Tiny Buddha

Tag: issues

  • Improve Your Communication: How to Address Big Issues in Your Relationship

    Improve Your Communication: How to Address Big Issues in Your Relationship

    Couple Looking at Each Other

    “Communication works for those who work at it.” ~John Powell

    I’ve been with my boyfriend for three years now. He’s a great guy. We get along well, we complement each other, and we have a lot of fun when we’re together.

    Still, despite our mutual desire for a great relationship, we occasionally run into roadblocks, otherwise known as growth points.

    Recently we’ve been going through a bit of a rough patch while revisiting unresolved dramas. What enables us to handle these dramas well is our willingness to show up and communicate.

    Through our three years together, I’ve learned a few things about effective communication. If you’ve found it difficult to share your thoughts and feelings and work through issues in your relationship, this may help.

    1. Schedule a time to talk.

    This is most important when it comes to discussing the heavier subject matter of your relationship.

    Even though I know this and I follow this rule regularly, an impulsive side of me failed to abide by this rule in one of my most recent discussions with my boyfriend. And I paid the price.

    We were lying in bed one night and the topic of concern came up. My heart leaped into my throat and I felt like I just had to say something. I decided to open the can of worms right then and there. He did not like that.

    He felt ambushed, which is understandable, right? I didn’t give him the opportunity to prepare. He had no idea what was coming!

    He got angry. He closed down. And, in turn, I didn’t feel heard and thought he didn’t care about my feelings.

    In reality, I didn’t do what I know is best to do: schedule a time to have a conversation. So, even though I let myself get upset and hurt about it, it was my responsibility to broach the conversation from a different angle. I had to let go of my hurt feelings and honestly examine where I dropped the ball.

    If I had scheduled a time to talk, then he would have been more willing to communicate with me. Honoring other people and their feelings allows both parties to fully show up, be heard, and hash things out collaboratively.

    2. Know your desires and intentions.

    Returning to the same scenario as above: I eventually decided to ask him for an appropriate time to talk. We agreed on dinnertime the next night.

    As we sat down and the conversation opened up, I decided to share with him my intention and desire for the conversation, beyond the topic for discussion.

    My true intention was to have open, clear, loving, positive, and collaborative communication with him. It’s important for me to be in a relationship in which conscious communication is the mainframe.

    I used the analogy that if either of us were unhappy about something and the other person or both of us were unwilling to communicate about it, then that would be like sticking a thorn in our relationship and choosing to allow it to deteriorate. It’s sweeping matters under the rug instead of dealing with them straight on.

    By sharing this, he immediately opened up because he knew where I was coming from and that my intention was positive and for the good of our relationship. He could relate to that because he desires and intends the same thing.

    3. Be prepared to lead the conversation.

    If you plan a time to talk with your partner about an issue in your relationship, be prepared to lead the way.

    My boyfriend and I have had several deep conversations over the last few months. So, at this point, I knew it was best for me to be prepared.

    In the past, when I failed to gather my thoughts in advance, I fumbled over my words and wasn’t quite sure what to say. I knew what the topic of conversation was, but I failed to produce anything productive, at least, not right off the bat.

    And finally…

    4. Take responsibility for, honor, and share your feelings.

    It wasn’t until I started sharing my feelings, without blaming (i.e. “I feel angry…”), that I started to feel heard and the conversation felt worthwhile.

    If I had continued to hide how I felt and just talked about how to solve the problem, then I would have continued to feel like something was wrong. And when that occurs, the first thing that comes to mind is that this communication thing just doesn’t work. I eventually want to withdraw.

    Facilitating communication with another goes both ways. I had to learn what works to open me up, as well as what will allow him to feel safe to open up as well.

    —

    Communication is crucial for healthy relationships. We develop intimacy as we learn to navigate each other’s rocky inner terrain, continually allowing the other to feel deeply loved and safer in our presence.

    Following these simple and practical steps can make communication much easier—and much more effective.

    Couple looking at each other image via Shutterstock

  • Why Your Problems Are Not Nearly as Permanent as They Seem

    Why Your Problems Are Not Nearly as Permanent as They Seem

    Liberated

    “When we…go back into the past and rake up all the troubles we’ve had, we end up reeling and staggering through life. Stability and peace of mind come by living in the moment.” ~Pam Vredevelt

    There is a way in which we tend to view issues in our lives that makes it seem like the issue is a big, scary monster that chases us around everywhere we go.

    We have commitment issues. Or we are bad with money. Or we have an eating disorder, we drink too much, or we follow-through too seldom.

    We view ourselves and our lives as if they are stable, consistent entities that probably can change, but rarely do. We surely never change without considerable time, money, or effort.

    At one point in my own life, I definitely felt like I had weaknesses and issues, particularly around food. It felt as if they were mine, like I had ownership of them. They were part of who I was.

    It felt as if my “disorder” was a living, breathing monster that I would never fully shake.

    And that’s the way it goes. It begins to feel like the issue is always there, following you around.

    The monster might be right on your heels some days and further away other days, but it’s always there in some capacity. The monster might take naps or even hibernate, but there is the sense that it could wake up at any moment.

    If you’re too loud or not careful enough, the monster will wake up and be right at your back again. So there’s no resting, really. You never get too comfortable. I know I certainly never got too comfortable; always looking over my shoulder for the next time the monster would catch up with me.

    (It’s easy to see how we came to view it this way, between traditional, past-focused psychotherapy and popular addiction recovery movements that say things like “You’re an addict for life” and “One more drink and you’ll be exactly where you left off.”)

    So, guess what happens when it feels like fully resting is out of the question?

    You guessed it—you don’t rest. You’re on guard.

    You hold in the back of your mind the image of that monster waking up and beginning to run after you again.

    You never quite manage to let that thought go because you believe—you’ve been led to believe by well-meaning but misinformed professionals—that the issue is a part of you. Of course it would never occur to you to let go of something you believe you can never let go of.

    Each time the thought of your monster passes through your head, it feels ominous and meaningful. When something feels ominous and meaningful, you naturally pay it some attention.

    If you believe you are bad with money and you go a little overboard at Nordstrom one day, it’s very serious.

    If you believe you have commitment issues and the thought occurs to you to run from your relationship, you might actually act on that thought because it seems real. That thought appears as your reality, not as the fleeting, habitual but arbitrary thought it truly is.

    For me, because I was told I “had” a diagnosis and that diagnosis signified a real and stable thing, anything I ate became a very big deal in my mind. The very common and meaningless act of eating a meal began to mean a whole lot about who I was as a person and it said something—in my biased thinking—about my future.

    You Can Only Feel What You Think

    Aside from the fact that monsters are scary, the other problem with the monster-chasing-you metaphor is that it is completely, factually inaccurate. It is quite far from the truth of how your “issues” and experiences of life work.

    Your actual issues are nothing like a monster chasing you.

    A closer approximation of how it works is something like this:

    Your moment-to-moment experience is a reflection of your moment-to-moment thinking. Said another way, what you feel is only and always what you happen to be (consciously and unconsciously) thinking.

    Sometimes you think a lot about your issue. When you’re thinking about it— especially to the extent that your thinking seems real and true, as if it directly reflects reality—it appears as if you have the problem you are holding in your mind.

    When the thoughts you are experiencing seem like stable truth, you’re naturally locked into them. You elaborate on them, take them seriously, and inevitably act on them.

    But here’s the cool part: Your thinking changes. Often. It’s always changing in obvious and subtle ways. When your thinking changes, your experience changes.

    And, the thoughts in your head are not an accurate snapshot of outside reality. They are quite subjective and personal, actually. No two people see the same thing in the same way, so what you think is only what you think, much more than the way it is.

    The points above work together because the more you see that your thinking is very subjective and personally biased, the less you rely on and respect it as truth. The less you rely on and respect it as truth, the more frequently and naturally your thoughts change because you’re not holding them in place, identifying with them, and owning them as “yours.”

    There Is No Monster

    Since your experience in any given moment is exactly equal to what you are thinking in that very moment, that means that when you’re thinking about your monster, you feel your monster.

    And when you’re not thinking about your monster, your monster does not exist.

    When you’re thinking about your commitment phobia, how your parents damaged you for life, how you’re an incurable alcoholic, or how horrible you’ve always been with money, those issues (monsters) are alive for you in that moment.

    My eating issues were alive for me most of the time in those years solely because I was always thinking about them.

    But when you’re thinking about your cat, or pondering hard wood versus tile in your kitchen, those issues are not alive for you.

    It’s not that the monster is asleep, waiting to strike. It’s that the monster literally does not exist.

    You see, each moment of your life, you start anew. The inner slate of your mind is wiped clear.

    Because we tend to give some thoughts a lot of respect, and because we believe they reflect outside truth, those thoughts tend to come back often.

    In that way, it doesn’t always feel like the slate wipes clear. It feels like the monster is right on your heels.

    But actually, we have infinite potential for brand new thought, which equals infinite potential for brand new experience. We tend to get more new thought when we know that.

    In other words, when you think of your issue as the monster on your heels, that’s what you get. But only because that’s the way you’re thinking about it.

    When you see it more accurately, understanding that you’re only feeling what you’re thinking in any moment and that when your thoughts shift—as they inevitably will—you get limitless new thought which brings limitless new experience, it all changes.

    You see that you’re creating your life anew in each moment. There is no monster, unless you create him right now by thinking about him right now.

    Nothing is actually carried over from the past. Rather you might think right now about the past, but that’s just where your thoughts wandered.

    I’m happy to report that I have had no issues with food for many years. Eating when I’m hungry is a complete non-issue. This is not what my therapists told me would be the case. I was told that because I “had” the issue at one time, I would most likely always have it in varying degrees.

    I was told that I could learn to manage it, and that it may lie dormant if I was lucky, but that in times of stress it would most likely flare up again.

    Nothing could be further from the truth today.

    There is no monster. There never was. There’s only what we think, now. And then now. And then now.

    Of course, thoughts of our “problems” will drift into our mind. We’re only human.

    But because we see that they will also drift right out, there’s no reason to keep constantly looking over our shoulder.

    Photo by Jesus Solana

  • A Simple Technique to Solve Problems Before They Get Bigger

    A Simple Technique to Solve Problems Before They Get Bigger

    Thinking Man

    “As he thinks, so he is; as he continues to think, so he remains.” ~James Allen

    It was a beautiful day as we drove down the Desert Road two days after Christmas. The Desert Road is a stretch of highway in the North Island of New Zealand.

    On one side of the highway, three magnificent volcanoes provide the only break to the bleak, stark landscape. Otherwise, the ground is covered in dry grasses, rocks, and a straight highway to the horizon.

    During the drive, my husband and I were discussing the New Year and what would be the next adventure.

    As Edith Piaf began to sing “Je ne regret rein” on the mp3, our conversation swung to my mother’s death the past year and how she and I could never see eye to eye.

    My mother was a wonderful woman, but I was never the daughter she wanted and she was not the mother I wanted. As a child I wanted to be a nurse, but she convinced me that I was too smart to be just a nurse and needed to become a doctor.

    I did try hard and when I failed out of medicine, my mother was disappointed.

    She wanted me to marry someone well educated and from a good background. You can imagine her disappointment when I married someone raised in the Gorbals in Scotland who had failed to graduate an Honors BSC in Higher Mathematics.

    And she wanted me to take care of her, be at her beck and call, as we lived two doors away from her. Imagine her total frustration when we moved with our sons half way around the world to New Zealand.

    I pulled over as regret and guilt overwhelmed me. My eyes filled with tears and my head throbbed. I thought her death ended all the recriminations. I thought I was at peace with our differences, but at that moment there definitely was regret and grief.

    And as Peter held me, he reminded me of the way to solve problems and a way to move beyond the immediate pain of guilt and regret.

    Yes, guilt because I had failed to resolve the breach and the disappointment; guilt because I refused to choose my mother’s wishes over my personal desires and my immediate family. That guilt and remorse were thieves stealing my personal power.

    As we drove back onto the highway, we discussed how to use ICE to deal with the feelings of guilt and regret. ICE is an acronym for a technique to solve problems.

    First, you Identify your feeling, the problem, or the situation. 

    This stems from the belief that when you can name something, you then can deal with it. The naming needs to be precise and identify the “issue.” In this case, the “issue” was my feeling of regret and guilt.

    Next, you Control or corral the “issue.” 

    To control or corral an issue, first you have to take the emotion out of it.

    Start by taking several deep breaths to clear your mind. Then talk to someone, even yourself, about how the issue affects you, and if you want it to affect you in that way. Your choice: continued pain or more pleasure.

    Peter and I discussed how my guilt and regret were still holding me back from being what I could be. I needed to make a choice to move on and accept the fact that it was impossible to undo what was done.

    Then, you Execute or eliminate the “issue.”

    By identifying it and corralling it, you can choose how you will move forward. You can choose how you will deal with the “issue” in the present and the future. You can choose how you will act the next time the “issue” arises.

    When I accepted and acknowledged what had happened, I could even laugh at the fact that I no longer had to account to my mother for my present or my future. I could put my mother issues where they belonged, in the “what I learned” box, and move to live in today.

    Using ICE to keep success thieves away is like keeping thieves out of your home. You identify where they can break in. You control the points of entry by using locks or security to keep them out.

    You make it more difficult for the thieves and so eliminate or reduce the possibility that they will steal your treasures.

    As we drove on, we looked for other emotions and situations that steal my ability to function.

    And so my quest began—a quest to identify other reactions that steal my success or cause regret.

    The journey has been exciting and extremely challenging.

    The first step was getting clear that success was made up of hundreds of steps; identifying success and finding my own definitions, not my mother’s father’s or anyone else’s.

    My personal success is just that, personal. I remember when my mother would scold me for failing to meet her standards and expectations. I remember my father shaking his head about the decisions I made, decisions that he was certain would lead to my demise.

    I remember other key figures in my life expecting me to be one thing and their disappointment when I made a different choice than the one they wanted me to make.

    Once Identified, I needed to learn how to corral the emotions and other issues. As I controlled or corralled the “issues,” I removed their power to make me doubt my success. I compartmentalized the issues so that I could decide when to deal with them.

    Now I can eradicate those habits when I choose or decide not deal with the “issues,” but they no longer have any power to stop me from enjoying my success and magnificence.

    Yes, there are still times when my self-doubt and personal recriminations about what I do and how I do it make me curl into a fetal position and pull the covers over my head.

    On the Desert Road that morning, I realized that I could ICE any thief that threatens to steal my success.

    Life is too short for grief, guilt, and regret. Yes, the tears still come when I think of my mother, but I no longer fall apart and pull off life’s highway overcome with the regret.

    What problems or emotions can you overcome by ICE-ing them?

    Photo by Wesley Nitsckie