May 2020

Week 10……We made it to the last week of school. Friday was the last day for my three children. I thought it would be a fantastic day where we breathed the collective sigh that they and I had been anticipating since our homeschool adventures began. I had a lot of thoughts in my head about the pictures we would take and how we would celebrate. But we didn’t do any of those things. It was a pretty horrible day. I woke up in a bad mood, and it went downhill from there. Some things were left to the last minute, which irritates me because I don’t like the last minute unless it is an impromptu phone call with a far-away friend or a sudden cancellation, which allows me free time. I didn’t have a definitive marker on how our lives were going to be infinitely better with summer coming our way. I had not communicated to anyone my expectation of the finality of this day.  It might be because my kids are not at ages where they have monumental move up’s or move on’s. There were no zoom gradations which I’ll be honest, was pretty good with me because that the idea of that didn’t sound fun to me. It can only be described accurately as UGH. It was one of those no good, terrible, very bad days.

It reminded me of the opposite scenario earlier in our shelter at home process when my daughter had a birthday. She had a late March quarantine birthday. I wasn’t prepared. I hadn’t organized a car parade or any big gift. We were still finding our footing and optimistic that we could make plans with friends in a couple of weeks (ignorance is bliss!). I did tell my neighbors about her birthday and boy did they come through to make her feel like a million bucks that day: sidewalk chalk, balloons, posters, and a scavenger hunt.  The night before her birthday, we talked about how her birthday wasn’t going to look anything like what she had in mind pre-quarantine. At 11, you spend a lot of time thinking about all the things you could do for your birthday. This begins right after your previous birthday and gets upgraded and altered with all the other birthdays you attend that year.  There would be no sleepover, no movie theatre, no late-night favorite ice cream shop run. We set a realistic and achievable expectation, and she communicated what was most important to her for that day.  The result,  she had an amazing birthday.  She was over-joyed because on her birthday she wanted to feel loved and she did. She felt the best kind of love,  love by people through small acts of kindness, love through quality time, intentional love not perfectly planned big birthday party, or big gifts kind of love. It exceeded her expectation and mine.

Expectation is a double edge sword which we never quite know which way is going to slice.

I think about the many interviews I have listened to over the years of athletes, authors, actors who believed that once they won the Oscar, the gold medal, the Pulitzer, they would finally feel satisfied and happy. They would get the exhale they were waiting for.  It is the same for all of us.  Once we get a raise, finish our degree, get a C-level job, get to summer, get our kids off to school, own our own business, get married, get divorced, become empty nesters, or retire; life will magically suddenly feel just right. To listen or feel instead, a sense of loss, lonely or the pressure of future expectation is heartbreaking.  I think what I was feeling on this last day was, this is it? This isn’t what I thought I would feel? Where is the collective relief, where is the jumping for joy? We survived homeschooling and sheltering in place, and we STILL love each other. Where is the parade, where is the prize at the bottom of the cereal box? Mostly I just felt, “UGH, what’s next?”. I didn’t feel motivated, I didn’t feel excited, and I didn’t feel grateful. 

Friday night, after I had sufficiently let my entire family know how grouchy I was by snapping at them for small things and then just not talking, I laid down with no contentment, no desire about a fun Saturday the next day or even a to-do list to keep myself occupied. I felt what is one of the worst feelings in the world for me, lonely and apathetic. I did my silent cry while my husband rubbed my back.  I worked through my guilt about being snappy to my family and not grateful for all the joys and comforts of my life. As we began to talk through this, he listened patiently for me to put my finger on it. You see, I always have to find it, label it, and name it for myself. Otherwise, it just floats around like an annoying black spot on my eye that I’m trying to rub out. 

What I said was, “I don’t want to go back to where we were. I don’t want that level of busy. I don’t want to spend hours looking at my planner to figure out where everything is going to fit and how I can squeeze it all in (I haven’t even looked at my paper planner for ten weeks, this has been a good break up for both of us!). I like that we all have time together and time apart without us being “at things.”  I don’t want to be the ultimate stop in keeping track of everyone and everything. It gives me no pleasure to schedule, remind, schedule, remind, remind, remind, remind. But, it also gives me trepidation to imagine what will happen if I don’t do that.  I realize that I set myself up in this role, but I don’t want that version of it anymore.” 

 Those were my bars in front of me, and now I have walked around them. Yet, I don’t know what return to life looks like without me doing that. What I fear it means is, things will be missed, forgotten, half-assed, and I don’t like the thought of that either. To pour salt in the wound, I REALLY want to know if I should, send my kid to camp, make my kid take the ACT, make travel plans, attend church, and when work life is going to pick back up to normal. I was fine not knowing for a while, I patiently made the best of it, but now, I just want to know.  All of it!!

Pretty early in our marriage, you know that phase where you can convince your spouse to do things like dance lessons, watch romantic comedy movies together in the theatre, and go to marriage retreats;  we were in one of those phases.  I decided we needed to learn how to communicate better. We had to do this exercise where you took all these little figurines and make a scene that represented your family. It has an official name that I just learned from my friend google, sand tray therapy. I’m glad I didn’t know that at the time, or I probably wouldn’t have done it because that name sounds fluffy to me. Furthermore, I know my husband wouldn’t have done it if I said, “Hey, we are going to go do some sand tray therapy, you onboard?”!! Our kids were roughly 6, 4, and 1 at the time. So, we go to this room that is lined with little shelves with all the figurines of people and characters, animals, and hobbies. It has everything you can imagine. We both get to work with me knowing that my sand scene is totally going to impress everyone and WIN (this is my wheelhouse after all)! 

I don’t remember mine. I mean, I don’t remember it at all! I imagine that it had my family in some kind of a circle (I like circles, they say inclusive and equality to me). I imagine I picked little items around each of us that represented things we were into at the time, like toys for the kids, books, travel. I imagine I spent a lot of time finding figures that looked like us and items that showed how well I knew and loved everyone in my family.  

Here is the mic drop friends, while I can remember NOTHING of my sand table scene,  I will never forget the sand table scene that Mike made. In my head, Mike was going to be sub-par because he didn’t really want to participate in the first place and also because I like to think I own introspective in our relationship. I was wrong, wrong, and to make it worse, he wasn’t even aware of how bad mine was and how good his was. His scene was what our family actually was; mine was what I wanted our family to be.

 In his scene, I was the pied piper (literally there was a little figurine with a person playing a little fife), and I was facing my family. I was leading them; I was happily and confidently showing them where to go, while of course, multi-tasking by playing my little flute. Mike was standing close, but a little behind me and angled in, and my kids were standing a little further back, side by side, and angled where they could see both of us. He didn’t waste a bunch of space with other accessory stuff. We each had one item beside us. I just remember thinking, how did he get that exactly, right? 

We all need someone who helps us reset how we think things should be, how things are, and what changes we need to make to settle with it. Last night Mike told me that he had already talked to the kids about why I had a bad day. He said, “Your mom invests in a lot in starts and finishes, in beginnings and ends.”.  He is correct; I cry on the first day of school, the last day of school, birthdays, and when I know it is the “first or last” of something. He continued, “She likes to mark these things; she likes US to mark them with her. She likes to take pictures, take time to talk about it, and to celebrate the beginning or the end.  We didn’t do that today, and we should have.” Once again, he managed to get it right.

I am still here at my crossroads. I want to keep the parts of this sheltering that I like and leave behind the things I don’t. I fancy myself better without a head full of schedules and to-dos. I’m more fun, funnier and more mindful. I am a better wife, mother, PT, friend, and person.  I worry less and enjoy more. I have a better feeling about what I need, and I make sure I get it. Instead of a hierarchy of who or what needs me most right now,  it is like we are all on this same platform, linking hands and when one person needs something, the two people nearest them just dig in a brace for a minute while they re-find their footing or get done what they need. I no longer have to keep re-arranging the order, so I am linked at all times to everyone. AND, I don’t want to be the vital link anymore. There was a phase where I did, but it isn’t anymore. I wanted and parented toward where we are now, but it doesn’t make it easy.

This is hard to write. It will be even harder to say out loud.  I don’t always like this quality about myself. I am not overly sentimental, and when I feel this sentiment, it is a lot for me.  My future best friend, when I meet her, Brene Brown, would call it vulnerability. She’s spent a career studying it because we should spend our lifetime learning to embrace it. It is the quality that moves us toward loving and appreciating ourselves now as we are instead of wishing we were another version. 

Over the years, I have welcomed these starts and finishes as an appropriate day to feel all the feelings. I have some expectations about these days. No one sat with me the night before the last day of school, like I did pre-birthday with my daughter,  and discussed how this day would be different than usual.  I am an adult, and I didn’t know I needed that. This last day did not mean the same thing to everyone in my family. They had not been holding their breath the way I had. I had expectations of the last day, and they were not met.  Only, I don’t want to be the kind of person that is disappointed in first-world problems like this. After all, I have a comfortable home, food on my table, and a healthy family. I have absolutely nothing worthy of complaint.  This is not a good point my friends. Comparative suffering doesn’t make my suffering lighter, it does not mean I am not grateful for my blessings, and it doesn’t rob me of empathy for others. As Brene Brown says, “The refugee in Syria doesn’t benefit more if you conserve your kindness only for her and withhold it from your neighbor who’s going through a divorce.” This isn’t about grateful or earning suffering points for a bad day. It is about acknowledging how we are. It is sitting with that, accepting it, and leaning into support. 

Furthermore, for me, it is also deciding, do I not want TO BE the pied piper in this next phase, or am I going to embrace myself BEING the pied piper. If the linking hands are what I’ve been working toward, then I’m going to have to give up some of my pied piper ways. Being the pied piper and being the link in the chain are mutually exclusive, and I can’t be both at the same time. But it is good that I started to figure it out. That my friends, is how we begin to wrestle with expectation and vulnerability.  

 I wish this could all be done quickly and tied up with one of those fancy bows I am mesmerized when other people tie. This is a lifelong journey that no one gets perfectly right. I feel grateful that I have someone that helps me do this better. I feel proud that when I talk with my kids about this later, they can hear it; they will know this is something that happens to all of us. Comparative suffering doesn’t win us points. Expectations are a double edge sword. When I want to change a pattern or a role, I first have to acknowledge the actual position I am in and how I got there. Then, I need some support and patience from my family and close friends to make the change. 

I decided to imagine what my sand table scene would look like now. First of all, I can’t make a sand table scene now that I know it is called that. But, I can show you my current favorite family picture taken by my dear friend Eleanor.  

(J- I’m going to proceed confidently forward on my path E/M- I am going to enjoy this moment with the people I love despite the chaos around me, E- I’m going to plant myself in the center of this family and enjoy being loved, Me- I’m going to whisper my advice quietly from behind so it isn’t as obvious that I know what you should do, M- I’m going to smile wisely from behind because no matter what, I’ve got your back. Photo credit: Eleanor Michal Photography)

This is good, hard work my friends. I’m glad I did it, I hope you will too. 

Advice From A Friend: Reconsider your expectations and embrace your vulnerability

Look at these lines across my face; they tell the story of who I’ve been. This is the beginning line from the song “The Story” by Brandi Carlile. This one of my favorite lines from any song because, at some level, it says it all.

Where we have been makes us who we are, it is our origin story. It is the place we come from when we make decisions, when we react, and determine how we feel about other people. This gets really “real” in the middle of things like, for example, let’s just say……. a pandemic.  We layer on top of our origin story education, experience, trauma, income, just to name a few. Still, our origin story is where we started our framework for how life should look. We cannot “educate” ourselves out of our origin story. It doesn’t leave us because we move far away, fall in love, start a family, or hit retirement. In fact, in times of high stress, when we feel ourselves operating from a place that is familiar but maybe not in a good way, we might be slipping back into our default biases that come from our origin stories…  Like when you say something and think, “wow, did I just sound like my mother/father?”. 

In the purest form, our origin story participants were the ultimate “influencers.” What the people in charge of us said to do and not to do, seeped right into our neural pathways. Were we loved, were we ignored, were we always on alert? Did we get bullied, did we find success in sports or the classroom or not at all?  All of these factors shape the way we think and help us determine our view of the world. We carry these things into adulthood.  Depending on what happens to us, they may get modified, but they never go away. It took me 30 years to remember to lock my car doors consistently! In the small agricultural town where I grew up, nobody worried about that. 

Our perspective, or world view, is about our experience, it is not, as we are often told, about our selfishness or desire to get ahead. There is no lack of psychological studies that tell us, at a biochemical level, our bodies change depending on how we are cared for as children. Did we grow up with an alcoholic, a smothering grandmother, an absent parent? Did we lose someone close to us, did our parents split up? Not to lay blame or point fingers, it’s just to confirm, these things affect us internally.  This is particularly valuable for men. Most women are forced to wrestle and settle with this by mid-life. Not because they want to, because they have to. Men seem to be able to continue to dodge it. They often are taught to be “stronger than” their past and live with the idea that they should be above or be unaffected by their childhood. This is not the case for any of us.  I love that this information is more widely known and talked about now. The point of knowing this is not to make an excuse for it or to show others that you rose from the ashes, but instead to nod with respect as part of your story, as part of your person. 

I like to hear what resonates with people. If you are or are not wearing a mask or going to a restaurant, what I want to know is why (and don’t cite me data).  This requires a lot of patience and deep breathing sometimes. But mostly, it requires a different mindset.  I have to move from judgment to curiosity. My goal can never be to CHANGE your mind or minimize your perspective; my goal has to be to appreciate your story.  Maybe curiosity killed the cat, but in the case of humans, I would say lack of curiosity has put us in a lukewarm pot that is slowly inching toward a boil. 

I wish that in every heated discussion, I had kept my cool and stayed curious. You can ask any number of people; this is not the case. In fact, for a long time, other people’s curiosity felt threatening to me. When I had been a PT for about six years, I had an older Jewish gentleman as one of my patients. Honestly, he wasn’t my favorite. We started early in our visits with him asking a lot of questions regarding my young children, how frequently I worked, who watched my kids when I did?  Every woman can identify with this place in every decade of their life.  Why don’t you have children, why do you have so many or only one, why do you stay at home, why do you work, why do/don’t you do botox, why aren’t you married, why did you get divorced, why did you quit your job? I imagine the equivalent for men is things like, why does your spouse also have to work, can’t you provide for your family, how do you let your son cry like that when he’s 10, why can’t you be a better provider, why are you still drinking, why haven’t you been promoted? It’s a giant spotlight right into our soul. 

Let me be clear; this fine Jewish man was not trying to make me feel bad; he was not out to get me. He was a very kind, gentle giant type. He just asked me a lot of questions about why and how I was doing things. Honestly, a lot of his questions, I just didn’t have an answer too. He wanted to understand me; he was curious.  I was not familiar with this type of curiosity, and it made me uncomfortable. At first, every time I saw his name on my list, I thought, “Oh, you again.” Over time, I softened and started to realize; maybe he was just inquisitive. On our last visit, he brought me a delicious dessert from a Jewish Bakery and said something I will never forget, “Lori, I think you are a great mother and your children will ride your coattails to heaven.”. I wish I still knew that guy. 

We miss a lot because we get caught in traps of judgment. Judgment is easier and can feel like a shield of protection. My shield covered both his curiosity and mine.  Our brain is wired to do this, and we don’t even realize it, how crazy is that? His questions were about my childhood and my story. He was putting it all together.  If you ever took sociology or psychology class, you probably remember all those tricky studies they did in your class that reflected which groups of people we protect, which we identify with, and how easily we judge people not like us.  We ALL think we are immune or above this until they reveal the class results. Then the class sits wide-eyed with the knowledge that we are, in fact, a part of the problem.  If your curiosity is peaked, try listening or reading  Malcolm Gladwell’s book, “Talking to Strangers.” https://www.amazon.com/Talking-To-Strangers-TPB/dp/024135157X/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

Malcolm Gladwell is one of the most curious human beings on the planet. I think part of this may be wrapped in a desire to go against the grain. He is NOT (as they say in the south) a “yes ma’am” kid. I’m still not sure where I am after reading that book, but I’m glad I read it. I’ll leave all the proof of examples to the psychologists and sociologists, but I feel pretty safe in saying, implicit bias rules most of us, most of the time. 

Back to real life, the last couple of weeks have been emotionally charged. Have you felt the change? We are starting to feel the divisiveness of our country split regarding re-openings. We are back to the place where we feel forced to pick a side and find some evidence to tell everyone else why our team is best. We add to that, the tragic Ahmaud Arbery case, in Texas we piled on the Shelley Luther situation, we’ve got California shutting down universities in the fall, the governor of Georgia going rogue, a fight between the supreme court and the governor in Wisconsin, mail-in voting, Corona in the White House and our usual Washington politics. Anyone want a 9:00am cocktail or chips and salsa, this is exhausting! It’s enough to make you want to just go back to bed.  

I’ve talked for a couple of weeks now about communication, active listening and being heard. The step before that, is actually getting curious. Curiosity requires us to stop being dismissive. It opens us to the idea that our story is not everyone’s story. Our lens is unique and ours alone. While we can disagree with people’s opinions, we cannot disagree with people’s origin stories and life experiences. I can’t tell you what it feels like to watch the salon that you’ve built cliental for 20 years, not be able to pay rent, and have to lay off employees or to worry about your immunosuppressed COPD mother who will not survive if she gets COVID. This is where we are operating from when we choose team mask, no mask, team economy, or team stay at home. When I make assumptions instead of getting curious, because I don’t agree with your side, I am invalidating your life story and pretending like I know best.

We are threatened by many things right now, sickness, apathy, loneliness, shame,  just to name a few. We are even more threatened by the idea that the world is being destroyed by one side believing the other is destroying the world. If there is one thing we gravitate to, it is a good ol’ conspiracy theory. Our love for superhero movies translates to our desire for a “good guy” and a “bad guy.” The idea that one group is genuinely better and more capable and more “right” seems to be leading us down a windy road to nowhere. The middle space we are in is NOISY, absent of curiosity, and our lukewarm pot is getting hot. 

I try to ask myself when I feel so threatened or offended by someone who I don’t agree with, why do I desire for agreement or approval?  Our enemy may be our own ego here (hear me coughing because THAT is tough to swallow), and the cure may be our ability to accept that we don’t get to tell others that their feelings are not valid or that their experience is not legitimate. This doesn’t make us “soft or weak” this makes us human. We are all a member of this human family, and no matter where we are from or what we think, nothing can suspend our membership.

There is no easy solution to this, and believe me, I have failed 100 more times than I have ever been successful. I will end with these thoughts; our curiosity is patiently waiting for us. Our place in empathy and judgment is always related to our ability to curiously listen to someone’s story. The more comfortable I feel with my story, the less threatened I feel by yours. We need to give ourselves a big, gracious and forgiving platform with a lot of room here. We cannot and will not always get it right. Undoubtedly though, the more we try, the more we practice, the more we will succeed. This is not an ask for you to choose neutrality or water your self down; it is an invite for you to be curious enough to understand why others are choosing a different stand.

Stand firm, breath deep, listen well

Advice From A Friend: Get curious

Week 8….  Texas is re-opening, are you? I feel that weird sense of uncertainty. I am not picking a team here, and no one seems to be picking me either. It’s nice to be at a place and age in life where you feel okay with that. Whether you are toe-in returning to your favorite Mexican restaurant or adding another lock to your door, I hope your week was a good one.

We have a few common goals right now beyond survival and maintaining sanity. One of those is to stay connected. We are finding new and creative ways of doing this, but now even those new ways may feel old and tired. We don’t want to facetime our best friend; we want to see them. We don’t want a zoom work meeting; we want to be at the office in the breakroom and talking about Tiger King, and if Carol killed her husband. We don’t want a socially distant drink with on Friday; we want the kind where you get to go to your neighbors’ house. We want magazines back in medical offices and our braces off.

I received a lot of great feedback from the last two weeks’ episodes on freeing ourselves from our own jail and stopping ourselves from making assumptions. Many of you stated that it felt like exactly what you needed to hear. I think that is what we love about feeling heard. When we feel heard, we may not receive the news we want or be agreed with, but we feel satisfied because being heard is being understood. This is a typical breakdown in relationships at work, at home, with your physician or your mother. While it is true that more commonly women do not feel heard and that what men do hear is criticism, I think we can all relate to the frustration of blocked communication. A considerable disconnect occurs that starts as an anthill and before you know it (or Corona), there is a mountain between you. 

I talk too much. This may come as a surprise to you, but I doubt it. I write an advice column, a blog, and see patients, so I have plenty of outlets for this issue. I am like a “functional over talker” the way some are “functional alcoholics,” I figured out a way to make it work for me. That doesn’t mean it is good. It is my children that have called me out on this more than anyone in my life. They have learned to be direct in telling me they want me to listen, not to advise. The first few times, this was like a kick in the gut. Can you imagine a child, telling an adult that they don’t want their wisdom (since we were all children once then I imagine you can!). After I checked my ego at the door, I determined that the reason my talking isn’t a problem with patients or friends is that I listen as actively. This makes my words more careful, my pauses longer and leaves lots of space. With my family, I don’t hear as much because I am swamped making assumptions and trying to ensure that they do exactly as I want them to so they can be contributing and helpful human beings. In the words of the wise Harriet Learner, we should “Listen with the same passion as we speak.”.

I’ve spent some time thinking about this lately, maybe because I have fewer people to talk to  . I listened to a podcast recently with family therapist Terry Real. He used the acronym W.A.I.T. It stands for – WHY AM I TALKING? I wanted to remind Terry that maybe we should also include a new word:  W.I.A.L, which stands for WHY ISN’T ANYONE LISTENING? I may have missed his point!

We want to be heard. Men, women, children, all of us desire this. Even if we don’t like to talk, we STILL want to be heard. Sometimes we think that requires things like raising our voices, muttering under our breath, or using more words. We all have a go-to here.   My favorite is for people to guess. I want people SO invested that they have to guess what I want and how I feel. If you are this way, you know what a lonely and frustrating road this is—being heard means we are being seen. Being seen and loved for who we are at our core and is among our most critical human desires.

What derails us from being heard? It’s NOT usually the listener (disappointing, isn’t it?). Often it is what we are saying and the way we are saying it. When we intend to PROVE we are right, we will not be heard. When we want to CONTROL someone or the situation, we will not be heard. When we want to make someone PAY, we will not be heard. When we wish to WITHDRAW, we will not be heard. When we speak from a place of REACTIVITY, we will not be heard. 

This week, I ask you where you are speaking from? Are you a humble component of your conversation, or are you out to try to prove your excellence or authority? Are you responding to your partner, co-worker, child, boss, or parent, or are you reacting? I think that coming from a place of reactivity is where many of us are at right now. Our goal in conversation is usually to make others learn, while it should always be to teach. We cannot control the outcome of conversations because we are not in charge of everyone. We certainly have a lot of power in how we speak, how we listen, and how we respond. This sounds strategic because it is. There is wisdom in knowing what to say, how to say it, and whom to say it to. 

Let’s try an everyday example. I’ve walked into the house after work/lunch/gardening/walking, and there are cereal bowls and milk on the counter, shoes in the middle of the floor, and every cabinet door open (this may not be a made-up scenario). My spouse and kids are nowhere to be seen, and when I left 2 hours ago, the kitchen was clean. What I want to do, is start yelling at people about how if we each just clean up after ourselves, I don’t have to come home and yell at everyone. How I want to show up is with a position of power because I am a) an adult b) a parent and c) tired of picking up after four other people. What do I need to do?

I first need to do NOTHING. I need to pause, ground my feet, take some breaths, and manage my emotional reactivity. I need to remember that no one that I live with is out to get me. We are a team, and on the same side, I just want our side to look picked up. This may mean I need to go back outside, do a little physical activity, ground my feet, breathe, or sit with myself for a few minutes. There are a variety of ways, and finding your best method is very valuable. This is not an emergency, so I need to be slow to respond.

Now that I’ve taken a minute, I need to know if I have all the information I need. Is it possible that people woke up late? Did someone get sick? Is someone in the bathroom and will return to clean up after showering? Is everyone home? (currently, the answer to this question is YES because no one is going ANYWHERE). Is this a good time to ask (are people on zoom or conference calls or knee-deep in their work)? Next step, inquiry. Do I need to ask some questions, is now a good time and to whom?

Finally, we determine our limits. What are we okay with, and what are we not? This is not a good time to be a martyr or a tyrant. Did the above scenario bother me TODAY, or is this a perpetual problem? If 80% of the time, the cereal situation wouldn’t bother me, then this may not be worth me going to battle for.  This doesn’t mean I avoid it because I don’t want the conflict, that would be kicking the can and letting the anthill grow ever taller.   I can’t use this as another chance to avoid rocking the boat. There are no gold medals at the end because I didn’t address challenging issues. After all, we live with people, and they do not operate or have the same expectation that we do. 

We can define and clarify what we are entitled to or what we will tolerate. We have to look closely at what that is. It isn’t what we will tolerate on our best or worst day; it is what we will tolerate most days. This may change as life changes. Kids grow up and can handle more responsibility.  Jobs change and require more or less time out of the house. Summer is a different schedule than the school year. These can be flexible as life changes, but they must be consistent and outlined clearly. We need to speak firmly, frankly, and kindly. This is not an attack on character; you are merely stating what you need. Our goal in speaking is intentional communication and not reaction(W.A.I.T). We want to understand what happened, clarify our boundaries, and reach an understanding knowing that everyone can’t end up 100% satisfied at the end.  

One thing we can use when we are in a difficult discussion is the concept of mirror neurons. What happens in our brain is, we match what the person across from us is doing. The best example of this is elementary school teachers. When their students get loud, they get quiet. Their voices get very, very quiet, and calm.  Suddenly the room gets quiet and still. The first time I witnessed this, I thought it was a miracle. We can use this same strategy in our discussions. Even when someone else starts to get loud and rowdy when you stay calm, they will often match you. 

Entering the discussion in a prepared, mature, and loving way gives us a good shot at allowing active listening and less reactivity. When we have picked our time and place for discussion, that is when we must ask differently. “I’m curious about the kitchen table, when I got home from work, it had cereal and milk all over it.” Or, “Tell me about what happened this morning…..” After we have actively listened. Then we may lay our boundary using “I need” language. “I love that you are older now and can handle more responsibility. I am fine with getting up in the morning and doing a quick pick up before I leave for work, but it frustrates me to come home to a kitchen table not picked up and all the cabinets open. How can you help?” If you need to lay it down firmly, you can try, “I am asking each person to start picking up after lunch and making sure your stuff in the family room is put away before I get home. This is a firm boundary for me; I know it may take some time to develop the habit. Would it help if I texted you before I left the office to remind?  This is not a character attack; I just need your help.” Moving the discussion away from a defensive response and instead shared goals is one of the keys to changing behavior. 

We can influence others by our words and silence, but we can never control the outcome. Scenarios like this will likely be met with frustration and misunderstanding at first. Letting THAT frustrate you is a mistake. You aren’t likely to always be agreed with. Don’t make it about being right. Having a team consciousness is very difficult, especially when you are waiting for everyone to buy-in. When we follow the steps and use strategies, it slows us down and forces intentional communication with the team goal in mind. 

Breath deep, stand firm, practice active communication

Advice From A Friend: We can be heard when we respond, not react