Looking at our emotions can provide a roadmap

A further sign of health is that we don’t become undone by fear and trembling, but we take it as a message that it’s time to stop struggling and look directly at what’s threatening us.  Pena Chodron.

Using emotions, especially powerful emotions like fear, shame, anger, as road signs, can help us look inside and understand ourselves better.  Think about road signs, which one is the bad one?

Road signs just tell you something, like slow down, cross walk, no right on red, photo enforced light ahead, etc.

Emotions can be used in a similar way.  When we feel a powerful emotion, it can be from our internal story about what we think is happening and how our sense of ourself is in danger on some level.  Sometimes we are in danger, but often, it’s our perception of ourselves, or our concerns about how others are seeing us, or our ego wanting to be right, or our internal dialog, that is the real danger.

So, what are your emotions trying to tell you?

Being able to look at what is underneath why we are feeling what we are feeling and getting really curious about the emotion and ourselves is a way into deeper understanding.  This curiosity can lead to awareness around the story we are creating and will help us think of ways to jack/transform the story into something that makes us stronger.

StoryJacking Difficult Conversations – True Kind Necessary

True, Kind, Necessary: How to have difficult conversations and develop better relationships

Imagine a stool, three legs that hold up the seat. Without one of the legs, the stool becomes unstable.

When thinking about True, Kind Necessary in respect to conversations, it’s important to remember to use these ideas together in order to have the best outcome. In happy and agreeing conversations we don’t even have to think about these qualities, because we are having fun and we are not threatening someone else’s view point or sense of themselves. Intent and Impact are very important, especially in difficult conversations or situations. Often times we bring our judgment, ego and opinions into the arena and while we may have a positive intent, we can end up having a negative impact.

True – Obviously we want to be honest in our handling of information and give honest reflection to people. It also helps to truthfully communicate our own feeling and experience, without telling others how they feel, what there intent was, or judging their behavior as the issue. Ask yourself some questions: What is the story I am telling myself about this situation? Am I making any assumptions? Do I have enough information or are there other questions I need to get info on? Am I exaggerating or escalating the truth?

We can rapidly set people up to feel attacked and when that happens, they either tunes us out or we engage them in an argument.  Also, if I am telling you a truth, from my perspective, and I am unkind in my delivery, or it’s really not my place to share my truth, I run a very real risk of landing poorly on you and feeding a fight.  I may be generating a drama story that won’t do me or anyone any good.

Kind – This is the level of how we approach a conversation with compassion and gentleness. We might be sharing our truth without thought to other people’s feelings. In conversations that we have with others we can inadvertently hurt peoples feelings, Intent/Impact. This is especially true in the texting, typing, IM’ing medium. People can’t read our non-verbal body language, we may not even know each other, and so we end responding to things based on how we feel the message is coming at us. If it’s a difficult situation, people may already be defensive. Kindness is about intention. We can decide if our intention is to be helpful or hurtful. If it’s to be helpful and our message still lands poorly, apologizing for the unintended outcome is kindness too.

Necessary – It may take a few questions to yourself to figure out this one:  Why are we vested in sharing our perspective? What’s our goal for the conversation?  Have we been asked for feedback? Or, are we trying to ‘teach’ someone something we think we need to know? Is what we’re about to say, for the greater good of the person we are speaking/writing to?  I also like to ask myself, “Is what I am about to say, think or do, going to take me closer to my goal or farther away?”

There are definitely times that we do need to speak up, maybe we see a way to help someone be more efficient or correct something. Or, we may be setting a healthy boundary on how others speak to us, or what we are willing or not willing to do for someone. The more necessary the conversation is, typically the more painful it runs the risk of being. Which is why adding the elements of True and Kind can help the conversation go better for all parties.

In communication there is another area to consider. Let’s call this the fourth leg of the stool, increasing stability.

Timing – Are you calling someone out in public or private? Are you giving them time to respond or pushing for an instant response? Can you have a face-to-face conversation, even if we are talking Skype versus an email argument or texting war?

Think about our own timing; are we hungry, tired, overwhelmed, or not feeling well? All these factors will effect how we bring ourselves to any difficult conversation.

Giving ourselves time to cool down before responding is helpful too. If I get fired up about something, my brain floods with Adrenaline and Cortisol and increases my reactivity, while decreasing my ability to think through a situation.  Have you ever had an intense conversation and then later think of all the things you wished you had said instead? If I give myself an hour or a day before responding, I have time to engage my thinking brain again and I may come up with a much better response.

We can all get HiJacked by our brain.

Even using these tools will not guarantee a 100% positive outcome in every situation. But, your odds of a better conversation are greatly increased.

 

 

 

 

Sleeping Beauty must die! Why you need to kill her to grow up…

One of the prevalent stories of our lives is the one of Prince Charming and the Perfect Princess.  We all know it, because it’s a story we have been told since we were born, we’ve watched the story play out in books, in movies, in songs, and yet, we rarely see it work in life.  Yet, we’ve all bought into the fairytale, because at different times in our lives we have tried to save someone or wished with all our might that someone would come along on a white steed and save us.  I know I am guilty.  In my 20’s I was ambitiously looking for Mr. Right, to come and save me from… whatever I needed saving from.  I wanted to be Sleeping Beauty.

The fantasy of Prince Charming is a little like thinking about what you will do when you win the Lottery. Which is a great tool to distract us and is perfect if we’re avoiding our life.  I might even make the argument that the Lotto fantasy is the same story with the character of Cash instead of Charming.  These are hard stories to live with because we either sit around waiting to be a hero in someone else’s story or we sit around as a victim, waiting to be swept away from all our own troubles.  Unfortunately, when we are sitting around we aren’t actually doing anything to change our life in any of the meaningful ways we might if we were taking action.

And, that last bit is key to why you have to kill the Sleeping Beauty/Prince Charming myth in order to grow.

• Why do you think that being asleep through your life makes you worth saving?
• What do you learn about taking care of yourself if you are waiting for some magical solution to show up?
• Have you ever met anyone who could perfectly take care of you, past the point they started to bug you?
• At what point are you taking care of your own baggage if your focus in on fixing someone else’s?
• How do you grow up if you choose to hold onto a fairytale?

Let me be clear, I like fairy tales, I love to read them and watch them at the movies.  I just don’t want to pretend that I am waiting for the fairytale to show up and save me from my life.  I don’t want to wait for Prince Charming, the Lottery, the perfect Mentor, the perfect body, the perfect job, I want to go out and find what makes me happy and grow if from the inside.  It’s  time to wake up.

I’ve always wondered at the end of the fairy tale, “and, they all lived happily ever after…” Not only is there no such thing as “happily ever after” it is an ending to a story that continues on the next page, it’s also an untruth that gets us into some serious trouble.

What if my life is filled with the normal ups and downs? What does that mean about my value, my abilities, and me? If I never meet Prince Charming am I lost? Or, I didn’t get the happily ever after just because I met Prince Charming, what then?

And, maybe I did find my Prince Charming, but he has a few bad habits, he doesn’t always listen to me the way I want him to, he doesn’t always clean up after himself, he disagrees with some of my genius ideas, he needs me to take care of him sometimes, sometimes he just needs me to be quiet, and happily ever after actually has taken an epic amount of work and willingness to find a middle path.  In fact finding the right partner for my life, took a lot of courage and an astronomical amount of self-realization, self-improvement and some deeply honest and painful conversations with myself.  I won’t even go into the painful conversations with my partner about my “not so Princess like” qualities that I have had to take a good look in the mirror about, so I could address them.  I am happy; in fact, I may have found what amounts to a real happily ever after.  But I am not happy because I sat around waiting for someone to come and save me from my past, my problems, or myself.  I am happy with my life because it didn’t just magically show up, I have worked on my thoughts, beliefs, attitudes, my actions, and learned to take real ownership of my crap. These tools will stay with me and grow through the rest of my life and add to my happily ever after in real and tangible ways.

Learning to take care of yourself means you have to take your own leaps, you get to run with your equals, that you learn to trust yourself, and learn that you don’t require someone to help you feel powerful in your life.  You don’t actually need to be saved.  Your care is not dependent on someone else, it can’t just be taken away from you, and so you get make choices, make mistakes, learn, grow and kick ass for the rest of your life.  And, magically, you find friends and partners to share all this with, and when you continue to ‘own yourself,’ you get to keep these brilliant gems of people the rest of your life because you’re not wearing them out with your need to save them or be saved by them.

My happiness is a direct result of my willingness to grow myself into a person who I would actually like to be in a relationship with.  I want to be a person who owns her good qualities and her ‘in need of improvement’ qualities, a person who listens even when she disagrees, and I want to kill the fairytale so I can choose wake up and get on with my life; finding my happiness along the way.

images from bigstockphoto.com

Turning Conflict on its Head

Conflict may be inevitable – how we successfully deal with conflict is not.

Someone once said, “Anytime you have two people in a relationship, it’s dysfunctional” and this seems to play out daily in our lives.  

Daily our realities bump into other people’s realities and when these realities meet and agree, things are golden.  Unfortunately, as soon as my beliefs, values, wants, or expectations bump into someone else’s beliefs, values, wants, or expectations and they are different, hold on, it’s about to get bumpy.  So, how do we learn to cope and manage conflict?  This all depends on your desired outcome or goal for the situation.

What’s your outcome goal? Whatever you’re about to say, think, or do will either take you one step closer to your goal or one step farther away.

We’ve all met people we don’t like. They are too different from us; they want something we can’t or won’t give, or they just rub us wrong from the get go.  Yet, we sometimes need to work with these people and figure out a way to either ‘get along’ and ‘move forward.’  So, the ability to manage conflict is key to a good life and healthy relationships.

Five simple strategies:

• Personalize nothing. Miguel Ruiz talks about this at length in his book the Four Agreements. Personalization is all about the ego. We get into trouble in a couple of ways with this one. Either we personalize something that is said or done to us and react poorly or we misinterpret something that is said or done to us, believing it’s about us and react poorly.  It’s hard, but important to remember that nothing is personal.  Everything that anyone says or does to you tells you about them.  It doesn’t mean you need to just sit and take it, but you may need to plan the best way to effectively handle the situation or behavior.  It might be time for healthier boundaries or it might be time for an important conversation about your perspective. Try to take time to breathe and let yourself cool down.  When you react without working through a planned response, it often hurts more than it helps.
• Listen to understand, not for ammo.  I first thought about this concept when I became a 7 Habits Facilitator.  When we find ourselves in a situation where we don’t like someone or are feeling angry or defensive, it’s easy to hear the other person’s words and not “listen” to understand. Hearing someone’s words and listening are different activities.  People sometimes assume that listening to someone equals agreement.  But listening and understanding where people are coming from doesn’t mean we agree with them, it means we are trying to understand their perspective.  Working to understand another person will often pave the way to reducing conflict, plus it models the behavior you want to see.
• Be willing to find the middle path.  In the past 20 years, I have worked with individuals, couples, organizations and teams, and a one-sided push for a one-sided outcome is often expensive.  If we want a way through conflict, we need to be willing to find the middle way. We often assume we are fighting a war and must win, but in fact when we respond with a win/lose mentality, we’re creating future problems.  In most relationships, if one of us loses, we are both ultimately losing.  A willingness to brainstorm solutions and create a plan that works for both people will lead to far longer lasting solutions.
• Take responsibility.  When we are defensive or angry, the hardest thing to do is take personal responsibility for any part of the conflict.  I’m not saying you need to take 100% responsibility for the whole situation. You do need to take 100% responsibility for your part. If you’re in a conflict, you’ve participated in the conflict on some level. Sometimes, even by accident, someone might personalize something you said or misinterpret your meaning.  If you can “own” your side of the street, you can reduce the drama of conflict.
• Turn conflict on its head. Most of us are taught that conflict is angry, maybe ugly. It is a fight and it has a winner and a loser. But, what if we change how we think about conflict? Conflict, or as I like to call it Passionate Disagreement, can also be a force of good. Conflict gives us opportunity to work through differences, build insights, see a situation from multiple perspectives, and this kind of constructive conflict is capable of bringing us together. Some would say we cannot deeply trust people until we know how they handle conflict. Until we experience how people will behave in disagreements, we don’t fully know them. Few important problems are solved because everyone was trying to be nice and just get along. I’ve experienced the connection that comes from having a passionate disagreement, working through that disagreement and building a more powerful relationship or solution. This level of connection is called intimacy.

If you change how you respond or react to conflict, you can shift the majority of conflicts that roll your way. 

You will meet people who do not want to compromise; they aren’t interested in your perspective and they may even be looking for a fight. Inevitably, I have found I get much better results with these five strategies.

images from Bigstockphoto.com

 

Building Trust

It’s easy to see that there are big situations that can wipe out trust. Just like nature can hit us with a level 5 hurricane, in an intimate relationship, affairs can level trust like an earthquake. At work, untruths about things like getting a promotion can blindside people and are equally devastating.  For most of us, these huge deals aren’t actually the things that typically create a loss of trust with others.  The destruction of building blocks of trust come in much smaller doses.  The aspects of how we feel about ourselves when we are with someone, how we argue, how we listen, and how we negotiate differences ultimately make a bigger impact to the overall health of all of our relationships. These seemingly little items happen multiple times daily and they sow the seeds of distrust and disconnection which lead to the bigger trust disasters.

If you are thinking about a relationship, it could be a personal relationship or a work related connection, trust is the foundation for growth, connection, creativity and innovation.  People who don’t feel trust, don’t share or collaborate also don’t explore ideas or have passionate conversations that lead to new learning. They drift apart and their relationships can stagnate.  Having trust is so crucial to the success of a family, an organization, or a community that it begs to be addressed.

So, how do you build trust? When necessary, how do you rebuild it?

1. Create positive relationships.Positive in this context is not superficial niceness or Pollyanna perfection. Positive relationships are relationships in which people feel heard, understood, liked and appreciated.  It’s basic Psychology 101 that we like the people who like us.  This is just a simple truth.  So ask yourself, how do you show people that you like them or value them?  How do you know when people like or value you?  Pay attention to what behaviors demonstrate “liking.”  We often smile at them or ask them questions that show our interest in what’s happening in their lives. We value their opinions even if we disagree; we encourage them in their endeavors.  In our busy world, it is easy to lose track of another person’s humanness, so keeping an open door to someone’s ideas, interests, and passions helps that person feel positive toward you in return.
2. Allow for differences.  We often get very clear about our own perspective and we can sit pretty proudly in our rightness… righteousness.  Yet our sense of being right can shut down other people.  Some of the smartest and most influential people encourage differing perspectives because they understand that they can’t see all sides of any situation and they will make the best decisions if they ask for other points of view.  If you want to develop trust, then you are going to have to learn to listen, often to things that you might not agree with. There is a huge difference between listening to understand and listening for ammo.  People will feel trust in you if they have the ability to question your ideas or passionately discuss differences without being attacked or punished for their perspective.  The more willing you are to hear these differences, the greater the circle of trust around you.
3. Share the glory and freely give credit.  Have you ever worked with someone or been friends with someone who takes all or the bulk of the credit?  Nothing erodes trust like feeling like someone stole your idea or took credit for your hard work.  When credit isn’t shared or given, it leads people to feel violated; it’s hard to let it go and these feelings often become disruptive factors towards forward movement. Make sure that when you are working with others that their ideas and work are acknowledged and that people are given credit where credit is due. When appreciation isn’t shown, that’s one thing, people might live with that, but if their work isn’t acknowledged or ideas are stolen, you may find that the trust is very difficult to rebuild.
4. Demonstrate Integrity and follow through.Have you ever been in a situation where someone is saying all the right things, but their actions don’t mirror their words?  In my 20 years working with people, this issue is one of the hardest to deal with.  You keep hearing the right words, you’re hopeful, you want to believe, but then there is no follow through and you’re confused. You said xyz, but then did l,m,n,o,p… why?  Here’s an example. Your boss or employee or wife comes to you, “Will you do this thing?”  You say, “Yes.”  Maybe you want to do it but are overwhelmed with other tasks, or maybe you want to avoid a longer discussion around why you don’t want to do it.  You make an agreement, then you get busy and forget about the agreement. Now you’ve created a trust gap.  When we are dealing with people who say one thing and then do something different, at first we spend a lot of time wondering if we’re being too particular. Every time we bring it up, we hear the words we want to hear, again. Are we crazy?  In life, actions truly do speak louder than words.  This situation creates a trust gap that requires a lot of extra work to fix.  Truthfully, no one enjoys being told “No”, but if you are honest and explain why you can’t do xyz, then at least people don’t feel like they were bamboozled.
5. Take personal responsibility for your mistakes.Often when we make mistakes we want to ignore them and move on.  Maybe we hope no one will notice, or if they do, we have a speedy response that often sounds like a redirect and an attack all rolled into one.  Building trust is not about being mistake free; it’s about taking full ownership of the mistake and then developing a plan to correct said mistake.  People trust people who take ownership of their actions.  If we get defensive and blame other people for our decisions, then distrust can turn into a snowball rolling down a hill. It can gather speed and take out whole villages in its destruction.
6. Mentor and Grow people.People trust and value people who they feel are interested in them.  Mentors help people learn to solve their own problems.  Mentors share perspectives; they share their learning, and wisdom. Good mentors aren’t attached to a particular outcome; they are attached to a person.  Look for the learning moments and give positive feedback on jobs well done. All these actions help to grow your trust influence.  The job of a mentor is to truly believe in the potential of another person to grow.  John Gottman talks about a 5 to 1 imbalance towards the positive (5 positives for every negative) in order for relationships to feel good to people.  A good mentor has patience and is a role model.  Sometimes a mentor needs to give some difficult feedback, so that we can grow and see ourselves more clearly.  But, we are all more trusting of someone’s hard truth feedback if we believe that they are on our side, and that they genuinely want us to be successful.
7. Think holistically.Look to the bigger picture.  Many people get so focused on a specific goal that they are virtually blind to what the cost is to reach the goal, especially on the other people in the situation.  Sometimes it pays to go a little slower, maybe ask more questions, or talk through more concerns, before moving ahead.  When all the players feel heard and all the questions get asked prior to jumping off the mountain, your team is more likely to follow as you take the leap.

Trust is a fragile and epically important thing. With trust, small groups of people can move mountains together.  Not every situation requires each of these 7 steps.  But if you are in a situation where the trust is minimal or has been wiped out, then you might want to think about several of these steps and see if they might just help you grow your trust influence.

Natural disasters are beyond our control. But this is not so with how we build trust in our personal and professional relationships. Pay attention to these building blocks and build or rebuild your refuge of trust. Develop a foundation of trust that few interpersonal storms can harm.

 

Lie Spotting & When Lies Benefit Us

“There are lies, damned lies, and statistics.” Mark Twain

This is a fantastic TED talk, given by Pamela Meyer, which helps to build our understanding about lying.  It’s interesting when Pamela talks about how lies are a cooperative acts.  If you don’t want to be deceived, you need to develop your awareness about what you really want, because liars play on your wants.  This came up for me just today, because of a scam I just got caught in on Facebook.  I saw a “Free Southwest Airlines Tickets!” and on one hand I knew, “too good to be true…” and still had a part of me stumble into the free ticket trap and invite all my friends.  I wanted something for free, they got me with the lie.  So, knowing that we all lie, to some degree, and some are much better liars than others, this is a fun TED talk.  Enjoy Pamela Meyer’s as she educates you and helps you to develop your awareness.  Maybe you will step lightly past the next person trying to scam on you, that comes your way.

Another good talk is on the TEDtalk Radio from NPR a free podcast.  They discuss this issue of deception and it can help you understand even more.

http://www.npr.org/programs/ted-radio-hour/311863205/why-we-lie?showDate=2015-04-03

The radio show talks about ways that we might lie to ourselves and how some of those lies might actually help us.  I know for myself I have a strong Optimism Bias, one way our brains make us believe things.  Most entrepreneurs have this same bias because we have to believe in ourselves in order to take great leaps and create businesses!

Where the Heck is my Magic 8 Ball?

As I am navigating my life, in the great unknowing, it occurs to me that knowing the future seems to be a wish that most people have.  We want someone or something else to “tell” us what we should do, or what will happen. If we do A… then XYZ will be the outcome. If we marry this person, we will be happy. Or, if we take that opportunity then we will be wildly successful.  We want guarantees that follow a, “if… then…” and the irony of life is that until you dive in, you will never know how warm the water is.  Life requires us to take leaps of faith. We can gather up all our skills, we can collect all our supporters, and we can spend a lot of time collecting tools to make sure we have the very best chance of winning the day. But, at the end of it, when the time comes to make a choice, you are going to have to walk through the unknown. There are no magic wands or magic 8 balls to steer us through the void. And, this is where your personal story can help you, how you decide what you are worth, how you believe that your message is powerful, and what you decide to share about yourself, will ultimately determine how you handle these leaps.

Leaps of faith are at the center of our brilliance, they generate the energy of creativity and they push us into being strong and having fortitude.

“All growth is a leap in the dark, a spontaneous unpremeditated act without benefit of experience.” Henry Miller

A leap of faith is required if we are going to move, change our life, change our career, or do anything of real importance and meaning to us and the world. There is no action that you might take that doesn’t require this leap. You can fight it, wish you knew the future, pretending that you have everything under control, or you can leap luxuriously into your life, no Magic 8 Ball needed.

Be brave and let’s get to the other side!

A Balanced Perspective

There is a movie called, The Lady in the Water, by M. Night Shamalon. It didn’t get rave reviews, but I enjoyed it. That’s not really the point though.  In the movie, there was a character, who had worked out only one side of his body; half his body looked like a body builder and the other half was a normal guy size. He was physically out of balance.  And, while most of us don’t wear our imbalance so obviously, we play out our imbalance in how we interact with the people around us and the world in general.

In the past few weeks I have been talking with people about their negative versus positive focus.

We humans are hardwired for survival. Noticing what is odd, dangerous, out of place, etc, is a survival strategy. As we scan the world with our senses, it’s nice when we notice the pretty flowers, but when we can notice the tiger in the tall grass, it helps us survive. Even though the skill is a crucial survival skill, the wiring can create its own set of issues. All the focus gets turned on what isn’t working, what we don’t like, how bad we feel, where the problems are, what’s wrong. Then the imbalance pitches toward the negative. This lopsided perspective isn’t realistic, any more than only seeing only the positive is realistic.

This week when I was walking out to my car, I tripped. Not a big splatter type of trip, but a drop all my stuff and end up on my knees type of trip. “I am so clumsy!” “I am the clumsiest person!” In that moment I wasn’t thinking, “I take about 5000-10,000 steps a day, over the average month I take 150,000+ steps, and I tripped once.” People rarely focus on the 150,000 good steps, but will instead create a laser focus on the one bad step. Does that really make sense? I am not saying go to some perfect Pollyanna extreme the other direction, what I am saying is that we need to work on using the muscles on both sides of the situation.

How much of our self-esteem and our internal conversations are colored with this same negative laser focus?

It is really hard to shift our focus to something neutral when we’re in the middle of something that’s maybe pissing us off painful. As we’re in the middle of whatever the situation is, we chew it around and around, gnawing at all the bad parts. If I’ve gotten into an argument with my husband, and he did something that bugged me or hurt my feelings, in that moment it’s very easy to focus on solely what is upsetting.  The negative laser focus doesn’t help me think of all the times he’s been supportive, thoughtful, or caring.  It doesn’t remind me of the times he’s rubbed my feet or listened to my feelings.  In fact it doesn’t remind me of anything good at all. At that point, my negative focus isn’t the whole truth. At the point my focus is lasered on something negative, I’m missing out on the whole other side of the truth. So, in order to challenge the negative focus I have a couple of ideas to share with you.

Ideas:

First – Take time before responding; wait to see how you feel in about 2-24 hours. Take a walk, take a bath, read a book, talk to a friend.  Not every situation is a crisis just because we feel the pressure to try and resolve it instantly. This first step is really about doing no harm until you can have clarity and work towards having a good conversation.  It is the shift from being Reactive to being Proactive.

Second – While you’re waiting, giving yourself some breathing room from the issue, start remembering all the positive things about this person you’re upset with.  Is this a person who has been good to you?  Have they helped you in other areas?  Have they supported you in the past?  Do you care about them?  Do you love them? Create a thorough list of all the things you like about that person. Maybe you don’t like them, but you need them because they’re your boss, or in-law, or a co-worker.  You don’t need to make up anything; just really notice an honest reflection of who they are and try to find something that you can appreciate about them.  It’s an interesting thing, but we treat people differently based on how we think of them, the label of friend or foe makes all the difference.

Third – 

Pay attention to your feelings.  Feelings offer you a place to discover the deeper issues that may be affecting the relationship or situation. If you regularly find yourself feeling a negative feeling with your partner or friend or anyone, you may need to pay attention to what that feeling is trying to tell you.  There are often deeper issues at work.  Do you feel like you are being rejected or that you are not good enough the way you are? (Acceptance) Are you feeling controlled or manipulated to do something or be different? (Power and Control) Maybe you are feeling taken for granted or feeling like your hard work isn’t appreciated? (Recognition) Is there a sense of being criticized or treated with contempt? (Respect) The deeper emotion may have to do with trust, not feeling like someone will follow through with agreements.  Or, are you being challenged in your views of yourself? (Integrity)  In intimate relationships we may struggle with “Do you love me?” (Love) and “Do you want to be here?” (Commitment) These deeper issues will never be resolved arguing about whose fault it is that the dishes didn’t get done, or any other superficial problem.  It’s only when we understand what’s getting triggered that the important conversations can happen.  The more important the relationship is, the more carefully we need to handle the conversation.  Through years of relationship work, I have found that if you are feeling some of these deeper issues, so is your partner, be it an intimate relationship or a work relationship.

Fourth – Make sure to listen to hear and understand.  Often times we listen for ammo. This is not real listening; this is a form of war.  Unfortunately, winning a war of words with someone, means you lose something else, like their respect or help or love. There is always our side of the story, but there is also their side of the story.  Listening is a two way street. If you have something to say, make sure you are also doing what you ask of them; listen. Listening and agreement are two very different things.  You don’t have to agree with their side of the story, but try and put yourself in their shoes, if only for a moment. Look for what their intention was; if their intention was not to hurt your feelings, remember that.

Fifth – When you’re ready to actually talk to the person, try to come from a place of only talking about your feelings. Feelings are very difficult to argue with because they’re yours. I have seen “I” statements that are actually convoluted “You” statements.  “I feel like your are a jerk.”  These don’t work.  If you focus on what you don’t like about someone else’s behavior, you run the risk of either shutting the other person down, or you will turn up the volume on their defensiveness. We are masters at triggering other peoples’ defenses, especially in long relationships and in hard conversations. Recognize that in every conversation there is intent and impact. The closer these are aligned, the better the conversation will go.  Start important conversations softly to keep the dialog useful.

One of the super secrets in life is that emotions are not good or bad, but rather they are like road signs; they tell you something.  When we learn to read our own emotions, it helps us know ourselves better and hopefully get to know other people better too.  The goal is to shift the story from imbalanced to I’m Balanced!

images from BigStockPhoto: balancing balls Sashkin and Imbalance Bigandt_Photography