Many everyday situations challenge our inner peace.
Your partner overspending or drinking too much
Your teenager keeping suspect company
Your interfering in-laws
Your nit-picking or demanding boss
On and on it goes, leaving a trail of strained relationships in its wake.
How do you typically respond to situations like these?
Do you ignore it, pretend it is not happening, make out it is not a big deal? Denying it?
Do you respond in anger, shouting, name calling or some other explosive behaviour?
Do you stay present, keep your balance, notice and accept what comes up for you and then find a way to speak from a place of respect and love for the other person and yourself?
And how do you find that place in you when you are in the grip of fearsome emotions?
First things first: Recognise that you are not thinking straight when you are in that state. It’s OK to call time out if you need to. You can say something like ‘I am not thinking clearly right now. Can we take a break and talk about this when we’ve had some time to think this through?’
Then go and do some work – get perspective – be curious, not furious.
How do you feel about the other person? Yourself? The situation? What are your concerns?
How might they feel about you? Themselves? The situation? What might their concerns be?
Use the 5W+H questions, who, what, where, why, when and how to come up with questions to interrogate and challenge reality about yourself, the other person, the situation. Answer them truthfully.
A great tip I heard a while back is to go away to your respective corners and don’t come back until you have come up with ten reasons each how you have contributed to the problem. Of course, you have had to agree this one long before. It will be like pouring oil on fire if you suggest it in the heat of the moment and out of the blue.
While you are doing this work, think about what you appreciate about the other person. Find something to appreciate, no matter how small. People are not all bad. It may seem so in that moment when they do that thing that annoys you so.
Ah… some more work to do… What is it that you are really annoyed about? Is it that thing they do? Or is it your INTERPRETATION of what they do that annoys you? If you changed your INTERPRETATION, would you still be annoyed? We give everything meaning and we can change the way we think and feel about something by changing what it means to us.
Hmmm…. makes you think, doesn’t it?
So now that you have had a chance to review the situation from all angles, including your own contribution, (not easy, I know) and you have found something to appreciate about the other person, do you still feel so upset? Are you inclined to be more kind? Have you found a little place in your heart so you can speak from a place of respect, no matter how small?
I am willing to bet you are. I am willing to bet that after this work your response to the original trigger is likely to be very much different from what it would have been without doing it.
Victor E. Frankl says: ‘Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.’
That is what you have done by doing this work. You’ve created a space. You’ve reclaimed your power to choose your response. Pretty awesome, don’t you think?
