Mindwise

Bulletin

January 2003, Vol. 3.

Creating the Utopian Environment

"Baby Boomers -
The Relationship Challenge"

Hello Colleagues

This month's E-Zine is especially for the Baby Boomers!  We were born between 1946 and 1964 and are a unique group.  We are the first generation to have to negotiate the phenomenon called the "long-term relationship". In 1900 the average life expectancy for men was 47 and 51 for women.  Today it's 72 for men and 79 for women and it's on the rise.  Today a couple that partners at age 25 or 26 and who stays together till death do them part, could be coupled for 50 years or more.  Our high divorce rates indicate that we have mostly failed in the challenge of not only maintaining a level of intimacy in our relationships but knowing how to deepen and enrich them.

Our parental generation seemed the slam the door on poverty and misery, a legacy from the Great Depression and World War 2, and moved us into the "Age of Affluence".  We were brought up on the delusion that material happiness translates into actual happiness.  But our spirits have told us that this isn't so.  Now I'm not suggesting that there is any spirituality in poverty, but the challenge for Baby Boomers is that we discover what we are biologically designed to be – individuals who need intimacy with others, and deeply so.  While our focus has been on achievement, power, acquisition, excitement and romance, we seem to have lost connection with the need for proximity, for felt security, for love, the need to be held, to be understood, to work through our losses – basic themes of attachment.

But we Baby Boomers have enormous gifts and resilience as a group and it's never too late to learn what I might call 'the art of intimate relating'.  Here are some tips to get you started:

• Speak frequently from the heart about subjects other than personal unhappiness with your partner
• Put the good of the couple and the good of the partner ahead of your interests
• Develop the patience to simply listen to your partner speak
• Do not abandon your ideal of love just because your partner is currently falling short of its requirements.
• Actively create a context for your partner to grow
• Love your body and it pleasures and stop taking bodily imperfections too seriously
• Believe that integrity, honesty and respect breed love, love breeds good sex, and good sex breeds love. It's a circle.

(Stephen B. Levine OnLove)

Let's hope that the legacy we leave the X-Generation is truly Utopian and is that which is echoed in the sentiments of Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926):

"Once the realization is accepted that even between the closest human beings infinite differences continue to exist, a wonderful living side-by-side can grow up, if they succeed in loving the distance between them, which makes it possible to see the other whole against a wide sky."

Workshop Series on Emotional Intelligence

As promised, details for the Workshop Series on Emotional Intelligence I am conducting with John Lockwood, Director of Coaching for Results, are as follows:

• Emotional Intelligence in the Workplace – full day Workshop, 12 March 2003 ($295.00 per person). Content includes: The Emotionally Intelligent Workplace; Emotionally Intelligent Teams: How to handle yourself; How to handle others.
• Emotional Intelligence for Leaders – Full-day workshop, 13 March 2003 ($295.00 per person). Content includes: Self-awareness and team awareness; paradigm shifts; Newtonian versus Quantum Leadership; EQ Leadership – chaos versus order; EQ Leadership Styles; EQ Leadership Competencies; Brightness for the Future.
• Emotional Intelligence for Couples – Full-day Workshop, March 14 2003 ($395.00 per couple). Content includes: Self-awareness and Couples; Emotional Management and Couples; Empathy in Couple Relating; Relationship skills 1; Relationship skills 2.

Venue for the Workshops:  The Bayside Centre, 99-101 Argus St, Cheltenham, Victoria

To register please use our online registation form or email – johnlock@connexus.net.au. Hurry, seats are limited!

Remember that an assessment of your Emotional Intelligence will be undertaken using the Bar-On Emotional Quotient Inventory.

With Kind Regards

Dr Cynthia Davis

Clinical and Corporate Psychologist
Accredited Professional Speaker (APS)

Ph: 61+(0)3 9654 7757
Email: cynthia.davis@mindwise.com.au
Website: http://mindwise.com.au 

We hope you enjoyed this edition of Creating the Utopian Environment!
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