Something to remind yourself when conflict arises with a significant person in your life.
It's too easy to take the people around you for granted, with the busyness of work, meet-ups, hobbies, and other commitments.
In communication, many people (myself included) tend to be self-serving. I have my opinions, and I say what I need to say. If you don't understand it or agree with it, too bad.
That's the easy way to communicate. Easy, and selfish.
The easy way is usually not the right way.
When you're seated on the train and an elderly man enters, the easy way is to pretend to sleep or not notice his presence, and continue sitting where you are.
When a classmate is bullied, the easy way is to join in the bullying.
When making a career choice, the easy way is to follow the crowd and do what's socially acceptable. Even better if you get to slack and no one cares.
When faced with a choice of providing financial support to your loved ones, or keeping all your savings to yourself, the easy way is the second.
But what's the RIGHT way?
Offer your seat. Stand up for the bullied. Follow your curiosity, work hard at what you love, and reap your harvest. Being there for your loved ones, physically, financially, and emotionally.
The right way requires you to look within yourself. The right way requires courage. The right way requries compassion. The right way requires love. The right way requires making a conscious choice NOT to pick comfort and popular opinion.
The right way requires disregarding your ego and putting aside your selfishness.
Put your ego aside. Instead of seeing the situation as "Me vs You", try shifting your perspective to be that of "Us vs The Misunderstanding".
Put your ego aside. Instead of starting an argument about who's right and who's wrong, recognise that this person is someone you love, and that both of you care enough about each other to even be upset in the first place.
Can you do that in a conflict? Can I?
Last week, while we were both getting ready for work one morning, my sister said to me:
"Mummy and I find it very hard to talk to you sometimes. You have very strong opinions especially about being positive and sometimes you just say things like we're very negative when we're talking when we didn't mean it that way. And you can say all these things about us but it's not like you're very nice in your responses sometimes also" and she went on to give specific examples of situations when my response was curt.
I could feel my defenses going up inside. But it's true. But sometimes you guys just point fingers when there's no need to, I was thinking.
I put my thoughts aside and looked at her speak, listened to her words. She was visibly distressed, avoiding my eyes and being forceful in her words. She was afraid, I realised. She expected me to react defensively. And she's so brave in being honest with me about her feelings.
After she spoke, I felt thankful. How rare is it - that in my family where things get swept under the carpet all the time - my sister can be honest with me in improving my communication?
I thanked her for telling me, apologised for sounding aggressive or judgmental, explained my point of view, and asked her how I can react better in a way that will not be provocative.
The tension between us dissolved and she relaxed. The conversation ended with no hard feelings.
Later I texted her, "姐姐 I really appreciated you being honest with me this morning, even though it wasn't very easy to say what you did. Thanks for the bravery and for giving me the chance to improve in my communication :)" Her reply warmed my heart and made my day: "I actually feel much better after telling you.. thank you too for listening and acknowledging certain points. I guess no one's really perfect in communication but ultimately we are still family and I'm sure we all love each other deep down."
People don't care how much you know, until they know how much you care.
I love this. It's one of the maxims of coaching and probably applies to counselling, teaching, and mentoring too.
Seek first to understand, then to be understood.
And, conflict resolution doesn't end with the conversation! 'Understanding' without follow-up action to improve in future makes the conversation futile. E.g. I can understand that my words were hurting, and I apologise for it. But if I don't make a decision to consciously commit to communicating better, the issue will arise again and I will end up hurting the same people again, not to mention losing the trust they have in me to meet their needs.
If you want to be trusted, be trustworthy through your words AND actions.
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