If you’ve been reading my newsletter for a while, you’ve heard me speak about the importance of emotional authenticity—of really feeling your feelings and expressing them honestly. If your Life School is the School of Love, (which about 70% of the population is,) this is absolutely essential for your health: physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual. Of this I have NO doubt whatsoever.
The tricky part comes in communicating the feelings—in the “when, where, what, and to whom” part. I’ve been wandering around in these tricky zones lately, making some mistakes, and I’d like to share the insights I have today (they might change or be refined tomorrow!) So, the question at hand is, when it comes to conflict, do you say what you feel or keep quiet?
Bottom line, in my opinion, communication is like creativity: it is incomplete if it isn’t fully received. How do I know this? I’ve had plenty of experience taking my “mad” out walking and talking to myself, or journaling the mad onto reams of paper, and the mad just keeps on going round and round. There is no being “heard,” or “received,” and there is no release or resolution. So when you’ve got your real feelings sorted out, it really is important to actually communicate them.
BUT. And it’s a big but. When you are sorting through the maelstrom of feelings, sieving out this one, refining that one, it’s a process. Separating the wheat from the chaff, so to speak. Finding out what part of the feelings applies to today’s difficulty and what part to the 15 times you got angry about this before and didn’t say anything. It’s important to go through this process before blurting out the whole shebang to the poor sod who just happened to get in your way at the wrong time.
It’s a common School of Love pattern, to hold in your feelings (because it wouldn’t be nice to carry on about it) until they finally boil over. Then you go bonkers and there’s way too much collateral damage. Too little communication, then too much unfiltered communication.
So what’s the answer? Honestly, this is one of those places journaling can be very useful. It’s a place to BLAH all over without damaging anything but the pen, the nice neat piece of paper, and your white knuckles. Partly it’s about seeing the whole picture, so you can assess what’s real, and partly it’s about taking the edge off of the craziness zinging around inside you. It’s about buying yourself some time.
I’ve made the mistake more times than I wish this year of firing off a communiqué (usually an e-mail) without giving it the 24 hours it needed. Ouch. Leads to sleepless nights, and, I suppose, ulcers, shingles, and every other stress-related disease. What? All that from saying too much? Yup. I used to have exactly the same problem from not saying enough!
Honestly, though, I am pleased I’m at least wading into new parts of the water. I hope I don’t lose valued connections in the process. I hope I get wise about this sooner rather than later.
But today? My advice is write it all down, talk it all out (to the wall, the mirror, or to a sainted friend willing to listen and say nothing), then sleep on it. Don’t stop there. Take the slept-on wisdom and arrange the appropriate time and place to talk the essential and relevant parts through with the offending party.
That’s the hardest thing, isn’t it? To know what is essential and relevant. When I say “essential,” I don’t just mean “necessary.” I mean “of the essence.” You really have to find what’s at the very heart of the matter.
And that’s where a coach, a friend, or a trusted confidante, can help. Peer counseling is a modality some of my best-loved friends swear by. 12-step meetings, with their sacred space and “what’s said here, stays here” laws, are excellent places to hear yourself through from the crazy to the wise.
What doesn’t help, is gossiping about the situation. That just super-charges it and sends it into arenas where it doesn’t belong.
Oh, and there’s just one more thing. If you are School of Love, sitting down and talking through the conflict will TERRIFY you. Uh, huh. Much easier to fire off an angry and possibly self-righteous e-mail, right?
I am in great admiration of the souls I’ve had the good fortune to be around who are modeling maturity in communication. Of course I don’t know their inner story—what consequences their own learning curve has thrown them. But I do know I’m grateful, and can aspire to model the same behavior down the line.
Coach’s Challenge: Next time you get mad, or even just really frustrated, write about it. Then put it aside. Do something that calms and clears your mind. Exercise. Meditate. Sleep. Now, pick that “spew” back up and go through it with a highlighter. You only get to highlight what is relevant and essential in this particular conflict. Using what is highlighted, write yourself a script of what to say to this person so your communication becomes something constructive rather than destructive. And leave a comment. What works for you?
