So Much Happier Blog
What Was That Again?
“Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.”
One of the areas of greatest disconnect in relationships is around the concept of listening. Most people think they’re great at listening, and many people overestimate their expertise in this area! Being an effective active listener takes work. It takes dedication, focus, determination to avoid distractions, emotional management, generosity, and willingness to stretch your own boundaries in the cause of better understanding a fellow human being. It’s easy and quite common to go off on mental tangents while others are speaking, including starting to plan your own response before the other person has expressed their thoughts. It can be hard to be patient enough to endure, remaining present, without interrupting, especially when the speaker is not great at organizing their thoughts before speaking, but patience is required if you really want to build understanding.
One of the best pieces of advice I’ve ever heard regarding effective listening is to take notes, which makes it a lot harder to split your focus by indulging in your own flights of fancy at the same time or jump to conclusions. Taking notes helps to slow down a mind that tends toward hyperdrive. When you’ve fully heard the speaker out, that’s a better time to process what has been said and compose your own contribution for best relevance. And the best practice for active listening is to go back over the speaker’s points, repeating what you think you heard, and asking questions to make sure you’ve understood. Doing this ensures better comprehension, which assures your speaker that you are serious about receiving their communication—and it helps them to feel heard, which pretty much everyone loves.
Why bother? Well, the best relationships, whether with family, friends, colleagues, or new acquaintances, require respectful curiosity and the willingness to compromise. You can’t gather information, get to know someone more deeply, walk in someone else’s shoes for empathy, or keep up with others’ evolution over time without being proficient at listening. If your listening skills are sub-par, your relationships will remain shallow and confusing. In short, no listening, no meaningful relationships.
With this in mind, I thought I’d share an infographic on communication that I thought you might find interesting. It is intended for consumption in the business world, but the facts and figures apply broadly. As you read it, take note: Where do think you really fall the various scales that measure these skills? Might there be room for improvement? Which of these might you practice this week to start improving your relationships further?
Timeless Communication
“To effectively communicate, we must realize that we are all different in the way we perceive the world and use this understanding as a guide to our communication with others.”
Last week we looked at some of the ways ways to become more comfortable with uncertainty and vulnerability. I suggested that one helpful exercise toward this end is practicing your communication skills, which can involve you in feelings of vulnerability more quickly that most things I know—not just for the sake of just feeling vulnerable, but in order to demonstrate that it’s possible to feel vulnerability and to live through it just fine. You may even come out of the experience with valuable knowledge that will help you in the future, plus greater confidence that feeling uncertain doesn’t mean anything very bad is happening. This week we’ll look at some basic ground rules for engaging in communication in a constructive way so that your practice can be more rewarding.
Do you ever feel like no matter what you say, you're not being understood? When this happens, it may be that the framework, the assumptions, the methods you're using are getting in the way of what you're trying to get across. Think about how differently you react when someone approaches you calmly and respectfully versus when someone ambushes, pressures or screams at you. It may be that there's valuable content that the person is attempting to relay in the second scenario, but you are unlikely to hear it because of the unpleasantness inherent in their attack. Numerous skills may be lacking in such a case, and while we'll only cover a small number today, here are some thoughts on methods that will affect your communication styles for the better with consideration and practice.
- One of the most helpful guiding principles for skillful communication is the ability to acknowledge and represent that your feelings are no one else's fault. This may seem like a radical idea, because it often seems that our feelings are a direct result of how others behave, i.e., if he would just listen, or if she would just stop nagging me, I wouldn’t have to be so angry…etc. But this line of thinking puts you in the position of the victim, and predicates your happiness on the choices of others. This suggests that you are powerless to change the situations in your life for the better, which is rarely the case.
- You have choices in your thoughts, which do much to give rise to your feelings; you also have choices in your actions. You have the option to do the internal work necessary to understand and handle your own emotions on a daily basis, then take any appropriate actions so that they don't spiral out of control. It takes two to tango, and (unless you've been kidnapped) you always have a part in the creation of interactions with another person, if only by choosing to be there and interact at all. In your communications, it is often important to share how you feel, but this is best done without blame. You might say, "When you slam the door when you come in and out of the room, I jump every time, which isn't pleasant for me. I end up feeling irritated, and then I end up resenting you." You are explaining the situation from your point of view in a somewhat mechanical, logical way that is less likely to put the listener on the defensive. It represents how one thing leads to another in your personal experience. This makes it more likely that the listener will actually see the problem you describe as understandable and, hopefully, be willing to participate in finding a solution. (Timing is key here. Ideally, you will find a time to attempt a communication like this when you’re calm and can remain solution oriented.)
- This may be pretty difficult to do depending on the situation. When we haven't practiced this skill, we have a tendency to get lost in thinking things like, "You're stupid. You're selfish. If you cared about anyone but yourself, you would pay attention to what you're doing and think!" Yet it's possible for someone else to have a viewpoint sufficiently different from yours that it has very sound logic, based on their unique experience and goals, that you would not have been able to figure out without their explanation. If you allow yourself to presume that the other's viewpoint is valid and seek to understand it, you may be surprised how much there is to learn, and how much cooperation then becomes possible.
- It's essential to allow others the space to have their own reactions. This is often one of the hardest skills to learn for numerous reasons. We have a tendency to react to others’ emotions, whether out of a desire to help the other to feel better, or out of fear of certain outcomes, which can include fear of aggression or abandonment. These fears can be based on ingrained past experiences, including in childhood, such that primal survival instincts kick in. This may seem automatic, inevitable, and activate your physical fight/flight/freeze response even if you're just discussing who is going to walk the dog. You may not even know consciously why you're getting so stressed out, and it's not easy to work with an issue you can't even see. Psychological work like traditional talk therapy is designed to help you understand why you behave in certain ways so that you can spot these seemingly automatic reactions and practice responding differently when you choose to. It may take some doing to recognize that flash point when old patterns start to smolder, but it can be done. Somatic modalities like EFT can also work to release stress regarding both old situations and recent ones from the body, which helps you to stay calmer when facing something that triggers a disproportionate reaction.
- Allowing someone else to express difficult emotions without immediately trying to “fix” them or defend yourself from direct or implied (or imagined!) blame absolutely takes practice. Depending on your upbringing, your values, and the roles you tend to play in social groups, it can feel downright painful. Yet everyone else’s emotions are created from a complicated mix of elements just as yours are, and no matter what someone else claims, they are not your fault, nor yours to fix. Obviously if you love someone, you don’t want them to be in unnecessary pain, and you certainly may be able to help them to feel better in some ways, including by taking responsibility for your motives and actions. But they have a right to feel their emotions and work through them. If you try to be too involved in that process or take too much responsibility for how they feel, you are depriving them of important experiences. Meditation and other calming practices help you to solidify states of mind that you can learn to recapture when you’re in challenging situations, which is part of why such practices are so valuable. When you have a well-practiced state of calm that you can call upon when you’re being tempted to get drawn into emotions that are not your own, you have a lot more power to communicate in helpful ways.
These are just a couple of skills you can practice to improve your ability to communicate effectively and respectfully with others in your life, and they are definitely among the most challenging. I didn't start with the easy ones, but with the ones that may take the longest to master! I hope you'll dive into some area of these and see if you can make some progress. When you can be more skilled with your communication and remain calmer while doing it, it's incredibly empowering.
A White-Knuckle Ride
“The future is no more uncertain than the present.”
If you want to live a life that feels exciting and fulfilling, it's extremely important to define your goals. I hope you've taken the time to do that so that you have a basic roadmap for the path you want to tread. Once you've done that, you have many decisions to make regarding your preferred pace and methods in working toward them. One of the most difficult things about working on long-term projects often turns out to be the discomfort of becoming someone new, someone who has and can confidently use the skills necessary to achieve your stated goals. It can be equally difficult to communicate the changes in progress to the important people in your life, and to unveil your plans and results to people who may display mixed reactions to them for any number of reasons.
Sometimes the best course of action will be to fly under the radar as you begin to make your initial steps toward your goals. Change can be messy, and you don't necessarily need others poking at you with their opinions about what you're doing in the early stages. Your choice here should have a lot to do with your personality—how much do you like to talk over your daily experience with others? How much support would you like from others as you work? Would you rather not have to deal with the endless advice of others who may have your best interests at heart, but tend to be fearful or don't know much about your subject area?
But eventually, you'll need to come out into the light of day with your projects and be willing to unveil your changes and be seen in order to fully succeed. This process can be scary when you don't yet have it all together, and don't relish the idea of being judged. Knowing that others are watching as you stumble through things you're not yet expert in can leave you feeling pretty vulnerable. And yet, no one ever achieves new things without navigating this situation. You don't have to love it, but the more comfortable you grow with being seen to be imperfect, the more free you'll be to keep moving through all the uncertain moments in your projects—and there will be many!
You can practice gaining comfort with vulnerability by working on your projects and learning new things. (Continually stretching beyond your current abilities and knowledge also keeps you from getting stuck in any ruts and becoming bored. It also keeps your brain working, which is great for its long-term health.) Every time you research your next steps, attempt to move forward through trial and error, or experience an inspiration leading to new possibilities, you acknowledge what you don't know, while at the same time reaffirming that it's ok not to know everything, and you can and will get where you want to go anyway.
Another one of the ways that you can practice being ok with uncertainty is by choosing to be more communicative with others, and this requires no special situation. All of our interactions with others offer fertile ground here, and most of us encounter numerous other people every day. It's rare that anyone can say that they never encounter discomfort in communicating with others; unfortunately, most of us were taught in some way or other that honest communication is dangerous. This may have been through experience, by noticing that our parents vastly preferred it when we were "good little children" who expressed no opinions or desires (they were busy, and raising kids is hard, so it's not hard to understand why our parents sent the message sometimes that silence is golden). Maybe you asked innocent questions of teachers and didn't understand their disapproving reactions. Maybe as a child you communicated without a filter, as kids do, and sometimes hurt friends' feelings without meaning to. Or maybe you learned to avoid communication because you got one too many bombshells dropped on you at some point, and decided that it was better for everyone to keep things to themselves and refrain from rocking the boat. Whatever may have happened to slow down your interest in owning your truth and communicating openly and confidently, when you're an adult, it's incredibly empowering to work on taking back your ability to share what needs to be said in timing that is appropriate for you.
There are many wonderful sources of information about helpful communication techniques that you can learn from, but in order to become competent in using them, you must practice. Because this practice will offer you plenty of awkward and uncomfortable moments no matter how smart you are (because every person and situation is different) it will serve to help you acclimate to that feeling of stumbling through the use of new skills, and finding that the world will not end because your performance wasn't flawless. As you find out what works well for you, you'll also be gaining confidence in your ability to learn and keep going through uncertainty and discomfort—important skills for any kind of success!
Honest communication can be more frightening than skydiving, and working at it can bring up similar amounts of fear and adrenaline depending on your skill level. If the thought of just calmly and openly stating how you feel and what you want makes you feel like you're about to keel over, then start small. You might ask clarifying questions next time you're buying something in a store or ordering food in a restaurant, explaining what you're trying to accomplish or what you prefer. You could try asking people for the time or directions just for the sake of interacting on topics with little importance. Or try asking someone you care about to do something minor that they normally do with you in a slightly different way, because it seems like fun. When you become willing to express opinions about small things, you start becoming more aware of what you want and what you have to say. You also get used to others responding reasonably to minor requests, as most people will, which will build your confidence in considering tackling larger issues.
Next week's blog will continue where we've left off here, and suggest the most helpful principles I've found for communicating well with others. This week, I hope you'll remind yourself that change is often uncomfortable, but it can become less so as you become familiar with the process. So much can be gained when you're willing to keep going even though you don't know everything about how to climb your mountain.
The Safe, Happy Place
“The principle of self defense, even involving weapons and bloodshed, has never been condemned, even by Gandhi.”
Two more of Maslowe’s noted preconditions for the effective satisfaction of all our basic needs, which seem to be the most clearly associated with safety, are “the freedom to defend oneself” and “orderliness in the group.” Both of these particular preconditions are of such immediate importance to our ability to meet our safety needs that they are very difficult to ignore. If they are not in a favorable state in a culture, we will likely find it difficult to attend to anything else but our concerns about safety. And a life lived around safety concerns will not be a satisfying one for the vast majority of people. Hopefully you don’t live in a place where you lack the ability to defend yourself and experience basic societal orderliness, but even so it’s worth understanding the ways in which people will react when these preconditions are not in place.
Many countries have laws that allow the use of force for purposes of self-defense. Since the drive for self-preservation is so basic, we aren’t expected to override it even though violence in other situations is generally not condoned; we often automatically consider that the aggressor was likely at fault, as he most likely had other options for addressing the situation, but chose to attack. If for some reason the use of force in self-defense is not considered allowable by a culture, citizens will tend to live in fear and either disempowerment (which denies both the person himself and the culture access to the best he can be and produce) or rebellion (which turns all the power the individual can muster against the culture itself). Neither is very conducive to the happiness of the individual or of the whole in the long run. As an acknowledgment of the individual’s right to defend themselves, in the United States, for instance, there is a constitutional right to bear arms. The founding fathers of this nation were adamant that citizens must be able to protect themselves from both each other and any other threatening force, including their own government’s forces, and the forces of other nations. In today’s far more populous world, and with advances in technology, we now have problems with violence that they could not have foreseen, but the fact remains that the freedom to defend ourselves is very important to both our physical and psychological well-being.
Because our needs for safety are intense, some of the most impassioned debates in any culture will center on the methodologies that are used, allowed, and disallowed in creating and maintaining safety. Even when it’s not immediately clear how, the loudest arguments usually point back to participants’ fears about safety issues. It can be helpful to remember this when you run across strangers acting out. It can help you in taking others’ actions less personally and remaining centered in the face of others’ drama, which allows you full access to all of your resources to keep yourself safe. Similarly, when you notice someone in your life arguing adamantly or disproportionately about something that seems less important to you, chances are that he is connecting the discussion to an immediate or future loss of safety. If you’re interested in aiding in resolutions, and you care about this person, it can be helpful to focus on finding out what he’s really afraid of and addressing it more directly. This may not be an easy task, which is often part of why we don’t take the time to do it. In today’s world, where many of us are almost constantly dealing with an overactive fight-or-flight response for a variety of reasons, finding the root causes of fears and stress can be a complicated process. This is where professional help may be in order, as well as the use of tools that can help dial down stress, such as Emotional Freedom Techniques. Another reason we may not be willing to invest the time and energy necessary to this kind of process is that it may be uncomfortable to be in the presence of this person’s heightened emotions, and those that may be triggered in us as a result.
Unfortunately, most cultures are profoundly uncomfortable with emotional expression and inquiry. So often, we are given the message from the time we’re children that it’s unacceptable to display or even feel emotions. We learn to ignore and repress our feelings, and as a result, we learn little to no facility with handling our own and others’ emotions. We fear anything that looks like emotions or emotional expression as potentially overwhelming. And we remain stunted and confused about a huge, and totally valid and useful, component of human life. This is not serving us.
Moving on to orderliness in a group: This precondition is created through agreement on the ground rules that members of a society will follow, whether formal or unwritten. These rules may be created all at once, or evolve over time, but they must be upheld through stable structures like judicial systems in order to govern. They also need to be able to be updated in response to cultural changes, which are inevitable. If there is no mechanism for changing them, they are doomed, as humans naturally evolve over time. When a sufficient number of members does not agree and follow those rules, and they cannot be changed effectively, chaos in some degree is in store. And when chaos rules, again, the highest potential of members and of the whole group will go out the window. All will feel unsafe. Some members of the group will most likely react to the lack of order by hiding and others by resorting to violence. Smaller groups will band together and may fight each other. Safety will need to be an individual focus until some semblance of order is re-established. No matter how creative and adaptable someone is, when a no-rules culture is in play, that person will likely long for some societal structure and agreement, particularly if he has experienced it before. Humans are inherently social, and most of us desire some semblance of peaceful, constuctive interaction.
Since all of the preconditions are created or challenged in the culture in which an individual finds herself, she cannot likely single-handedly change them; she must therefore find ways to work with them as they are, become part of a movement to shift the current conditions, or physically move to another place with different conditions. If you find yourself in conditions where these preconditions are not stable, you have a difficult choice to make. Will you do your best to pursue happiness from within these challenges? Will you commit yourself to the difficulties of trying to change them from within the system? Or will you make an effort to transplant yourself into entirely new place? If you’re lucky, and you live in a place where the governing rules are clear, universally applied, and mostly reasonable, you may find that you take this for granted, as well as the right to defend yourself physically from threats. It’s easy to forget just how much such conditions support us in moving up the hierarchy of needs into areas more satisfying than safety needs. You may also forget that even when these preconditions around you are mostly favorable, it’s still possible to run up against a circumstance, whether real or imagined, that will snap you back to fear—and that experience can pack a wallop when you’ve become accustomed to safety.
The next time you do find yourself reacting fearfully, try asking yourself what you’re really afraid of, and do your best to address what you find. After all, the quality of your life depends on your ability to handle your safety needs and move on to more fulfilling subjects. Your emotions often have important messages for you about changes you need to consider making. Keep an eye out for the ways in which you may overreact when you feel (not always consciously or correctly) that your safety is on the line, look for root issues, and look for ways to change your tendency in the direction of calmer responses. Be open to noticing the ways in which those close to you may overreact similarly, and consider how you can help them to feel more safe and attended to, as well as to understand their own fears. Get help with all of this if and when you need it. Of course there are times when you’ll need to take real action on real safety issues, but much of the time you may find that focusing on getting specific about what’s bothering you and working on being a better communicator can help to calm your fears. Becoming more comfortable with admitting that you have emotions, and owning up to what they are, is also well worth the effort, as it can release a lot of internal pressure and conflict.
It’s natural for us all to crave physical safety and feel that there’s order to our world. Becoming aware of what’s lacking in these areas and addressing those things can make a huge difference in our enjoyment of life and our ability to spend time in fulfilling ways.
There's No Place Like Home, Part II
“The ache for home lives in all of us. The safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned.”
In the last blog, we examined the importance of your feelings of safety from the outside world while you're at home. This week, we'll talk about maintaining a safe, secure environment inside the home, which is just as vital to your health and happiness for all the same reasons. There are two aspects of safety we’ll touch on, both physical and emotional safety; both need attention if we are to feel that we are truly free to reach confidently for the things we most desire out of life.
When we're spending time in at home, in the space that's supposed to be just for us, we deserve to feel supported, loved, understood, and protected. We live in environments that we ourselves have created in our imperfect image—we are constantly confronted with the choices that have made it what it is; we've made these choices over time, sometimes without even realizing that we're doing it. The countless small decisions of the past add up to an effect that we feel every time we open the door. Let’s take a few moments to consider what you’ve established and whether you feel good about it. For instance, do you feel comfortable with how being at home generally feels to you? With the way you spend your time there? With the others who populate the world of your home? If not, you have the power to modify the conditions inside your home to improve your comfort and safety.
The louder of the two aspects of safety is the physical—if you feel like your safety is in jeopardy because someone close to you is violent and may potentially harm you physically, this will tend to be very obvious to you, very upsetting and hard to ignore. That’s as it should be! Someone who can’t even treat you with the respect required to refrain from hurting you outwardly does not belong anyone near you. Unfortunately, there are many reasons why we sometimes put up with behavior from others that is completely inappropriate. Those may include that this person is a family member, and we can’t just choose not to be related to them anymore (it can seem unthinkable to cut someone out of your life who has been such a long-standing part of your life.) It may be that we love and care for this person, even feel that we understand them, and so we wish to be a loving influence in their lives. It may be that we fear change and are afraid to be alone. Whatever the reason you might give, there is a lot of great information out there in the world on dealing with abusive relationships, and while I certainly hope that you’re not a part of anything that looks like this, if you are, there is help for you. I encourage you to go find it. No one should have to live in fear for their physical safety.
On a slightly different note, it is also possible to feel physically threatened by a pet that lives with you. Sometimes it’s necessary to be honest with yourself and admit that a pet that seemed like a good idea at one time is not conducive to your happiness and safety any longer. This can be very difficult for some of the same reasons as described above regarding threatening people. Our pets are family to many of us, and recognizing that a relationship with one isn’t healthy and taking action to correct the situation can be extremely painful. However, it may be easier to change/”train” a pet than a human, so if this is your issue, you may want to look into getting professional help with the animal’s behavior. You’ll still need to be ready to make a new choice if the relationship feels threatening after your best efforts. Your safety, again, should come first.
In order to create an environment that really feels safe and secure from the inside, we must also consider the emotional quality of our relationships with people, as they are at the core of our home's overall effect on us. If you feel that those who figure importantly in your time at home are likely to attack you, your choices, your character, you are not going to be able to enjoy the sense of harmony from which you can be at your best, see clearly, have good ideas, and live a high-functioning life.
· Most importantly, who gets to live in your personal space with you? As anyone who has ever had a bad, or even just incompatible, roommate knows, this affects so many areas of daily life. If someone in our space is at cross purposes with us, it can seem like the whole world is opposing our every move! On the other hand, if you enjoy the people you live with, you get to experience a sense that life is more fun because you’re not alone; you get to feel that others are looking out for you and the home base you share. Ideally, those you live with love and support you in such a way that you feel seen and accepted for who you are when you're around them. If this in not what you generally feel at home, you are dealing with unnecessary stress and dissonance, and you can improve your happiness dramatically by giving some thought to the situation and taking appropriate corrective action.
· Who visits regularly? Who else you allow into your space with regularity also has a lot of bearing on how you will feel at home. If you’re allowing people into your personal space who don’t seem to be on your side, people who are judgmental, selfish, or overly demanding, you will begin to feel that you cannot relax even at home. It will be hard to rest and enjoy downtime there. Again, you are inviting stress into your experience that could be eliminated through the establishment of some better rules about how you use your home.
· Who calls your home number and expects you to pick up the phone? You train others to expect your time and attention by demonstrating when you’re available to them, as well as, in this case, giving out your digits in the first place. If you’re in the habit of giving away all your time and energy to others over the phone when you’re at home, this is another way in which you may be creating a home environment that doesn’t feel safe, calm, and supportive to you. While I’m not suggesting that you should act like a hermit and refuse to talk to anyone once you’re home, I do think it’s important to make sure you get some time to yourself regularly that’s free of unwelcome demands. You decide what time you will give to your community of friends and family, and must make sure you communicate what time is off limits.
· Who has a key and can let themselves in? This level of trust belongs only with those you know you can trust no matter what, and it pays to be very selective on this count.
If a relationship with a family member or other roommate is not supportive to you, and you want to restore your feelings of safety, you'll need to find a way to communicate your experience and ask for changes. This is an area in which we tend to be woefully uneducated, and the idea of confronting others about what’s not working can be frightening because we’re not confident that we can lead the situation to a helpful resolution. There are many excellent books available on building your communication skills, and I highly recommend that you make it a priority to brush up on them if you ever have trouble talking to people in your life about important subjects—and who doesn’t, really? One of the books I like to recommend is Crucial Conversations, by Patterson, Grenny, McMillan, and Switzler, because it deals specifically with isolating the bad habits we usually fall into when attempting to communicate important content and finding ways to break out of them. I think that communication skills are a critic necessity for living a happy life, and I encourage you to consider yourself a lifelong learner here. Being able to accurately and confidently express yourself makes it possible to achieve so much more in your life. You deserve to be able to handle whatever comes up with other people in the most constructive way possible.
Beyond verbal discussion, there may come a time when you need to set some boundaries and enforce them in order to create a sense of lasting safety for yourself. Again, many of us have not been trained in confidently discerning and putting into place the boundaries we need. If you are in a situation that feels bad to you, particularly at home, and you don’t see a way to resolve it, you’ll need to find an advisor to help you find a way through. A smart, balanced friend or family member or a professional counselor of some kind can help you to see the situation more clearly and find the course of action that is most appropriate for you.
Taking some time to review how safe you feel at home, both physically and emotionally, is extremely important to the overall quality of your life. It’s very difficult to be your best self if you don’t feel that you have a place to be in your downtime that is basically supportive and peaceful for you. Please allow yourself to really consider this and see if anything stands out to you as needing your attention. Confronting these issues can be most uncomfortable, but is well worth it in the long run. Proving to yourself that you can improve this aspect of your life will improve your confidence in yourself and your ability to improve other areas of your life as well.