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How to face difficult conversations (Part Two)

How to face difficult conversations (Part Two)
Ewa Urban for Pixabay

Relationships can sometimes be rocked by arguments. But there are many ways to deal with our most difficult conversations – fresh directions that help us move out of the blame cycle and into a peaceful space.

Part Two of a two-parts series. If you missed Part One, read it here. 

How to face difficult conversations (Part One)

Listen to your true intentions beneath your actions

It feels true that speaking about your intentions does not excuse your behaviour. Good intentions might not take away the hurt, but talking about your intentions beneath your words or actions can open new dimensions in tense conversations that remind you of who you truly are within a relationship.

Hurting each other through the way you speak often removes your ability to see each other accurately. Talking about intentions can remind us of why we love each other.

We assume our hurtful words and actions are reflections of who we are and not our authentic intentions for the life of our relationship. In my experience, they seldom are.

In every fight, there are lots of good intentions beneath, like to be heard, to be closer, to care for each other and make it better. Your best or worst attempts might not reflect your true intentions.

In our desperate attempts to be understood and feel connected, we do not get why we speak to each other as we get blinded by how things are said and not the intentions underlying our words. That is why most disagreement quickly escalates away from the topics and gets stuck on how things are said.

Unfortunately, in our desperate attempts to “be seen”, we continue to feed our misunderstandings of each other. We grow new and very negative perceptions of each other based on our interpretations of hurtful behaviour. Even if the intention behind the behaviour is often as simple as to be heard, our behaviour does not send that message. Our behaviour and words tell us, “You want to hurt me, not hear me.” These misrepresentations build and then stand in the way of hearing each other.

When we pick up that difficult conversation, we react from how we are perceived and not who we truly are and we speak through the lenses of growing misperceptions. And that is how conversations with good intentions turn into ugly misunderstandings and escalate us away from each other.

Giving your relationship permission to speak about your intentions often highlights your true motivations behind your words and actions. It can align a person with their story, even if the story was hurtful. That is why we should honour our best attempts to speak, even if it hurts, as it is the only way to stay connected.

It takes courage to confront the topics that have been bothering you for a while and that you both have been ignoring. And you have to wonder why we would start a difficult conversation if you did not have good intentions.

Show empathy, compassion and kindness

When you are going through a hard time, empathy, compassion and kindness can feel like distant concepts. But thinking about what the other person is saying, plus thinking about what they are going through on an emotional level, can soften even the toughest interaction.

If you struggle to have an empathetic insight into your talking partner’s emotional world, the minimum you can do is to bring your volume and tone down to a level of kindness. Relationships are fragile and intimate work, and you need to treat each other with gentleness. Although I am all for a good honest argument, I do believe that kindness is a mindset that can shift your hardest fights into kind conversations.

To listen with empathy and compassion means that you put your own emotions aside and listen (before you speak) for an emotional understanding of what is being said. It is all about trying to feel another person’s feelings and imagining what they are genuinely experiencing and being kind about it.

Most often, we only focus on the content or what is being said, and forget about the stream of emotions that is bubbling underneath the surface. Empathetic listening means you hear and acknowledge the other’s emotional experience of the story. Opening this layer of emotions can deepen your understanding of the importance and meaning behind what you are saying. Now you might start to see why the story was met with such intensity.

The shift in direction comes when what you hear emotionally are not being questioned, judged, labelled, evaluated or measured. It is best to meet emotions (no matter where they come from), with kindness. In other words, they should be gently stroked.

Rather than debating and questioning each other’s emotions, spend your valuable energy on acknowledging what is felt and trying to understand it from the other’s view. Of course, if you tend to think that every negative emotion felt is a personal injury to yourself, you might have to look at your ego.

Being in a relationship is about your ability to hear and accept each other’s emotions, not only your own. And that is where we lose each other: when you take courage to speak from the heart what you feel and it is taken away from you.

Our egos are at the heart of our disconnection. It is ultimately our fragile and defensive egos that cannot just sit back and listen with interest and curiosity to another’s emotions; we have to defend ourselves. You have to ask yourself if you want to be in a relationship of honesty and growth, because if you do, you need to work on your ego in order to truly hear one another.

Affirm, appreciate, acknowledge

Unfortunately, we don’t speak and listen enough to what we love and enjoy about being in a relationship. Like the impact of the thoughts we carry on our experience of our lives, if we would spend the same amount of energy on what we appreciate about each other, our relationships would be in a better place.

During argument times, it is even more important to be affirming and acknowledging. Focus on reminding each other of why you are committed to your relationship, despite the difficult time. Affirm each other through speaking and listening to why this relationship matters to you. Tell each other why you are in this relationship, even if you are feeling hurt or doubtful.

Acknowledge what you appreciate and value about your relationship with all the kindness you can muster. This process is not the empty thank yous for what you do for me, this is honest speaking about the detail of a person you appreciate and or love.

See the bigger picture

The other day, I was watching MasterChef Australia and a contestant started crying after messing up a meal. One of the judges said to her: “Don’t cry, it’s just steak and chips.” Sometimes you need to remind yourself that the problems of your relationship are not all on one plate and that it is unfolding in the context of a bigger world.

A conversation without context tends to be focused only on the person or the problem without bearing in mind the influences on that person as a result of the bigger picture. As it is, we struggle to stay connected because contemporary society supports survival rather than connection. How are we supposed to stay connected if we are always rushing from one thing to the next?

Speaking about the big-picture influences, like rushing, that are affecting your relationship can be a good way to pause for reflection. These kinds of conversations can move you away from “the person and the problem” focus, and deepen your understanding of what your talking partner is going through outside of this tough time in your relationship. To see the context also deepens our compassion and empathy, and invites us to be kinder, not harder. It reminds us that our most important relationships should be safe – a soft landing.

In practice, this means you can talk about the spaces you’re living in that you think are impacting on your relationship’s survival. What is happening at work, in terms of parenting, age, finances, identity, history, politics… All of these factors are influencing your ability to be in this relationship in a way you want. Talking about the bigger picture can mean talking about the present and the past. Don’t only speak about what is stressing you; focus on the quality of your life experiences. Are you making the best of this experience called life?

Get to know each other’s triggers

One of the main reasons that sensitive topics escalate into damaging fights is because both parties get triggered. And once one or both parties get triggered, it becomes impossible to continue.

Triggers are painful emotional or psychological experiences from the past that have shaped us. As life is painful sometimes, we can’t avoid these experiences having an impact and shaping us emotionally. We carry our emotional scars into our adult lives, and most often, they surface during our most difficult arguments. No matter what level of self-awareness you might have, it is difficult to see yourself when you feel triggered.

One of the signs that someone is pressing your emotional buttons is an out-of-proportion emotional reaction to an event. The event feels small, but your reaction feels layered and big. This means that your mind and body’s natural defenses have kicked in, bringing a painful memory of a similar experience from your past into the present moment. You find your emotions intense and difficult to control. Even if you can recognise your emotions are overwhelming, we are seldom able to assign this layer of extreme reaction to our pasts. Instead, we fixate on the fight or on our talking partners.

To really get to know someone and be in a lasting relationship, you need to have an in-depth understanding of each other’s triggers or sensitive buttons. And to love someone is to support them in these moments when past waves hit them emotionally.

Finally, and on a more personal note, my partner and I have been fighting for the last two months. It has been the longest disagreement we’ve ever had and it’s awful to be in the middle of a lot of misunderstandings. It feels impossible to live there. I hate surviving life and not living it; it gets really boring. I just want to be in relationships that are alive.

Anyway, we ended up at our dining room table many times, defending ourselves and not listening. This was followed by a lot of walking and talking (sometimes in silence). Despite all our skills, we have some fears and strong defence mechanisms. We were pressing each other’s buttons and not hearing each other, but hurting each other. But then, after lots of talking and listening, we started to see ourselves, each other and our relationship again.

There is nothing to judge. DM/ML

Stefan Blom is a clinical psychologist who specialises in relationships. He lives and works in Cape Town and is the author of The Truth About Relationships (translated into Afrikaans and Romanian) published by Human & Rousseau.

http://blom.studio/relationships

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