Tag: Relationships

What Makes the Strongest Relationships?

The strongest relationships are built not on communication skills alone,

but on flexible minds.

To learn more about what it means to have a flexible mind—and how it can strengthen your relationships—visit the Love, Contextually book page.

Click here to know more about Nathan Chua’s books written under the pen name, Starfly Chua.

The Rules We Live By

We all follow rules.
It’s hard to live without them.
We have rules for how to apologize, how to love, even how to make coffee.
But psychological flexibility begins when we ask:
does this rule still work in this context?
For example:
“If I’m angry, I should stay silent until I calm down.”
Sometimes that rule prevents harm.
Sometimes it quietly becomes avoidance, distance, and emotional disconnection.
And sometimes the people around us follow very different rules about anger.
One person believes anger should be controlled and hidden.
Another believes anger should be expressed immediately and directly.
So the conflict is no longer just about the thing that made you angry.
Now you begin fighting about how a person is supposed to be angry.
A good rule is not one that is obeyed no matter what.

A good rule is one that stays sensitive to context.