How to Use Humor to Improve Your Relationships

Written by Mike Moore


Humor has long been considered one ofrepparttar most effective tools to judgerepparttar 123687 quality of any relationship. If there is laughter present you can assume thatrepparttar 123688 relationship is a healthy one. Whenrepparttar 123689 laughter ceases you can be quite certain thatrepparttar 123690 relationship is onrepparttar 123691 down slide. This laughter barometer can be applied to any relationship at home, at work and at play. Laughter means that you’re having fun and fun means that things are going well.. Take a look atrepparttar 123692 relationships around you. Dorepparttar 123693 couples laugh a lot together? Hasrepparttar 123694 laughter stopped in some of your relationships?

Here are a few ideas you can use to make certain that laughter remains an ever present reality in your relationships thus ensuring their quality and endurance. Remember introducing humor to previously humorless relationships might take time butrepparttar 123695 results will be worthrepparttar 123696 effort. Start slowly by working on your own fun loving, cheery disposition. Laughter and humor are contagious so it won’t be long before others catchrepparttar 123697 bug.

* Remember that a sense of humor is learned, not inherited.

* Commit to becoming a humor hound. Look for humor everywhere. When something strikes you funny enjoy it. Letrepparttar 123698 laughter flow. Afterrepparttar 123699 funny event has passed recall it and enjoy it and laugh again.

* Begin to cultivate an atmosphere of humor and laughter in your relationships. Try to enjoy and share humor as often as you can.

* If you don ’t laugh as much as you used to and want to correctrepparttar 123700 situation start associating with humorous, fun loving people and avoidrepparttar 123701 downers.

* Learn to laugh at yourself. If you don’t, you leaverepparttar 123702 job to others.

* Look for funny items in your newspaper and cut them out and share them. I recall readingrepparttar 123703 want ads one night and discovered this gem : “ The successful applicant should have 203 years experience.” Obviouslyrepparttar 123704 writer meant to say 2 or 3 years experience. I immediately cut it out and placed it in my collection for future use.

Facing Our Inner Critic: Accepting Ourselves

Written by Kali Munro


Do you feel like you’re your worst critic? Do you find yourself criticizing your body, intelligence, clothes, ability to do your job, and just about anything about yourself? We all have that voice inside,repparttar one that can take anything about ourselves or something that we did and make it into something terribly wrong or bad.

Some people have stronger inner critics than others, but most people at one time in their lives have struggled to believe positive things that are said about them, and to ward off internal criticisms.

Many events conspire to make us question and criticize ourselves. Fromrepparttar 123686 little things torepparttar 123687 big things, there are lots of people who knowingly and unknowingly put us down. Family members, peers, teachers, and religious leaders can all play a role even if they they think they’re helping us.

Parents often try and correctrepparttar 123688 “problems” they think they see in us, and say all kinds of things in an attempt to “fix” us. They let us know their concerns about our looks, body, hair, clothes,repparttar 123689 way we walk and talk, and so on. All of these accumulate to make us feel less than adequate, less than whole, less than what we “should” be.

Overt and covert criticisms, emotional, physical and sexual abuse, and bullying all lead to our internalizing negative beliefs. They leave us feeling hurt and ashamed, sometimes hating everything about ourselves. While overt abuse certainly leads torepparttar 123690 creation of an inner critic, so do many other, often more subtle, forms of criticism.

The inner critic can lead to all sorts of problems including low self-esteem, self injurious behaviour, eating disorders, avoiding situations that require us to berepparttar 123691 centre of attention or to shine, and feeling like we are profoundly unlovable and unwanted.

The Inner Critic was Formed to Help You

The inner critic was originally formed to help you, to help you avoid pain and shame. The thinking goes like this: “if I create within myself a voice that is just like my parents, and anyone else I want to please, I can more easily know what they want from me, how they want me to be, and I can more easily avoid their disapproval and ultimately win their approval and love.”

The inner critic wants us to do well, to succeed, and to be liked, but operates onrepparttar 123692 thinking level of a child, and a child who thinks that what other people think of her/him is not only important but correct.

In order to do its job properly,repparttar 123693 inner critic needed to curb your natural inclinations, and to make you acceptable to others by criticizing and correcting your behaviour before other people could criticize and reject you. In this way, it reasoned, it could earn love and protection for you as well as save you much shame and hurt. (Stone and Stone, 1993)

The problem isrepparttar 123694 inner critic doesn’t know when to stop. It may grow until it is out of control and criticizes you on a regular basis causing some real damage. The inner critic can make you feel awful about yourself. Withrepparttar 123695 inner critic watching, you begin to watch your every step, you become self-conscious, awkward and ever fearful of making a mistake.

Recognizing and Separating Fromrepparttar 123696 Inner Critic

The first step in reducingrepparttar 123697 power ofrepparttar 123698 inner critic is to recognize when it’s speaking and to separate from it. You are not your inner critic, it is a part of you, but it is not who you are. When you are able to separate from your inner critic, you are inrepparttar 123699 part of your self which is sometimes called aware ego, internal witness, higher self, or observing ego.

When you are able to step back, and observerepparttar 123700 inner critic, you are separating from it and moving into aware or observing ego. Being in aware ego takesrepparttar 123701 sting out ofrepparttar 123702 inner critic.

Some ways to get to know and separate from your inner critic include:

* Write out allrepparttar 123703 things that you inner critic says to you at different times ofrepparttar 123704 day, in different situations, and with different people and notice whatrepparttar 123705 patterns are. For example, does your inner critic get stronger when you’re tired, hungry, or stressed? If so, taking breaks, unwinding, having snacks, and relaxing can all reducerepparttar 123706 power of your inner critic.

* If writing outrepparttar 123707 inner critic’s messages leads to your adding more and more criticisms to your list, stop writing and try to step back from being inrepparttar 123708 inner critic. See if you can simply observe that there is a part of you that thinks this way, and that not all of you thinks this way. You don’t need to argue withrepparttar 123709 inner critic, just be aware of it.

* Talk to other people about their inner critic’s messages and comparerepparttar 123710 similarities; you may be surprised to hear that inner critics sound pretty similar from person to person and your inner critic’s messages are not specific to you. For some people, doing this would not be helpful and could backfire. If you have a particularly strong inner critic, this could lead to it finding other critical messages to give to you. Again, if this happens, or you suspect it will, don’t do it and concentrate on stepping back and being aware ofrepparttar 123711 inner critic as a separate voice or part.

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