Pause Before your Speak
This is the 7th of an 11 point series: Returning to Your Present Self Again and Again
Sometimes I can pull it off, pausing before I speak to ask myself Is it truthful, is it kind, is it necessary, is it the right time? as I suggest in my memoir Stay Present. As you likely already know, this can be quite challenging. We get triggered by something that someone else says or does and we BLURT just the thing we’d already promised ourselves not to say. This material is often so deeply conditioned in our psyches from so long ago that we can’t even make sense of it. Optimally, the other person will tell us if they feel slighted, for as we know, none of us are mind-readers. But sometimes it helps to check it out with them if we suspect our words were injurious. They might be truthful and kind in their response, but not always. Apologize if necessary or at least try to understand where they’re coming from.
People can take offense fairly easily and dish out offense (sometimes unconsciously) fairly easily- a rough combination of human frailties typically termed “communication problems.” Just a few days ago I said something that I suspected hurt my husband’s feelings. I asked, and he was real enough to admit that was the case, and I was also able to “fess up” that there was some truth to the slight he thought I’d intended. He also clarified for me something he’d said so that we could move on from it all in under ten minutes.
“That sounds like a lot of work!” exclaimed a friend of mine. Yes, it can be, but it’s worth it to risk sharing your deeper feelings, not just your frustrations with someone and find you both still accept one another in the end - over and over again. This might happen in some form or other for quite some time, but not all a wash for it’s one way to heal the wounds we carry from our past.
I find it a relief to acknowledge how wounded all of us are, how we unconsciously protect ourselves, and that it doesn’t make anyone defective or unlovable. “I really don’t like this about you,” I once said to my husband, viscerally feeling the dislike, “but somehow I still love you.” What a paradox and a great energy-saver to cease expecting others to get over themselves lickity-split when we personally know how hard it is to change. Let's start embracing one another and ourselves as we are in the midst of our constant evolution.
Libby Gell is a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and author of Stay Present: A Child, A Diagnosis, A Family’s Way Forward. She shares her extended family’s journey and offers insights and suggestions on creating joy while handling family crises, medical and otherwise.
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