Episode 107: Stand Up For Your Life!

We've all heard "all you have to do is round your lips and say one syllable: no". If it could only be that easy! In today's episode, we'll explore assertive communication and how to set limits and state your needs and wants with effectiveness and kindness. 

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The information contained and documents referenced in the podcast “Your Priority Centered Life” are for entertainment, educational and informational purposes only, and are not intended as, and shall not be understood or construed as, professional medical or health treatment, diagnosis, or advice. We strongly encourage listeners to consult with medical providers or qualified mental health providers with issues and questions regarding any physical and/or mental health symptoms or concerns that they may have. Furthermore, the opinions and views expressed by podcast guests, partners and/or affiliates are not necessarily those of the podcast host. Dr. Alise Murray’s opinions and views are expressed in her individual capacity and are not to be construed as those of any of her podcast guests, partners and/or affiliates.

Transcript

Hi! Last time on Your Priority Centered Life, we talked about how to figure out what your priorities are and how to set goals based on what's most important to you. Knowing what your priorities are is an important first step, but living a priority centered life usually means you will need to communicate these priorities to others. With some people, this is easy. They share your values and they're fully supportive. With other people, not so much. You may need to set limits and teach them how you want to be treated. And that's the focus of today's episode.  

Russ Harris is an Australian physician turned psychotherapist. He's the author of several excellent books, including his book, ACT With Love. He's really an amazing therapist. In this book, he includes a bill of personal rights, which provides a useful framework for communicating our needs and wants to others. I'll be referring to this Bill of Rights throughout our time today. I'll give you some examples of these rights and discuss how you can use this to let others know what you need.  

The first one is, I have the right to be treated fairly and respectfully.  And here's an example of that. Let's say that you have a kid who has an afterschool job and you don't usually get to have dinner with them, but they don't work Fridays. So this has long been established as a family dinner night, something where the two of you get to sit down together and have dinner. So you look forward to spending time with them on Fridays. Okay. And you decide this week, I'm going to cook a special dinner. I'm going to cook one of their favorites. So you go ahead and you get the groceries, get everything ready to cook. And then you text them and you say, Hey, I'm making your favorite tonight, lasagna. And I got that dessert you like. And then you read a text in return that says, yeah, well, I'm going to be home later. I'm going to McDonald's and I'm hanging out with my friends. So you cook the meal, you eat alone, you do all the cleanup afterward. Your kid comes home at 9 p. m. and before you can ask them how their day was, they go straight to their room to Snapchat with their friends. 

Okay, so you might be thinking,  well, that's fairly normal behavior for a teenager: eating fast food, hanging out with friends, doing social media, right? But the thing is, if your kid knows that Friday night is family dinner night and you went to a lot of trouble, then you will want to let them know that the way they handled this was not respectful to you.

 Second one is, I have the right to make my needs equally important to those of others. Here's how this one goes. If you find yourself justifying why you don't deserve to have what you want, I think it's important to ask yourself, why is that?  Sometimes, for example, we can tell ourselves that our partner deserves to rest after work. They've had a long day. But the thing is, when you stop and think about it, well, you've had a long day too. So that doesn't really make a lot of sense that you're running around still working on things and they're resting if you're feeling really tired.  Or maybe your coworker gets to have the days off they request and you don't. You turn in requests and they get turned down. Unless there's a company policy that says, okay, certain workers get time off because of their seniority or because of the role that they play with the company,  then they get first choice of time off. All right, well, that might make sense, but if there's no such policy, then maybe it's something that deserves being brought to your manager's attention. 

Third one: I have the right to decline unreasonable requests in a way that is fair and respectful.  This one makes me think of a quote by Sherilyn Kenyon: “Just because you can doesn't mean you should”.  We have to be selective. This is especially important to think about if you're someone who enjoys helping others, or you have a lot of talents, then it's easy to find yourself getting spread too thin if you don't say no from time to time. And this is a recipe for burnout.  You enjoy helping others, but suddenly you're no longer able to help others in the way that you'd like because you don't have the emotional capacity anymore. So don't let this happen.  

Four, I have the right to be fallible, imperfect, and make mistakes. Yes. I recall a time when I was in grad school as an example of this.  When you're in grad school for clinical psychology, what they tend to do is put you in a group with a professor and two or three other students in your program for group supervision, which happens once a week. Clients coming to the training clinic that the school has agree to allow to have their sessions observed. Either the group is watching the session live from the other side of one of those special panes of glass where they can't see the students, but the students can see them.  Or what happened in our program more frequently was being recorded, and then you would go back and you would watch the recording with your group. 

 I showed a session and the group agreed a useful next step would be to find out more about how this thing the client’s coming to therapy for relates to their relationship with their parent.  So I was like, all right, good idea.  I'm going to ask about that in the next session.  A week goes by and I have the next session. I'm coming out of the session and then I realize, Oh my gosh, I forgot. I forgot to ask about the relationship with the parent and to make that connection. Now my group is going to be sitting down and asking, “how did that go?” They're going to look at my recording. They're going to wonder, “How come you didn't ask about that? I thought that we all agreed that was a good idea.” I felt embarrassed. I felt frustrated.  Why didn't I remember that? That would have really gone well. If I had remembered to do that, then this would have been really useful to the client. So as I'm sitting here, beating myself up over making this mistake,  I had gone down to the student lounge and somebody happened to have the baseball game on while they were eating their lunch. And I'm listening to the baseball game and they're announcing who's coming up to bat. And they're saying “so and so is really red hot right now. He's hitting .341 or something like that.” So that made me think.  If you're not familiar with baseball, there are people who are power hitters. That's who this person was there. People that you bring out when you really want something to happen. The bases are loaded or something, and you can count on these people. They're very good at hitting, the best in the biz. So here we're talking major league baseball, lots of talented hitters. Now you're bringing in your power hitter. You're bringing in the big guns, somebody who is more likely to get that hit.   This hitter was, as I said, somewhere in the neighborhood of .341. Power hitters tend to be in the three hundreds.  What that means is, if you're at .341,  you are getting a hit  34.1 percent of the time that you're going up to bat. In other words, the majority of the time, over 60 percent of the time, you are not able to get a hit and you can't accomplish this for your team. 

So that made me think. We're talking about professional baseball players, the best in the world. We're talking about power hitters, furthermore, who are hitting stars of the major leagues,  and yet most of the time they can't do the one thing that they are hired to do. They can't accomplish it. 

So then I thought, so here I am, I'm in my first year of seeing clients in this student clinic.  And I'm expecting that I'm going to remember everything I'm supposed to do. I'm expecting that I'm going to have these amazing sessions every time. I'm basically hitting every time I'm up to plate. And then the client's going to be like, “wow, you just changed my life.” I mean, it's ridiculous, right?  It just made me laugh to think about it. I was like, “who do I think I am?  I'm a first year student, for God's sake.”  

So anyway, it's just a reminder that mistakes are part of being human. If we recognize this, we can use mistakes as Miracle Grow for our own growth. Right? Because you learn more from your mistakes than you learn from your successes. The thing is, though, if we are chastised by somebody for being imperfect, we don't grow.  And we become afraid of taking risks. We pull back.  So, you do not deserve to be put down for being less than perfect…in other words, for being human.

Number five,  I have the right to ask for what I want in a way that is fair and respectful. Letting others know what's important to us is an essential part of letting others get to know us. We can't expect others to read our minds, no matter how long we've known them.  You could be married to somebody for decades and they're not going to be able to get inside your head and know everything that you want, everything that you need. I remember  my husband and the kids and I were on a family vacation once and my husband was acting a little bit on edge. Finally, he told me he wished that we would approach our vacations differently, and he specified what he wished we would do differently. His suggestion was simple to implement. I smiled and said, “yeah, of course. You know, you could have shared this with me years ago.” And I just felt bad that he's been kind of stewing about this, possibly for years. Why not just bring it up? But it's not so easy. I get that.  So just remembering, yeah, I have the right to do this. 

I know this doesn't always work like a charm though. We can ask for what we want, we can work on being respectful and the other person may not go for it. Talk it through. The thing is, if they resent you for asking for what you want, that's their stuff showing up. Asking for what you want in a respectful manner makes it more likely that you'll be treated with respect. It's not a guarantee, but think of the alternative. If you never ask for what you want, it's hard to feel good about yourself. It's hard to feel close to other people.

  Number five is similar to number six in this list.  Number six is, I have the right to honestly state my thoughts, feelings, ideas, and opinions in a way that is fair and respectful.  Now we all have different genetics. We all have different experiences that shape who we are as human beings. Given this, it's inevitable that we're going to have different opinions. We're going to have different responses. And that's a good thing. Honestly, what a boring world this would be if everybody thought the same and if they felt the same. So when it comes to communicating our priorities, the important thing really is to think about the other person as you communicate them. How can you communicate in a way that is respectful, that shows caring for them, while being crystal clear about where you're coming from?  Here are some suggestions. 

First of all, you've probably heard this before, use I statements. Instead of saying “you always turn down my time off requests”, try saying, “I feel frustrated when you so frequently say no to my requests for time off.”  Starting a sentence with “you”, or even worse, with “why do you”,  automatically puts the other person on the defensive. It's like that finger wagging in their face.  Your goal is to get them to listen to you and to think about cooperation. If your phrasing gets them on the defensive right away, they're not going to listen to you as well, and they're certainly not going to think about cooperating with you.  

Another suggestion, don't mind read. Like I said before, we can't get inside somebody's head. Using I statements is sometimes misunderstood that “all I have to do is put the word ‘I’ in front”, but using I statements doesn't mean saying something like, “I feel like you want to ________”.  This signals mind reading. “I feel like you” is just a disguised you statement, and there again, it encourages  defensiveness because you're reading their mind. People don't like that. Instead of saying “I feel like you don't care about what I want to do”, try saying, “I would really appreciate it if you would ask me what I would like to do”.  

Another suggestion is to state your common ground with the other person. If you would like them to cooperate with you, it helps to affirm the goal that you both share. For example, “I know this project is as important to you as it is to me”, or “I know we both want our daughter to be successful in school”.  It's good to do this early on in the discussion to prevent defensiveness and get that joining feeling. We're in this together.  

Another consideration is, you do want to be very specific so they can clearly picture what it is you're wanting, what it is you're needing. So instead of saying “I want you to think about my feelings more”,   say “I would like you to tell me right away if you know you have to work late”.  Another one is to be brief and concise when stating your needs. When stating the problem and any proposed solution,  try not to go on and on and embellish it. Try to be brief and concise.  I'm sure you've had the experience of having somebody say, “do you have a minute?  I wanted to talk to you about something.”  And then they ramble so much that you're feeling like,  “What is it? What is the point of this? What is it you want?”  So really think about what is it that you want to get across and then state that need or that want. You can always provide an example after you've stated that. 

Another thing to think about is the fact that it is impossible to take good care of yourself without disappointing others from time to time. So stop trying to avoid disappointing others. Instead, think about how to communicate your needs with kindness and clarity.  It's really an act of kindness to do this because you're being honest with people. Mastering the art of disappointing others with grace is the way that I think of it.  Some people, on the other hand, say yes to things, and you can tell they aren't enthusiastic. I'm sure you've experienced this, too. You say, “oh, are you sure it's no trouble?” You've asked them to do something, and they say, “sure, I'll do that”. “You sure it's no trouble?” “Yeah, it's fine”.  And it leaves you feeling uncertain. You don't know if you can trust them to be honest with you. It's far kinder, in my opinion, to say, “well, it would be difficult to fit that in. I'm having a busy week, so I'm sorry I can't help you out. Here's another option.”  Suggest something else if you can.  

So these are just some thoughts  about how to communicate your priorities with others so they can support you in living a life centered around what's most important to you.