Nat

I am going to lead, moderately emphatically, with: this is not a recommendation for this book (which in any case I haven't finished). The strapline is "how successful couples turn conflict into connection"; it was published in 2024. As recessional has pointed out to me, some of what's going on is that their target audience is specifically people who are treating each other shittily but don't want to break up/divorce/etc, and do want to learn to do better, but don't have the tools for how.

I, however, am very much coming from a perspective of being much more inclined to push for, if not breakups, the idea that there exists unacceptable behaviour one gets to just nope out over, and also of the tradition of DBT workbooks where there is a heavy emphasis on explicitly acknowledging, out loud, with your words, that the shit you just did is not okay.

All of this having been said, there are two things about this book (so far) that I Must Share.

The first is about a tool the (Schwarz) Gottmans' research group uses. Their research group, for context, is called the Love Lab.

Much of the data and observations about couples in conflict in this book comes from our decades of work in the Love Lab and from other important and groundbreaking observational studies by ourselves and other researchers. But now we are getting even more sophisticated and granular information from the AI we trained with John's emotional coding system, called SPAFF, short for Specific Affect Coding System.

... the second, I say, moving swiftly on, is that a little further on in the book I have encountered a genuinely new-to-me evopsych argument: that because of evolutionary pressures it is men who get Extremely Emotional very quickly, and take a long time to calm back down and reach a point where they can engage rationally again!

... At this point: He's flooded. She's flooded. Both hearts are hammering hard; adrenaline is zinging through their veins. Stan's physiological response has ratcheted up and overwhelmed him even faster than Susan's, and he'll take a lot longer to come down from it.

Here's why: For evolutionary reasons having to do with protecting the tribe and hunting dangerous animals for food, our prehistoric male ancestors gained a survival advantage by being able to quickly mount and sustain an adrenaline-packed response to danger. Those with this rapid response were better able to fight off enemies and hunt for food, and because they were better survivors, their genes were more likely to get passed down and eventually inherited by our men today. That kind of enduring fight-or-flight response might have helped Stan's distant ancestors survive, but it isn't doing him any favors now.

tl;dr for all that I regularly kind of want to throw it across the room there are some amazing moments in this thing. I'm only about halfway through! WHO KNOWS what wonders await me!!!

Reading. Max Gladstone: I have finished Wicked Problems and am now most of the way through Dead Hand Rule, and have been remembering why it is that I'm feeling so much less fannish about these later books than the earlier ones. ( Read more... )

The library has just delivered unto my auxiliary internet device Fight Right (Julie Schwarz Gottman and John Gottman). I... cannot remember where I saw this recommended, I think in another piece of non-fiction I was reading but I can't remember what, so like... watch this space for how grumpy it makes me, I suppose?

Eating. Everything Has Been Too Warm, but: this week's most adventurous culinary wossname has probably, tragically, been The Protein Powder. Thus far I do not hate it but jury's out on whether it is actually a useful addition to my diet...

Exploring. I have been poking around new routes back from the gym and on my most recent journey found a delightful twisty little path including, among other things, walnuts.

Growing. ... I have watered the plants at home?

No, c'mon, self: the lemongrass is actually thoroughly established and I'm very pleased about it. The aubergines desperately need potting up but are also not dead. The poblano is fruiting merrily on the patio. Some things grow.

Observing. BATS: last night we heard something that might have been a soprano pip social call? Or might have been a noctule? We are not at all sure because we didn't get to hear much of it. But: bat!

1. consumèd the last of my birthday cake <3
2. supermarket supplied More Cut Price Pistachio Croissants for More Indulgent Luxury Breakfast
3. A is very very good in particular (I went Quite Wrong on Wednesday night; tonight we debriefed and achieved many communication and I think none blame)
4. the weather is a bit cooler and it was extremely pleasant to be outside for Evening Constitutional
5. brain appears to be allowing me to read a tiny bit of fiction, which is a nice change!!!

Pilates on the terrace: delightful, except that every time I stopped weighing the mat down with my personal body (due to, for example, lifting up a limb to wave it around) the wind started folding it back up under me.

Pilates more generally: realised today that in addition to normally doing clam and hip stretches at the end of Pilates, and the current Hip Trouble having started after a couple of weeks of not managing that part of the routine because I was only getting as far as doing my bare minimum get-on-the-mat-and-breathe... a whole bunch of the movements incorporate, essentially, sciatic nerve glides. There's another entry to the list of But What Has Pilates Ever Done For Us...

Meanwhile I am out of routine and therefore also eating less protein than I've been managing upcountry, and o have just for the first time since the initial DOMS wound up with post-gym soreness. I have a horrid feeling that my medium term future might contain protein powder; in the short term, dinner was heavy on eggs and tofu.

And, regarding DOMS, last night's "... huh" was about the (extent of) overlap of symptoms and progression with those of post-exertional malaise. This is not yet a fully-formed thought, but it's definitely trying to be a thought. (As part of the theme of "a whole bunch of the experiences of disabled people around embodiment actually do form a continuum with those of the temporarily able bodied, and so do management strategies".)