Relational Mechanics

by P. Douglas Lane

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  • Remorse, Regret, and Amends
    A real apology has three parts, remorse, regret, and amends, and each one depends on the self-respect to look honestly at your own part.
  • You Go Inside to Resolve. You Go Outside to Dissolve.
    How a problem between two people travels decides whether it can be settled. Taking it to a third party tends to break the relationship apart rather than fix it.
  • Sympathy Feeds the Ego
    Sympathy is feeling sorry for someone. Empathy is feeling with them. Only one of them helps a person build self-respect.
  • Life Isn’t Fair, But You Can Be
    Most of us keep score on life by Right, Win, or Fair. The measure we lean on decides how much control we have and whether we can value the people around us.
  • Why the Victim Can’t
    The victim mentality blocks a person from valuing anyone, themselves included. Self-respect is what makes the victim clause hard to keep.
  • The Two Mirrors
    The mirror of self-esteem and the mirror of self-respect show different things, and which one you stand in front of shapes how you measure yourself and everyone around you.
  • We Love What We Value
    Love isn’t where a relationship starts. Respect drives value, and value is what we come to love.
  • Adapt, Migrate, or Die
    When a boundary is set and tested, a relationship moves in one of three directions. Relational Mechanics calls this the natural law of relational survival.
  • You Can’t Respect What You Don’t Respect in Yourself
    Relational Mechanics describes three operating states between people, Respect, Fear, and Absence, and each one starts with how much respect you hold for yourself.
  • Self-Esteem Was Never the Answer
    Self-esteem rises and falls with other people’s approval, so it breaks under pressure. Self-respect is a standard you hold for yourself, and it has to be developed.

The glossary

Every term in the framework, one short page each: what the dictionary says, how Relational Mechanics uses it, and where to read more.

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