Masters and Disasters - the 6 steps to creating powerful relationships.

1. Gentle Vs. Blaming: In discussion, the Masters are usually very gentle with one another when they raise an issue.
They took responsibility for even a small part of the problem. While the Disasters were blaming and pointing fingers and were critical.
They were diagnosing their partners personality defects and were hoping that this will be appreciated by their partner.

2. Defensiveness - The Disaster will attempt to block any perceived criticism, even gentle and constructive.
They become defensive , deny any fault and blame or they whine and present themselves as an innocent victim.
They raise a counter attack. The Masters do the opposite. They say "Interesting, tell me more, what do you think
is our problem and how did I contribute to this".

3. Contempt - which is any statement coming from a superior place. You feel better then your partner and you
are speaking down. The alarming part is the health hazard to the one who is the subject of the contempt and direct
correlation with stress related diseases.

4. The Stone Waller - The one who disconnects with no expression of body language to show that he/she is actively listening.

5. Ability to repair - The important factor of the success was the recipient of the repair.
The success was the quality of the friendship in the relationship.

6. Turning! In life you need to make the right turns. Gottman defines three types of responses to what the partner says:

The RIGHT TURN:

Turn TOWARDS - It means to react in a responsive, interested and loving way to a bid for emotional
connection. The result of consistently turning toward your partner is that you develop stable, long-lasting relationships rich
in good feelings for one another.Gottman’s research found that couples who were turning towards each other manges
conflicts much better and got stronger. We all make errors and conflicts are inevitable.The

WRONG TURNS:

Turn AGAINST - Respond negatively in an argumentative way and/or use sarcasm, put downs or make fun of a person to
make their point. A person on the receiving end of a turning-against response will probably pull away from the conversation
and even the relationship. No one wants to be made fun of or snapped at—especially by someone they love.

Turn AWAY - Ignore. Gottman’s research found that turning-away from a partner’s bid on a regular basis usually damage a
elationship, partners become aggressive or self protective and high chance of breaking the relationship

In the end it comes down to the one question - ARE you there for them?  Accessible, Responsive, and Engaged.  If you ARE, 
you will never turn away, or be a disaster.