Facebook Twitter LinkedIn
IN THIS ISSUE
Breakthrough
"Productive insight; clear (often sudden) understanding of a complex situation."  Free Dictionary

Pop the bubble of conditioned thinking and emerge into the creative realm of "no absolutes," continuous change, uncertainty and unlimited possibilities.

Then, there can be innovation, adaptation and optimal performance.
Performance and Open-minded Mindfulness
Open-minded: questioning everything, accepting diversity and uncertainty.  

Mindful:  consciously aware; concentrated. 

Foundation for blending process, project, engagement and knowledge management into a cohesive approach to optimize performance.

Breakthrough
Newsletter
VOLUME XI ISSUE NO. 9 | SEPTEMBER 2019 
Healthy Relationships: Working
on Yourself
By George Pitagorsky
 
 
Achieving healthy relationships is simple but not so easy. It requires work on yourself.
 
It boils down to learning to melt away the obstacles that keep relationships from being a harmonious dance. Work on yourself involves cultivating a wise point of view and intention. It focuses on replacing reactivity with responsiveness without suppressing feelings. Work on yourself is cultivating mindfulness, loving kindness and emotional and spiritual intelligences.
 
Anyone who has experienced the impact on relationships of urges, fear, anxiety, anger, greed, and moods ranging from sadness to elation can attest that it is a challenge to both accept these feelings and not be driven by them. It is a challenge worth taking if you want healthy relationships - whether at work, in family or in romantic relationships.
Scroll Down to continue reading article 
The Wisdom in Relationships Program
T he best thing you can do for yourself and others is to work on yourself.
And, there's no better place to work on yourself than in your relationships. 
 
Relationships put you in touch with the attachments, avoidances, habits, repetitions, expectations, desires, pleasures and pains that get in the way of having fulfilling connections in your life.  
 
 
 
I f you are in or around NYC, experience the seven-week program  where you get the tools and concepts to make your relationship a Yoga - a way of behaving and thinking that brings about awareness, harmony and happiness.
 
Click the link  for more information and to sign up Wisdom in Relationships
 
Lis ten to an interview
How to be Happy Even When You Are Sad, Mad or Scared: 
A story about a boy who wanted everything to be the way that he thought it should be
 
By George Pitagorsky;   Illustrated by Tracy Pitagorsky 
 
This book tells the story of a child who learns how to use imagery to manage his anger.

Please post a review and let your friends know.
Healthy Relationships Continued ... 
 
Healthy Relationships - Harmony
Keeping it as simple as possible, in healthy relationships those involved are happy. They are happy because there is harmony and expectations are being met.
 
Harmony, when working or playing with others, brings sustainable ease. Sustainable ease fuels sustainable happiness. While there probably will be emotionally charged conflicts, damage is repairable when there is a willingness to repair it. 
 
Harmony can be at a distance - for example ex-lovers can be in harmony if, after a nasty breakup, they don't see or speak with one another, at least for a while. I'm reminded of the line from Fiddler on the Roof, "God bless and keep the Czar far away from us."
 
Describing harmony in analytical and scientific terms never gets to a full experiential understanding. It is like describing sugar to people who have never tasted it. Until they have a taste for themselves, they will not know sugar. One knows harmony beyond intellect and analysis. 
 
For example, you get a coffee at your local cafe and in the exchange with the barrister there is an easy flow. A dance. You say what you want, the barrister smiles, repeats the order and soon you have your drink. There is respect and no sense of hierarchy; no negative feelings; only a desire to serve and to be served. Once, you were in a hurry and snapped at her for making an error. The next day you apologized. The dance went on and the flow became even easier.
 
With happiness and harmony as a goal, let's get back to working on yourself to overcome the obstacles to achieving healthy relationships.
 
Relationship Yoga - Working on Yourself
Relationships are gyms, classrooms, ashrams and yoga studios, for confronting and dropping away all the things that get in the way of connecting with others in a healthy way.
 
It begins with a view that accepts that in an absolute sense we are all one in a boundless ocean of love AND we are, at the same time, in separate bodies with individual egos who often forget that we are all one. In each relationship, recognize the essential quality that all share.
 
Remembering this in the face of strong urges and feelings provides a base for all your relationships. It is a major part of the work on yourself. Step back from the urges and feelings behind them and choose what to do. Mindfulness practice cultivates this remembering and stepping back.
 
Practice brings with it the ability to see what's going on, to feel the feelings before they transform into unskillful behavior. You can be responsive. You can drop the shield that keeps the love from flowing. You can put up your shield when that is appropriate.
 
The choice is a tough one. It is between acting out to get rid of the offending feelings, and staying with them, accepting them for what they are, and creating a gap between the feelings and the reaction. Remembering the intention to be in healthy relationships makes the choice easier.
 
Working on yourself is the hardest work you do. You do it because you know a resilient, responsive, loving and wise you will be happy. You become free of the obstacles to serving others while taking care of your own needs and being responsible for your own feelings.
 
Here are links to related articles:
 
© 2019 George Pitagorsky
                                                  Top
Performance and Open-minded Mindfulness

Open-minded: 

questioning everything, accepting diversity and uncertainty.  
 
Mindful:
 consciously aware; concentrated. 

Foundation for blending process, project, engagement and knowledge management into a cohesive approach to optimize performance.

  Learn More

New Book:
Managing Expectations: A Mindful Approach to Achieving Success   provides a compassionate, practical process for satisfying expectations in any situation. Essential reading for leaders seeking to ensure expectations are rational, mutually understood, and accepted by all those with a stake in the project. 

Managing Conflict in Projects
By George Pitagorsky
Managing Conflict in Projects: Applying Mindfulness and Analysis for Optimal Results by George Pitagorsky charts a course for identifying and dealing with conflict in a project context.

Pitagorsky states up front that conflict management is not a cookbook solution to disagreement-a set of prescribed actions to be applied in all situations. His overall approach seeks to balance two aspects of conflict management: analysis based on a codified process and people-centered behavioral skills.

The book differentiates conflict resolution and conflict management. Management goes beyond resolution to include relationship building that may serve to avoid conflict or facilitate resolution if it occurs.

 

Read More
The Zen Approach to Project Management 
By George Pitagorsky

Projects are often more complex and stressful than they need to be. Far too many of them fail to meet expectations. There are far too many conflicts. There are too few moments of joy and too much anxiety. But there is hope. It is possible to remove the unnecessary stress and complexity. This book is about how to do just that. It links the essential principles and techniques of managing projects to a "wisdom" approach for working with complex, people-based activities.

Home   /  Blog   /  About   /  Contact