relationships

The Utility of Honest Friendships

Do you have a friend that you can be honest with? That you feel safe enough with that you can give and receive truth from, even when it’s not so comfortable?

Most relationships are more surface, which is usually a good thing.
Most of us aren’t equipped to hear what everyone really thinks, and most of us think so many goofy things, that it’s not great to be sharing all that silliness anyway. Certainly my inner critic does not need to be given free rein to speak her mind to everyone all the time!

Still, it’s good to have a friend that you respect deeply and can be honest with.

Why? Two good reasons that I can think of:

  1. Sometimes you just need to talk to someone about what’s really going on with you. Sometimes the act of verbalizing helps you recognize what’s happening. If you talk to a surface level friend, you’re not going to be so comfortable sharing your deeper thoughts and feelings, and this sharing won’t be so helpful.
  2. Sometimes it can be really helpful to share with someone who can give you honest feedback about what they see in you. “Hey, Elena, I think you’re missing something here. This might be heard to hear, but have you thought about it like this?”

This can be life saving! I recently went through two weeks of internal craziness, getting lost in my wacky brain. When I finally got around to meditating, I felt much better, and then hours later talking to friends helped me clarify what had happened. Listening to myself be totally honest with them about my experience helped me understand what I had done… and how to recognize if it started happening again.

Journaling is another great way to do this. Journaling helps you get clear about what you think and feel. The added bonus with friends is that they can talk back to you. “Yep, Elena, that sounds like you. I think you’re right on target. Something else that might help…”

Priceless. Honest friendships are like gold. Wonderful resources. Great places to give and get wisdom, joy, honesty, perspective, reflection, etc.

If you don’t have a friendship like this at the moment, it can be helpful to feel into who in your current circle of friends you feel the most comfortable being honest with. Which relationship could shift out of just “being nice” and into deeper territory. There’s likely someone there, the relationship will just take some investment on your part to deepen.

Enjoy,
Elena
www.ElenaFoucher.com

Relationship Rescue: From Abuse to Amuse

Relationship Rescue“Sometimes things are so bad that I have to laugh so that I don’t cry.” David Deida

As fas as I can figure, there is no miracle cure for fixing relationships.

There are things that we can do to make them better, tips and tools for improving this or that.

But making the whole thing sublime? Nope. Not that I’ve seen.

Too bad, as far as I’m concerned. It would be great if my relationship with my partner was the cleanest, most beautiful, light bearing thing in my life.

Instead, while it is a source of great joy, it is also happens to be the thing that uncovers my darkest parts. It shows me where my demons are; handily pointing out all of the icky, nasty, icky things that, frankly I would rather just keep hidden in the depths.

On the other hand, this is also one of the greatest gifts that my relationship gives me. It points out in glaring detail and no uncertain terms, where I’m needing growth and change.

It pinpoints exactly where I need to shine some light.

One thing that my relationship has been showing me lately is my tendency to get angry. My partner thinks that I’m the cause of the anger, that I initiate it, and of course I think that he does. Is one of us unconscious about bringing the anger or are we both? This is an endless argument that our shadows could enjoy fighting over forever.

What seems to matter most is, what can we do to stop being angry in the first place?

How can we stop it as it’s happening and even better how can we stop it before it starts?

Great questions.

Usually, if I’m writing about something it’s to share some tip or tool that I’ve discovered to be really helpful. Not this time.

So far nothing that we’ve tried works. This issue seems to require some deep excavation and a big does of bravery as we shine our lights into the recesses… we may need a light house versus our standard flash light approach.

How do we do that, we’re wondering?

We’ll probably use many of the familiar tools for illumination: meditation, journaling, shadow work, inner child work, conflict resolution skills, psychoanalysis, dreamwork, journaling, rituals, etc, etc, etc. Big moments of clarity and insight will happen eventually.

In the meantime, it just hurts, so I’m trying to remember to not take myself too seriously.

I try to remember that we’re both human, having this wacky human experience, that I don’t really know why I’m here and what any of this means… and that in that case I’m free to laugh or cry as I choose. That in the larger sense, there is no clear reason to choose one over the other, so why not choose to laugh?

As I’m looking at this painful issue that feels so abusive with no clear way to fix it, this is the one thing I can think of to lighten the situation. Laughter.

I can cry in frustration.

Or I can laugh with delight… Yay! Another shadow dancing into the light!

Elena Maria Foucher blogs her experiments in joyful living on the Joy Lab at ElenaMariaFoucher.com. She teaches meditation and stress management in Hong Kong and is the creator of simple, quick meditations you can learn while brushing your teeth at ToothbrushMeditations.com.

(This article was first published in the online magazine CoSozo.com)

Real Talk: Speaking and Listening About Things That Matter

Speaking&ListeningOur relationships are the most valuable things we have. They are the gold that helps make life worth living.

One of the biggest challenges in my relationships is resolving differences in ways that celebrate versus denigrate each other. Sometimes the gold can get so beaten out of shape in these situations that it breaks apart.

I’m learning the art of respectful disagreement the hard way, and I’d like to share two big nuggets of wisdom in the hopes that your road to mastery can be smoother than mine.

Nugget 1: Sometimes all you need to do is listen.

One of the best things that my first husband and I did when we were separating was to attend a class on conflict resolution. We didn’t end up using the method of Nonviolent Communication that we learned. What we did do was take some of the principles of that class and develop a method for discussion that worked for us. We stumbled onto brilliance, and created the most peaceful and loving break up I’d ever had. Mostly what we did was learn the power of listening.

What we discovered as we went over issues we’d been fighting about for years was that we didn’t actually know what the other person thought.

What? How could that be? We’d heard the same arguments from each other over and over again!

How could we not know the other person’s arguments?

It turned out we hadn’t actually been listening.

For years.

Yikes.

How did that happen? I imagine that at first we were too hurt and angry and defensive and in a hurry to get across our pain. That we were too upset to slow down and listen to what the other person had to say.

How can that deafness continue for 12 years? All I can say is that when I think I’m right, I generally don’t pay attention to anything else. All I can hear are my thoughts, my logic, my reasoning. I didn’t listen to him because I assumed that I knew what he was saying. Ouch.

Now that we were willing to take the time to hear what the other person was saying, we were equally amazed at what we were hearing.

“Wait, you’re not mad that I used savings to buy the motorcycle, you’re upset because I didn’t ask you about the color?! Really? … Oh. …. Sorry about that, I didn’t realize the the color mattered to you.”

And poof, that was done. Gone. Over.

We’d been arguing for years and in 5 minutes of actually listening, we cleared up the whole thing.

Amazing, right?

90% of our discussions were like this.

Seriously.

It’s astounding what some focused listening can accomplish.

Nugget 2: Even if you think that you understand what the other person is saying, check.

This, in fact, is how we discovered that we weren’t listening. We checked.

How did we check?

One person would say what they thought about an issue (for a set time) and the other would remain silent and just listen. Then the listener would repeat back what they understood the first person was saying.

So, note that the listener isn’t mentally preparing their argument in response, they are listening for understanding and saying what they understand.

Then the first person confirms and clarifies, confirming what matches their thinking and clarifies what doesn’t. The listener says what they understand from the clarifications and this repeats until both people are satisfied that the listener understands the speaker.

Then you switch roles and the listener becomes the speaker on the topic.

Sound tedious? It can be! We found it incredibly helpful to have a structure to follow when things got heated. When hearts and minds start bending out of shape, it’s helpful to have guidelines and limits that you’re both happy to follow.

If you want to get better at conflict resolution, I encourage you to find or create a method that you and the other person both like. Do things that encourage clear listening and check for understanding even if you think you understand already! How will you know if you don’t ask?

And no matter what you’re discussing, remember how much you value the person in front of you and your relationship. Remember that you enrich each other and make life that much more golden.

Elena Maria Foucher blogs her discoveries for enjoying life on the Joy Lab at ElenaMariaFoucher.com. She also teaches meditation and stress reduction in Hong Kong and is the creator of simple meditations you can do while brushing your teeth at ToothbrushMeditations.com.

(This article was first published in the online magazine CoSozo.com.)