Tag Archives: assertiveness

Good for Me – Part Deux

Posted on by
Reply

And now, as promised, here are:

The Next  5 Things that Keep Us From Expressing Our Feelings.

6. Low Self-Esteem: You believe that others peoples needs, wants, and expectations are important and valuable, but yours, for some reason, are not. You spend much of your time trying to please others and meet their expectations but rarely, if ever, express your feelings or tell others what you want.

*My question here is, if other people’s thoughts, opinions, and preferences matter, then why don’t yours as well? Is there really such a thing as some people being fundamentally better than others? Or is that just a story we tell ourselves?

7. Spontaneity: You believe you don’t have the right to say what you are thinking or feeling when you are upset. You may feel that if you accurately describe what is going on for you (i.e. feeling hurt, neglected, sad, disappointed) will sound weak and ridiculous.

*You may very well sound and feel vulnerable if you are honest with your feelings. But not saying anything inadvertently tells the other person that it is okay if they treat you this way.

8. Mind Reading: You believe others should know how you feel and what you want without actually expressing yourself directly.

*This then gives us a good excuse to feel resentful and upset with others for not seeming to care about our wants and needs… even though we haven’t actually told them what we want and need. That doesn’t seem too fair.

9. Being a Martyr: You are afraid to admit when you are angry, hurt, sad, or disappointed because you don’t want to give others the satisfaction of knowing they’ve upset you.

*This is a pride/ego issue of feeling like we need to overly control our emotions and suffer in silence – again, not too helpful for the growth and development of any meaningful relationship. Not to mention the fact that when we do this we usually just end up feeling bitter and resentful.

10. Need to Solve Problems: After a conflict you go around and around in your head trying to figure out how to make the problem go away instead of just sharing your feelings openly and asking the other person how they are feeling about the situation.

*Talking it through and taking the time to understand both sides is WAY more productive and WAY less time consuming than trying to magically make the problem go away.

That’s them. Any favourites? I know that changing some of these habits can feel really difficult and maybe even a bit scary at first, but I can tell you from experience, it is so liberating and so much easier to learn to communicate in healthy and positive ways. And honestly, once we feel like we really can express how we’re feeling if something is bothering us, you’ll see that eventually you’ll start to notice how much less things actually do end up really bothering you. It’s really neat how it all works.

Just A Sandwich.

Posted on by
1

The other day I was at a weekend training workshop for Complex Integration of Multiple Brain Systems or more simply put, CIMBS, and I had an interesting interaction with another counsellor that had nothing to do with the training we were doing.

At this workshop we were provided with a lunch and this lunch consisted of soup and sandwiches – but not just any sandwiches, they were these little gourmet mini sandwiches and they were delightful.  Anyway, shortly after lunch, when we were back in session, someone on the catering team came in and took the half-full platter of little delightful sandwiches away. Now I would be lying if I said I wasn’t a little disappointed because I had been looking forward to having another mini turkey sandwich on fresh cranberry sourdough bread for my afternoon break snack.

So, when we did break for coffee and a snack a short while later, I approached one of the nearby catering staff and politely asked him if it was possible to bring back those tasty little sandwiches so we could enjoy them once again during our break. He said they were downstairs in the fridge, but he’d be happy to go down and get them and bring them back up. I thanked him graciously, and awaited their arrival.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but another counsellor at the workshop had overheard the whole conversation I’d had with the caterer. A short while later I ended up in a conversation with this woman and she said to me: “I really admired how you were able to ask that caterer to bring back the sandwiches. It was something you wanted and you weren’t afraid to ask for it. I wish I could do that.” At first I was a little surprised by her comment and didn’t really know what to say until later (I hate it when that happens!) Of course she could have done that! What’s there to be afraid of? As long as we’re okay with hearing no, because literally, that is the absolute worst thing that could happen. We can ask, and they can say yes, or they can say no. That’s it.

It’s pretty simple but we often make things so unnecessarily complicated.

Not a Four Letter Word

Posted on by
Reply

Here’s a little more on assertiveness. Like I said, I’m a big fan of this one.

Learning to be assertive is probably one of the most useful communication tools I can think of. It can strengthen our relationships, reduce stress from conflict or having to “suck it up”, and it generally just makes one a happier person. Part of being assertive is learning how to say no. For many of us, no is basically a four letter word, and we try to avoid it at all cost by employing elaborately worded maybe’s or a yes and then a well fabricated excuse at the last minute to wiggle ourselves out. An assertive and polite no is actually very appropriate, and there are no little fibs involved.

Interestingly, I was talking to someone recently who was having some issues with being assertive and setting boundaries and I asked her when she believed it was okay to say no to a request or invitation. She said:

  1. When a family member has died
  2. When one is too sick to get out of bed
  3. When other plans have already been made

Man! That’s it. Any other reasons for no were inappropriate and left her feeling guilty and selfish. She was running herself into the ground by yessing pretty much everything in order to avoid her no.

I’ll tell you, and you may not believe me until you try it, but there is SO MUCH freedom in being able to give AND receive a no. That second part’s important too. We need to allow others to safely use their no with us too. Sans guilt trip, coercion, or judgement. It’s important we are gracious with letting others be who they are, and give ourselves the freedom and grace to be who we are.

Standing Tall

Posted on by
Reply

I talk a lot about  assertiveness, because, let’s be honest, I’m a big fan, and unfortunately, many of us don’t put it to its good use as often as we could!

In a nut shell, assertiveness is our ability to express our thoughts and feelings and assert our rights while also acknowledging and respecting the rights of others. It’s about being appropriately open, honest, and clear about where WE are at. People often confuse assertiveness with aggressiveness, which is when we express our feelings, preferences, and needs in a way that is disrespectful, inappropriate, critical, or unfairly blaming of others. Thus, because treating others like this often leaves many of us feeling guilty and disappointed in ourselves we chose to avoid the whole thing and be passive instead. Passivity is just that: passively keeping our mouths shut and thereby not expressing our own feelings, needs, preferences, and rights. This is no good either and usually results in feeling like a victim, feeling anxious and stressed out, and feeling secretly hostile and bitter because our needs are not being met… because we don’t express them.

Let’s picture this with an illustration. You are standing having a conversation with a friend and then something comes to a head in what you are talking about. You have an opinion or preference in the situation so now you have 3 choices on what you can do. You can either say nothing, and metaphorically lay down on your back and let the other person dominate, and walk all over you to get what they want (that’s being passive); you can forcefully lurch toward them, blame and criticize them, call them down, and squash them to get what you want (that’s being aggressive); or you can stand firmly upright and let them know you’ve heard what they’ve said, and are also going to share your thoughts and feelings on the matter (that’s being assertive).

For most of us, assertiveness is an art to be learned and does not always come naturally. It can take practice, but it’s worth it since people who work at and get good at being assertive have closer and more meaningful relationships, and are also happier and less stressed out. A pretty good trade off.

Again, I’ll reiterate, assertiveness is the ability to express one’s feelings, thoughts, preferences while also acknowledging and respecting the feelings and rights of others.

Here’s one example of a simple little formula to try out:

When you__________ I feel______________.

Give that one a whirl.

Beast Whispering 101

Posted on by
1

Lately I’ve become quite fascinated with anger. I find myself reading and re-reading any and all information that comes across my path on the topic. I haven’t been intentionally seeking out literature or information on anger… not just yet anyway, but am finding the more I learn the more I want to know.

Anger is one of those funny emotions. Not really funny ‘ha ha’, but more ‘ha, that’s curious, what’s this all about?.’  Many of us fear anger. For women, most of us were taught as children that good girls don’t show, let along feel, anger. As a result, many of us have this sort of shame and guilt when it comes to both experiencing or, heaven forbid, expressing our anger. For men, it’s kind of the opposite story. While growing up, and even as adults, it seems like the ONLY acceptable emotion for a man to feel and share is his anger. This then leaves men with the understanding that any and every emotion he experiences is anger simply because that’s the only emotion that real men are allowed to feel… however, they know and we know that how they’ve learned to express said anger is rarely productive for any of us. Oy! What a mess we’ve made. The point here is that many of us fear anger… it’s kind of a taboo emotion in our culture, but we’re still human, and we still experience anger. So now what? When we don’t know how to understand it, handle it, or express it in a healthy way we cope with it by turning it back into an attack on ourselves. That’s not so helpful.

What is helpful is to use a much healthier and much more productive strategy for dealing with our anger. One such way is to learn to say what we want and negotiate for the change we’re after (aka being assertive). Anger is quite often a side-effect of feeling helpless and powerless because we don’t express our needs or we express them infectively. We all have needs and preference and we all have the right to ask for what we want, and although we may not always get it because others have the right to say no, we can still ask.  So one of the keys to learning how to tame the beast as opposed to pretending like he’s not there, feeling guilty when he rears his head in a destructive way, or just plain jaw clenching and hoping he goes away on his own is to learn to be okay with both giving and receiving no. Believe it or not this strategy in and of itself has a huge effect on our feelings of anger – both toward others and toward ourselves.