{"id":695,"date":"2009-07-12T17:52:36","date_gmt":"2009-07-12T17:52:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/onecity\/2009\/07\/are-you-sure.html"},"modified":"2009-07-12T17:52:36","modified_gmt":"2009-07-12T17:52:36","slug":"are-you-sure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/2009\/07\/are-you-sure.html","title":{"rendered":"Are You Sure?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span>I was craving a little dharma reading the other day and picked Thich Nhat Hanh&#8217;s <i>Teachings on Love<\/i> off my book shelf. I&#8217;ve also recently started dating someone, so I thought it might provide a little preventative care and help me to approach my relationship more mindfully.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><br \/>\n<span class=\"mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"mt-image-center\" height=\"280\" alt=\"teachingsonlove.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/124\/import\/teachingsonlove.jpg\" width=\"188\" \/><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p><span>I&#8217;m still in the process of reading it, but I did want to share one piece of advice that I&#8217;ve already incorporated and which seems to be helping. In the section on self-love, he discusses the importance of meditating on our perceptions and points out that it is often our faulty perceptions which cause us to suffer. He advises writing the sentence &#8220;Are you sure?&#8221; on a piece of paper and taping it to the wall. While this may seem a little strange to house guests, I thought it was really smart advice, especially when entering into a romantic relationship. Lots of quick assumptions are made and it seems like good practice to slow down and contemplate the evidence backing up our perceptions.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Yesterday as I was entering the subway, I received a text from the significant other that could have been interpreted in quite a few ways. (As an aside, I think &#8220;are you sure?&#8221; is especially useful in regard to texts and e-mails which can easily be misinterpreted.) Anyway, I immediately got that &#8220;something&#8217;s wrong, this was too good to be true feeling&#8221;. I texted back to clarify, but was then going to be underground for a while precluding an immediate response. This did allow me some time to think and as I glanced at the book in my bag, I was reminded of the advice and slowed down. First, I realized that assuming that the text in question was directly related to me or us was self-centered and that I was in fact not sure at all what was going on. It was also a good opportunity to recognize clinging and attachment. Relationships are impermanent (some more than others) and if we can accept that, we can approach them with far less anxiety.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>The end of the story is that it didn&#8217;t have anything to do with me or us and I was able to listen and provide support and we had a lovely date. Had I arrived upset, the evening might have taken an unnecessary detour. So, whether you tape it to your wall or not, good and useful advice nonetheless.&nbsp;<span>&nbsp;<\/span><span>&nbsp;<\/span><span>&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I was craving a little dharma reading the other day and picked Thich Nhat Hanh&#8217;s Teachings on Love off my book shelf. I&#8217;ve also recently started dating someone, so I thought it might provide a little preventative care and help me to approach my relationship more mindfully.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":183,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-695","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-talking-dharma"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Are You Sure? - One City<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/2009\/07\/are-you-sure.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Are You Sure? - One City\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I was craving a little dharma reading the other day and picked Thich Nhat Hanh&#8217;s Teachings on Love off my book shelf. I&#8217;ve also recently started dating someone, so I thought it might provide a little preventative care and help me to approach my relationship more mindfully.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/2009\/07\/are-you-sure.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"One City\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-07-12T17:52:36+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/onecity\/files\/import\/teachingsonlove.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Denise M. Abatemarco\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Are You Sure? - One City","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/2009\/07\/are-you-sure.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Are You Sure? - One City","og_description":"I was craving a little dharma reading the other day and picked Thich Nhat Hanh&#8217;s Teachings on Love off my book shelf. 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Abatemarco","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/2009\/07\/are-you-sure.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/2009\/07\/are-you-sure.html","name":"Are You Sure? - One City","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/2009\/07\/are-you-sure.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/2009\/07\/are-you-sure.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/onecity\/files\/import\/teachingsonlove.jpg","datePublished":"2009-07-12T17:52:36+00:00","dateModified":"2009-07-12T17:52:36+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/#\/schema\/person\/410481dc46ac0882ab24d63807722338"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/2009\/07\/are-you-sure.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/2009\/07\/are-you-sure.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/2009\/07\/are-you-sure.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/onecity\/files\/import\/teachingsonlove.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/onecity\/files\/import\/teachingsonlove.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/2009\/07\/are-you-sure.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Are You Sure?"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/","name":"One City","description":"The Interdependence Project","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/#\/schema\/person\/410481dc46ac0882ab24d63807722338","name":"Denise M. Abatemarco","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/f3b\/f3b5a24aa55fd736473295ad910130d1x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/f3b\/f3b5a24aa55fd736473295ad910130d1x96.jpg","caption":"Denise M. Abatemarco"},"description":"Denise has a bachelor\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s in Communications and Psychology from The College of New Rochelle and a master\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s in Humanities and Social Thought from The Draper Program at NYU. She is currently pursuing a second master\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s in mental health counseling from Brooklyn College and hopes to one day have her own private practice. Her primary interests include gender and queer theory, the intersections of psychoanalysis and Buddhism and the psychology of intimacy. Denise began meditating and studying Buddhism in 2005 and shortly thereafter discovered the ID Project where she has been practicing ever since.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/author\/dabatemarco"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/695","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/183"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=695"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/695\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}