Words Can Change Your Brain

Free Words Can Change Your Brain by Andrew Newberg

Book: Words Can Change Your Brain by Andrew Newberg Read Free Book Online
Authors: Andrew Newberg
to seduce. He was good at it, but he always landed in bed with the wrong woman—someone who was as afraid of real intimacy as he was. He married a trophy girl, but the intimacy was never genuine, and so they fought a lot.
    George didn’t want to repeat the past, so he decided to use the Compassionate Communication exercise, which he’d been introduced to at a seminar. He deliberately arrived at the park a half hour early and sat on a bench. Then he guided himself through a series of relaxation exercises.
    Next he began to watch his thoughts. Each time a feeling of anxiety came up, he took a deep breath and relaxed some more. Then he told the thought to go away. “I don’t believe you!” he said to his critical inner voice. It took about twenty minutes, but he finally calmed down. Then he envisioned staying relaxed as he imagined the person he was going to meet. More doubts popped up, but he pushed them out of his mind, replacing them with a positive affirmation. “I have no need to worry,” he said to himself, “and I have no need to manipulate the date.”
    He stood up from the bench and walked slowly to the meeting place, and as he strolled along, he immersed himself in the beauty of the flowers and the sounds of the breeze blowing through the leaves of the trees. He was practicing staying in the present moment.
    Then he caught sight of Marcy, sitting at their rendezvous spot. He kept his gaze on her, because this distracted him from the worrisome thoughts that began to race through his mind. He greeted Marcy, and they began a pleasant conversation, but George felt conflicted, afraid that he was using his old dating games. He wanted to tell Marcy what he was struggling with inside, but he knew that it could be risky, especially on a first date. Still, George decided to take a chance.
    “What’s the worst that can happen?” he reasoned to himself. “If she rejects me for sharing how I’m feeling, then I can move on and find someone who really wants to know who I am.”
    “Marcy,” he began, “I’d like to try an experiment, if it’s okay with you.”
    “What do you have in mind?” she cautiously replied.
    “Would you be willing to talk for a few minutes using a technique I just learned in a workshop? The rules are simple: we’ll speak very slowly and briefly, and we’ll try to stay as relaxed as we can.”
    “Okay,” said Marcy, but George noticed trepidation in her voice. This pleased him because in the past he never would have noticed such a subtle communication cue.
    “I’ll begin,” said George. “I want to share with you how anxious I’m feeling. Normally I cover it up.”
    George noticed a look of surprise in Marcy’s face, and he immediately felt more nervous. “This is a big mistake,” he thought. Marcy then said something he didn’t expect: “I know how you feel, but I’m pleased you told me that. Most of the men I’ve dated don’t share what they really feel.”
    George felt a warm glow in his body and he smiled. For about twenty minutes, they talked about the difficulty of expressing emotions. Then George felt tears welling up in his eyes. “It’s scary for me to say this to you, but I’m going to say it anyway: I feel like I’ve never been so open and honest with a woman before.”
    Marcy’s eyes were also moist. She reached out and touched George’s arm. “I know how you feel. My ex and I used to fight all the time, and I don’t think we ever had this kind of intimacy, except on rare occasions. And here we’re doing it on a first date!”
    Marcy and George continued to talk slowly and intimately for the next three hours, and both agreed to use Compassionate Communication whenever a feeling of anxiety or anger cropped up.
    And, yes, they eventually married.
    The Last Date
    Practicing Compassionate Communication does not guarantee that a relationship will blossom into love. In fact, when both people share how they really feel inside—when they explore each other’s

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