EI for Young Adults: Discussion 12
Discussing situations
My friend found out that she did worse on her test and now she is not talking to me
We role played a dialog confronting the friend who stops talking.
A: - You haven’t been talking to me as much, what’s going on?
F: - Nothing...
A: - What have you been up to?
F: - Studying a lot...
We then look at feelings
F feels: insecure, jealous, inferior
F needs: validation
A feels: lonely, confused
A needs: friendship and understanding
A: I feel like after we talked about how we did on a test you became distant and it worries me because I really don't want to lose you as a friend
F: Yeah, it's been hard for me comparing myself with you, I just need some time to process it.
Should A offer validation to F?
Because A caused the distress to F and F requests some time off to process A should respect it.
A is concerned that now she can't share her accomplishments to F because it will hurt F's feelings. So she can continue the conversation and make her request
A: I have a concern that next time I will not be able to freely share with you, because it may hurt your feelings. Can you try to communicate your frustration to me instead of just stopping talking to you? It is really important for me to share everything with my friend, not just the bad times.
Is she pitying me?
I stopped being friends with my friend recently (she initiated it). Now when I have some family matters she texts me that she is there to support me. I feel resentful, like she is not really there for me, just pitying me. I told her I don't want her support and she didn't say anything.
Losing a friend is very painful and even if your friend has good intentions and sincerely offers their support it's hard for us to accept it if we are still processing losing a friend. It helps to recognize that it's my own interpretation that my friend is pitying me that comes from that resentment, rather than objective evaluation. It also helps to have a conversation with your friend expressing your feelings and needs.
Role play
A: I know our friendship ended abruptly and when you reach to me, i appreciated but I also feel hurt, and it makes me feel you did it out of pity and you didn’t quite mean it. Can you share what you think, why was your intention to reach out to me?
B: I just wanted to show you my support, even though we may not be that close, but you don’t have to be that close to show your support.
A: So i was confused, texting out of pity is not the way to go. “Your support is not what I am looking for”
B: I gave you space when you said you were still upset.
You want to express to your friend why you don't want their support.
A: I have a personal resentmnet I can’t accept that support. Process this personal issue. Not ready to have contact with you.
Ignoring vs giving space
Sometimes it's really hard to tell if the person is ignoring you (self centered) or giving your space (thinking about you). It may require asking them what their intentions are.
Avoiding painful conversations
Sometimes the effort and discomfort of having a painful conversation seems too much. Why are some people able and willing to have them despite that pain? The reasons is not because they are brave or strong, it's just in their world the discomfort and pain of not having a closure is bigger and they just try to go for the "lesser evil". These two types of people (the ones that are more uncomfortable to have painful conversation and the one who are more uncomfortable NOT to have them) can be called pursuer and withdrawer
Pursuer and Withdrawer
Pursuer and withdrawer dynamics is usually shown in close relationships (friends, couples) and it comes from our childhood.
Pursuer needs to know that they are needed, they are loved. When they don't get this confirmation they feel alone. It's a very dark and scary place for a pursuer and they do whatever it takes to engage the other person, by getting them to talk about feelings, and if this doesn't work by creating conflicts and arguing and attacking, just to get their attention and get away from the place of loneliness.
Withdrawer needs to know that they are okay and safe. When in conflict especially they become overwhelmed with the emotions (especially guilt, self blame, fear to hurt the other person) and this overwhelm is too much for them to handle so they go into their shell. They just need to stay there. You can imagine that this is the worst thing they can do for pursuer's needs that's why this dynamic is so common and unhelpful.
What do you do in such dynamics?
Pursuer needs to understand that it's not personal, that the reason withdrawer is not communicating is not because they don't care about you, they just need to stay safe from overwhelm.
Withdrawer needs to understand that them withdrawing they make things worse and may try to communicate that right now they need some space and it's not like they no longer care about the other person.
Modeling abilities
Often we see someone able to do something we really want to do. How do we learn from their abilities and apply it to ourselves?
Ask if you can talk to them and how long it will take. Remember that people love talking about themselves, especially about things they do well, so if you ask them to talk about their ability they will be happy to.
Set expectations. It's about you, not them, you want to learn from them, so you may need to stop them to make sure you understand what they mean. Don't let your "niceness" be in the way of learning the ability. If a person talks about something irrelevant don't waste time for you and for them.
Ask questions. Here are some useful questions you can ask:
What do you mean by your ability?
A lot of times what we thought the ability is may turn out a very different thing. For example someone who can read one book a day and you consider it their ability may have a very different ability: fast reading skill or persistence. So you want to understand what this ability is for them.
Think of a few times you experienced this ability
This helps a person to reflect on their ability and think of patterns and common approaches that they can share with you
How do you do that?
This open question is the most useful. Keep asking "how do you do that" and you'll learn a lot!
Teach me how you do what you do
Just a different variation when the person will focus more on you and what you need in order to have this ability
What’s important to you about this ability?
This could be about the benefits of this ability for their life or about the value that they put in this ability.
What do you do when this doesn’t work?
Everybody who is good at something knows how to deal with failures or drawbacks. This may be very important information.
Notice what a person is paying attention to
Notice what's important to that person, even though it may not be important to you. It will allow you to explore their beliefs, other patterns of behaviors, emotions, etc.
Example: Ability to validate somebody's feelings during conversation and making it authentic
Q: How do you know how to validate somebody? Do they ask for it?
A: No, it's another person's need to express themselves.
(Oh the person is aware of their needs!)
Q: How do you notice their need?
A: By relating to it, seeing things from the other person's perspective.
Q: Teach me how to do it.
A: Be empathetic. Loose expectations for how conversation is going to go.
Think what you would want to hear if you were the other person. It’s not the same as what advice you want to give to another person. Sometimes you may have a clear solution, but it’s not what they want to hear. They don't want you to lie, they want to know that you hear them and understand what they feel, that you can empathize with them.
Q: Why is it important to you?
A: It's beneficial to communicate to anyone. I want to be a person that people go to. And I want to help people.
Empathic to everyone vs. being a true friend
There is a concern. If I am showing empathy to a stranger or someone who is not really my friend, I make them feel so good about themselves in my company (because they feel understood and validated) that they either assume they are my friend now or they want to be my friend, while I may not want to be their friend in the long term.
First, don't diminish the value of a short empathic conversation with anybody. At that very moment you are friends, you are intimately connected and experiencing each other. It's valuable for both of you.
What comes next is another question. Both people need to be able to set boundaries (unless they both want to be friends), set expectations that while they were fully connected at that time and may have a similar experience in the future, there is no commitment to maintain this relationship. This may be hard to process by a person who was empathized with, but it is what it is.
Also, using the word friend defines relationships and creates unnecessary categories. Labeling relationships doesn't always help. If there was no word "friend" the issue just wouldn't come up.