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.

 

 

 

 

StoryJacker Episode 3

 

In this episode of StoryJacker, Lyssa Danehy deHart interviews Lori Ann Davis about her transformational story.  Lori talks about her deeply personal journey and talks about how she has changed her life.  Lori shares her insights about how she created something unexpected from the ending of a long marriage.

Lori has over 28 years experience empowering individuals and couples to live richer, happier lives. She has a private practice that spans the spectrum from dating and singles, to working through divorce issues, and to renewing long-term marriages. She is the author of, Unmasking Secrets to Unstoppable Relationships. She is also the host of Real Talk on Ivybe radio.

Lori Ann Davis, MA, CRS

author, relationship specialist and radio host

www.lorianndavis.com

Radio Host

http://www.wgivcharlotte.com/ask-lori.html

This has been a production of Creative Human Solutions.  Recording and editing by Lyssa Danehy deHart.  Music from Garageband Loops.  www.creativehuman. me copyright 2015

Check out this episode!

Reflections on Living and Dying

Michael and I have spent the past five days sitting with his mom as she slowly makes the final journey of her life.  We have had the support of her family, friends, and hospice along the way.  So many people who love her, who have shown up to sit and care.

When Judie was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in December, we all agreed to see how we could help her stay with us, in our home.  Thankfully we have been able to have her at home for the past ten months and she is dying in her own room with all the important people in her family surrounding and supporting her.  And I didn’t know what a gift the experience would be for me.

This road is filled with lessons.  I’m learning that important lessons about living come from the experience of sitting with dying.  Learning about critical values like love, human frailty, compassion, courage, forgiveness, and about the value of time.  These are all things I know about, but I am experiencing them in new ways as I sit here in the presence of the completing circle.  I sit in awe and I feel how blessed I am to be allowed to help care for the end of another person’s life.  At the end, I am working to be focused on being fully present, in this moment, and this moment, and then in the next.

There is something that can happen, if you allow it, when you care for another person as they die.  You can fall in love with them in new ways, and you can fall in love with life.

I have a unique opportunity to foreshadow my own life, see my own end and look at the places I am wasting time or energy on things that don’t serve me or those around me. Places where I might be focused on the small stuff, the unimportant, the meaningless, holding onto resentments, or judgments, or bitterness toward myself or others.  I cannot keep love and judgment in the same space in my mind or heart and continue to stay present.

Knowing that you cannot give what you do not have.  You cannot be what you are not willing to become.  You have to become love to give love.

Sitting quietly in the presence of an ending life offers us a look at places that are scary, but these are places we will all be looking at eventually.   Developing peace through this experience requires us to look at ourselves and reflect, looking at the thoughts or beliefs that are helping or challenging the ones that are hurting. Death asks us to explore where our attachments to stories, beliefs, and ideas might be leading us onto a fearful lonely path.  Dying allows us to become courageous in the face our fears.

Life goals are wonderful, they give us direction.  But, life is far more mysterious and deeply meaningful than solely completing a series of goals.  Life is about experiencing both the ups and the downs.  Finding joy in the moments.  We have the opportunity to recognizing the connection between us all, as we spin along on this shared spaceship, being born, having a life and then passing on into the next experience.  We share this reality with every other living thing on this planet, to include the planet.  Learning to rejoice in life’s mystery.  We can miss our purpose if we are focused only on things like making money, or  all the stuff we want, or sitting in judgment of others.  In the end, the only things that bring joy are the meaningful relationships you create, the people you love and the people who love you back.  The ones who will help to feed you, feed your soul, rub your back, wash you, and help you comfortably move through the rough places that come into each of our lives.

Sometimes we sit waiting for our lives to begin.  But life is not a dress rehearsal. Life is happening even if you’re waiting, life is happening all around you.

My biggest challenge is in recognizing the illusion of “control” that I still want to have in my life.  Challenging this illusion and allowing myself to be  fully present, in the moment.  Trusting that I will get what I need to be a better human being.  Being in touch with my own soul, and working on the lightness. My biggest insight is that life is an adventure towards surrendering.  In every moment letting go of expectations, of anger, and remembering that each of us are all on the learning journey together.  And, that insight has been huge for me.  Surrendering.  Breathing.  Surrendering again.  I see how difficult the surrendering has been in Judie’s ending life.  For her, for us, letting go and letting love.  In these last moments, none of us can take care of ourselves alone.  At the end, we need others, we require care, and we all must let go.

I am sitting with my own internal struggle as the train continues forward and there are no more stops or choices along the way.  No more doors to open, save one.  And our family has talked about how surreal it is when you come to the end of life.  For me this blessing has been important: reminding me to be aware of love, making choices that matter and mean something in my life, because I too will come to the end of my own journey and I want to be able to embrace it as my next adventure instead of my last.

StoryJacking Relationships

In thinking about my own StoryJacking, it’s come to me that I have had dozens if not hundreds of StoryJacks in my life.

In an effort not to overwhelm, I think what I am going to do is just start with one at a time.

As things come up I will add a personal StoryJack to the podcast series, that seems important or relevant to whatever is going on, or that I am trying to explore.  You can listen to an expanded version of this blog on my podcast, “How StoryJacking Helped me Love.”

One insight that I have had is that the more that we look at our lives as transformative StoryJacks, the more likely we are to learn from the experiences versus being dragged down by them.

I have an ordinary story in some very universal ways. My parents divorced when I was 9, and while their marriage wasn’t great, the fighting was disturbing emotionally, the divorce more importantly disrupted my sense of security. This might be a terrible thing for some people, but for me it was my first wake up call.

Then life added the loss of my favorite grandfather, and a sister/friend who died from cancer when she was 19 and I was 12, all adding to my journey. I don’t know if it is about my personality, or my need to feel some sort of control, instead of seeing these losses as tragedy alone, I also began to see that death had a very real presence in life and that I didn’t want to take people or life for granted. These early StoryJacks set me up to continue the process through each adventure and tragedy that has rolled through my life.

The StoryJack that I want to share today is about finding love and growing relationships.

Through my journey of questioning I realized that I had no clue what a healthy relationship might even look like, I wasn’t paying attention to good relationships, I was only looking at the dysfunctional ones that were everything I didn’t want. So, I shifted focus, I looked to my grandparents who had a 50+ year relationship and were in love until the day each of them passed on;

What had worked for them?

• They valued their relationship more than they valued being right.
• They maintained their friendship their entire relationship, they never forgot they liked each other.
• They laughed and shared a sense of humor, sure they groused at each other, but they found ways to turn that into laughter.
• They shared some really important values about life, and they talked about those values, they discussed what the value meant to them, what the value looked like, how they felt when they were demonstrating the value, and they knew that they were in agreement, not just about a word, but about the meaning of the word.
  • And this is crucial if I say I have a value of “honesty,” and you say, I do too! and we go on and only find out later that my value of honesty and your value of honesty were a 100 miles apart. On the surface of the planet a 100 miles isn’t much, but in the intimacy of a close relationship it might as well be the moon, we are worlds apart.
• The areas that each struggled with shyness, or being bossy, the other one either accepted or helped to balance out. They complimented each other in their personalities and human frailties. These were not personality quirks were deal breakers for them; in fact they had no deal breakers in their relationship at all.
• They both really wanted to be in a relationship with each other.  My grandparents were ‘all in’ versus one foot out the door. A lot can be muddled through if both people are invested in the relationship working. We tend to be kinder in our approach if we care about the other person and want to keep them around.
• They both took responsibility with each other and worked really hard not to hurt each other’s feelings. When it happened, they apologized and took ownership, and tried not to press the repeat button too often.
• And, when I asked my mother about my grandparents relationship, she said they didn’t hold grudges with each other, there were no resentments and no hidden agendas. They were fully and honestly present with each other.

The more I thought about what relationships could look like, the more I was willing to risk to grow into the person that could bring these qualities to a relationship of my own. I wasn’t going to settle, I was going to soar. I also decided that I wanted to find a partner, not a savior or a project. That was huge for me, because I had to give up these ideas of Prince Charming or Prince Project.

There was no one coming to take me away from the tough things happening in my life. If I was going to get out of debt, or finish school, or find love, or create a meaningful life for myself, I was going to have to quit waiting around for it to find me and go out and create it.

I also had to give up on the idea that if only ‘someone’ would see my value and my worth, and chose me, I could help him have an amazing life. I realized I needed to save myself, and work to find an equal. If this resonates for you at all, I wrote an article on my blog called, “Sleeping Beauty Must Die! Why you need to kill her to grow up.” I talk a lot more in depth about this issue.

I made another pivotal StoryJack as I dated, 180 dates over two years, where I went from worrying “do you liked me?” to assessing if I liked you. This was huge! It meant, I not only had to stop wrapping myself up in the idea that someone could define my value for me, I had to stop twisting myself into a pretzel to make myself into someone I wasn’t in order for someone I wasn’t even sure I liked to love me. Simply put, I had to learn to love myself.

All of what I was learning meant I would have to be honest about who I am, learn to love myself, get comfortable just being myself, and trust that I was enough.  If I worked at being someone I would like, then the people who like people like me, would find me.  And maybe I would meet the one who was strong enough to handle a real relationship himself. Mr. Lucky 181.

Through this journey of revising and transforming my ideas about myself, what I was capable of, what love authentically looked like for me, and what a real ‘all in’ relationship required, I did meet someone who fell in love with the “me” I had become along the way.

For the past 17 years, he has shown up and loved me and I have shown up and loved him back. When we are being silly, or annoying, insightful, my bossiness, his being wrong, (being silly here) and we have discussed and agreed, and agreed to disagree, on our share of important ideas and values.  We have learned to understand each other and agree that we know what we mean when we discuss these values, and we have learned to laugh at ourselves and at each other… but that will have to wait because that is another story, my friends.

Quick link to the expanded podcast version of this blog.

 

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images from http://www.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.

 

Relationships and the closing of circles

Relationships truly are the sum of our lives.  We create circles of friends, neighbors, family, strangers, pets, nature, ideas, and ultimately ourselves.  With all the practice that we have in relationships throughout our lives, you would think that we would be experts at having them and doing them well, handling issues and avoiding problems.  Yet, we have all experienced some people and situations in our lives that we can find difficult.  This is not to say we ourselves are never difficult.  I have had many opportunities to muddle through turmoil.  I have experienced and created as much as the next person.  So along the way I have learned that relationships, as in life, don’t always turn out just the way I want.

I had a painful experience in 2013, it was a situation in which I wasn’t able to navigate a friendly way through a disagreement, even though that was what I wanted more than anything… at the time.  I see myself as someone willing to work things out, look for the win win, find compromises, etc.  I am also blessed to have people willing to be honest with me.  I know that I have my, one-sided, perspective and I don’t always see myself fully.  So, while my trusted people are happy to point out my flaws, they also tell me that they see me as someone who sincerely tries to find the middle ground in relationship disagreements.

Which brings me to the situation.  There are people in the world who will only feel good about you, as long as you bend to their perspective.  They are not interested in seeing how they contributed to an issue or disagreement.  They really want you to know that they are mad at you, and it’s your fault, and unless you admit to this fully, and ‘show’ them that you understand their ‘rightness,’ the situation won’t ever get to a place where it feels comfortable.  And, even if you do take 100% responsibility for their feelings, it still might not be enough.

I work hard to hold myself accountable and I willingly acknowledge my own part in situations.  I apologize when my intentions were quite different from my impact.

Unintentional impact can still hurt another person.

I am truly sorry when I hurt someones feelings, even though that generally is never my intention.  Still, in some situations you cannot own your own issues or your part in the disagreement enough for the other person, they want more, they want it to be one-sided, all your fault. They point to things that were said, using contexts that weren’t intended, often rigid, black and white ideas of right and wrong.  They have listened for ammo, and they willingly use that ammo against you.  And, no matter how much you try to hear them and work to show you are listening, when you try to share your perspective, they are not interested in hearing you.  They are really just interested in being heard. Trying to work through a disagreement under these terms is hard work, it’s emotionally exhausting.

For most of us, this is a ‘crazy maker.’

If we care, even a little, about the relationship, we want to find the middle ground. We want to hear and be heard.  We want some sort of closure that feels like we can walk away with respect or kindness, agree to disagree and still have a level of respect.  Yet, this is not always possible.  When we find ourselves in one of these endings, we often struggle with self doubt, and wishfulness that we are going to find a path to resolve the situation.  Sometimes, instead, we have to learn to ‘let go.’  In some belief systems they say, “Let Go and Let God.”  I love Frank Herbert’s quote, “There are no endings, just places where you stop the story,” and one of my favorites, “It is always important to know when something has reached its end. Closing circles, shutting doors, finishing chapters, it doesn’t matter what we call it; what matters is to leave in the past, those moments in life that are over.” by Paulo Coelho.

Even if it doesn’t feel finished, we may have to let go and close the circle.

Allowing someone to see you in the worst light, and still let go with love, let go with forgiveness for our part, let go with forgiveness for the other parties part.  I believe that the process of letting go is a powerful way through the sad feelings or angry ones.  Letting go of the attachment about how people see us.  Letting go of what they say about us.  Letting go of the ‘crazy maker’ so that we can continue with our own story.  For me the big take away from 2013, and I have learned this lesson a few times in my life so it feels easier this time, is that there are places when my sense of self is so different from someone else’s sense of me that the two ideas of me are too incompatible to continue in any sort of close proximity.  If I’ve been honest with myself, gotten feedback from those I trust, looked at my part of the situation, attempted to repair the hurts, but still been met with rigid, angry judgement, then I have to let go for my own sanity.  Grieve the loss, but let go of the idea that I can influence a more realistic idea of me, one that is a little closer to my own.  And, really, what is lost when people don’t want the same thing?  The only loss is an idea of the relationship, an idea that might have existed once, but needs to be released, because it’s now an old idea of a relationship that’s changed.

Your opinion of me, is none of my business.

For my part, if I can do this, then I let go of the spinning of my mind.  The wrangling to make reasonable, or rationalize, or over process my thoughts and feelings.  I learn to just ‘be’ in this moment, uncomfortable though it is, until the next moment shows up.  I do this over and over, through this moment and the next and the next.  Until the moment that I am in, absorbs me fully, and my life circles on.

Messy Love

“When you love someone, you do not love them all the time, in exactly the same way, from moment to moment. It is an impossibility. It is even a lie to pretend to. And yet this is exactly what most of us demand. We have so little faith in the ebb and flow of life, of love, of relationships. We leap at the flow of the tide and resist in terror its ebb. We are afraid it will never return. We insist on permanency, on duration, on continuity; when the only continuity possible, in life as in love, is in growth, in fluidity – in freedom, in the sense that the dancers are free, barely touching as they pass, but partners in the same pattern.

The only real security is not in owning or possessing, not in demanding or expecting, not in hoping, even. Security in a relationship lies neither in looking back to what was in nostalgia, nor forward to what it might be in dread or anticipation, but living in the present relationship and accepting it as it is now. Relationships must be like islands, one must accept them for what they are here and now, within their limits – islands, surrounded and interrupted by the sea, and continually visited and abandoned by the tides.”
Gift from the Sea, Anne Morrow Lindbergh

I am not sure exactly why this quote has so captured me.  Especially in the hindsight that Anne Morrow Lindbergh’s husband, Charles Lindbergh, had three other families (wives and kids) in Europe. It’s unclear if she knew this or not. I would find it a little hard to imagine such a smart woman being completely ignorant of who her husband was, and what he was capable of, even if she didn’t know the specifics. So, maybe she did know that he had affairs, and maybe she understood that love is complicated and messy. That often we are hurt, not by another’s actions, but rather by the idea that we have of who they are and how they should act, instead of loving them in spite of the fact that we feel failed by them, for not being what we want them to be.

There are boundaries that may be healthy for us, for me affairs cross a boundary in a marriage. Would I love my husband less if he had an affair? No, don’t think so, the love would remain. I’m not sure if I would stay in the relationship, certainly if I stayed it wouldn’t be in the same relationship that we had. I don’t know what the relationship would look like, but it would change as I changed my thoughts about myself, my husband and the new “now” of our marriage. Love can bind us to people and places, it can give us purpose to learn and to move through the fear of vulnerability, and if we let it, it teaches us to stay true to love that is just for love.

Change through time is true in all relationships, family, friends, and lovers, even without traumas and dramas. We are constantly shifting how we feel about other people.  How we think about ourselves and how we think about them, changes how we feel about them.  We do this all the time.  Think about the myriad of ways that we get angry or annoyed with people, even people we love, for much less concerning issues; the kids leave lights on everywhere they go, you ask nicely, you ask sharply, you ask and ask and ask, and still, no matter where in the house you walk, the lights are on. You scream, you rant, you threaten, and in these moments you don’t love in a loving way. Because your love has stories and expectations woven into the core of it. If you loved me, you would turn off the lights because you know and care what that means to me… Or, you would turn off the lights because it’s the responsible thing to do, or it saves money, whatever. Unspoken stories, I love you when you… do what I want?  The weft and weave as I sit in my justified nagging and yelling place, not showing love, because you didn’t meet my expectations. Is this conceivably true? Can I possibly be so self centered and demanding? Having unrealistic expectations of others and then wondering why the relationship feels distant or hurtful. This is the way of severing and ending relationships, this is not loving.

Just where is my responsibility for my needs, my feelings, and my expectations? Why don’t I turn off lights as I come to them instead of being unloving? Tell myself new stories that don’t connect my love for you, or your love for me, to my expectations? This simple shift is probably the hardest thing to do. The fine line between a healthy boundary and an unrealistic expectation. This shift takes courage, because like life, it’s fragile and filled with the longing of wanting to be loved in return, and we cannot control that. It takes the strength and flexibility of a dancer walking on a tightrope with no safety net and also dancing with a partner navigating the same dangerous ground.

Not many of us do this balance well. We may have areas where we sit in Buddha like calm over a topic while the world around us loses it’s collective mind. Yet, there are always chinks in our perceptions, places where we lose our own minds, often to issues or ideas that someone else has no problem with. It keeps us humble, we aren’t so perfect ourselves.  We are all creatures of light, but also of shadow. When we recognize our imperfection, do we then withhold love from ourselves?  Often the answer is “yes.” If this is true, how can you truly love another, with all their messy imperfections, if we can’t love our own self, with all of our messy imperfections? We hide and hate our shortcomings, we drown them and pretend they don’t exist, instead focusing on the shortcomings of others.  Isn’t the idea “to love others as we love ourself” at the core of all world religions? I think “yes.” My very purpose in this life is to recognize the places in myself that need to be challenged, tweaked and tuned, to learn to love myself through the process, and learn to love others in spite of my (mis)perceptions and (mis)expectations of them. Allowing for the ebb and flow, the here and now. Being present to the tide as it dances by my shore.

This is a repost from my other blog, which I closed down.