Doctor, heal thyself.

     I had a regrettable moment with a friend the other day.  She opened up to me about something extremely difficult she was going through with a family member, where she felt compelled to lay down a bit of an ultimatum.   And in the process of trying to convey to her my belief that people generally don’t respond the way you hope to challenges without being validated for where they are and met halfway, I absolutely challenged her without validating where she was or meeting her halfway.  And guess what?  She did not respond the way I hoped.  Exhibit A.

     I’ve written about this before, but I can’t impress upon…well, myself (apparently) enough – progress in relationships only happens in an environment that feels safe to both people.  That doesn’t mean you don’t stand up for what you need and deserve, nor does it mean you never speak up to offer a challenging point of view.  But had I really been listening, had a taken a moment to understand and appreciate what was behind the stance she had taken and the significance of it for her, I may have been able to make the important adjustments necessary to effectively communicate what I wanted to get across.  I may have been able to share my truth without posing an immediate threat to hers.  Then, perhaps, we both may have been heard and understood.  Instead, I wasn’t listening – not REALLY – and therefore she couldn’t listen either.

     Funny thing is, when I’m wearing my “Coach hat”, I don’t have trouble doing this.  But without the emotional distance that hat affords me, it becomes a lot more difficult.  So it follows that the more emotionally charged a conversation is, the harder it is.  It’s unfortunate – the higher the stakes, the more likely we are to do the damaging thing.  It’s understandable, it’s human, and it’d be great if we (I) could cut it out!

What’s getting in the way?

     I have a personal training client whom I adore, but who for a long time continually made me mad.  He was submitting himself to our sessions together, but I couldn’t quite fathom why, as he seemed to really hate the experience.  Which made me feel horrible for putting him through it.  Which made me mad, because why should I feel horrible??  

     So we bickered, incessantly.  It was a tug of war, with me trying desperately to get him to invest in what we were doing, and him seeming to try everything he could do to distract himself from what we were doing.  Until I finally took a minute to think about this man and who he really was.  A brilliant mind, idle.  This is a former Dean, a scientist and science professor, a man of mind.  A habitual thinker.  And it occurred to me that what was really getting in the way of his investment in what he was doing wasn’t so much a bad attitude, but that he didn’t know how to invest his MIND in the physical activity.  This man’s mind and body were very much two seperate entities to him, and while his body set about doing these uninteresting repetitions, his mind was searching desperately for something to occupy it.

     So I set about making sure I gave him clear directives for what to engage his mind with during each exercise – these are things you need to think about and why - and stressing the mental component explicitly, instead of simply asking him to focus.  I began to turn my attention towards actively focussing his mind instead of simply expecting him to.  In short, I stopped taking his behavior personally, I figured out what was in the way, and I actively helped him move the obstacle. 

     His work outs have improved tenfold, and we are getting along pretty famously. 

     How much better would all of my relationships be if I could remember to start with the assumption that people generally have good intentions and do the best they can unless there is something in the way?