We have discovered a couple of great little books written by David Niven, Ph.d. entitled “The 100 simple secrets of Happy People” and “The 100 simple secrets of Happy Families”. The most interesting thing about these “secrets” is that they are all based on research. We will post a weekly tip at the ranch and here for you to consider…
Every relationship is different.
If you’ve been disappointed by strained relations with a friend or loved one, you must realize that each relationship is unique. Don’t let tension with one person convince you that you lack the ability to be a good friend or a loving family member.
We don’t all just get along. People have different personalities and temperaments – that’s what makes life interesting, but also challenging. Many of our client have had difficult relationships with their families and struggle with understanding what it is about them that has caused the problem.
Through our work with horses we help our clients 
understand that not every person or horse in our lives will be a good fit and that this doesn’t mean that their is something wrong with them.
Though each of our horses are wonderful therapy partners our clients often discover that they are drawn to a specific horse. They may not be able to verbalize ‘why,’ but they know that Baxter (or Ruby, or Mystic, or Sammy, or Kody) is the horse for them. It’s interesting 
that this initial attraction can often tell us something about the client and that the client may ultimately discover that, though they were first drawn to a specific horse, another horse is truly a better fit. We help them see that deciding to try another horse does not mean that a client no
longer cares about the horse they have been working with. It just means that there may be a horse that is more in tune with the client’s needs and personality. This is all part of the process and part of our job in helping to guide and facilitate the client’s growth and learning with the horses.
Researcher found there were no differences in overall happiness between those who mainly relied upon friends for companionship and those who mainly relied on family. People have the capacity to create happiness from the relationships available to them and do not need all their relationships to fit an ideal image.
Takahashi, Tamura, and Tokoror 1997