No More Holdbacks

May 30, 2006:-  If you are like most people, every day you have something you wish you could say to someone else. It might be that someone made an offhand comment that hurt your feelings. Or it might be concern for a friend or relative who appears to be in a troubled relationship or have a problem with substance abuse. Or, you may simply want to check in with your parents or children on the state of their finances to be sure you are not needed to help support them. The problem is that it can be uncomfortable to share your thoughts on these subjects, and so, rather than risk hurting someone's feelings, you hold back your words and push your emotions inside. Why risk offending, right? Then again, all that consideration may be costing you your own health and wellness.

Studies constantly remind us how stress negatively impacts health, including the stress that comes from disharmony in our personal and professional relationships. While your brain can ignore the issues and pretend they don't exist, your body never forgets. Eventually, when ignored for too long, emotional issues come back to haunt you in the form of disease. How to nip the problem in the bud, and address the issues right up front? Daily Health News's personal development expert, Lauren H. Zander, life coach and consultant, spoke with me about why difficult conversations seem so tough... and how to make them possible.

CREATING FALSE REALITIES IN YOUR MIND --
EASIER THAN DEALING WITH THE TRUTH

"I have something to discuss with you." Many people find this seven-word sentence nearly impossible to utter, especially when the "something" refers to them feeling hurt or embarrassed. People excuse their reluctance by saying they aren't confrontational, but Lauren observes that everyone is confrontational -- it is just that most people's confrontations take place in their head instead of with another person.

When stuff happens as it does in life, it's common to harbor bad feelings and create a mental dialogue in which you imagine how the other person would respond. Better not bring it up, you conclude, because it is easier or safer that way. However, what you have actually done is turn a dialogue that never happened into a personal psychodrama, says Lauren.

Although you decide to keep your thoughts and feelings to yourself, they don't go away, and ultimately your opinion of why the other person did or said that and how that person would react becomes, in your head, the Truth.

With your new "truth" in place in your head, you continue to avoid interactions and communication believing, instead, in the truth that you have created about the person or the original situation. The problem is that without having the direct conversation, you never give the person or yourself a chance to hear "the other side" and to clear away any misperceptions. In the case of wanting to share concern for a loved one, if you don't let him/her know your concerns, he won't know that there is help available for him.

Recognizing that you are avoiding such a conversation is the first step toward having it. The only way to resolve the issues is by having the difficult conversation.

HOW TO HAVE THE CONVERSATION

The first step in having a difficult conversation is to free your mindset to remember that the truth you have created in your mind is not the truth but rather, your perception of the situation -- not more, not less. Accepting this reality allows you to frame the conversation in such a way that you won't hurt the other person's feelings or put him on the defensive. You are not being accusatory or going on the attack.

Step 2, Lauren says, is to clarify your thinking before you introduce the conversation, write out what happened and how you felt about it. Here are the points to address...

I am hiding from telling you my feeling about when you ________.
What happened is that it hurt me/made me angry that you _______.
What it meant to me was __________________.

If the conversation you need to have is not about hurt feelings but is merely a difficult conversation, such as asking parents about their financial security or a friend about problems with substance abuse, then revise the questions accordingly...

I am hiding from asking you about ________.
I am afraid that if I bring up this subject it will make you
think/feel __________.
What it means to me is __________________.

When the time has come to introduce the topic with the person, yes, you will be nervous. Having these conversations becomes easier only with experience, says Lauren. It will make it less difficult, though, if you are upfront about being scared and not wanting to hurt feelings, but that because you value your relationship, you need to talk.

Before you go further, ask permission to continue and if this is a good time. You may find it helps you conduct a difficult conversation if you first write everything out that you wish to say and actually read from it. If the conversation is about a past disagreement, consider explaining you accept that what you are saying isn't truth but it is how the situation felt or appeared to you.

Lauren is reassuring about the responses to such conversations. She finds that most people receive the information happily because it shows you value the relationship... it is correctly framed and so it doesn't put anyone on the defensive... in the case of a misunderstanding, it is an opportunity to explain confusion... and in the case of a sensitive subject, it is an opportunity to show someone you love them and care about them.

Being brave enough to have a well-framed difficult conversation merges a relationship into true intimacy, says Lauren, because you have opened the way to compare your truth with the other person's. You are both sharing a real part of yourselves that you have been hiding until now. Hiding eats away, builds resentments and makes people scared that the other might "find out" our innermost negative thoughts about them. Consequently, opening up in this way also contributes to self-esteem, she says, because you are willing to believe in yourself enough to speak your truth.

Recognizing how we all build false truths in our heads about other people can have benefits even with everyday "meaningless" relationships. We might tell ourselves that the store clerk or bank teller is "snippy" and so decide not to like her. But as Lauren says, by doing this we have labeled the person and prevented any other truth from emerging. Instead, we can monitor our thoughts to keep them from fencing us off from what might become a pleasant pause in the journey of life. Learn to shush the chatterbox within, she says, and allow others to be who they are, not what our silent judgments turn them into.

Be well, Carole Jackson, Bottom Line's Daily Health News

Sources:

No More Holdbacks

Lauren H. Zander, founder and principal of Personal Evolution, an international coaching company, www.personal-evolution.com

The Best and Safest Cholesterol Reducer, Sonja Pettersen, ND, in private practice in Arizona.