How do you deal with difficult relationships?

Are you open handed or close-fisted towards people. The answer will show how emotionally intelligent you may be.

Doc David

Transcript

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Hello friends, Doc David here. Let's talk about a different way to interact with stressful people. You are listening to head shrinking. Your answers to love relationships and daily living. Good afternoon, head shrinkers. Um I just came up with that head shrinkers. That's pretty good, right? I may have said it before, but I don't remember saying it. So everyone, I I officially declare that everyone who listens to this podcast is a head shrinker. Alright, do with that what you will. I don't think it'll get you anything free, but uh maybe someday, maybe someday we can make an official head shrinker card and you can display it someplace and get a 10% discount on your dry cleaning or something like that. Who knows? Maybe dreams can come true, right? Um I don't even remember the last time I posted a podcast, but here I am doing one. We're in the middle of summer, and uh let's see what I have been up to. I've been up to lots of working. Um I've been up to I I was able to take a three-week RV trip with my family. We went from uh Washington State to um the top of the nation to um Niagara Falls, went to a wedding in Pennsylvania of a nephew, and then drove back kind of the lower part of the US, not southern part, kind of mid-lower um Oklahoma, Texas, uh to Grand Canyon, and then up through Utah and to Olympia. And it was an it was an awesome trip, it was super great. Um, and so now I'm I've been back for about, I don't know, four weeks, I think probably about four weeks, and just been busy with work. But today I I have some time, and um here we are on our on this cozy little podcast. So um the thing I want to talk about today is a way to uh de-escalate yourself when you're interacting with difficult individuals. So when I say difficult individuals, usually those are going to be individuals that you're related to. Um I I've had several clients talk about family members, uh extended family members, and more intimate, like closer family members, that they that they just have a real difficult time interacting with because those family, I mean, for any number of reasons, they could have narcissistic tendencies, they could just be very selfish, they could just be self-centered, or they're in a different stage in life, and so they don't clue into the things that maybe they should clue into in their relationship. Um and so there's different ways to interact with people like this. There's you could totally cut off a relationship with them and not interact with them at all. I mean, that's that's one option. Um, and that's viable. I mean, if you if you very rarely see the person, um, you could even limit your availability to see them even more. But what I would what I would often say to people is if you barely see them, you can probably control yourself enough so that you can tolerate their irrit irritating ways. But ultimately it's up to you. Um so that's one way. Cut cut off things with them. Another way is to be be very direct with them when they do something that's offensive to you, to just call them out on it. Um that's a viable that that's a viable option option, but you have to be ready to take the consequences um of what happens when you call someone out. Um, a lot of times uh they may call you out or they may um limit contact with you and then talk to you about all these uh to all the other family members. Um so that's that's a risk. And if you feel like confident in yourself and secure in your relationship and you don't literally care that they talk with other family members, then that's another route you can go. The route that I suggest people go is a bit more difficult because it requires um some emotional intelligence, it requires a bit of uh skill and it requires mindfulness for yourself. Um and it has to do with body language. Uh, one of the things that I often notice when I'm interacting with people in my office, oh yes, I've gone back to face-to-face. I don't think um I had mentioned that. Not that it matters to you, but I'm just giving you information about my practice. So I go back, I I've gone back to face-to-face uh beginning of June, I think it was, and prior to that I'd been all Zoom related. Anyways, back on back on track. Um so so this idea of interacting with people face to face that are difficult to interact with requires that you have to be mindful of um and there's certain requirements emotionally for you to be able to do this, right? And so I was talking about when people come into my office and they're interacting with me, people send off vibes through their body language, right? So one of the vibes that I really see strongly sometimes is when couples are talking about something, the the folded arm approach, right? So they're talking and they're very like I have a couch that's in front of me and where they sit, and it's just very interesting. If they're they come in, I can tell immediately that oh boy, we're gonna have an interesting session because they're seated on opposite, like as close as they can to the arm, the opposite arm of their partner of the couch, and then their body language, they have folded arms, and they're just kind of their shoulders are hunched inward, and so that to me clearly indicates okay, there's some closed-off stuff going on here. People are not really wanting to interact easily, um, maybe not with me, but in regards to their partner that they're in here with. So, what I what I'm proposing is a little bit similar, and it's you having to be very self-aware of what's going on internally for you, and then once you're self-aware of what's going on internally for internally for you, it's fighting against that as much as you can. Um and I'm a firm believer that you can't will away a feeling. I I believe that you have to do behavior that goes opposite of what you feel. So, for example, uh a couple comes in and says, We've just fallen out of love. And and if I said, Well, just just really will yourself to fall back in love, that will not happen. I mean, I think 99% there there could be 1% chance it would, so I'll give you that. But I'll say 99% of the time, it's not gonna be, you're not gonna will yourself to fall back in love. What you can do to fall back in love is action that looks like you're in love in the first place. So going out of your way to do something for someone, uh holding hands when you go on a walk, trying to make time like on a date night for that other person. What happens when people fall out of love, they slowly get they just get interested in other things, right? Kids have soccer events, so they just get really focused in on kids' soccer events, or there's career things that they get really focused in on. And so there's a very poor balancing of work, life, kids that takes place. And when that happens, that's when people tend to fall out of love. So, this idea that I'm presenting to you is an idea of behavior, it's not an idea of willing yourself to feel a certain way. Um, and it's it's super simple. Um, it's super simple to do, it's way more difficult to pay attention to know when to do it. So here's what it is um take take your hands and clench them as hard as you can, just really tight, really tight, really tight, almost where your fingernails are digging into the palms of your hands, um, and then release it. Okay, just release it and put your hands out straight. Okay, now now clench again, clench again, clench again, clench again, hold it tight, tight, tight to where it's almost hurting, and then release. Okay, so there's a difference in the feeling that you experience there, right? When your hands are clenched tight and your fingernails are digging into your the palm of your hands, or um there's the I believe there's something physiological that happens. There's a closed off thing that happens with yourself. When you release that, when you put your hand out to just kind of relax and be open, I think there's something also physiological that happens with that. So, what I would ask you to do is when you're interacting with uh one of these difficult people, what are you doing with your hands? Now you may say, I don't, why does that even matter? Well, it matters because I think metaphorically, when you interact with people that are difficult, I think metaphorically you you are interacting in a closed-fisted way, right? You're protective of yourself, you don't want to give them a break, you don't want to hear their explanations of things, you've been hurt by them, and so typically, like when someone hurts us over and over, we want to protect ourselves and or we want to hurt them back. Um maybe we don't want to like stab them or shoot them, but we want to uh you know put a little jab here verbally, or speak poorly about them with another relative, or not wish them well when they succeed at something. That is all to me, that's all an example of being closed-fisted towards people. Again, remember, when you're closed-fisted, it's uh potentially uncomfortable, it's uh it gets tiring. Like keep your fists closed as tight as you can for a period of time, and it's gonna be it's gonna be hard to release that, and it's gonna hurt to release that possibly, um, or you won't be able to do it long term because it just it becomes tiring. And I think the same thing applies to when you're interacting with difficult people. If you stay close-fisted, uh the metaphorically metaphorical style of close-fisted, if you stay close-fisted with them, um it's it's gonna get tiring and it's gonna be wearisome, and it's it's not gonna be good for the relationship. I I also think it gives off a vibe. Um, just like couples come into my office and I can immediately get vibes from them about okay, what kind of moods they're in. I think when you're close-fisted towards people, um you whether you think so or not, you give off a vibe. Um, and so what I'm suggesting is you don't be close-fisted towards people because of the vibe that you go. Now, the op the the other way you can be with people is to be open-handed towards people. Um, and again, metaphorically, what that means to me is to be considerate, to be um concerned, to be caring, etc. etc. Now, um you may you may be thinking, well, what this person's horrible for me. Well, uh I I think that, sure, there's toxic people in your life, and I'm not saying that um you should just easily go interact with toxic people over and over and over again. I think at some level you have to have like pretty good boundaries. Um what I'm suggesting is that how do you initially approach people that you have that you make assumptions about? Um if you're always close-fisted towards those people, there's just gonna be this they're not gonna want to interact with you very much. Um and you're not and just the fact that you're close-fisted, you're not gonna want to interact with them very much either. Um but if you're open-fisted towards people, and let's say who should you be open-fisted towards most immediately, it would be your partner. Um so when you see your partner and they do something that frustrates you, do you get close-fisted, accusatory, angry, upset, or do you stay open open-handed and are you graceful? Are you willing to forgive? Are you willing to have good, emotionally intimate conversations with them to work through whatever it is you need to work through? I mean, ask your like answer that honestly, because if you're close-fisted towards them, that's not great for your relationship with them. Um, and again, the the further out your relationship gets with different people, the easier or the more difficult it's gonna be to remain open-handed or close-fisted. Um that in-law that you perhaps see once a month that is says the rude things to you, you're it's gonna be easy to just stay close-fisted. It's possibly gonna be a little bit more difficult to stay open-handed. But the person that you see consistently over time, um, that you like a partner that you have care and concern for, maybe it's gonna be easier to be open-handed with them because you have kids with them. Um my encouragement to you would be if you're finding that it's hard to be open-handed with a partner, let's say, and you you recognize, man, I'm pretty close-fisted towards them. My encouragement to you is to change that as much as you can. Now, again, you can't will that away. You can really try, but you're not gonna be able to will it away. It has to be uh behavior that you choose to do. And and I don't, there's so many different kinds of people and so many kinds of different situations that I'm not gonna be able to tell you in every situation, like, oh, you're being close-fisted or you're being open-handed. Um, the idea is that you are a grown adult and who is smart enough to know, honestly, I mean, if you can be honest with yourself, you're smart enough to know what you're being towards the person that you're interacting with. And so you ask yourself, right? When was when you had an argument last with your partner? Um, were you open-handed or were you close-fisted? And so if you were open-handed, awesome. That's great. If you're close-fisted, um, you start asking, you should start asking yourself questions like, okay, why was I that way? Is it because I've been hurt previously and it just hasn't been resolved? Do I have resentment that's built up? Do I have irritation that's built up? And if any of those, if you answer any of those in the f the affirmative, um, yes, I have irritation, yes, I have resentment, um, those should be things that you should be addressing either with your partner or with a therapist. Um, with your partner, you can say, hey, I've noticed this about my behavior towards you, and I just want to apologize to you for this, and I'm gonna try to do better. That creates emotional intimacy. Now, some of you may say, I can't do that. That's embarrassing. That's showing weakness. Well, then do it with a therapist in the room who can maybe help you with that a little bit better. Ultimately, you need to do it because if you don't, then it that's just gonna build up and build up and build up, and it's not gonna be good for your um relationship. Now, when it comes to um extended family, this is where it gets to be a challenge for some, like with in-laws. Um, again, I think having a clear conversation with your partner about how you're feeling about things is important. Um, and that's gonna be hard for your partner because they may get defensive. Um, and or maybe they won't. If they won't, that shows like a good um emotional intelligence level that, like, hey, you know, this person gets to have their own feelings about my parents, and I recognize my parents aren't always the best people. They can be hurtful, and there's siblings that get involved too, right? So there might be siblings that are hard to interact with. I think ultimately it would it's super important for you to be able to have clear lines of emotional communication open with your partner, to be able to have like good discussions about hey, am I being open-handed or am I being close-fisted towards your sister or towards my uncle or towards your mom and dad? Um, the more you can have good conversations like that with part with your partner, the more that your relationship gains strength because you're sharing emotionally intimate conversations about relationships. Um hey, hopefully that's been helpful to you. If you have any questions, feel free to email me, headshrinkink at gmail.com. Um, and I want to let you know I've started a new private parenting Facebook page that um I'm opening up to uh parents who want who really want to focus in on parenting well. And I think most parents want to parent well, but some parents they don't put a lot of effort into it. So this this new Facebook page is and it's a private community, but this new Facebook page is definitely geared towards that, and I'll be putting out some more information on it. But if you want to know more about it, go to my Facebook page of Doc David, and I'll be I will be posting it there, and so then you can uh join, join up if you want. Um, hey, have a great weekend. Um, enjoy the summer. It's gonna be like 60s here in the Pacific Northwest. That's lame. That's why you never want to move here. Because we just are cold and rainy all the time. Hey, have a good weekend. Take care.