Let's face it, pretty much everything in life comes down to relationship. Whether it's at home, in the workplace, online, or just in our heads, we have interactions with other people all the time.
Which means disagreements, of course.
Disagreement isn't bad per se (there's no learning, no growth without being wrong about stuff and having our beliefs challenged), but it can become problematic when it's habitual (posing as an insurmountable obstacle), or when it regularly escalates to hostility.
I'm reading a great little book at the moment (Unbreak Your Heart by Linda & George Pransky) and right from the outset it's got me chuckling at how easily we fall for the mind's tricks, as it causes disagreements with those closest to us.
There's a story from Linda, that's just so… normal and so obvious that I want to share it with you, because it shows just how easily arguments start (and more importantly, how easily they can be avoided).
See how much of this resonates for you (I've spotted myself doing things like this before):
End of day expectations
Linda is always home from work before George, and really looks forward to seeing him. She's missed him, wants to catch up, share details of their respective days and have some quality time together – a loving connection. It's a marriage!
Trouble is, it never works out like that. Most days he comes in all stressed, ignores her and immediately starts making phone calls. In her own words:
“I would feel insulted, misused, hurt and upset. As soon as he would get off the phone, I would say to him (with a bad tone) ‘Well, that wasn't much of a greeting!’ He would respond defensively and would accuse me of being critical. And then I would get defensive and accuse him of being insensitive. This would often lead to a heated argument, leaving both of us exhausted, unsatisfied and upset.”
Don't know about you, but there's nothing weird or unusual about that to me. I've definitely spent time apart from my wife, and had a little story going on in my head about how things will be (‘should’ 🚩 be) when we see each other again.
But look how destructive it can be! This was one of many foibles Linda & George experienced early on in their marriage, and for a time they thought they had to get divorced (their first book, The Relationship Handbook, tellingly was originally called ‘Divorce is not the answer’).
Crucially, she says,
“I would stand there and have lots of thoughts.”
And that's the real relationship killer: the meaning-making, the analysis, the layer upon layer of story, not the original thought.
Anyway, one day, when she's pretty much resigned herself to this disappointing-husband behaviour, she observes George stomping through the door at the end of the day, ditching his work stuff and crashing off elsewhere in the house, and suddenly notices how completely overwhelmed he looks; something she'd not really clocked before.
And she has an insight. She realises he's so completely lost in his own painful little world of thought (just like she's lost in hers), that there's no way he's in a state of mind to form a loving connection with her, there and then.
And everything changes.
The turnaround
She says,
“I was making up all kinds of things about our relationship and even wondered whether I should be in a relationship with him. All this thinking was making me feel worse and worse about our relationship.
In one defining moment, I realised that none of that thinking was true because his behaviour had nothing to do with me or our relationship. He just couldn't see past his busy mind.”
This gives her the space to approach the situation from an entirely fresh perspective, because she's seen that he's not the problem, and she's not the problem, it's simply the fact that they've both failed to notice they're caught up in their own little separate realities that's getting in the way of them having a real connection.
“The circumstances had stayed the same, but my thinking changed and in turn my feeling changed … it occurred to me what to do.”
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the Innate Health understanding in action.
Normal, obvious and completely life-changing.
Before you jump to conclusions
Remember the one about ‘should’ (🚩) and the disclaimer I shared with you?
This is NOT advice. There is nothing you ‘should’ do as a result.
Minds love a rule, but what worked for them, in their very specific situation doesn't mean that this is the solution for you and your specific situation.
All it's doing is pointing to why these disagreement occur in the first place—to the basic, underlying principles—so that misunderstanding gets cleared out of the way and you can find your own solutions to whatever it is you're up against.
You got this!
🙌🏻
Giles
Related
We're back here again, aren't we? The mind's expectations lie at the heart of so much suffering!