Had a breakthrough last night. Ali was upset, and I was her problem. We sat down to talk about it and I listened to her words. They all seemed so real but unreal at the same time.

Ali was looking for reasons for the way she felt. She was looking outside of herself to find them. It was obvious that she had not listend to anything i have been trying to tell her about looking inwardly.

So I was the subject of her problems and she was saying all these provocational things to me, and for each one I could see an obvious answer and that answer would have been to defend myself and return the attack. However I did not take the obvious answer as the one to run with on all but one occasion. Instead I searched for an alternative; a non offensive yet truthful answer.

I kept doing this, letting her ask me questions and putting the blame on me, and I just let her. It was a new experience for me.

So we managed to take the conversation round to the point where Ali was prepared to accept that it was not my fault and instead she would have to treat me differently, and we did all this through her logic and reasoning, rather than mine. Time will tell if she actually believes her own logic over mine but there is a fair chance that it will sink in this time.

I was so impressed with firstly my ability to just let things run their course and not enforce my logic on them, and secondly I was so happy that Ali can think the way I do about stuff and can work things out in her head without anyones help. I now completely trust her to do this, which I had previously thought unlikely.

I also completely trust in this way of talking to her.