Talk to Me Like I'm Someone You Love, Revised Edition

In 2006, I curiously began to get a slew of requests for copies of Talk to Me, and discovered that my flashcards for real life had been registered in the Global Ideas Bank and were featured in their compendium, 500 Ways to Change the World. Through a series of synchronistic events, which would be hard to believe occurred in the same week I had heard about my formal recognition, two people I had done favors four years before, for which I expected no repayment, reappeared independently in my life, one now a search engine expert, and the other an intellectual property lawyer. The latter wanted to help me get my publishing rights back in my own hands, and the former wanted to educate me on the power of the internet to get my ideas circulated. After more than a dozen other agents personally communicated to me that they loved my thinking but didn't want to involve themselves with a previously published book, Joel Del Burgo had the foresight to see, instead, that this was a retread whose time had come. Sarah Carter, a Tartar Penguin editor with an amazingly good head on her shoulders, could see where annotation majorly enriched things, and suddenly we were heading toward one hundred flashcards, each with its own little essay. I was now being asked to come up with more than just the right words. I was being asked to make real to others what was becoming increasingly real to me, that the commonly assumed notion of connecting to another person was actually confusing matters, particularly in a time of conflict. Instead, I wanted to give listeners the conviction that the main thing they needed to concern themselves with was staying connected to their own insides within their partner's forcefield. At the same time, I was finishing the manuscript for the original version of the book. I was also falling in love with a man who, unlike my ex-husband and the numerous other male mental health professionals who had thus far populated my life romantically and otherwise, was a relative newcomer to the world of conscious communication. Tim was straightforward, unpretentious, very loving, and, making it all possible, curious about his own wiring. However, when we first met, he wasn't so sure that my insistence that the difference between ''you're attacking me'' and ''I feel attacked'' was the difference between night and day was more than some clever therapeutic tactic. The universe was giving me a golden opportunity to learn how to relate to a man operating more like the men that the women in my practice were describing, easily flooded by my ever-available interpretations, sensitive to feeling managed, and new to the world of reflective listening. Before the first edition hit the stores, Tim had taken flashcard number 21, ''Right now, I don't need a lecture. I need your love.'' Crossed out ''lecture'', replaced it with ''therapist'', framed it, and hung it over the bed within easy reach. Now I knew I was in trouble. I had to relate like a real person. I might even have to cut back on my use of the word ''relate''. As this highly personal practicum began interfacing with theory, my professional work with couples, and all pre-existing notions of growth, I could see that my hard-won capacity to be authentic under any and all conditions had its drawbacks with a partner who wasn't always immediately and cheerfully oriented to providing me with a safe container in which to perfect my authenticity. In fact, this partner would have preferred I take golf lessons over working on improving one more communication skill. Nevertheless, this unexpected catalyst, whom I found myself quite drawn to, showed me my capacity to trigger defensiveness in another, and that simply holding him 127% responsible for his own reactivity made me feel pristine, but wasn't adding to anybody's happiness. So the mindset with which I am approaching this updated edition isn't asking one to dilute his or her truth, but to speak it with less intensity and with more awareness of one's partner's vulnerability. I'm just saying be aware of your partner's vulnerability. I'm not saying to make it the point of your compass. For instance, the first new flashcard is number 102, ''I want to make love, but only if you are liking me.'' Notice I'm starting with an invitation first, then the self-worthy boundary. Even a few years ago, I might have likely phrased it, ''When you don't feel friendly to me, it's hard to want to make love.'' That would have been a clear, honest, non-belligerent, and non-arguable statement definitely allowing the sender to convey the state of her soul, but there would have been a hint of admonition to it. While the shift isn't dramatic or relevant to every single flashcard, my newer writing feels a notch less assertive, and a little softer and more inclusive. Flashcard number 103 turned out to be, ''I'd love it if you...''