Language and our interpretation of events, and not the actual events themselves, frame the results we get as well as our future actions.
You’ve been striving for that promotion for months now, only to recently find out that it’s been given to someone else. What goes through your mind:
- My boss favours Julia more. I am more qualified, but he simply likes Julia more. I need to find another job where I’m more appreciated.
- I knew I wouldn’t get it! These things never go my way, I’ll never move up the company ladder!
- Maybe there are aspects of my performance that need improving. I wonder if Julia and my boss would be open to a conversation about how I could improve?
- Julia must have sabotaged my chances by either bad mouthing me, or schmoozing the boss, heck maybe she used her sex appeal..
Each explanation serves as a starting point for future actions, which lead to certain interactions and results.
What’s your explanation or internal narrative, are you even aware of it, and that you’ve been building them your whole life?
If you’re not aware of your explanations, the option of creating a more powerful story isn’t even an option!
Happiness is about creating the right balance between peacefulness and productivity. What do you think?
Peacefulness is the subjective, qualitative nature of your life experiences. This includes how you feel about your life: the degree to which you experience pain, suffering, happiness, satisfaction or dissatisfaction in an ongoing way.
Productivity is the quantitative, more objective side of things. It’s the getting-things-done side, the real-world, tangible, results side, the making a contribution side. It’s also the purpose-driven side, the part of your life that gives you inherent meaning.
Happiness includes both these aspects. It includes and is balanced proportionally between the 2.
How do we dissolve toxic barriers that keep us from growing and build healthy boundaries instead which aid our growth?
A barrier is a contraction and the defence of a position, idea or belief and a boundary an expansion, relaxation and willingness to look into the validity of 'limits'. A boundary is held in a space of inquiry.
How do you dissolve a barrier?
- Observe and relax into the barrier.
- Can you understand and be aware of your defensiveness?
- What’s your position in relation to the barrier and what words do you use in relation to your barrier?
- How do you feel when you get into defensive mode?
You will feel empowered when you hold a boundary, you will feel relaxed, expansive, open, alert, mature, confident and grounded. You know you held your boundary even though perhaps you upset someone in doing so.
Barriers come up as a means of protecting oneself when one is hurt, another barrier could just be unskillful means. Fear, anger and bad skills are all barriers.
Let’s say you value that your children(adult) don't take drugs at home. Here’s the healthy version:
- You’re clear on why you have that boundary and what the consequences are, if that boundary is transgressed.
- You’re open to reviewing that boundary as your values and circumstances evolve and change.
- You’re able to hold the boundary as you’re clear about why you have it to begin with.
Barriers are created unconsciously and because you don’t intentionally develop them, you feel a little out of alignment when you have to defend them. Since values are intrinsic to identity, if one's unconscious boundaries are trampled on you will feel trampled on, and that's going to cause pain, suffering and some sort of push-back.
Clear, healthy boundaries are important because they serve to manifest our values in the world.
Well, what is an authentic response? I believe that true authenticity in communication lies in knowing oneself. And what do I mean by this? I mean how aware are you of your own being? Learning to communicate authentically requires us to become aware of our body, our thoughts and our emotions.
Here are some relevant questions I would like to pose to you in relation to this: how connected are you to what’s real and authentic and do you know where that’s coming from? What are the causes of your thoughts and feelings? What keeps you from your authentic self in relation to others?
Say you meet someone and they pay you a compliment, but subconsciously you strip it of all its emotional richness, so the only way you connect with it is on an intellectual level. How much of this type of thinking influences your relationships? What barrier have you put up that prevents you from receiving the fullness of the compliment?
Your ability to communicate authentically with others is in direct relation to your capacity to have strong boundaries - you’re clear on what you want and what you don’t want. These boundaries are important because they enable you to connect with yourself at an emotional, body, and mind level. And until you can do this, you can’t connect with and communicate authentically with others.
The natural instinct would be to assume that clear boundaries inhibit communication and that to communicate authentically we would have to relax them. On the contrary, clear, healthy boundaries ground us in the totality of who we are, thereby making that connection with another person more fulfilling. There’s a difference between a mental barrier, which strips whole hearted connection and a healthy boundary which enhances it.
You can’t read into another without knowing yourself and you need contrast in order to know yourself. Close your eyes. What is there, nothing but blackness, no contrast whatsoever. It’s just black, no differentiation, you don’t know what’s yours and what isn’t yours. Similarly, if you want to learn how to communicate with your partner you need to know what’s yours and what’s not yours.
If we are to learn to communicate authentically we first need to be connected to our own energy - body, mind and spirit, and then learn to integrate all 3. Once you have created this connection you can more easily communicate with your partner, work at meeting each others needs, and grow your relationship.
A couple divorces. After 2 years of being the sole support for their son, the mother is now angry and frustrated. She needs financial support for insurance and medical bills as well as for the father to be more actively involved with their son to allow her some time off.
She could resort to legal action that would be expensive and difficult, not to mention the years or lifetime of tension and anxiety that it would create.
First off she needs to become clear on what she wants and how much of a priority that is because in order to do this, it's going to take time and energy. If it's not a priority, one that we can give time and energy to then better just to drop it altogether or in this case, take a chance in court.
A more intelligent approach would be to visit a mediator before anything else because it’s unlikely that when emotions run high we're going to find the clarity to think and act purposefully. If she can learn through this mediation process to think, act and communicate more authentically then she might be able to get what she wants.
It’s all well and good knowing what you need in relation to the challenges you face, but authentic communication takes time and energy and we can only deal with so much at a time.
So how could she prioritize this according to her need for financial support among others? It’s critical to not only know what we need, but how important it is.
- accept and work to change a situation
- accept and move away from it (if possible) if it's unacceptable and we determine we either can’t change it or it's not a priority
- accept and live with it if it's unacceptable but we can't change it or its not a priority and/or we can't move away from it.
The difficulty lies in the acceptance of a certain issue because we are so used to pushing back or resisting when things don’t go our way.
The traditional way of getting what we want is to push back or demand it and then we wonder why we end up frustrated when we don’t get what we want.
This language is embedded in our psyche at a young age by our parents, then by our school teachers, by universities, organizations.
I went to a very traditional school where if you did well academically or sportingly, especially rugby, you were rewarded and thrust into the spotlight. Communication is defined by a set of rules that you have to conform by - you must attend chapel everyday, learn the school hymn, wear uniform, cut your hair, polish your shoes, make tea and sandwiches for prefects, get grades to get into university.
And this type of communication is found everywhere in our relationships, after all it’s what we’ve been programed to know. It’s deeply entrenched in corporate culture where if you don’t work to satisfy shareholder value, then you’re deemed surplus to requirements.
This type of communication is built on limit and control. The objective: get everyone to conform. This language is destructive and denies choice or responsibility.
It’s communication that’s built on shame, guilt, duty, reward, punishment, and everyone pays for it because it separates us from what we want at a deep level.
This is communication that abounds in the game of who’s right, and if you’re wrong, then you must be punished. Although highly toxic, there’s a kernel of truth to it. The clean and necessary part of it lies in its ability to uphold boundaries as well as helping us heal at that level where we experience pain.
The real objective should be: never try teach anybody anything, never try to change anyone. This type of power lies within self, and we know it, we’ve just lost the connection with it.
Does it become uncomfortable for you to voice what you’re feeling for the fear that it might turn into another fight? What’s going on here, and is there a solution to this problem?
One way to escape this is through empowered communication: Learning to communicate more effectively gives you understanding, connection, the ability to build meaningful relationships, gives you what you want.
The first step lies in being able to understand and connect with what you want. If I get what I want will my problem be solved?
Then connect with the feeling behind your unmet need: are you annoyed, angry, confused, disconnected, embarrassed, tense, sad... Naming the feeling gives you ownership of it, otherwise it's just another feeling that’s easily projected onto others.
I feel uncomfortable and it’s your fault! If only my boss, partner or friend would get their act together, then everything would be ok!
So what are some practical steps to take to get you out of this mess?
- Create a plan to get what you want.
- Connect with and express your feelings.
- Connect with and express your needs then connect with your partners needs.
- Ask yourself: “If I have this need met, will I feel better for it?”
Developing the skill of listening and connecting with what someone is expressing is the basis for meeting needs and growing relationships. Release your need for association with or need to fix another persons problem but at the same time take responsibility for your own behavior.
Key is taking responsibility for the quality of relationship with your partner, business colleague, friend etc. Know what you want and why you want it, and then use authentic communication as a means to get it and grow your relationship.
