICK SORT. You can sort your people up to three different ways, either in ascending or descending order. To EXPORT, go to FILE, CLICK Data Exchange, CLICK Export and follow wizard instructions.

Organizing Mass E-Mails:

If you find that you need to send same mail message to several people all time, such as a team at work, or a committee you're on, you can put them in a Group (Outlook Express, AOL, and ACT!) or List (Netscape) so you don't have to look for or type their E-Mail address all time.

Create a group in Outlook Express:

>>Open your E-Mail program >>CLICK on TOOLS >>CLICK on Address Book >>CLICK on NEW and CLICK NEW GROUP Name your Group (this is what you will type into TO: when you want to send them all same E-Mail). Now just follow instructions on your screen and start adding people you want to be in this group.

AOL, ACT!, and Netscape programs have similar steps for creating groups. If you are using one of these programs, check out their HELP feature if you need help creating groups.

I have found that most E-Mail programs contain above basic functions for organizing your E-Mail addresses; however, it would be next to impossible to try and include them all here. You can discover what your E-Mail program can do by checking out their HELP Section and you just might stumble across some neat "stuff." ~~~~~ Janet L. Hall is a Professional Organizer, Speaker, and Author. She is owner of OverHall Consulting, and Organizing By Phone. Subscribe to her FREE organizing newsletter at http://www.overhall.com/newsletter.htm or visit her web site at http://www.overhall.com

Copyright 2001 by OverHall Consulting P.O. Box 263, Port Republic, MD 20676 All Rights Reserved. Permission is granted to reproduce, copy, or distribute so long as article is kept intact, this copyright notice and full information about contacting author is attached.