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Sunday, May 12th, 2013
(by Ivan Tucakov)
Have you seen the movie called “Outsourced”? It’s about a man from Seattle whose work gets outsourced to India where he experiences a big culture shock. To this day, a conversation that the main actor has with the grandmother in India stands out to me and I often bring it up in conversations with friends about North American family ways:
 Grandmother: “My mum used to make great home made costumes..”
Todd: “Its funny. I should think about my parents.”
Grandmother: “You miss them?. Of course.”
Todd: “When I’m home, I don’t miss them at all.”
Grandmother: “Do you see them?”
Todd: “Not much, hardly ever.”
Grandmother: “You don’t live with your parents?”
Todd: “No, they live in Yakima. Which is about 2 hours away.”
Grandmother: “But you see them every week?”
Todd: “No, a few times every year.”
Grandmother: “But why? They’re so close.”
Todd: “I don’t know.”
Grandmother: “Some thing I don’t understand about American life. You don’t live with your parents. Strange.”
(more…)
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Thursday, April 4th, 2013
(by Ivan Tucakov)
 Even I’ve had my share of being affected by the ”being flaky” bug (urban dictionary definition of flaky: unreliable). As I work my way out of this dreadful habit, I ask myself, why I sometimes say “maybe”? Where and how did I pick this up? Had I been doing it so that some event can be in my calendar to remind me in case I feel like going to it (or not) on the day of? Or simply because I don’t want to commit to it because of the “not committing to things trend”? Some of my friends say it’s a west-coast thing. When in Rome, do as the Romans do. Do we self-justify our flakiness because it is so widely accepted in our community to make decisions last minute?
Even facebook events have the “maybe” option. What does this “maybe” really mean and convey? In some cultures and communities people actually mark an event in their calendar and if they hear about a favorite show on that same date, they would see that they have commitments and say “no”. I witness more and more this trend where people accumulate an arsenal of “maybe” events and on the night of, they feel it out to see which event they “might” want to go to, and then “maybe” even decide to bail on all of them and just stay home. Sounds kind of depressing. It is most definitively an interesting habit to examine. Is it good for us to just “go with the flow” or are we in the process of losing something that we are in fact wanting to gain? (more…)
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Tuesday, March 12th, 2013
(by Ivan Tucakov)
 A couple of months ago I wrote a blog where I explored my first hands-on experience with a man passing a sexist comment and my conversation the day after with some women that were affected by it.
I mainly explored what might be going on for the person passing on the sexist comment, and now, to close the loop, I’d like to explore what might be going on for the person on the receiving end of the sexist comment. My intention with creating the full picture of the situation is to support everyone in connecting in a challenging situation like this. It is usually an unpleasant experience for everyone when communication breakdown in these circumstances happens. (more…)
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Saturday, March 9th, 2013
(by Ivan Tucakov)
I’ve just recently learned what the expression “to see red” means. And right around the same time I learned what the word alexithymia meant too. Two are related in such a way that if you have alexithymia, you might likely end up seeing red. In case you are ESL just like I am (although I’m actually ETL), “seeing red” is associated with one becoming angry. And in case you are not a clinical psychotherapist just like I’m not, alexithymia stands for a behavioral trait where one has a difficulty experiencing, expressing, and describing emotions. (more…)
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Saturday, February 9th, 2013
(by Ivan Tucakov)
 Up until last summer I actually did not know what the expression “sexist” meant. We were in a group discussing music, and one female participant said that she loved seeing more and more teenage girls involved in music, as it’s a male dominated world. As she thanked the teenagers who were there for coming, a male friend who was there added, “yah, and you girls are hot too!” At the time I didn’t make much of it. The next day, a female friend approached me and said, “can you believe the nerve on that person, so sexist!” I was a bit surprised, “ah really? That was sexist?” She was taken aback by my response and said, “of course it was.” As I curiously asked, “what really is sexism?”, she got tense, assumed a position, her voice raised, “you really want to bring on this topic!? Are you sure you want to do this!?” Unguardedly, I replied, “totally, I would love to know what sexism is”. (more…)
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Tuesday, January 1st, 2013
 (by Ivan Tucakov)
I recently started visiting a physiotherapist regularly. People asked me whether I was injured. I realized that this had more to do with preventing injury, rather than repairing an injury. It is just like taking a car to a maintenance shop. Our bodies need simple upkeep, especially if we might have slightly pulled a muscle during a strenuous activity or went out of alignment when we lifted some heavy box or did an excessive stretch. Relationships are no different.
(more…)
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Tuesday, December 4th, 2012
(by Ivan Tucakov)
I have been telling friends about these three simple diet rules for over a year now and since I got pretty positive responses, I thought I’d put the word out on the “intraweb” too. Note that these are my personal rules that have worked really well for me. They are not part of some official prescription. (more…)
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Monday, August 20th, 2012
(by Ivan Tucakov)
I hear Gotye and Kibra’s song “Somebody that I used to know” everywhere, any time I’m around a radio, public places, at yoga studios, people sing it all around, a grand-hit masterpiece with great singers, awesome arrangement, twinkle-twinkle-little-star intro and of course, great lyrics, plus 300 million hits on youtube. Even my friends’ five year old daughter knows all the lyrics in and out and she’d asked them to explain to her what the song is about. And what is this song really about? What is it that people relate to in this song so much? Why is a song with a message like this so viral? How does it end up going from “feeling so happy one could die”, to believing that one person is “screwing the other over”? Pretty much everyone has experienced this sort of disconnect at some point.
(more…)
Sunday, May 20th, 2012
 (by Ivan Tucakov)
It has been a while since I have read a book that made as much impact on me as Olga Sheean’s “Fit for Love” has. It also came at the right time and place in my life and from the right person. If you are really willing to take on a serious journey within and do a healthy, strenuous emotional workout, I highly recommend this read. The book is short, to the point, and allows the reader to go through its concise chapters quickly and spend more time reflecting on things rather than get distracted with a large amount of writing that most books tend to have.
(more…)
Sunday, April 22nd, 2012
(by Ivan Tucakov)
With all the “occupy” movements these days, it’d been increasingly on my mind how I can contribute in my way. One thing I believe we all need to do is find the best possible tools that educate people to be foremost compassionate, self-aware, respectful, and additionally also fair, logical, assertive, strong and resourceful. We need to learn these ways of living and work on creating a good life for our immediate communities, and people closest to us and strategically and insistently educate others, especially our children. As it spreads, it can bring forth a life of wellbeing through some of the most basic human needs for everyone, especially when we address big world problems where we reach out to the people who seem to be caught up in the big money rat-race and want our voice to be heard.
(more…)
Tags: Bruce Patton, Getting to Yes, Ivan Tucakov, Marshall Rosenberg, Mindful Connection Method, Negotiation, Nonviolent Communication, NVC, Principled Negotiation Method, Roger Fisher, William L. Ury, Yes to Connection
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Grandmother: “My mum used to make great home made costumes..”
