Making Connections

More on "Speak Peace in a World of Conflict"

Okay.  We've decided to be sincerely interested not just in what we feel and need ourselves but with what others feel and need.  Carrying this into our behavior and communication can be incredibly scary.  We know that one of the keys is to learn not to take what other people say personally, but the thing is, we have all been educated to attack each other.  If I tell you what I feel and what I need and you respond with something like, "You are obviously a thin-skinned, self-centered person." my first reaction may not be that loving and understanding.  So learning to pause, breathe and process is essential to communicating peacefully. 

Obviously, the person I'm talking to interpreted my communication as an attack.  Maybe my response should be in regard to that - letting him or her know that I care about him and just wanted him to know what was happening with me, AND that I want to know what's happening with him.  I can guess what he might be feeling by asking myself what I would be feeling and needing if I were him.  I can let him know that I'm just guessing and would like him to tell me what he feels and needs if I didn't guess right.  Maybe I could say, "I'm just guessing, but maybe you're feeling like I'm criticizing you and don't care about how you're feeling.  Is that right?  But all through this process I will have to deal with my own urge to take what he says personally and attack back.  Practice complete with a lot of mistakes is going to be necessary.  Maybe I will have to learn to say, "I didn't mean to say that.  Let me try again."

In truth other people want the same things I do - acceptance and respect from other people, to not be criticized and judged, and ultimately we all need love.  The thing is we have all been educated to believe that our mission is to make other people give that to us because it's their job, because they're supposed to.  But the only thing that works is to give that to other people first.  The question is, how to do that when we are feeling empty and needy ourselves?  Here's the paradox - if we start giving lovingly to other people, just those small acts make us feel loved.  How is that possible?  I have no idea.  But I swear it's true.  So, to be able to hold our own with people who are on the attack, we will need to have built up our strength in advance through small acts of kindness to others.  Weird, huh?