Before this talk I sat down and thought about what it was that was behind my anger, what were my needs. I went into the talk with a rule that there was to be no blame and no fault.

Unfortunately my boyfriend had obviously not read any of these blogs! Even though he had agreed that we needed to talk, all he talked about was blame and fault. He could not grasp that this was not going to get us anywhere. When I tried to ask him what was behind his anger - all I got was “I dunno”. The talk ended up not going anywhere and nothing and it was decided to have a bit more time apart before trying to talk things out again.

I just want to say that implementing compassionate communication into your life is not as easy as it sounds, especially when the person you are talking to is not communicating compassionately!!! But for all those people that feel they are fighting a loosing battle and it would be more satisfying to just give up and make that dig at someone, or blame that person/event ….DONT!!!!!

A few days later, I met up with my boyfriend and he talked about what I had said, and he thought about what was behind his anger and together we expressed our needs and talked about how the other person can respect them. Now whenever I feel that either of us is getting angry and conflict is on the horizon, I try to talk it out compassionately and have so far been able to diffuse situations that would have in the past ended in shouting.

I have slowly but surely started to take a deep breath when I am angry and make sure that I just express how I am feeling and why I may be reacting in this way - this has a much higher success rate!!!

The more people that I tell about compassionate communication, the more and more times I have felt that what is tripping people up is blame, fault, assumptions, etc. Although at the time my angry housemate’s only want me to take their side and agree that who-ever or what-ever has annoyed them are mean, horrible, an idiot, etc. Once they have calmed down they can see that this was not at all productive and they then find that by using compassionate communication they can sort out the issues that are causing them to get so angry and upset. If this involves another person, it means that they can express their needs to them, meaning that the other person (who is most of the time unaware that they have “caused” so much upset) can be sensitive to the other person’s needs and maybe express themselves differently in the future.

Thank you Talking For Peace!

But recently I had a long conversation with a close friend about certain issues that he found very hard to talk about. I felt that the best thing for me to do was to just listen, as because it was such a sensitive subject there was no way I could truely understand how he was feeling without sounding patronising. But this act of silent support was interpreted as me not caring or listening. My friend felt that I had not given enough back to him. What is the happy medium of listening but yet commenting enough to show that you empathise with them?

I feel that the reason for my friends upset was because he was feeling vulnerable talking about very personal issues with me. How can I show empathy to someone that is defensive if I am quiet, yet dismissive if I try to empathise?

After I had had some time to think I realised that I had ASSUMED that what I thought was a nice idea, was the same for my boyfriend.

I then sent him an email saying that I had not meant for the gesture to annoy him and explained my reasoning behind it so that he would not ASSUME anything behind the gesture either. I then said that I would not do anything else but that if he needed me then he could ask me. By learning to not assume things we have managed to get through a very stressful period by simply stating our needs and not assuming that the other person’s needs are the same as our own.

Leo will be 30 this year and is almost ten years younger than I am. We have never lived together as adults, in fact he was a child when I left the family home. We only see each other three or four times a year, and rarely speak on the telephone. But whenever we meet up, our conversation is made up almost entirely of humour. We dont seem to be able to talk to each other without laughing or jibing at each other (or, I am ashamed to say, at our mother). My partner of 17 years and his are excluded from this almost childlike banter.

I have never really thought too much about this before. And I daresay it wouldnt take too much therapy to understand why this may be, but I wonder how many people only relate to certain other people through humour?

Nicola

My eldest frequently displays signs of being angry (often with me). My attempts at empathising with his anger result in more abuse. And, when I ask if he would like to tell me how he is feeling he does not have the maturity to tell me. (Either that, or he is just too stubborn to tell me!)

I would welcome suggestions for what I can say to him, for example, when he is yelling in my face that he ‘cannot do x y or z on his own’ and ‘that is why he is asking me to do it for him’ as I am gently trying to encourage indepence.

Bing his mother, of course I think I know what he is feeling and what his needs are (!). He is feeling frustrated that he cannot do something for himself and needs reassurance that I am there to do it for him until he can. But how do I request him to do something, in such a way that does not result in us both yelling at each other and me ultmiately giving in to get the result necessary.

TIA

Nicola