"Wounds from a friend can be trusted, but an enemy multiplies kisses." - Proverbs 27:6
"Whoever says to the wicked, 'You are in the right,' will be cursed by peoples, abhorred by nations, but those who rebuke the wicked will have delight, and a good blessing will come upon them. Whoever gives an honest answer kisses the lips." - Proverbs 24:24-26
My summary: speaking up for the truth is better and more loving than staying silent or lying to spare someone's feelings. I remind myself because a few nights ago I delivered some honest and direct feedback to a near-stranger (I'll call her M) about her behavior. For this post, I mingle all the following kinds of things: speaking up for the truth, boundary-setting, criticism, saying, "no" to a request, and honestly saying, "here's how your behavior (negatively) affected me."
I know what it feels like to have someone level with you when you're not used to it. It hurts. It can feel embarrassing and/or make you angry. (I certainly think that turned out to be the case for M. She also told me I had been rude.) Yet I'm glad to have pushed (or to have been pushed) through by being spoken to honestly, because it's made my life more productive and more pleasant. There's freedom and safety when people are respectfully straight-up with you. In my younger and more insecure days, I feared corrective criticism, thinking it meant a loss of love. Turns out the opposite is true. Where criticism is offered in love, it is safe to keep risking failure and become your best self, which is the business of living. When someone thinks you can do better, you're motivated to improve. I may not have been close to M, but my response was a blend of love for both of us: making sure her irritating behavior didn't continue around me (caring for myself) and letting her know how she was being received (seeking the best for her). I won't go into much more detail, but my intentions were all good. I knew there was a risk she'd be hurt, but my desire was to help her, not to harm her, and given the available information, I thought the potential benefit outweighed the risk. I acted knowing that in the course of my life I once hated negative feedback and later felt grateful for it.
Times I've set a boundary or said no to someone despite temptation to say what they wanted to hear created a short time of pain followed by an endless time of relief. Times I said what the other person wanted to hear when it wasn't true or didn't reflect what I wanted created a moment of relief followed by an extended time of feeling trapped in a worsening problem. In retrospect, it's extremely easy to see the better choice, yet in the moment it's still tempting to tell a white lie. But lying to spare feelings creates a second problem. The original one, serious enough you lied, hasn't disappeared, and now that you've lied, you'll either die without having come clean or face the music at some point and have to deal with it in an exaggerated form.
This article pointed me to some romantically-inspired statistics that support this idea. Dr. Hannah Fry of University College London delved into the "mathematics of love," and was surprised to find that, "couples who have a ‘low negativity threshold’ – or in other words complain about things that annoy them readily... are less likely to trouble the divorce courts. Dr. Fry said: ‘I thought that a high threshold of negativity, where you let things go on and let your partner 'be themselves', would be more successful. But the exact opposite is true. The couples who end up doing best have a really low negativity threshold. When things bother them they speak up immediately and don’t let small things spill out of control.’"
She learned about the negativity threshold from the work of Dr. John Gottman, a marriage and family therapist who has conducted extensive research. This particular study lasted for years. "Looking at the negativity threshold helped the researchers predict which couples would get divorced with an impressive 90 per cent accuracy. The researchers compared 'repairing' problems in a marriage to treating a small scratch early, which is better for your health than dealing with it when it has become badly infected."
TV show characters lie to spare feelings every couple of minutes (at least on the shows I watch)! This is probably because such behavior inevitably creates tension and drama, which advances a plot, but in real life it's not funny to have massive relational and professional problems, so I try to use them as cautionary tales instead of models.
The "bring it up when it's small" approach has been effective for me when I manage to use it. I tell myself, "if they're mad, they'll get over it, and if they don't, they might not be in a place to have a healthy relationship right now: good to know." M chose to end contact with me, and when she did I literally said "hallelujah" aloud (don't worry, it was over text, so she didn't hear me). In other words, that outcome was a gain, not a loss. The good options were change or parting ways. Change seemed unlikely but possible. The only negative outcome would be no change and no parting of the ways. Other recent "no"s have protected me from a pushy Facebook friendship and from giving time and money to a cause I couldn't support. These little situations were awkward, but now register as small blips in my memory. I doubt if I'd caved and said "yes" I'd feel the same now.
In case my celebration of saying no sounds negative, I want to emphasize that the reason for saying no is to serve the big yeses in life: yes to living authentically, yes to healthy relationships, yes to free time and rest, yes to self-esteem and self-trust. You can't get to these yeses without some serious no action!
Showing posts with label communication. Show all posts
Showing posts with label communication. Show all posts
Sunday, 26 June 2016
Tuesday, 21 June 2016
Ways to Know People
Strange that I can tell which one of my parents is coming up the stairs just by the pattern of footfalls, but they still remain so unknown to me in other ways.
This weekend we three were sitting around my smallish white Ikea table after breakfast. I'd made them some fake Larabars, which I brought out on a tray. My father complained that they were yellow and only tasted one at my insistence. "What flavor is this?" he demanded before taking a bite.
"Try to guess," I replied. "It's something familiar." I thought he liked carrot cake, but I didn't have any specific memory to validate this.
"You're telling me I am familiar with whatever makes these yellow?"
"First of all, they're orange, and second of all, yes."
"He won't be able to guess without more clues," put in my mother.
"Why not?" I asked.
"It's not in his personality."
I had no idea how to connect those dots, but trusted to the accumulated wisdom of their marriage and offered the giveaway clue as he took his second bite. After identifying the flavor, he casually said he didn't like quizzes about food. Clearly, my mom had known that. I didn't know how she knew, or how I didn't know it, since I love to orchestrate moments of discovery and must have asked him to guess other foods before.
I'm not sure how to delineate the different realms of knowing another person, with their unclear borders, but I'm sure that one of them can only be reached in the presence of love. Love as a willingness to put yourself aside and see the other person as they are, not as what you are. I have been arrested in my ability to know a specific family member by a lack of love for them. They're older than me and I think they should know how to treat people better. While the "should" thoughts are present, I'm distracted and miss out on clearly seeing what's already there.
There's physical, everyday knowing of coworkers, teammates, family members, whether you feel you love them or not. It's why I could match the backs of the legs of my cross-country teammates with their faces and somehow knew what everyone's feet looked like on my soccer teams. It allows us to distinguish the voice of each person we know, even when we know so many people.
It takes wisdom to balance a person's self-revelation with your observations. It isn't always true that no one knows you better than you know yourself. Perhaps on balance that is the case, but humans have an incredible capacity for denial (I know this intimately from both sides) or ignorance and have a funhouse-warped view of themselves unless others weigh in honestly. Someone wisely observed that there are things a stranger spots about you in 30 seconds that you could go your whole life not realizing about yourself.
So self-revelation is not the whole picture, but there is a pocket of emotional and inner truth that can only be accessed and shared with the world by its possessor. This means our ability to know another is in some way limited by that person's level of self-awareness. I have known multiple people who could not be connected with on a deeper emotional level than they accessed "on their own time." These were shallow relationships despite plenty of the other forms of knowing. No matter what strategies you employ, no matter how vulnerable you make yourself, connecting (by definition, mutual) can only be as deep as the shallowest or most inhibited person involved.
Lastly, Real People. This is a difficult concept to articulate. Over the years, some friends have reacted to my lengthy explanation with recognition, though they hadn't had words for it. One such friend lived in the same small community as I. We stayed up late one night listing and discussing people and found we had almost complete overlap (though she was more charitable than I) as to who the Real People around us were. I concluded that Real People was a real thing.
What are Real People? I offer these general guidelines:
1. Real People are able to understand how others might feel, and incorporate this into their speech and action. Usually a person who will speak at length about themself without posing any questions to you is not a Real Person.
2. They don't hold you at arm's length. They don't necessarily divulge every detail of their lives, or even much at all in terms of personal plans or information, but they are willing to admit to being happy or sad or hungry and they let you be things too, without automatically trying to talk you out of it.
3. Real People seem more alive and present than other people. They don't automatically try to edit their emotions out of a situation; they understand that emotions are the situation. Would "emotionally intelligent" be interchangeable with "Real"? I think not. A therapist, during a session with a client, would not be a Real Person except in flickers. Counseling is too arm's-length and one-sided, even if the counselor is healthy and emotionally intelligent. Also, I've known and heard of people who could identify emotion in others but not experience it themselves, and that is not how Real People act.
4. The shortest definition I can give is that Real People get it. Understanding this definition is a litmus test of sorts. If despite hearing the descriptions listed above, a lengthy definition of "it" is needed, that can indicate the person might not get it. Perhaps a trait of Real People is comprehending the concept of Real People. This is the least sure guideline on the list, because language use differs from person to person. I've known some Real People from other countries with varying levels of English ability. However, a person's way of using language often reveals if they're a Real Person or not. I can't articulate how--this is one of those aspects that's hardest to explain, so it didn't get its own bullet point. Anyway, if someone's grasp of English is weaker, it can take longer to discover that they're Real, since they may talk like they're not.
A world without Real People would be suffocating and depressing on the level of--and I don't say this lightly--inducing suicidal thoughts. In my childhood, Real People were rare, Real adults almost nonexistent from my vantage, but I was lucky to find some in the form of peers, and they gave me hope that I wasn't alone in the world. I've since become more lenient. I haven't thought about Real People in a while; I no longer divide the world so starkly. I acknowledge the meanness inherent in this term, and of course all people deserve always to be treated as people. Yet not everyone is able or willing to engage authentically with the world and with others. And those who hold back their authentic engagement, I think, can't be truly known.
This weekend we three were sitting around my smallish white Ikea table after breakfast. I'd made them some fake Larabars, which I brought out on a tray. My father complained that they were yellow and only tasted one at my insistence. "What flavor is this?" he demanded before taking a bite.
"Try to guess," I replied. "It's something familiar." I thought he liked carrot cake, but I didn't have any specific memory to validate this.
"You're telling me I am familiar with whatever makes these yellow?"
"First of all, they're orange, and second of all, yes."
"He won't be able to guess without more clues," put in my mother.
"Why not?" I asked.
"It's not in his personality."
I had no idea how to connect those dots, but trusted to the accumulated wisdom of their marriage and offered the giveaway clue as he took his second bite. After identifying the flavor, he casually said he didn't like quizzes about food. Clearly, my mom had known that. I didn't know how she knew, or how I didn't know it, since I love to orchestrate moments of discovery and must have asked him to guess other foods before.
I'm not sure how to delineate the different realms of knowing another person, with their unclear borders, but I'm sure that one of them can only be reached in the presence of love. Love as a willingness to put yourself aside and see the other person as they are, not as what you are. I have been arrested in my ability to know a specific family member by a lack of love for them. They're older than me and I think they should know how to treat people better. While the "should" thoughts are present, I'm distracted and miss out on clearly seeing what's already there.
There's physical, everyday knowing of coworkers, teammates, family members, whether you feel you love them or not. It's why I could match the backs of the legs of my cross-country teammates with their faces and somehow knew what everyone's feet looked like on my soccer teams. It allows us to distinguish the voice of each person we know, even when we know so many people.
It takes wisdom to balance a person's self-revelation with your observations. It isn't always true that no one knows you better than you know yourself. Perhaps on balance that is the case, but humans have an incredible capacity for denial (I know this intimately from both sides) or ignorance and have a funhouse-warped view of themselves unless others weigh in honestly. Someone wisely observed that there are things a stranger spots about you in 30 seconds that you could go your whole life not realizing about yourself.
So self-revelation is not the whole picture, but there is a pocket of emotional and inner truth that can only be accessed and shared with the world by its possessor. This means our ability to know another is in some way limited by that person's level of self-awareness. I have known multiple people who could not be connected with on a deeper emotional level than they accessed "on their own time." These were shallow relationships despite plenty of the other forms of knowing. No matter what strategies you employ, no matter how vulnerable you make yourself, connecting (by definition, mutual) can only be as deep as the shallowest or most inhibited person involved.
Lastly, Real People. This is a difficult concept to articulate. Over the years, some friends have reacted to my lengthy explanation with recognition, though they hadn't had words for it. One such friend lived in the same small community as I. We stayed up late one night listing and discussing people and found we had almost complete overlap (though she was more charitable than I) as to who the Real People around us were. I concluded that Real People was a real thing.
What are Real People? I offer these general guidelines:
1. Real People are able to understand how others might feel, and incorporate this into their speech and action. Usually a person who will speak at length about themself without posing any questions to you is not a Real Person.
2. They don't hold you at arm's length. They don't necessarily divulge every detail of their lives, or even much at all in terms of personal plans or information, but they are willing to admit to being happy or sad or hungry and they let you be things too, without automatically trying to talk you out of it.
3. Real People seem more alive and present than other people. They don't automatically try to edit their emotions out of a situation; they understand that emotions are the situation. Would "emotionally intelligent" be interchangeable with "Real"? I think not. A therapist, during a session with a client, would not be a Real Person except in flickers. Counseling is too arm's-length and one-sided, even if the counselor is healthy and emotionally intelligent. Also, I've known and heard of people who could identify emotion in others but not experience it themselves, and that is not how Real People act.
4. The shortest definition I can give is that Real People get it. Understanding this definition is a litmus test of sorts. If despite hearing the descriptions listed above, a lengthy definition of "it" is needed, that can indicate the person might not get it. Perhaps a trait of Real People is comprehending the concept of Real People. This is the least sure guideline on the list, because language use differs from person to person. I've known some Real People from other countries with varying levels of English ability. However, a person's way of using language often reveals if they're a Real Person or not. I can't articulate how--this is one of those aspects that's hardest to explain, so it didn't get its own bullet point. Anyway, if someone's grasp of English is weaker, it can take longer to discover that they're Real, since they may talk like they're not.
A world without Real People would be suffocating and depressing on the level of--and I don't say this lightly--inducing suicidal thoughts. In my childhood, Real People were rare, Real adults almost nonexistent from my vantage, but I was lucky to find some in the form of peers, and they gave me hope that I wasn't alone in the world. I've since become more lenient. I haven't thought about Real People in a while; I no longer divide the world so starkly. I acknowledge the meanness inherent in this term, and of course all people deserve always to be treated as people. Yet not everyone is able or willing to engage authentically with the world and with others. And those who hold back their authentic engagement, I think, can't be truly known.
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