We know what we need to do, in theory, to give our companion a repeated taste of the acceptability of their true flavour in music, pasta, friendship or existence. The problem is that we tend to get so upset when we stumble on examples of incongruent behaviour that we do precisely the opposite. We lose our tempers at their subterfuges and thereby enforce their very worst fears, that honesty never pays, that they must just lie better next time. Humour may have to be the answer. As early as we can, we need to give them a toy chameleon as a gift and send the animals as emojis with a question mark whenever they outline their wishes for the weekend or show deep enthusiasm for our career plans. We have to show that a clash in views need not be a catastrophe, that when there is genuine love, of the kind there never was at their origins, differences can be survivable, that in a functioning relationship, an argument is always better than a lie.

And the question is, is the bathwater as we're looking at what's going on in the Middle East and we're looking what's happening in America under kind of right wing Christianity, is the bathwater so bad with these, especially two, but even three religions that we need to throw the baby out because the bathwater is so bad, meaning that these religions are so incongruent with a modern world that is built, like it's just so bad for human thriving in this modern world that we essentially should let it go.

When the language you use internally is too abstract or disconnected from your actual experience, the brain flags it as incongruent and it doesn't activate the neural systems responsible for real change.