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The question of whether you want to be right or in relationship in part comes from Terrance Real's work on marriage and his idea that you can either be right or you can be married, but it also comes from a lifetime of my own experience. As a (recovering) fixer, I’ve been very attached to being right in the past. It made sense to me. I wanted to get beyond all of the emotional valences and agree on logic and reason, but I had to own that cleaving to “truth” without recognizing emotional truths was a controlling strategy on my part. There are many shades and aspects of truth around just about everything in our human experience, and perspective matters. In relationship, another reality is that it doesn’t always matter what an objective truth is; it matters how we arrive at an agreement about shared truth. If arriving at an agreement about truth involves someone feeling as though they were subjugated, shamed, told what to think, corrected, or browbeaten into an agreement, then you actually don’t have an agreement at all, and submerged resentments will someday surface. Relationship requires mindfulness that we have not always been taught particularly in a culture were civil discourse has eroded into who can shout the loudest, who can get the best ratings, who can redefine or proclaim something with more ferocity or money behind them, or whose Tik Tok gets the most views. Civil discourse sounds really cold, but it means to have an exchange that is respectful. It is often said that what men want most from women (if we’re talking in a binary way) is respect, but I wonder if underneath all of our relationships, don’t all want to feel respected? When two people who love each other have some kind of incendiary event, however, it may be that there were 10 things that happened that led up to the triggering moment. Or something occurred for one of them that has nothing to do with what the triggering event was, but they are just so much in overwhelm or have felt so beaten down and disempowered that lashed back at the world. Or it could be old, un-metabolized wound or trauma being activated. It’s hard to be OK with that. How often might your partner come home and blow up at you, but you know it’s really about the boss. Or it’s really about money or a parental wound or an old scar getting ripped open? Maybe a blow up at you over not taking out the trash or because you were 15 minutes late is not about you at all, but your reaction is to be angry and feel disrespected. Rightfully so, especially if someone isn't taking responsibility for their own issues an is transferring their anxiety or anger unto you. It’s hard to be curious about why that person has walked in so jangled, why their nervous system is so activated that they are trying to activate ours. People project their wounds on others all the time. People transfer their anxiety by activating other people’s anxieties. As soon as the partner goes into their stress reaction, it relieves our own...temporarily. If the cycle isn’t disrupted, it can escalate fast. I do not mean to say that we have to manage everybody else’s emotions. One of the best things a therapist ever said to me was that I had used my “intellect in order to understand why people do what they do, so you can tolerate their bad behavior towards you”. And they were right; it was just another form of reactive strategy to try to control pain. And that doesn’t work. Pain is part of the process of living, and there are times when people have to work through toward some kind of agreement. There are times when we have to say to a partner, I know you didn’t mean to speak to me in that tone of voice. It hurt my feelings. Can I help you to settle down before we try to tackle that subject again? It might mean sitting in discomfort with a partner and not working through a conflict before you go to bed, like the old saw said. It might mean each person taking some time to reflect, taking some time to self-soothe, self-regulate, take responsibility for their feelings before doing relationship work. Terrance Real describes this as letting your inner wise adult take care of your inner wounded, adaptive child. You take care of your wound, but it means facing it. It also might mean saying that the relationship is more important than whatever the “thing” is that is being argued about. Maybe saying, Let’s both see if we can figure out what’s really at the core of this. It might mean saying to your partner or friend, I just want to listen for a moment. Tell me how you feel; tell me everything you want to say, so that I can just hear you. It might mean repeating it back to see if you heard them right, or even saying to someone not I agree with you, but just, I’ve really heard you. I have a better sense of what was in your mind now. It might mean creating spaces where two people can present what might be seemingly opposite points of view and trying to just sit in those differences. Sometimes it may mean agreeing that you don’t have to change each other’s minds and not taking everything personally. Or it could mean saying that we are going to need to figure out an agreement about whatever the issue is by asking, What steps do you think we could both take to get toward that end? That could be a seed that doesn’t grow overnight and might need a little time and watering. It’s a practice, not an end-goal. This could sound laughably naive. Sure, just change your perspective, self-regulate, be mindful, respect your partner or your friend, and work through conflict by being thoughtful and putting into practice simple things like saying, Tell me more about how you feel while I listen, and then I’ll tell you more how I feel while you listen, and then it will all work out. Easier said than done when two people are in deep in this driven culture, a culture that seems to support the idea of individual happiness over conflict transformation, of making money over finding out what your passion is, of acquiring wealth over giving service, or just the daily grind of work, work, work, and go, go, go. No wonder we walk away from friendships, marriages, community and civic organizations more now that ever. We are worn down and out. And relationships take work to maintain let alone deepen. And while "not taking things personally" has some merit, on the other hand, everything is personal. Yet another aspect of the truth of relationship is that making mindful changes could potentially lead to more pain because each person arrives in a relationship or friendship with all of their ancestors behind them and everything that led up to that moment in time, everything their family or communal group has been through in the past, everything they as an individual has experienced in the past. Family of origin (FOO) issues and personal traumas with a big T or a many little ts are always there potentially ready to come back to the surface. And that’s okay. That’s even necessary. Guilt, shame, grief, anger, all the un-metabolized experiences of our family lines and personal lives come back periodically to be re-examined and re-integrated as we develop. Ultimately in relationships we can coregulate with each other and work on healing the past while growing each other toward a better future. Interdependently, lovingly, fiercely, and fearlessly, we can try to help each other evolve into the best possible selves that we can be, which can’t really be done alone. It may start with prioritizing the vulnerability of relationships over the (perceived) certainty of ideas, with being curious about the complex systems that each individual is just one expression of, and a willingness to sit in the discomfort of our inner lives and hold space for others to sit in their discomfort. The more we learn to accept and work with and through pain, the more capacity for joy and delight we will have, individually and collectively. I’d take delight over being right any day.
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Do You Want To Process or Problem Solve?9/21/2023 Most of us have heard of two reactive coping strategies that many of us get triggered into: fight and flight. Without even being conscious of how we developed those "skills", we can fall into one of those modes of reaction when faced with conflict with our students, families, friends, and even strangers.
Fight or flight are crucial nervous system responses that happen when our amygdalas go into action in order to protect us from real or perceived threats. But it can be much more than that. In addition to fight and flight, there is fix, freeze, and appease. Appease is when we learned from very early on in our caregiving and family units that we needed to do whatever it takes to smooth things out, to make people happy, and to get along. Appeasers are the folks who need to learn how to say "no". These people are so nice. Mr. Nice Guy who never gets mad. The gal who always says yes to a new task. These folks are sweet and funny; they don't rock the boat. They learned to mask their inner feelings. Freezers are people who go into paralysis under stress. Many of us are Highly Sensitive People (HSPs) who can become overwhelmed when faced with too much stimulation or conflict or don’t know how to regulate a highly active nervous system. Instead, a great coping skill has become shut down mode. These are the people who have to walk away, or go to sleep, literally, or ignore issues, or say things, like "I don’t know" when asked how they feel; they really don't know because they learned feeling too much is dangerous. The Fixers want to solve problems for people. Their coping strategy, their way of maintaining control (as all of these coping mechanisms are trying to do) is to go into action and see if they can solve problems for other people. They are idea people, high energy, jump-in-and-get-their-hands-dirty folk. You got a problem? They have nineteen ways to solve it. They may even anticipate your issues and try to fix them for you. They are great in an emergency, but they also learned to fix was to forestall or deflect danger. Fight, flight, fix, freeze, and appease are great strategies in life. They served us at some point, but they become problematic when they remain on unconscious, when they are our reactions rather than thoughtful responses to stress, conflict, or interpersonal relations. Fixers, Appeasers, Fighters, Fliers, and Freezers can all benefit from working on curiosity, which can be hard to cultivate in this culture. It can be challenging to stay in the softer more vulnerable state of curiosity, rather than trying to move immediately into certitude or trying to figure things out or withdrawing from stress or conflict. To be curious about what’s happening with another person (student, friend, intimate partner, coworker), and perhaps even more importantly, being curious about what’s happening inside of ourselves rather than reactive to our own emotions and feelings, can slow things down and potentially avoid conflict, fear, or, inappropriate self-medicating, and, well, reactivity we may later regret. But it is hard to develop the meta-cognitive skills required to do this. One way to get into curiosity as a mode is to phrase things differently when we interact with others. Instead of saying, I think that…,we might say I wonder if…? or Is it possible that…? or What do you think or feel about...?" One of my favorite ones is to say to someone when they are talking about a problem, a concern, or a difficult feeling, Do you want to problem solve or process? This is a way of establishing a boundary of respect right from the start. It is way of asking what the other person wants without defaulting immediately into coping strategy. For an Appeaser or a Fixer or even a Freezer, knowing what the other person actually wants from you means you don’t have to reactively go into a habituated way of responding. Perhaps all the other person wants is to be heard and validated. "The gift of a listening face" is so important, and sometimes that’s all someone actually needs or wants. Or they might need that before wanting or being able to brainstorm and problem solve. On the other hand, if the question is asked, and someone says, Yes, I want help figuring this out, then problem solving is on the table (and for a Fixer like me, I'm all in!), but again, there’s some pressure removed, because if what you wanted to do was just listen and that ended up frustrating the person you were talking to, you know what they actually want from the beginning and you can say whether or not it’s something you can help with. Or if you are not a Fixer or their issue is outside your scope of help, you can also say you are really not sure how to help but maybe you can help them identify where they can get resources or support. Similarly, we can say to someone else what we actually want from them. We could say, I really need to vent and process; I’m hoping that you can just listen. We can be honest and tell someone that we are dysregulated, and we just need them to be a validating ear to help coregulate with us and bring down our agitation. Maybe that’s what we need before we can figure out our own problem solving. Or we can say to someone, I have something going on that I am having trouble with, and I can’t figure out an answer, and I was hoping to bounce some ideas off you and see if you could see this differently then I am or give me another perspective. Do you want to process or problem solve? has become one of my favorite questions. I ask myself it. I ask it with colleagues, students, friends, and loved ones. And I try to think about what it is that I need and see if I can state that upfront, as well. I often use this question to self-regulate if I find myself trying to jump into fixing things. Not my circus, not my monkeys. I tell myself that when I find I am overstepping my bounds or trying to take on someone's problems that aren't my own. I work to recognize what my habituated coping strategy is and when I'm unconsciously falling into it. Those incredible survival skills that we developed before we could even speak are hard to be conscious of because they are meant to be automatic. They are expressions of our nervous systems going into action to keep us safe. Usually we have one that is our major reactive habit when we are triggered, and often there is secondary one. For me, as a lot of educators are, it’s being a Fixer and if I can’t fix, I want to Fly. My husband, on the other hand, has two totally different primary and secondary triggered reactive processes. Becoming aware of these in relationship has been incredibly important to us, because these are not deficits. They are strengths, except when they remain unconscious. Learning to respect those reactive strategies while also learning to become curious about them, self reflective about them, asking them inside ourselves what they tell us about our feelings, and then sitting in that dysregulation and that discomfort, while we step forward out of them into conscious co-regulation has changed the way we manage conflict and the way we deepen our intimacy, safety, and health in the relationship, Because in the end, all human relationships have conflict, but conflict should ultimately be about curiosity about what could be learned from it rather than about winning or being right. Starting with a question helps to establish the idea of being open and curious and it doesn’t just end with that question; it means shifting into a mode of curiosity about self and other, and if we’re lucky, that leads to more surprises and discoveries and growth. Whether we work to be curious about students and what unmetabolized traumas they have experienced that have led to emotional scar tissue and reflexive rather than reflective behaviors or we are engaging our kids, loved ones, or friends, remembering that triggers happen and so do reactions and being curious about them rather than judgemental is a start. The next step is about how to create a safe space for developing self regulation and teaching strategies for becoming responsive rather than reactive. It always starts with us.
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