9 Expert Habits to Improve Your Relationships From Neuroscientist Amir Levine
Create a shorthand of expectations “The five pillars of a secure life are: consistent, available, responsive, reliable, and predictable—or CARRP. I have a friend, we’ve been friends for a really, really long time. Around COVID time, there were times when we had ups and downs in that friendship. But now we have this new language of CARRP. “Because of this book launch, I’ve been so busy, and I think he called me twice, and I hadn’t responded. I hadn’t called back. And he called me again the other day, and he said, ‘Well, you haven’t been as responsive. You haven’t been CARRP lately.’ And I owned it. I immediately apologized, and I said, ‘You’re totally right.’ I explained what was going on, and that I’m so sorry. “He said, ‘No, no, it’s fine.’ But, in the past, without having this language, he might have sulked and not said anything. And if he had said something, I probably would’ve responded defensively. And there were periods of our friendship, we’ve been friends for 20 years, that we …
