Resolving Friction Within Important Relationships
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[00:00:00] Katie Lane: Welcome to enough with the small talk. I'm your host, Katie Lang. I'm your pain recovery coach and life coach here to help you navigate this little thing we call living. Are you done with the surface level life over surface level conversations? You're craving that deep emotional support where you can bare your soul to someone who cares.
[00:00:28] That's me. I'm that person. I'm that best friend that everyone thinks is their Except I'm not a therapist, but that's okay. I'm here to emotionally support you, help you acknowledge and recognize the things that you've actually gone through, and to show you that what you feel is valid, and that the key to moving forward in healing...
[00:00:49] Is understanding exactly who you are. So I can't wait to dive in.[00:01:00]
[00:01:00] I just got off a new client session. I started with a new client this week. I am so excited. She is someone who is specific to back pain, herniated disc club, um, and she's about the same age that I was when I got really hurt, really bad. So, she is navigating a lot of things very much the same as to what I navigated physically and emotionally a few years ago.
[00:01:31] And one thing that really came up, a lot of what comes up in my work is like Relationships, communication between yourself and the people in your life. Um, I have, I am someone that I've really struggled with communication. My. entire life up until the last few years. And like I was just saying to my newest client, I really think for me, one of the [00:02:00] big purposes and the things that I've found as a purpose and gain from my injury is that it's pushed me to like, learn.
[00:02:07] How to communicate and say what I need to say and talk to people and have the uncomfortable conversations and get really vulnerable and have very adult as we talked about it today. I'm like, these are just very adult like conversations. And many of you guys struggle with this too, regardless of your age.
[00:02:25] I mean, I have clients in their twenties, all the way up to their sixties and communication amongst. People, family, friends, people we love is not freaking easy. Um, and I kind of broke it down into three parts for my client today. And I thought that this might be extremely helpful for you guys listening.
[00:02:44] So this is kind of what I've done over time with navigating these conversations. Um, like dealing with backhanded comments or [00:03:00] comments where you don't know how to take them, conversations where you don't know how to take them, things like what we do naturally is a lot of times someone will say something, whether it's your aunt, your grandma, your friends, uh, your husband, your kids, they'll say something and then you just stew about it, right?
[00:03:22] For like days, or like weeks, or if you're like me, you never forget what people say to you and you're stewing about it years later, right? And what we do as humans is we, someone says something, and it strikes us, and then we think about it, and then we rarely have a conversation with someone about how It makes us feel or like having a bigger overarching conversation if it's like a habitual thing with this person or very much a pattern between you and them.
[00:03:59] These types of [00:04:00] comments or conversations just keep happening and like you might not really be okay with it yet it still keeps happening or you don't really know how to handle it. And so I kind of break this down into three parts. One is, and this goes along with my phrase that I love so much, emotional responsibility, which is really just taking a hard look in the mirror and owning, like, who you are as a person, owning and understanding how you operate, how you tick, how your mind works, how you internalize things, how you connect dots in your brain, like, just really understanding yourself.
[00:04:40] And this is part one is understanding yourself and what your role in the relationship is. And I always come back to this. I went to an AA meeting once. For a family member of mine to try to like, understand where they were at. They were [00:05:00] not present at the AA meeting, but I had gone just to try to learn more.
[00:05:04] And one of the women said to me, and I've shared this on here before, is that, You are 100 percent responsible for your 50 percent of every relationship. And that really stuck with me, and that's exactly what I mean here. Is like, really understanding your role, and how you are contributing to the relationship.
[00:05:25] How you would want to contribute kind of like what fuel are you adding to the fire between you and this person? How are you helping hindering or affecting the relationship and just really having clarity on that? So like that's part one part two is Then understanding that as much as you can for the other person.
[00:05:48] So part two is like Understanding the other person and the context of their life and how they respond and how they operate and getting curious about them [00:06:00] and understanding what their role in the relationship between you guys is, right? And then part three is assessing what this relationship means to you.
[00:06:11] So, asking yourself, like, to what lengths do I want to go? To help this person understand me. Like, to what lengths do I want to go to try to make this relationship what I would like to see it be, right? Or how to like stop feeling icky in this. And so that's really my three part system. Step one, understanding your role.
[00:06:41] Step two, understanding their role. And step three, really understanding what this relationship means to you and at what lengths are you willing to go to Either salvage it if it's a relationship that's at risk or enhance it if it's just someone you care about But you keep [00:07:00] kind of rubbing Like bumping heads or whatever kind of the friction may be or the unsettled feelings You may be feeling in this relationship It's basically like have I done my part to really help this understand is this this person understand the full picture of me Right, because it's hard to know exactly what people's intentions are when they say certain things But it's really easy to assume What people's intentions are and that's where we kind of get ourselves into trouble in the sense of that's where we stew on that And then we concoct these Like theories that may or may not be true about what they actually meant when they said the thing Does that make sense?
[00:07:54] So the goal is to understand the other [00:08:00] person so you're not assuming what they meant, you know what they meant. And if you know what they mean and you don't like it, like if they're not being nice to you or they're treating you like crap or they're being super dismissive or they're super condescending and that's actually what they mean, well, then that's for you to decide what you want to do with that.
[00:08:22] If it's someone where You're perceiving it to be all these negative things and it feels all these negative ways but come to find out through maybe some really hard conversations and being vulnerable that like that's not their intention or at all and that's just how it's being perceived and You know, there's a lot of potential in that relationship for it to be more of what you both want.
[00:08:46] That's an amazing outcome, right? Um, and this is like not something that happens a lot. Like, I think we kind of just [00:09:00] have this idea that relationships are what they are and people are who they are, which isn't necessarily the case because it's unlikely that in most friendships People are showing all of themselves to you and you're showing all of yourself to them.
[00:09:22] And some relationships are really worth it enough to get to that point where you are taking the conversation to another level. To try to better understand each other. And it in turn leads to a deeper connection and a deeper relationship. Whether it's just a friendship, whether it's a family relationship, whether it's a romantic relationship.
[00:09:44] Is usually there is more that can be done. To... Make the relationship more of what we want. And so, that three part system can really be applied to any type of relationship. [00:10:00] And, our role is very important, and our role is the role that we have the most control over. And, it's understanding
[00:10:16] how you as a person are. And is that what you want to continue to be? You know, like, I've worked a lot personally on not being overly reactive. I grew up being overly reactive. I've always been very reactive. Um, like quick to get really angry, quick to get really upset, quick to be like offended. I would be offended very easily and very quickly, um, with certain types of people.
[00:10:56] And so for me, a big part of this kind of [00:11:00] like working on communication and relationships in my life was first learning who I am, how I tick, what sets me off, why it sets me off. Because what I started realizing that I was doing was I was internalizing a lot of what people were saying to me and concocting stories that weren't true.
[00:11:21] And on the other side of the coin though... A lot of what I was feeling with certain people in my life was true. So it's being able to decipher like what, if what I'm feeling is my insecurities, or what I'm feeling is actually what this person is intending for me to feel. And that's where deciphering those two can be really, really hard.
[00:11:45] And that's where learning and understanding yourself, and getting to know your insecurities and your fears, um, is very, very crucial in being able to feel confident in relationships in your life. Like, feeling [00:12:00] solid and confident in who you are, despite what anybody else says. Um, and it can really help to de escalate situations that normally might escalate really fast, really quick.
[00:12:13] Um, and doing that for me, I really, it really helped me not take things so extremely personal. When they weren't intended to be, right? And that one thing alone can be life changing. Because if you are the type of person, which this has always been me, and I still struggle with it, I've just come really far and I'm still working on it.
[00:12:38] I was like, someone could say something to me that would completely derail what felt like my whole life. And my whole, like, idea of who I am as a person. Which is not a way any of us want to live, you know, and
[00:12:57] it really affected my [00:13:00] Relationships like I would just fly off the handle pretty dang quickly Whether I was showing it to them or I was just having an absolute meltdown internally, right and When we're in a stage of like transformation in our life, I think these, the frictions in certain relationships in our life is when they become most, uh, evident.
[00:13:30] They're brought to the surface when we're going through some sort of like level up in our life where we're going through like a cycle of development mentally, physically, emotionally. Um, You know, with age and wisdom and experience, these transformations in life, naturally, we go through these cycles. And I think when we go through these cycles is when a lot of this surfaces.
[00:13:53] Um, if you're going through a physical, like, injury, recovery, and healing, that pushes you in so many [00:14:00] ways, mentally and emotionally. Because it forces you to have to speak with doctors and practitioners, it forces you to have to stand up for yourself, it forces you to have to talk to boyfriends, girlfriends, spouses, husbands, wives, in a way that maybe you never have.
[00:14:18] It forces you to talk to your friends and your family and just, whoo, really lay it all out there if you want people to be able to really understand what it is that you're going through. And it is not easy. So It's usually not as simple as so and so said this to me and it really pissed me off and Ugh, like there's always more behind that.
[00:14:48] There's more for you behind that. There's more for the other person behind that And having the desire to dig in a little bit more, the relationship is worth it. [00:15:00] And if you not feeling a certain way every time someone says something to you is worth it, doing the kind of self exploration and understanding work is SO and so beneficial to this.
[00:15:17] So I could talk a lot more. I think I'm going to keep this short. I just wanted to highlight this three step process for you because I think a lot of you guys that I know personally will find this really helpful. So when you're navigating, challenging things in relationships, friendships, all kinds of relationships, break down this three step process and ask yourself, what is my role in this?
[00:15:41] How am I affecting this? What do I want my role to be? Or how do I think my role could maybe change, right, to have the outcome that I want? But what is my role in this? What is the other person's role in this? And answering that question is multifaceted in understanding and learning about that [00:16:00] other person.
[00:16:01] And then number three is what lengths am I willing to go to to help this person understand me? Give that a try. And I... Hope that you will uncover some very helpful things between you and the people in your life. Okay, that's all I have for today. I love you all. As always, take care of yourself.
