Quarterly Magazine August 2022

Everything Horses and Livestock ® Magazine

Everything Horses and Livestock ® Magazine

Number One Thing you can do in a Relationship Jayne Hamilton

When this happens it is because the interaction is missing the most important thing needed in a relationship or healthy conversation. I would love to let you in on a little secret to improve your relationships, to help you feel more connected, to be able to connect to others, and to feel heard. Attunement. Attunement is the most important thing you can do in every relationship you have. Attunement is being receptive to someone’s emotions. Simply put, attunement is when you are glad to be with someone and they are glad to be with you as well. According to Jim Wilder, founder of the Immanuel Approach, attunement is made of six things: 1. I see you and if you accept it, I feel seen 2. I hear you and if you accept it, I feel heard 3. I correctly understand your internal experience and than you feel understood, even if you don’t agree with the statement

Play around with this the next time you are in a conversation with someone. Look them in the eye, pay attention to what they are saying, listen with no agenda, let them know by your body language that you are glad to be with them. And then watch and see if they attune back to you.

4. I join you in your emotions and if you accept it, you feel their empathy 5. I am expressing that I genuinely care about you and thus you feel cared for 6. I am glad to be with you and if they receive it, they feel you are glad to be with them as well The way that God created our brains is so amazing to me. He created our brains with community in mind. God values us being together in relationship. Studies have shown that our brains heal in relationship, not isolation. It is interesting that 60 to 90% of all communication is non-verbal, and seven times a second, your prefrontal cortex is looking at sending and receiving information from the brain that you are interacting with. This is

not something you are aware of or can even stop. Our brains are talking to each other, and what our prefrontal cortex is looking for primarily is this: Are you attuning to me? If not, we do not open our hearts to each other. Our brains are hardwired for attunement and I believe it is the most important thing you can do in a relationship. You offer attunement to someone and then the person has to receive it. It is a two way street in relationships. I am a horse assisted life coach and in my program, Hope in the Middle of, one of the exercises we do with the horses is to practice this tool of attunement. Customers have found this to be so effective as it is a safe place to practice what they are being taught and horses always give immediate feedback in a non judgment way.

room searching for something. I wonder if you felt unheard? Did you shut down the conversation quickly? Were you frustrated that you couldn’t seem to connect to the person on a deeper level?

Do you remember the last time you were in a conversation with someone and they just didn’t seem that interested in listening to you? Perhaps, they kept glancing at their phone, or their eyes wandered around the

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