The importance of relationships

 

The most important ingredient of happiness is good interpersonal relationships. When hostility comes between us and the people most important to us, life can seem pointless and depressing.

 

Unfortunately, many of us discover that we have ongoing difficulties with spouses, children, parents, bosses, or colleagues. Sometimes we go for months or years of therapy yet fail to improve our relationships. We may conclude that the relationship is “toxic” and should be avoided, or that the person is a “bully” who can’t stop making us miserable no matter what we do.

 

How The Kalman Method works

 

Intensive therapy can be life-changing. Often, though, our most disturbing interpersonal situations stem from nothing more than simple mistakes that need to be recognized and corrected. Months or even years of conventional therapy may fail to solve these problems if we don’t in the process learn to correct our errors.

 

The way Izzy explains it, many of our problems are due to simple “optical illusions.” We have animal bodies, and animals are biologically programmed to succeed and thrive in the lawless conditions of nature. However, we have been living for millennia in civilization, where the rules for success are very different. Our basic genetic makeup, though, has not changed, and we are still programmed for life in nature. Unfortunately, many of the instinctive strategies for succeeding in nature, such as anger, defense, fear, and retaliation, accomplish the opposite in civilization. Rather than putting a stop to the hostility, our actions intensify and perpetuate it. They turn us into losers and victims, destroying our relationships and our happiness.

 

In other words, the very things we are doing to solve our problems are actually what’s making them continue. When we stop making the mistakes, the problems fizzle away!

 

The Kalman Method is designed to quickly improve relations with less effort by revealing the “optical illusions” and replacing our counterproductive actions with simpler, more effective ones. We learn how not to be victims, and then it becomes harder to bully us. We turn into winners, creating a win/win situation. People respect us more and treat us better. Our self-esteem goes up and we become happier.

 

And even if they don’t change the way they treat us, we can still prevent them from making us miserable.