To thrive and lead a fulfilling life, I believe we need to nurture the most important relationship in our life – the one we have with our Self! Thus, my intention here is to share with you matters I hope you’ll find useful to guide you on your journey to create a loving relationship with yourself and others, and to build a life you desire.

Let’s begin by bringing back some memories…

It was a windy February day in Rabat back in 2014. Everything was set for the conference I was organizing, so I decided to go for a walk and discover the city. My first stop was the Rabat Medina, a souk with tiny alleys full of shops selling ceramics, spices, leather, carpets, jewelry… My eyes soaked in the colors, the smell of spices tingled my nose and my taste buds, the chatter of the sellers was a foreign music to my ears. I immersed myself in the experience as I was walking among the crowd. Just outside of the Medina I entered the small streets of the old town and sat on a bench.

There was nothing spectacular about this moment, but there was this feeling of content, of fullness and satisfaction. I just sat there, slowly breathing, appreciating the possibility to be there, at that particular moment in time. I remember saying to myself: “Take it in, take it all in“. Breathing, seeing, hearing, smelling, feeling.A moment that I still remember and probably I will remember forever, because that was the first time in my life when I fully experienced deliberately something like this. It was like taking a mental 3D video of the moment.

Since then I often practice this “technique”, and only a few years back I discovered that in positive psychology there is a term for it: Savoring.

Savoring is “the use of thoughts and actions to increase the intensity, duration, and appreciation of positive experiences and emotions.” The father of the savoring research, Fred Bryant, a social psychologist “introduced the concept of savoring as being mindfully engaged and aware of one’s feelings during positive events.”

But, “savoring is not merely the experience of positive emotions, but the deliberate effort to make a positive experience last.”

When we engage fully into the experience, being aware and mindful of every detail and take it in to deeper levels – we assign meaning and importance to this memory. Later on when we recall it, it is a vivid memory and we are immediately transported back then and we see, hear and feel as if we were there.

You can savor past events too, by remembering all the detailed modalities – what you saw, what you heard, what you felt, what you smelled and tasted back then. This way you can bring back a moment from memory, we all know how to do that, right? The best part is that this immediately changes your state. In NLP this is called Anchoring, a wonderful set of techniques that allows you to bring resourceful states on demand, whenever you need them, just with a touch of a spot on your body. It is a technique that I teach at the NLP Practitioner.

Let’s test it now! Play with me 🙂

Notice your current state as you are reading this.

Now, remember a moment when you felt really happy (or choose any emotion that you want) and go back now to that memory. Step into the experience. See what you saw then through your own eyes, all the details, who was there with you, make the colors bright and strong. Hear what you heard back then, all the voices and sounds. Feel what you felt back then, outside and inside of yourself. Fully step into the experience and stay there for a few moments.

What happened to your state?

Next,

The silent treatment

I am writing often on the subject of relationships, and if you haven’t read it before I invite you to read the November newsletterwhere I write on toxic relationships and creating boundaries.

Have you ever experienced someone ghosting you? Withdrawing into silence? Ignoring you? Giving you a cold shoulder or freezing you out? However you call it, I bet we have all experienced the silent treatment – giving it and/or receiving it 🙂 And, I bet we all know that it can be a damaging choice of response!

The silent treatment refers to the “act of intentionally withdrawing from an interaction, refusing to engage further, and shutting the other person out for extended periods of time”. If you are on the receiving end, you feel invisible, like you don’t matter and as researchshows, this is experienced as real pain. This refusal to verbally communicate with someone is often used as means of punishment, emotional manipulation, or control.

“Research has found that people who received the silent treatment experienced a threat to their needs of belonging, self-esteem, control, and meaningful existence.”

Dr. John Gottman calls this communication style stonewalling. As the word suggests, it is building a stone wall between you and your counterpart.

Now, please be aware that there is a difference between the silent treatment and taking space for yourself. When someone takes space it’s communicated: “I need some space right now and I will go for a walk, we will talk when I return, tomorrow…”

“Don’t engage with someone giving the silent treatment. Silent treatment is a form of manipulation to control another person. Allow them to be silent. Don’t beg to be spoken to. When they return, let them know you won’t tolerate your existence being denied.”

This quote above by psychologist Dr. Nicole LePera, has helped me and many of my clients enormously to feel better about myself and not feel guilty when I am not engaging with someone giving me the silent treatment. I hope it helps you, too!

To finish,

My message for the month of August is:

Allow yourself to pause in the moment of the experience.

Take it all in and enjoy savoring!

Conversation starters:

(Inspiration and Information Sources)

I’m watching, reading and listening to:

• Altered States: The Richard Bandler Story, a documentary about the life of the amazing Richard Bandler, co-creator of NLP
• Our Planet II, a new 4-part Netflix series by Sir David Attenborough
• The Four Horsemen: Criticism, Contempt, Defensiveness, and Stonewalling, by Ellie Lisitsa
• Why It’s So Hard to Ask for Help: And how to get past what’s blocking you, an HBR article by Manfred F.R. Kets de Vries
• The Leap to Leader, another HBR article by Adam Bryant
• Rethink Your Employee Value Proposition: Offer your people more than just flexibility, HBR article by  Mark Mortensen and Amy C. Edmondson
• Man’s Search For Meaning, re-reading Viktor Frankl’s amazing book.