Good Will
Easing Conflict & Enhancing Good Will
Difficult Relationship Solutions
Nathan C. Claunch, Ph.D.
1. WHO'S BEING DIFFICULT?
In Pogo's famous words, "We have met the enemy, and he is us."
The first thing to understand about people-being-difficult is that we are all difficult at times and that we are most inclined to be difficult at those critical moments when we're convinced that it's the other person who's being difficult. Obviously that's a formula for painful feelings and conflicts to continue at best and to escalate at worst.
This material is written with the assumption that you may be alone in your conscious efforts to improve a given encounter or relationship. If in fact you and another person with whom you've become mutually difficult are both interested in changing, you would each do well to assume that the responsibility or opportunity is 100% yours for making things better. Counting on the other to improve first leaves your fate mostly in their hands. I doubt that's what you want, and I'm certain that won't work.
I'm also assuming in this material that the relationships you wish to improve are with difficult people whose on-going good will you need or want. With difficult people whose good will or cooperation doesn't really matter, my suggestion is to avoid them, leave them, or, if possible, have them arrested, fired, or driven out of town by the local sheriff.
It would sadden the toughest among us to drive down the street and see two little children crying in pain as they hit and screamed at each other. To me as a psychologist, marriage counselor, and human being, it's equally sad to see how often good, intelligent, and well-intended people get caught up in vicious circles of mutually hurtful behavior and painful feelings. It's sad how often familiarity breeds contempt and our best behaviors are squandered on those who matter least.
2. TRANSCENDING OUR LIZARD BRAINS
The most basic decision to make about another's difficult behavior is whether to react automatically from "authentic" feelings and urges or to take the high road in an equally "authentic" wish to create more productive outcomes.
When reacting automatically to difficult behavior, our "honest" urges are to respond by being equally difficult. Our heads are flooded either with anger-based fighting words like, "I don't have to take that crap," or with fear-based submissive words like, "Oh my, I'm so sorry if I hurt or offended you. Let me de-self lest you be upset." I think of these intense fight or flight reactions as "lizard brained" because of the extent to which they mimic the attacks and retreats of reptiles and other less evolved critters.
Unlike lab rats who learn not to go down blind alleys in a maze, we human beings persist over and over in attitudes and behaviors that simply don't work, don't accomplish our goals. We do this as our beliefs and feelings convince and re-convince us that others OUGHT to respond as we wish and intend. We feel compelled by OUR realities, OUR maps of the world, OUR intense feelings to remain ignorant of and painfully at odds with the other's equally compelling feelings and realities. When our efforts backfire repeatedly, we indulge ourselves in the same old consolation prizes of self-pity, righteous indignation, disdain, or victimized helplessness.
For a wiser set of options, we can choose to employ the more evolved end of our brains, our psychologically and spiritually more enlightened "higher" selves. We can decide to seek better outcomes rather than to have our own fate hijacked and dictated by our natural but ineffectual reactions.
I consider our more and our less evolved selves to be equally authentic even though the intense reactions we share with lizards certainly FEEL more "real" when they take us over.
It helps to distinguish between feelings and the behaviors we choose. Feelings do NOT have to dictate what we say or do. If everyone always said or did what they felt like saying or doing and if we translated every urge into behavior, then we would all be in jail. Words like willpower, resolve, and courage would disappear from the language along with restraint, diplomacy, and generosity.
As with dieting or quitting an addiction, staying on track with these solutions certainly won't work if you attempt them half-heartedly or without a comfortable sense of choosing them freely and committing to an informed and persistent effort.
3. STEPPING BACK FROM THE BULL
Key to self-control in the heat of a challenging encounter is the ability to step back emotionally and conceptually to a place where you can contemplate what's going on. From there, like the toreador standing two steps back from the cape-charging bull, you need not "take personally" what the other person is doing or saying.
In his book, "Getting Past No," negotiation expert William Ury calls this, "going to the balcony." Spiritually it's called "transcendence." By whatever name, it sets you back from the fray and thereby improves your capacity for self-control and your opportunity to think and to plan. People vary in the amount of practice needed to get good at this skill.
4. NOT MAKING THINGS WORSE
Stepped back from automatic and self-defeating urges, you can utilize the simple yet powerful strategy of resisting or ceasing whatever makes things worse. That'll get you something for nothing - a less inflamed adversary in exchange for no more painfully wasted efforts. It can be delightfully surprising how much better others become when we stop making them worse.
Motives for stepping back and planning your best move can range from loving concern to trickery for the sake of a better result. Most people are more comfortable tricking a child into taking his medicine than "tricking" a person -being-difficult into a more cooperative relationship for the sake of all concerned. Many of us, though, consider the latter a morally better choice than "honestly" expressing feelings and opinions that repeatedly make things worse for everyone involved.
Like "white lies," self-control and diplomatic strategies go a lot further than blurted-out upsets when the goal is to improve your dealings with a child, spouse, sibling, friend, boss, subordinate, or in-law. With practice at understanding the other's point of view, your nobler attitudes may shift from self-stretching and truth-stretching to truly sincere.
It's called "exercising" self-control for good reason. Scott Peck's "The Road Less Traveled" opens with the classic line, "Life is difficult." Peck goes on to say that it's much less difficult when you exercise the discipline to do what needs to be done until it becomes a habit. Exercise can't make self-control perfect, but it will make it a more readily available choice.
5. LISTENING, LEARNING, AND DISARMING
From the balcony, you can listen from your higher self closely and attentively as an effective way to accomplish two desirable results: (a) disarming and softening your seeming adversary and (b) gathering information about how to negotiate better with this person. People get friendlier when they feel heard, and the more you know about the other's perceived realities, the more information you have for fostering
a "deal" that will satisfy both of you.
To last well, deals must satisfy both sides. Compromises seen by both parties as win-win and fair will best serve the good will needed to keep things on a better plane over time.
Attentive listening can be like martial arts. When an adversary pulls, stepping gently and confidently forward is effortless for you and surprising/disarming to the other. Stepping back when they push has a similar effect. You can often soften another's feelings and attitude by accepting the views they expected you to resist: "Oh, I see. You felt like I was being disrespectful. No wonder you felt upset; no wonder you protested."
Understanding invites your adversary to be more receptive to your agenda. "Let's finish 30 minutes of boring hard work on your math, and then we'll both feel good when you get to play video before bed." Or, "Oh, I understand why you felt I wasn't respecting you. I will do my best to listen better to what's important to you so that whatever we decide works for us both."
Such examples can be the first in a series of friendly overtures that may make the other suspicious initially but friendlier over the long haul. In his "Seven Habits of Highly Effective People," Covey wisely advises, "Seek first to understand and [only] then to be understood."
To improve things unilaterally, you may need to show that you understand for hours, days, or weeks before your patience elicits a more receptive attitude. Even when you've both agreed to listen better, you'd each do better by assuming 100% of the responsibility /opportunity for improvement. That could invite a contest where both win if either wins.
One team of researchers estimated that it's five times more contagious to be threatening than to be inviting. Indulging in each negative is like indulging in a quart of ice cream. It feels great until you see the results.
Don't blow the benefits of good listening by "sticking in their face" unpleasant realities that others are not ready to hear. It would, for example, be polarizing to announce to your bored child that she'd darn well better not think that acknowledging her feelings about math means you agree it's boring OR agree that it needn't be finished. Nor would it put things in a better vein to announce to your person-being-difficult how very much better you've been lately at transcending your urges to disdain their miserable behaviors.
Don't let your listening go to waste. Be certain that your seeming adversary knows you're listening by verbalizing back to him or her the essence of what you've heard, especially feelings. Do that until you get a nod or other response showing that he or she knows you understand.
6. SEEKING WIN-WIN SOLUTIONS
Once things have become friendlier and both sides have become much less difficult, the door is open to seeking win-win solutions. Those are, of course, the kind of solutions most likely to last. If either party "wins" at the expense of the other, things will likely unravel sooner or later, and the hostilities or stalemates may return.
It's key to keep calmly in mind all that is bottom-line most important to you - what you need for a win-win agreement. It is equally important to find out what matters most to the other party and to propose, or to seek together, solutions that make everyone feel like a winner.
When stating your needs, state them as that - what you need and want, not as some overriding truth or justice that you expect the other to acknowledge as indisputably apparent and appropriate. She or he will accept that you are the sole expert on what you need much better than any implied claim that you right based on some universal truth. Bolstering your need with elaborate logic or escalated feelings is more likely to polarize than to convince.
Win-win solutions work only when both sides can accept the deal with a sense of free choice in doing so.
Keep your own bottom line needs clearly in mind, but don't overstate them. If you want to keep the other's interest and respect, address any resistance or objection with interest and respect. Suggest or accept proposals that link your stated needs and theirs. Examples: "That will work for me when I have time to make advance arrangements." "Because I love you, I have to see your work done before you play." "I'll gladly meet at your place today and at mine next week." Or, "Sure, I'll help you finish the hard parts so that you'll be done in time to play a video game."
Be open to relaxing your bottom line if you get an even better offer, which sometimes happens when your improved approach has inspired a more cooperative response than you expected. Once his or her resistance has relaxed, this might be the night when your child first embraces responsibility for his own homework by volunteering to limit all video games to the weekend. It might even be the day when your ex spouse decides to bury the hatchet and to put what's best for the kids ahead of frustrating you. It could happen.
7. REFRAMING FIGHT OR FLIGHT URGES
Fight:
If Difficult People Solutions seem good in theory, but the ideas stir up all kinds of internal objections, then you'd do well to give your own objecting parts the same respectful consideration due any other objector whose cooperation you need or want.
Reframing means respecting objections, yours or theirs, as partially valid at least. Reframing assumes there's a "good reason" for the objection and offers a link between that good reason and a better way to honor it. The new way is better in that it honors the same good reason at least as well, entails fewer problems, and offers bonus results. Reframing seeks a new way to get what's most important to each of you.
An objecting part of you, for example, might fight against the idea that it could ever be right to "listen to somebody who's verbally abusing me." That objecting part might urge you to "demand respect with a taste of their own medicine." To reframe that objecting part, you would agree and welcome the goal of seeking respect as indeed a good reason for its objection.
Agreeing sincerely, you would offer your objecting part Difficult People Solutions as a set of strategies for garnering respect with fewer down sides and these bonuses: They inspire respect that lasts longer because it is based more on admiration than on fear. They disarm others and replace a contagious hostile atmosphere with a contagious friendly one. They invite good will and cooperation rather than driving
adversaries under ground into defiant and destructive behaviors. They make you assertive rather than hostile or wimpy. And, they're better for the physical and emotional health of everyone involved.
Or, perhaps a part of you protests inside that "no responsible parent would put up with that bratty whining." You can reframe and honor that irritated part's good reason for objecting - it's wanting to discourage whining. Offer that part another way to discourage whining - teaching your child to ask more effectively (first bonus) and to embrace win-win solutions (second bonus): "I'm glad you're hungry at dinner time, and it's okay to ask for a cookie. In fact, I'll gladly agree to two cookies as soon as you ask without whining and agree to eat dinner first."
Your own and others' reluctant or nagging parts always have their good reasons, and blowing off those good reasons will ultimately make them and you more intense and difficult.
What other examples of good reasons can you think of that lead to your own or someone else's fighting behavior? If you can't guess their good reasons, try asking. And make certain you ask with an attitude and tone that convey your assumption that they do indeed have some good reason from their point of view.
Flight:
Flight is quieter but no less toxic than fight. Flight to the basement, bar, job or even church is at best a short-term and ultimately an alienating "solution" to difficult encounters.
One common pattern in marriage, parenting, teaching, supervising, and dating is a "fight person" mutually frustrating a "flight person." In verbal exchanges it's often, but certainly not always, she who's into fight and he who's into flight.
While she fights for the discussion she's convinced they both need, he "goes away" (often with his physical body still looming) to seek the peace he's convinced they both need.
His good reasons to escape include protecting his treasured autonomy and avoiding divisive conflict. She fights against the abandonment she fears and for the emotional intimacy she craves. Sadly, each makes the other worse with the very efforts whose good reasons are intended to make things better.
It would do much for the relationships of the flight-inclined to discover the power of attentive, curious, and respectful listening to soften a fighting person being difficult. With practice and a decent short-term memory, even a very anxious person can hear and feed back the main points they're hearing.
The trick is to put your attention on her [sometimes his] intense words coming at you and to ignore the alarms swarming in your head. As described earlier, like a toreador two steps back from the path of a charging bull, you needn't "take personally" what's being said. Instead, assume that any sharp or desperate words are intended to penetrate your anticipated stonewalling, and assume that the words will soften when you peek over the wall and listen.
Demonstrate your attention. Catch the speaker's eye, repeat back some key words, especially feelings, and utter periodic listening sounds or words like, "Umm, I see;" "You've got a point;" or "I'll think about that." If asked your thoughts or feelings before you're ready to reply, promise to think it over and to resume the discussion soon. Specify when you'll talk again, and be the one to take the initiative to start the talking. That will amaze, impress, and soothe most fighters considerably.
In contrast, fighters frustrated with the difficult behavior of a timid escapee can invite him [sometimes her] into the open with friendly gentle inquiries about his reluctance to talk and with appreciative responses to any sharing of his hidden thoughts or feelings.
Major keys to success are respect for his autonomy and validation of his good reason for hiding - his wish for peace on earth. It also helps to accommodate and even join him in giving more weight to solutions and agreements than to faults and failures. Enumerating another's faults is never endearing.
Decide in advance whether you'd rather make him friendly or guilty. You probably can't have both, certainly not within the same 48 hours.
It helps considerably when either is able to recognize and acknowledge the other's good reasons: "I hear how important this is to you." (Reframing her yelling and blaming as attempts to get heard and knowing she'll get calmer and friendlier as soon as she feels heard.) Or, "Let's both think about it and find a peaceful agreement after dinner." (Reframing his visible urge to escape as his wish to avoid feeling overwhelmed by harsh conflicts and to contemplate peaceful agreements when he's got a little distance for safety.)
Reframing makes it possible to understand and validate the good reasons behind your adversary's favorite defenses, his or her favorite ways to protect self against psychic pain. When we are friendly and accepting toward another person's defenses we become more of an ally and less of an adversary. Being "on their side" in that way, we build bridges rather than walls.
Even at times when a "good reason" is not readily found, patient self-restraint and persistent inquiry can pay off. Sometimes an agreeably good reason emerges from the process and surprises you both at the end of several rounds of inquiry.
For example, "I wish you'd drop dead," would make almost any "normal" person want to attack with rage or run in tears. That fact makes it a particularly good opportunity to surprise and disarm the speaker with strong, persistent and curious inquiry. Here's how the persistent inquiry might go:
"I wish you'd drop dead?
"Oh, how would that make things better?"
"You'd stop making me crazy."
"How's that?"
"You'd stop telling me what to do every second."
"And how would that help?"
"I could concentrate because I wouldn't be so mad"
"And?"
"I could do my lousy homework." "Sounds good. I'll gladly stop telling you what to do if you'll show you don't need that anymore."
"Good! It's about time!"
"Deal?"
"Deal!"
When persistent inquiry succeeds like the above example, a major step has been taken by both parties toward a friendlier and more respectful relationship. Mutual escalation of hostilities has been declined, and an impressive invitation has been given and accepted toward win-win conflict resolution.
8. HEARTY NO'S AND THE POWERFUL WAKEUP CALL
Difficult People Solutions involve responses that are well considered and practiced, not automatic reactions with no thought of the results. In general, they are less tough on the surface but ultimately stronger by virtue of the better outcomes they create.
There are times, though, when restraint, thought, and planning lead inevitably to a conclusion that getting tough is the wisest choice remaining. Note that this is not a blind reaction but the result of thoughtful observation and consideration.
Children, significant others, friends, bosses, ex-spouses, employees, etc. may sometimes make it obvious that they are checking out whether they can be bullies. They're asking the existential question, "Is it okay for me to act like a jerk?" That's when it's time for a Hearty NO and a Powerful Wakeup Call. To do otherwise runs the risk of rewarding the bully.
When my youngest son was in nursery school, one child in the class was checking out his bullying options. With the wise support of my wife, Kevin rehearsed and then responded to the bully's next intrusion with a loud and powerful, "NO, Jack, NO!" He made the limit abundantly clear, and Jack never messed with him again.
Note that Kevin was not hamstrung with only the two choices of fight or flight. He neither attacked nor retreated. Instead, he empowered himself with an assertive and unmistakable NO.
In general, those who are most inclined to become tough quickly could improve their relating with lots more respectful listening. Those inclined to pursue reason far beyond reasonableness could improve their relating with a few hearty declarations that they may NOT be treated badly.
Example: "I wish you'd drop dead!" "Stop!!! I don't talk to you like that, and I don't ever want to be talked to like that again! That kind of treatment is absolutely unacceptable to me. I give you respect, and
I expect it from you. Is that clear?"
"Yes, I'm sorry," is, of course, the response you'd like and may in fact receive immediately. Even if it's not immediately forthcoming, respect is likely to show up soon in the form of more respectful behavior. Unmistakable notice has been given that you will NOT be intimidated.
Which approach appeals most to you? Does it make sense that each could be powerful and useful, depending on the people and the circumstances? When and with whom might you improve your
relationship by responding more often with patient and persistent inquiry or with a powerful Wakeup Call?
The Wakeup Call, of course, appeals more to our fight-based lizard brain selves. If you employ it, be certain that you have first attempted a softer approach, and be certain that you are acting with sufficient thought and consideration of the likely outcome.
9. REHEARSING MENTALLY
Research has shown that mental rehearsal can be surprisingly effective. In some sports, detailed mental rehearsal can rival actual physical practice in improving and maintaining skills.
Think how many people pay good money for physical exercise. Reframe each anticipated or recalled difficult encounter as a free opportunity to exercise mentally all the skills of Difficult People Solutions.
Verbalize both sides of conversations. Concentrate on exchanges that are typical and likely to recur. Make detailed mental videos in which you control your own "beast" and tame the other's into snarling less or hiding less. Visualize patient and powerful listening, validation of his or her good reasons, and win-win negotiation.
Mentally practice reframing until it's more automatic to see through to another's good reasons than to polarize blindly. Rehearse scenes where your higher and wiser self builds bridges rather than walls between you and the important others in your life.
10. SELF-SOOTHING, SELF-TALK AND OTHER-TALK
The ideal position for handling people being difficult is to be stepped back far enough emotionally and intellectually to avoid inhaling any toxic fumes that could throw you off balance and your good intentions off course. Inevitably, though, your best intentions to stay cool will fail at times, and your fight or flight urges will be triggered.
At that point you are on the verge of becoming the second of two difficult people escalating the problem. Clearly, you need to take care of your own difficult impulses first. You need to say soothing things to yourself that might go something like this:
"Relax. Stay cool. Of course s/he has angered or scared me. That's what people do when they're upset and being difficult. I'm proud that I can see what's happening and can choose not to match stinky behavior with equally stinky behavior. This is not the time to blurt out my feelings. I can wait until I'm back in control of myself.
I feel a little calmer already. Yes, I can control me! Let's see. The simplest thing I can do for now is to acknowledge what s/he is saying. That won't make things worse and will likely calm him or her enough to buy me more time to think.
Here comes another wave of difficult words. Well, that was predictable, and I'm ready this time. I'm glad I know these things come in waves - second efforts to get me off balance and into a bunch
of garbage together. Nope, I won't go there. I'll just keep listening until this upset person runs out of steam. Then we can both let it sit for awhile, and I can plan calmly what I want to do or say next."
What we say to ourselves before, during, and after difficult encounters is critical to how we'll feel and what we'll do. In both the short and the long run, our internal words will either soothe our jagged spirits or rile them further.
Self-soothing words can help us step back again, renew our higher perspective, and regain control of ourselves rather than relinquish control to our "inner lizard." Our internal words can also remind us that success is far from certain with people being difficult and that we have every reason to feel good about ourselves for even trying.
There is a great deal of self-talk going on in most of our heads, and it is often so automatic and repetitious that it's barely noticed. It can be very enlightening to stop and pay attention to what we're telling ourselves and to notice its effects on our relationships.
We may discover ourselves "building a federal case" by telling ourselves that we are the innocent victims of various slights or crimes perpetrated by insensitive or downright nasty other people. That's one popular way to indulge our lizard brains at the expense of our wiser selves and higher resolve.
We also have the option to tell ourselves things that conjure up positive attitudes toward those with whom we'd like better relationships. In contrast to a federal indictment of another's motives, talking to ourselves about their probable good reasons for being difficult will make them and us feel and act more like friends and less like enemies.
Cultivating a keener awareness of another's redeeming virtues makes it easier and more likely that we'll invite each other into less difficult behavior. In counseling, I often encourage couples and other pairs to remind themselves frequently, "I know this person is basically good, intelligent, well-intended, and important to me."
Also consider up-grading what you invite others to tell you about difficult people. Enlist enlightened support. Tell a wise friend, counselor, or coach about your plans to employ better solutions with difficult people. Ask them to support your efforts to talk more favorably to yourself and with them about the challenging people in your life.
Ask them to listen with patience and acceptance when you sometimes need to vent your lizard-brain feelings and urges, but ask them to remind you AFTER you finish venting of your higher-self goals and intentions. Like Dr. Jeckyl imploring a servant to keep Mr. Hyde locked up, ask your supporter not to reinforce your own internal beast no matter how loudly it snarls.
Remind yourself and your supporter that this is a decent, intelligent, valued, and well-intended person who sometimes gets very upset and needs you to stay calm and to help him or her feel and act better. Before, during, and after a difficult encounter, talk about how fortunate and pleased you are to know ways to soothe and soften this person and to make things easier for both of you.
11. EXPECTING IMPERFECTION, SETBACKS, AND A LACK OF FAIRNESS
Nobody can do this stuff perfectly, and it's quite impressive when someone can do it more often than not. Research shows that setbacks are a standard part of the process for people who ultimately succeed with challenges like giving up cigarettes, alcohol, chronic anger, or rampant immaturity. Difficult People Solutions represent major changes, and setbacks are a very normal part of the learning process. Cut yourself lots of the same slack you're aiming to cut others.
And, give up expecting things to be fair. Difficult People Solutions are a group of unilateral strategies for YOU to employ. For best results, do NOT expect the other person to reciprocate very many of your improvements - and certainly not soon. They may never know or practice these solutions consciously. What they likely will do, though, is be less difficult with you, on average, than with the rest of the world.
Or, less difficult with you in the future than in the past.
Resist any of your likely urges to bemoan or protest the double standard and lack of fairness involved in being the bigger and wiser person. You can always choose to be just as immature as the other - if you'd rather indulge your lizard brain than enjoy an improved relationship.
Rest assured that nobody can MAKE you change. When I was a boy, my best friend's mother cornered me and declared blindly and fervently, "Nathan, it's time we stood up for our convictions whether they're right or not!" She said that in Tennessee and never changed her mind as each of her children changed their residence - one to Alaska, one to Hawaii, and one to the local mental hospital. I reckon she proved forever that nobody HAS to change.
On the other hand, I heard recently about a 5-year-old who told his teacher at a stressful moment, "For Lent, I gave up crying," and he was having some success! Don't worry about him. Neither his teacher nor his parents think that 5-year old or 55-year old "big boys don't cry." He cried at four other stressful moments that afternoon but did achieve his chosen goal at least once. That a 5-year old could resist "losing it" one time in five certainly shows that self-control is attainable -- once we make the decision.
If you depend on difficult people to change as much or more than you, you'll be handing half or more of the improvement power back to them. If you keep the power to improve things in your own hands, difficult people will usually improve some and sometimes improve a great deal because you'll be inducing better rather than worse inclinations on their part. The primary responsibility and opportunity, though, will remain yours.
12. ENJOYING THE RELIEF OF POWERLESSNESS
Powerlessness, the first step in Alcoholics Anonymous, is quite relieving to the excessively responsible. Sadly, many good and highly competent people never discover that because they are enslaved by the unrelenting burden of having to be always competent, always right, and always good. What a drag! To others and to themselves.
It is NOT your responsibility to be powerful enough to make anybody less difficult any time any place. Accept and embrace the limits of your power.
Ways to enjoy the relief and benefits of powerlessness include the option to fail, accepting your limits, apologizing, asking for help, asking for what you'd like, and enjoying the humor of our shared human condition.
As a counselor and coach, I prefer to succeed, but I also value highly the option to fail. Accepting that there's no way I can always succeed helps me work more comfortably in the day and sleep better at night.
I frequently recommend to the counselors I supervise that they embrace the inescapable reality that none of us has the power to help everybody all the time. Paradoxically, accepting our limits actually makes us more relaxed and more effective at the same time.
In your efforts to invite more positive responses from people being difficult, it's key to know that you are ultimately NOT in control of others -- that you're inviting, not forcing them to respond more favorably. Being difficult generally includes some form of powerful resistance to perceived threat, and it almost always backfires when we imagine that we can force the other to surrender their self-guarding resistance.
Whenever a coach, counselor, parent, spouse, or friend pushes or pulls hard on a difficult person targeted by their efforts, they are inviting that person to harden their stubborn stance. By keeping handy the option to fail, you help yourself transcend your inner lizard, and you create a solution vacuum that invites a positive contribution from the other side.
Without the option to fail, you may communicate, "I know everything and can conquer all, including your being difficult, stinky, or lazy." That will exhaust you and invite resentment, open battle, and/or passive resistance.
An open hand extended for a shake was originally intended to show that the hand was weaponless. Similarly, apologies and asking for help show that our intentions are peaceful - that we are declining any power to harm and are opening ourselves to the other's kind or unkind response.
This invites the other to be gracious, big, admirable and other potent qualities that difficult people seldom enjoy. Some will surprise us with quick positive responses. Some will remain suspicious to test the waters and will soften only after we've passed the test repeatedly.
Others will spurn our apologies or requests. Be prepared. Internally, be stepped back enough from start to finish that you won't easily be thrown off balance and back into making things worse.
Saying what you'd like is another way to invite a giving response. At this very moment all over America, one good person is asking another where they'd like to eat tonight, and the second good person is replying, "I don't care." Each is trying to give, but each is NOT saying what they'd like.
You know the rest. You've been there. The first "hates making all the damn decisions around here," and the second wonders, "What the heck did I do?" Each is right. The other's being difficult -- well intended, but difficult.
Here are two simple solutions to that sad encounter. The first good person says, "What I'd especially like tonight is to eat some place I know you'll enjoy," or the second says, "I'd love Wong's Chinese or Juan's Mexican if you're in the mood for either." Since it often is truly more blessed to give than to receive, offer others the more blessed end of the deal. Say what you want and let them feel good making you happy. That'll make both of you less difficult.
Last, but far from least, laugh. As the saying goes, the choice is sometimes either to laugh or to cry. Laughter is good for both our physical and our mental health. I laugh a lot with clients. Partly because I enjoy it, partly because it's good for both of us, and partly because humor's a good way to make and to remember important insights.
Laughter reduces pressure and makes it easier and a lot more fun to rise above the crazies that make us all silly pains in the butt at times. Humor sheds fresh light on dark moods and perspectives that keep us stuck and grim.
As a wise colleague likes to say, "A shared laugh is the shortest distance between two people." That's only true, of course, if they know that you're laughing with and not at them. If uncertain, keep the funny to yourself - especially if they're holding something sharp.
13. PREPARING YOURSELF WELL IN ADVANCE
As in deciding to quit smoking, to eat less, or to move to Florida, there is a huge difference between contemplating or "trying" to change versus DECIDING to change. A half-hearted decision that you re-visit each time you're facing difficult behavior is as precarious as a no-chocolate decision that's open to debate every time you visit the mall.
Keep in mind that this approach is designed and intended as a courageous informed strategy chosen freely in the service of personal growth and relationship revival. Like most major growth, it is a mobilization of resources inspired by a difficult situation.
The Difficult Solutions approach is an invitation sent from strength to the other person to respond favorably. It is not a form of begging or pleading from weakness or desperation. Doing it well should improve your relationship skills and options and provide a legitimate basis for enhanced self-respect.
You may wish to experiment with some of the ideas now and may find some of the results promising, but be aware that the Difficult Solutions approach will be far more effective overall if you are fully informed, fully convinced, and fully prepared before undertaking any major projects.
I wish you patience, persistence, and peace in all your most challenging relationships.
Nathan Claunch, Ph.D.
Ann Arbor, Michigan
nclaunch@comcast.net
(734) 663-9050
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