Family Practice Associates

            No matter how old you are, you remember a time when the views and trends of your generation began to buck the views and trends of the previous one. I remember hearing the adults of my youth complain about the ruination of society over those “Beatle haircuts”. This blog may well be me on the other side – the old buzzard complaining about change and what I perceive as the ruination of society through my antiquated lens. But I think I also have a little reason and data to back me up.

            Clearly, communication has taken on some new dynamics in the last few years especially with the advent of email, social networks, and text messaging. I have a 17 year old daughter and I have to inquire further when I ask her “Hey baby girl, what are you doing” and she replies with “talking” to so and so. This could mean many things but most likely she is texting back and forth with one or more people. She is so advanced at this new technology that she can actually compose and send messages with the phone IN HER POCKET!

            Further, these sorts of technologies are very functional in many ways. We are easier to contact than ever before. They also give us a venue in which to deal directly and easily with practical matters and even some strongly emotional ones. I often recommend to divorcing and newly divorced parents to use email, text messaging or anything else that allows them to deal with the day to day issues of post-divorce parenting in a less physically direct format until things get emotionally settled between them. On the other hand, I believe that this level of distance and emotional disconnection is not always best.

            When we communicate, we do so with so much more than just our words. There is facial expression, tone of voice, body language and so many other things that go into sending and receiving important information especially with a loved one (that’s why they use those little symbols to suggest facial expression). These sorts of cues are more important than perhaps you know. Research tells us that all these levels of messaging must be congruent for a message to be clear and if they are not congruent (when the body language or tone of voice does not match the words) then the person receiving the message tends to believe the non-verbal cues over the words themselves. Unfortunately, these important non-verbal elements are lost in the electronic forms of communication, .

            So here’s my advice as if you asked for it! When it matters – I mean really matters – talk face to face if possible. Some things are just too important to risk not being understood. I know this is a harder and even scarier way to go sometimes but who told you that relationships were supposed to be easy. At least that’s what this old buzzard thinks!

            In my last blog, I spoke about how you might try doing one thing different in a disagreement as a way of breaking patterns. One of the changes that I suggested was “if you usually don’t say anything but just take it, figure out how to kindly but firmly stand up for yourself” and I also mentioned that this is a tough one to change. According to the Lerner book I referenced, people (women in particular according to her) tend to fall on one end or the other of a continuum. She says they tend to either be nurturers who put their own needs last and just kind of take the pressure and verbal put-downs or they revert to the other end and behave in a manner in which they are not so proud. She uses a term in the book I won’t use here but the person on this other end is tough, is cruel, is punitive if deemed necessary, and essentially lowers her/him self to the level of those that have hurt and controlled them.

            The trick is to find the middle ground. First you have to believe there IS a middle ground and that is ground worth gaining. I can only tell you that I believe very deeply that this is true. I admit that being there and staying there is harder work than defaulting to one or the other extremes but it is, in my opinion, worth the effort. It is a position of power but not dominance. It is a place from which you speak your truths but also allow others to have theirs. It is, as I described previously, a place from which you can “figure how to kindly but firmly stand up for yourself.” Notice, if you will, the two qualifiers – kind and firm.

            As I said, it’s a difficult and challenging place to achieve and also to maintain. Probably the biggest barriers to this sort of change are those around you. They too have been operating within the rules of the old dance and no one likes change especially when that change is kind of brought on by someone else. They want you to remain the “good ol’ keep your mouth shut, take care of our needs, and keep putting yourself last” self that they have known and grown accustomed to all these years. Even if they understand that this kind of change is for the better, they will initially resist as a natural reaction. That is when you will have to persevere in lovingly but firmly letting them know some things. Let them know that you are not going anywhere. Let them know that they still matter deeply to you. But also let them know that you matter to you. Let them know that your needs are worth acknowledging and affirming and that you will no longer live with the old status quo. They can learn. They’ll get used to it. And who knows, maybe they’ll learn how to take care of themselves a little better in the meantime!

My wife and my daughter (me, too, but don’t tell anyone!) like that TV show about celebrities trying to learn to dance. I think I like it because there is no way in the world I could do that. But there is a type of dancing that we all do and do quite naturally. A favorite book of mine and one that I recommend to lots of clients is called The Dance of Anger by Dr. Harriet Lerner. It’s subtitled “A woman’s guide to intimate relationships” but I find that the ideas there are helpful to anyone wanting to learn how to make their relationships healthier.

I’ll probably talk about many of the ideas in this book over time because her thinking matches up a lot with my training, thinking, and experience. A basic premise of the book is that we are all imbedded in relational systems and those systems operate in patterned ways. For example, think about disagreements you have with your spouse or other family member. I’ll bet if you consider closely you’ll find that these disagreements follow a fairly predictable pattern; you this, I that, you do more of this, I do more of that, and up we spiral or one of us exits the scene.

I’ll follow up on this idea many times but think about this. If, in fact, your disagreements are predictable and patterned, then here is an important thing you need to know. If you change one part of a system, you necessarily change the rest of the system. In plain English, if you break the “rules” and do something different from the predictable pattern, the other person or persons will necessarily have to do something different in response to your change. That’s pretty powerful if you think about it.

Try this. The next time you have an argument with a loved one, decide what in advance but change something – anything – from what you typically do. If you are a yeller, whisper. If you typically go to the bedroom to argue, go out on the back deck. If you usually don’t say anything but just take it, figure out how to kindly but firmly stand up for yourself (this last one is a toughie!). Change your steps and you may find yourself in a whole new dance. Now the new one may not be a great dance either but at least you will have shown yourself that you are not necessarily a slave to the old steps. And if new steps are possible then so are new healthier steps.