To Speak or Not to Speak – That Is the Question (When To Press Pause)

October 24, 2021 Mike MacConnell

“I try not to react, but one day I’m afraid I’m going to burst. Arguing just makes it worse.”

Every couple struggles at times to communicate. Some boil in silence; others snap back defensively. But lasting connection is built out of small, daily, often unnoticed efforts of patience and restraint that enable you to listen with respect and speak your mind clearly.

Instead of cold forbearance and withdrawal or hot counter-attack, try pivoting instead toward genuine curiosity about the other person’s feelings. Listening with deep sincerity is the first step toward an honest conversation. That’s when a couple can collaborate.

It’s hard to know how and when to speak, yet at some point, speak we must. The challenge to decide when to speak and when to let it pass requires an effort. Here are a few tips to make it easier.

If you tend to push at difficult topics:

Ask yourself about your intention. Are you trying to prove you’re right, explain yourself or push to a solution? If so, save your words for later.

If your goal is to work through a problem and to do so together, then the following tips help direct the conversation toward a deeper understanding:

· Inquire into their feelings and what matters to them right now

· Ask about what they would have liked, what they wish would have happened

· Name something specific you observed and ask what its impact was on them

· Summarize what you are hearing to check in if you are hearing correctly

If you tend to avoid difficult topics:

If silence is your fallback, try to keep in mind that all emotions are legitimate. They deserve to be heard. More than that, they offer a window into our deepest needs. Speaking about them will accelerate you and your partner’s awareness of what matters.

Negative emotions rise out of healthy needs that aren’t being met. They are worth exploring together to find more skilful ways to meet them. To get a healthy conversation going, the points above will help you to “get” what matters to the other. But chances are, you haven’t been heard. To help them “get” your viewpoint regarding the issue or conflict at hand:

· Begin with a positive quality of the other that is honest and relevant

· Identify the emotional impact, for you, of a specific thing that happened

· Identify the underlying need, belief or value that matters to you and caused the feeling to arise

· Ask the other person to summarize what they have heard you say

· Inquire about their comments or questions and viewpoint

Beware of concluding too quickly that because you’re struggling you must be with the wrong person. Struggle sparks change and motivates growth. Resenting or avoiding the hard conversations can cause you to miss the fact that those difficulties can take you to a deeper place of intimacy and understanding. We need to be tested to discover who we are capable of becoming.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Mike MacConnell, founder of Reflective Mediation, is an accredited family mediator, conflict coach, educator and author. He is the highest-ranked mediator on Google in the greater Toronto area, with over 180 5-star reviews. To book your free consultation click here.

In Search of Happiness? Then Sit First with Sadness

September 29, 2021 Mike MacConnell

My friend is trying to find happiness and worries he is failing. In the eyes of the world, he’s a success: a gifted young professional supported by a warm partner, family and friends. When he’s busy he feels fine. Yet in quiet moments of reflection those external markers of success only make him feel emptier. “What’s wrong with me?”, he often wonders, “Shouldn’t my accomplishments be enough?”

His solution has been to push harder, work longer hours, train harder at the gym, take extra courses and do volunteer work in his community. He hopes, by doing more, to drown out the doubts, to feel worthy and find peace.

He isn’t a client, but knows I’m a life coach whose work is to help others make desired changes. He came to me for advice. I listened first to understand the change he wanted and after a few meetings I was able to respond. The advice I offered went something like this.

“We live in a culture that embraces observable, external success, that encourages doing more, acquiring or accomplishing measurable things. It works for some people. For you, however, the journey for meaning is inward. You need to continue performing in the world. Keep doing that. Then give yourself a break. Make time to stop doing.

It takes courage to stand still in the mess, “to sit with discomfort without trying to fix it”. My friend has been trying to fill the void by doing more and more. That’s worthy, but it’s only half the story for those of us working to ward off low-level depression. He encouraged me to continue.

“Time to try doing les and face the negative emotions that arise when you slow down. Practise sitting still, facing the sadness, the fear, the uncertainty, before rushing to distract yourself with another task.

Even for just 5 minutes a day. It’s an exercise in emotional acceptance, a recognition that uncomfortable emotion is part of who we are. Study where the feeling lives in your body. Sit with it. Then watch as the emotion drifts away, unable to hurt you once you stop fearing it.”

My friend’s unhappiness arises in part from unrealistic demands he places on himself. He sees his distress as a failing, something that shouldn’t be there. I urged him to honour the sorrow without pushing it away.

A healthy identity encompasses the full palette of emotion. Sadness does NOT define who he is, but in its place it’s an honest, healthy part. Pushing it away won’t get rid of it, only lend it undue importance as though it is to be feared.

I wanted my final words to be encouraging. “Try connecting with the sadness. Listen to it, learn from it, comfort it, hold it. To paraphrase an eastern parable: “Instead of chasing after wellbeing, consider this: wellbeing might be behind you, struggling to catch up to you.”

My words didn’t fix anything. They weren’t intended to. But my friend told me recently that he feels more empowered now that he works less on controlling his difficult emotions and more on understanding and accepting them.

After we ended, I sent him the following quotation, which he now has posted on his wall.

“When we touch the center of sorrow, when we sit with discomfort without trying to fix it, when we stay present to the pain of disapproval or betrayal and let it soften us, these are the times that we connect with bodhichitta (awakened mind).”

From The Places That Scare You: A Guide to Fearlessness in Difficult Times, page 9

by Pema Chödrön

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Tips on Talking About Your Pain (It’s OK Not to feel OK – But Not OK to Hide it Away)

December 23, 2020 Aleksandra Ania

Stress is a major component of modern life and has escalated dramatically for many people during the isolation of COVID, yet it can be hard to talk about.

Few of us know how to be heard.

Take my client Brendan, for example. He’s a healthy teenager in many ways. Frustrated with COVID restrictions, he wants to do what’s right, to be tolerant and brave without being a pain. As a result, he doesn’t talk about his loneliness, or his sleeplessness over worries about finding a girlfriend or choosing a career.

It’s OK for him not to feel OK. His sadness and worry are healthy emotional responses to adolescence in an uncertain world. But he has never been guided to accept that those emotions are healthy, or been shown how they can be managed. His parents tell him not to worry, that it’ll all be OK. His friends change the topic. News feeds he follows make the world look hopeless and heroes in his favorite shows are the strong, silent type.

Brendan wonders if there is something wrong with him when anxiety takes him into dark places. He feels ashamed and helpless and doesn’t know what to do.

Here are some tips that could help Brendan (and guide you in guiding him):

1. Find someone you trust to talk to. A parent, older sibling, guidance counselor or trusted adult. Set up a time to chat so they don’t feel ambushed. Let them know in advance you want help talking through some difficult feelings. No shame. No apologies. Vulnerability builds courage. This process will be good for you both.

2. Sit calmly to observe and find words for your feelings. Try to avoid explaining or judging them. They do NOT define who you are, but it’s important to acknowledge that they’re a big part of your life today.

3. Examine the positive “unmet need” beneath each negative emotion. For example, underneath Brendan’s loneliness may be the positive need to connect meaningfully with another person. His desire to be a productive person is behind his anxiety about choosing a career. Uncover the positive values that give rise to the negative emotion. Values come first and are permanent, while emotions come and go.

4. Focus on what you want – on the conditions and states of mind that are your goals. Stay rooted in those positive values and needs. Dream big. What is it that matters most? Who and how do you want to be? How do you get to that place? Share your vulnerable truth, with all the courage you can muster, then flip each problem upside down by describing what the solution could look like.

5. Brainstorm practical strategies for moving toward the goal. You haven’t asked for advice up till now, only for an ear. Now you can each throw out ideas. Ignore all the things you can’t do. What resources, what abilities do you have? What windows are open, even a little? How about beginning a fitness regime, downloading a self-scheduling app, setting up Zoom sessions with friends, signing up for an online course. Make a list.

6. Decide on a few practical, initial steps. Act on them. Begin modestly, but begin now.

7. Assess progress slowly, patiently. Change is incremental; it takes time. The intention to consciously change is the beginning of emotional self-management. The painful feelings you once feared and resented can now be seen for what they always were: the calls to make changes and the incentives for growth.

Keep in mind the words of Seneca, the Roman orator, who said, “what matters is not what you bear but how you bear it”.

In the realm of self-esteem and emotional health, how you bear it is ALL that matters.

Essential conversations shift youth into an empowered relationship with their emotional life.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR