The McGurk effect. Speaking as a guy who is named after a color I truly appreciate intersting last names and this is a keeper
You simply must click on this link: McGurk
Watch the video then come back here.
Okay, if you didn't click on the link none of the rest of this is going to make any sense so please, click on the link.
Done? Great. didn't that just blow your mind? Go back and listen to the entire video with your eyes closed.
The incredable thing about the McGurk effect is that it is beyond your control. It is proof positive that what you think you hear and what you hear can be two different things.
The McGurk effect works because you have eyes and you have spent your entire life watching people form words and you have come to the inescapable conclusion that when you see someone's teeth on their bottom lip the sound that they are making must be FA. It doesn't matter that the sound is somehting different, it matters only that you rely upon your experience and your belief to control what you experience.
So think how that plays into your relationships with your wife.
Okay, I'll help. You and your wife aren't getting along so great. She says mean things and you think they are intended to hurt you and you are, in fact hurt and that hurt leads to anger, mistrust,and resentment. We've all been down that so much it's been paved.
But McGurk underscores one of the basic tenents of the whole better man better marriage philosopy: sure, there's the chance that your wife is possessed and evil, but there is a greater chance that over the years you have taken misunderstanings and interpreted them to be slights, you've taken attempts at humor to be insensitive attacks, and you have come to expect that when you're wife says something that could be interpreted as either benign, neutral or mean spirited you have trained yourself over the year to hear it only as mean spirited.
You've kept track of the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to and taught yourself not to trust your wife to be kind just as you have taught yourself to hear FA whenever teeth meet lips.
The good news is that while the McGurk effect is so ingrained it is irreversible the same is not true about your perceptions of your wife.
You can change them, and if you do just imagine how that will change your relationship?
What if, and I know this seems crazy, but what if she wasn't nagging, if she wasn't sarcastic, but you've just trained yourself to hear her that way?
Just sit with that for a little bit.
Monday, November 12, 2012
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
AN OPEN VALENTINES CARD TO MY BELOVED
Beloved,
Happy Valentines Day. I know this should be written out in longhand, but….. you’ve seen my writing, and I've already done the hand made card thing.
Jack Nicholson had a line in “As Good As It Gets.” As Melvin he said to Carol “You make me want to be a better man.” It was a pretty good compliment, but from a relationship point of view, he was teetering on the edge of making her responsible for his growth, and of course after he said it he followed up with a stupid line that drove her from the room. Mistakes are the price we pay for growth.
The thing is, I’ve been working on being a better man since before we met (in fact our first correspondence followed an Imago training session) so I can’t look at you and say anything quite so romantic. I was doing the work before we met, and I do it still not for you but for me, yet in truth one reason I am truly glad I did all the work it took to turn my life around is because I know the guy I once was wouldn’t have won your heart and I love being loved by you.
So I thought this Valentines Day I would share with you (and given this blog’s demographics, only you) a little of what it is like for me to be loved by you.
It is hard for me to imagine, much less believe, how long we have been together. It all seems of an instant and yet somehow we can make time stop when we are simply together.
I never thought I’d have a kitchen as cool and beautiful as the one you are rattling around in as I write this. Every time I enter the kitchen I feel stylish, wealthy, happening, way too cool for school, all of which I am not, and most importantly, blessed, which I am.
I am blessed to have you in my life. I kind of knew that from the start when I saw your picture. I knew that you were different in all the important ways and I suspected (and you confirmed) that we could indeed “hang out” together.
There are a lot of things I could wish for, from winning the lottery to a larger practice to more sales and fame: the one thing I do not wish for is anyone else.
There are lots of things I would change in my life, from not being a good tooth-brusher as a child to my desktop clutter, an investment or two: the one thing I would not change is you.
I used to think that a lot of bad things had happened in my life. Death, betrayal, abandonment, lonliness… and now I think that if just one of those events had turned out differently I wouldn’t be the man I am today, and I wouldn’t have you in my life… and then I think, “gee… I’ve been pretty lucky all along.”
I am happy that you are a part of my life.
Happy Valentines Day. I know this should be written out in longhand, but….. you’ve seen my writing, and I've already done the hand made card thing.
Jack Nicholson had a line in “As Good As It Gets.” As Melvin he said to Carol “You make me want to be a better man.” It was a pretty good compliment, but from a relationship point of view, he was teetering on the edge of making her responsible for his growth, and of course after he said it he followed up with a stupid line that drove her from the room. Mistakes are the price we pay for growth.
The thing is, I’ve been working on being a better man since before we met (in fact our first correspondence followed an Imago training session) so I can’t look at you and say anything quite so romantic. I was doing the work before we met, and I do it still not for you but for me, yet in truth one reason I am truly glad I did all the work it took to turn my life around is because I know the guy I once was wouldn’t have won your heart and I love being loved by you.
So I thought this Valentines Day I would share with you (and given this blog’s demographics, only you) a little of what it is like for me to be loved by you.
It is hard for me to imagine, much less believe, how long we have been together. It all seems of an instant and yet somehow we can make time stop when we are simply together.
I never thought I’d have a kitchen as cool and beautiful as the one you are rattling around in as I write this. Every time I enter the kitchen I feel stylish, wealthy, happening, way too cool for school, all of which I am not, and most importantly, blessed, which I am.
I am blessed to have you in my life. I kind of knew that from the start when I saw your picture. I knew that you were different in all the important ways and I suspected (and you confirmed) that we could indeed “hang out” together.
There are a lot of things I could wish for, from winning the lottery to a larger practice to more sales and fame: the one thing I do not wish for is anyone else.
There are lots of things I would change in my life, from not being a good tooth-brusher as a child to my desktop clutter, an investment or two: the one thing I would not change is you.
I used to think that a lot of bad things had happened in my life. Death, betrayal, abandonment, lonliness… and now I think that if just one of those events had turned out differently I wouldn’t be the man I am today, and I wouldn’t have you in my life… and then I think, “gee… I’ve been pretty lucky all along.”
I am happy that you are a part of my life.
Friday, January 27, 2012
Over at popsci.com there is an article exploring a study that shows (at least in the test groups) that approximately 35% of the time a man…. Or perhaps it was 35% of the men.. they didn’t make that clear… but in either event that the test group of men were able to identify whether or not a woman was menstruating simply by the sound of her voice.
Click on the link and read the article if you doubt me but before you go all Charlie Sheen on me and say “Duh… bitchy” understand that what’s going on here is not conflict based or relationship based, but simply men listening to a woman’s voice recorded over the course of her cycle and being able to (about a statistically signifcant third of the time) identify the recording made during her period. Nota Bene this test was done with voice recordings, so there were no pheromones involved and no body language, this was strictly monkey hear, monkey do.
From a better man perspective this brings up one big point: what’s good for the goose is good for the gander.
In other words if one out of three times you can tell, simply by tone of voice, by timber, by tone, by inflection, by a countless number of unseen tells that something is going on in your wife’s life there is a fair chance that she can do the same, especially if she has other non-verbal clues such as your body language, you eye contact, your facial expression, your footsteps.
Lots of times in our relationship our beloveds come up with a statement like “is something bothering you?” or, in a less loving relationship “what’s wrong with you today” or in a even less satisfying scenario, “what is your fucking problem” and like most guys, given a choice between intimacy and plausable deniability, we go with the latter and say “no dear” “Nothing” or “Mind your own business.”
But what if rather than reverting to type you tried something different? What if rather than avoiding an awkward moment, you embraced it? What if rather than saying “I’m fine” you said “I am always amazed by your intuitiveness and I appreciate your invitation to dialogue,” and then tell her what’s on your mind.
WAIT A SECOND one of you is now thinking, what if something isn’t bothering me. What if I am as happy as a clam on a sandbar? And my response is, AS IF. What are you, a fucking saint? There hasn’t been something that’s been bugging you in your relationship? Do you seriously expect anyone to believe that you haven’t been nursing some viper to your breast, some unspoken anger, some unresolved angst, some slight or hurt which you wish she would recognize and own up to? Trust me, even if you are as happy as an alpiner in new lederhosen, there’s always something there, something that has gone unsaid and is lurking in the shadows waiting for an argument to burst forth and do its worst damage.
Just assume, for the sake of argument, that your wife is blind and deaf and there is no chance in hell that she has picked up on one of your tells, that she hasn’t intuited a sense of conflict or distress, why not take the opportunity? Why not accept the invitation? Why not honor her willingness to hear you by sharing? Why not get that lurking resentment out of the dark and into the open, resolve it and deepen your relationship?
Why not say “there is something that I’ve been struggling with and I appreciate your asking…..”
Now somebody is shaking their head and saying “Hunt, god bless you but you are an idiot, sometimes it is best to leave well enough alone and to simply not go there. If I answer her question honestly, all I will get is an argument.”
And that would be true if you weren’t trying to be the better man, if you still let your anticipation and projections control your actions, if you still made decisions based on fear and not on growth…. But assuming that some of you haven’t read the book, done the work and you haven’t gotten there quite yet let me point out the following.
Leaving well enough alone is just another way of saying stagnation, withdrawal and ultimately divorce. If you want to leave well enough alone then get out of the marriage. If you want to have a better marriage then the status quo will not do: the status quo is why you are miserable and you must act to make your relationship better and that means taking chances, that means honoring your wife’s invitation to dialogue.
Even if she says, “What the fuck is your problem?” you can answer: “I’d like to tell you if you’ll simply mirror me…” and then see what happens. My money says she’ll listen.
In fact, based upon the study cited above, my money says that when she asks you what is wrong there generally is something wrong and that you need to talk about it but you are afraid, even upon invitation, to go there and risk the bad scene you have convinced yourself will follow.
Be a better man: go there. Talk about it.
Click on the link and read the article if you doubt me but before you go all Charlie Sheen on me and say “Duh… bitchy” understand that what’s going on here is not conflict based or relationship based, but simply men listening to a woman’s voice recorded over the course of her cycle and being able to (about a statistically signifcant third of the time) identify the recording made during her period. Nota Bene this test was done with voice recordings, so there were no pheromones involved and no body language, this was strictly monkey hear, monkey do.
From a better man perspective this brings up one big point: what’s good for the goose is good for the gander.
In other words if one out of three times you can tell, simply by tone of voice, by timber, by tone, by inflection, by a countless number of unseen tells that something is going on in your wife’s life there is a fair chance that she can do the same, especially if she has other non-verbal clues such as your body language, you eye contact, your facial expression, your footsteps.
Lots of times in our relationship our beloveds come up with a statement like “is something bothering you?” or, in a less loving relationship “what’s wrong with you today” or in a even less satisfying scenario, “what is your fucking problem” and like most guys, given a choice between intimacy and plausable deniability, we go with the latter and say “no dear” “Nothing” or “Mind your own business.”
But what if rather than reverting to type you tried something different? What if rather than avoiding an awkward moment, you embraced it? What if rather than saying “I’m fine” you said “I am always amazed by your intuitiveness and I appreciate your invitation to dialogue,” and then tell her what’s on your mind.
WAIT A SECOND one of you is now thinking, what if something isn’t bothering me. What if I am as happy as a clam on a sandbar? And my response is, AS IF. What are you, a fucking saint? There hasn’t been something that’s been bugging you in your relationship? Do you seriously expect anyone to believe that you haven’t been nursing some viper to your breast, some unspoken anger, some unresolved angst, some slight or hurt which you wish she would recognize and own up to? Trust me, even if you are as happy as an alpiner in new lederhosen, there’s always something there, something that has gone unsaid and is lurking in the shadows waiting for an argument to burst forth and do its worst damage.
Just assume, for the sake of argument, that your wife is blind and deaf and there is no chance in hell that she has picked up on one of your tells, that she hasn’t intuited a sense of conflict or distress, why not take the opportunity? Why not accept the invitation? Why not honor her willingness to hear you by sharing? Why not get that lurking resentment out of the dark and into the open, resolve it and deepen your relationship?
Why not say “there is something that I’ve been struggling with and I appreciate your asking…..”
Now somebody is shaking their head and saying “Hunt, god bless you but you are an idiot, sometimes it is best to leave well enough alone and to simply not go there. If I answer her question honestly, all I will get is an argument.”
And that would be true if you weren’t trying to be the better man, if you still let your anticipation and projections control your actions, if you still made decisions based on fear and not on growth…. But assuming that some of you haven’t read the book, done the work and you haven’t gotten there quite yet let me point out the following.
Leaving well enough alone is just another way of saying stagnation, withdrawal and ultimately divorce. If you want to leave well enough alone then get out of the marriage. If you want to have a better marriage then the status quo will not do: the status quo is why you are miserable and you must act to make your relationship better and that means taking chances, that means honoring your wife’s invitation to dialogue.
Even if she says, “What the fuck is your problem?” you can answer: “I’d like to tell you if you’ll simply mirror me…” and then see what happens. My money says she’ll listen.
In fact, based upon the study cited above, my money says that when she asks you what is wrong there generally is something wrong and that you need to talk about it but you are afraid, even upon invitation, to go there and risk the bad scene you have convinced yourself will follow.
Be a better man: go there. Talk about it.
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