Interpersonal Effectiveness
Slow down, get clear, and become organized
Knowing what you want gives you the power to ask for it, to look for what you want, and to get what you want from the people who are willing and capable of giving it.
Lots of things get in the way with our ability to be effective. Often intense anxiety keeps our focus on the immediate threat. Sometimes this means rehearsing or imagining the worst possible outcomes over and over again. Sometimes our anxiety propels us towards anxiety-driven action. We are prompted to immediately fix, appease, accommodate, or even attack. Sometimes this causes us to lose sight of ourselves, become unglued, or to become disorganized. We stop looking at our expectations, desired outcomes, or even our unique observations. We don’t think about unintended consequences of our behavior on our relationships. We can become busy accommodating everyone else’s expectations to the point of exhaustion- often to find that other people continue to be dissatisfied.
Take a minute to consider what you want, think, notice, and feel. Consider if what you want might include: Being heard, being taken seriously, being respected, or being acknowledged.
Sometimes change involves a loss or regret that another person is not willing or capable of giving you what you want. But instead of getting into a crisis over it, this clarity allows you to re-consider your options, change the way you are asking for it, tolerate the limits of others, or even move on- and possibly keep looking for it from someone who can give it.
When my clients get better, the changes I observe are quite noticeable. Often there is a shift in energy- a slowing down. They appear more confident as they become centered, calm, and clear. They get organized! They are less prone to non-useful conflicts and increase their ability to steer clear of unwanted chaos.
Posted in Interpersonal Effectiveness | 
Tags: Acceptance, anxiety, Change, communication, Relationship, validation, wisdom | 
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Communicating anger without killing your audience
The blog post this week is for persons who have a hard time with anger. If you are a person who tends to rant and rave, gets in trouble with personal attacks, or comes across as interpersonally abrasive, this post is for you.
Communicating anger can be done effectively when the intensity of anger matches the message. Anger has to be at a manageable level. If you can get anger to go down, you may have a very strong point to communicate- but you’ve got to do it in such a way that anger works for you, instead of getting in your way. Here are some suggestions:
- Soften your gaze, relax your face, and try smiling with half of your face.
- Unclench your jaws and your fist, open your palms, and relax your body.
- Stop glaring.
- Be clear about what you want to communicate. Try stating it in a matter-of-fact but firm manner.
- Slow down your breathing.
- Try to pay attention to how your face communicates. A flat, impermeable look can be negatively interpreted or misinterpreted. (Notice if/how you are drawn to particular TV characters who have expressive faces).
- Wiggle your eyebrows. Try shooting one eyebrow up.
- Notice your tone of voice. Try singing what you want to say before you talk to the person. This will get you to notice your emotion in your voice and make it hard for you to hang on to the intensity of the anger. Another option is to use a cartoon voice.
If you act or behave in such a way that is incompatible with anger, you will have a pretty good chance of getting your anger to go down. Being clear, matter-of-fact, and firm; staying connected, rooted, and close to your inner wisdom can be a much more effective way to communicate anger than sarcasm, attacks, and rants.
Posted in Interpersonal Effectiveness | Tags: Anger, Change, communication, Emotion, Relationship, Stress, Understanding emotion, willingness | Comments Closed
How do you know when to say no?
In DBT, the concept of observing limits has to do with options for how much you want to extend yourself in relationships. In other words, how much of your time, energy, or frustration are you willing to invest in other people? To what extent can you give people other things, do things you don’t want to do in order to keep a relationship, or balance the demands on your time?
The important thing is that limits vary from person to person. Some people will bend over backwards to keep relationships or go the extra mile, while others may be more protective of their time, happy with independence, and more inclined to say no. Both of the above examples have pros/cons associated with them. For instance, extending oneself frequently may result in feeling taken advantage of, while too much independence may result in loneliness.
Sometimes extending limits makes sense because it shows how much you care. Sometimes saying no and risking the consequences of another person’s unhappiness helps you avoid biting off more than you can chew. Sometimes saying no gives you the time you need to stay healthy. Sometimes saying no forces other people to be more proactive. Limits change according to situations, people, and contexts. There is no set or fixed rule for determining what your limits should be.
Ultimately, you are the one who has to live with the consequences and frustrations of over-extended limits. You may want to take some time this week to figure out what your limits are, what gets in the way of maintaining limits, and the cost/benefit ratio of extending them.
Posted in Interpersonal Effectiveness | Tags: balance, limits, Relationship, Stress, time | No Comments »
Finding wisdom during emotional chaos
Our emotions get activated despite our best efforts to control them. So how do we know when to trust our “gut”? After all, when we have a “bad feeling” about a situation- and we rely on our feelings to avoid painful or scary scenarios- then how do we know when to approach a situation despite our anxiety about it?
While I am not sure there is a simple answer, here are some factors to help think this through. First of all, consider the importance of your emotion. Be clear about what you actually feel. Try to get a “sense” for the feeling itself. Next, consider the information that your feeling may be giving you about your environment. What is the actual threat? What could or would happen if you acted on the feeling? What (if any) action is your feeling prompting you to take? If you avoid taking action, what might the consequences be?
Consider the extremes. If you never trusted your “gut”- ignored or avoided feelings all the time- you may be vulnerable to getting yourself into bad situations. If you always trusted your gut- you may prematurely make judgments about people or situations that are unfounded or inaccurate. You might come across as overconfident or hyper-vigilant, and find yourself unable to tolerate situations that aren’t actually threatening.
Finding clarity in chaos may take trial and error, the willingness to be corrected, openness, and curiosity. Trusting your gut may also mean speaking up, being “seen”, and risking confrontation and disagreement. Neither one may be entirely confortable! Remember, making changes involves taking risks. Often discomfort and misery drives us to seek alternative solutions by trying out new behaviors.
Keeping relationships you want to keep by addressing shame and building mastery
Shame is an extremely powerful emotion that gets people to avoid, withdraw, shut down, freeze up, and avoid eye contact. People that feel an immense amount of shame often experience themselves as grossly inadequate and avoid relationships at all costs.
Avoiding relationships can lead to several beliefs:
- I am incapable of having relationships
- Something is fundamentally wrong with me (that doesn’t appear to be wrong with anyone else)
- I am not likable
- The positive experiences that others seem to get from relationships isn’t available to me
- I don’t understand what sets me apart from other people
- Maintaining relationships is not possible
- I will never have the types of relationships that I want
One way of treating shame is to avoid avoiding relationships! Some people feel a great deal of shame for things that other people may not think of as shameful. Other people have done things that are very hurtful or harming to relationships and don’t know what to do about it.
Relationship repair work is a tricky business! How do you do it? The benefits of doing good repair work include reducing shame, building a sense of mastery and accomplishment when our human failings get in our way, realizing that we make mistakes, realizing that not everyone will like us, and empowering ourselves to keep trying to initiate and maintain relationships that can be potentially rewarding. Being good at repair work can help us to feel better about ourselves.
This is the first time that I am offering an online training series for people who are struggling with relationship repair. The best thing is that you don’t have to be anywhere near Boston to benefit from it! Just go to my website, click on the online training, and purchase the package. You will get three audio downloads taking you through the steps. Included is an example of relationship repair and some tips for when relationship repair doesn’t work.
Let me know how it goes!
Posted in Behavior Change, Interpersonal Effectiveness | Tags: Emotion, Loss, Relationship, Repair, Stress, Understanding emotion | No Comments »
On solving relationship problems: Sometimes repair work doesn’t make sense
This week I have been working hard on a series of audio recordings and a handout to help people with relationship repair work. (My target date for people to be able to download the audios and make use of them is mid-July!). Here is an excerpt from one of the audios, and it has to do with a problem that people frequently run into when trying to solve relationship problems:
Make sure you know exactly what you are repairing, making right, or changing. The following statements are things people may say to you when they are unhappy with your behavior, but do not offer enough much clarity or information about what needs to be different:
“We don’t like you. You are manipulative and obnoxious. You shouldn’t make a big deal out of this. In general, we have a bad feeling about you. You don’t fit into the culture here. We find you really annoying. We have noticed that other people here don’t seem to like you. People have complained about you.”
There is a difference between not being liked and trying to maintain or repair relationships when you have no solid information on how to make things right. When you do not know what you are supposed to change, it becomes extremely hard to change it! If you are invested in working with these types of scenarios, what you should try to do is get clear and specific feedback about what behaviors or instances the person is referring to. For instance, someone who says “You’re really annoying” should be able to say what it is you do that annoys them. Interrupting someone frequently, talking excessively about yourself, or glaring are much more specific behaviors and therefore much easier to figure out how (or if!) you are going to change them. If the person is truly unable to think of any examples of your behaviors than I would suggest that you pay attention to the relationship in the most graceful way possible- and limit your contact with this person to the best of your ability.
If you don’t know what the person is upset about, and if they are not sophisticated enough to give you clear and specific examples, you will not be able to do much in terms of repair work. And if you can’t do much in terms of repair work, then there is no good reason to be doing it! This may mean that you have to step apologizing for things that are beyond your control, step up and speak out, and ask people to spell things out for you- however painful it may be to hear. It may also mean pointing out that they have not given you any clear guidelines about their expectations for things to be different.
Posted in Behavior Change, Interpersonal Effectiveness | Tags: anxiety, Change, Relationship, Stress | No Comments »