[Acorn]

Happy Saturday!

I was grocery shopping yesterday.  Suddenly, I heard a lady barking at someone with intense irritation, ‘Don’t stop the cart right in the middle the aisle.  Are you blind or stupid, or both?’  I turned around, fully expecting to see a hapless child being verbally abused and humiliated in public and shaking in his boots upon hearing such toxic invective.  It was her partner…. He sheepishly responded, ‘sorry, honey.’  I was stunned... The couple appeared to be in their 50’s.  When I came home, I made a beeline to my computer to look for some articles on Violent Communication in my folder, ‘Life Lessons.’ 

Becoming acquainted with ‘Non Violent Communication’ and, it’s opposite, ‘Violent Communication’, was a sort of turning point in my manner of interacting with others, and also one of the main reasons I completely stopped shooting ‘truth darts’ at H.  I’m not talking about stating and applying my boundaries to protect my dignity.  ‘Truth darts’ as I practiced were a shining example of Violent Communication and they further eroded the precious little bit of relationship that was still in existence between H and me.  Refraining from Violent Communication and changing over to Non Violent Communication has had a positive impact on my relationship with my H, especially as we were starting to reconnect.   I can see how that change was no brainer.  When you choose to communicate violently, you reap the consequences —nothing good…

Back to my ‘Life Lessons’ folder.   

I found the following article on Violent Communication in the folder — most likely a NVC training site.  I do remember editing it slightly to personalize it for me and my situation. 

Violent communication is communication that limits liberty, denies recognition of needs, diminishes the worth of a person, and/or blocks compassion.

Violent communication is often the result of using manipulative or coercive language that induces fear, guilt, shame, praise, blame, duty, obligation, punishment, and/or reward.

Violent communication happens in speaking and listening (and in thinking, through self-talk or imagined conversations).

Common ways that violent communication occurs are through:

- Moralistic judgments and evaluations of others

Typical examples include insulting, putting people down, labeling, criticizing, or diagnosing.
 
- Denial of responsibility for our own feelings, thoughts, and actions

 Typical examples include blaming our feelings, thoughts, and actions on others, vague and
impersonal forces, authority, policies, rules, regulations, social or gender roles, or uncontrollable impulses instead of our own choices and needs.

- Demands

Typical examples of demands include an implied or explicit threat of blame, punishment, or reward.

- Blocking compassion

Typical examples revolve around intellectual understanding that leads to trying to “fix” a situation
by providing feedback that advises, one ups, shuts down, educates, corrects, explains, or interrogates a person.
 
If we speak violently to others, they may do what we want by our inducing fear, guilt, shame, praise, blame, duty, obligation, punishment, or reward.

When you try to control others this way, the questions to ask yourself are:

What are the costs in terms of the relationship between me and others if I communicate this way?
How ‘good’ is my goodwill? 
Is it self-serving?

Sample of one!  And, yes, I’m rather keen on NVC. 

Have a great weekend!

[FaithWalker]

S says that his MLCer F speaks to him like a drill sergeant.  Sadly, this type of communication is all too familiar.

And not to ignore the plank in my own eye, I have been guilty of it as well.

[Acorn]

Thank you FW. 

And not to ignore the plank in my own eye, I have been guilty of it as well.

You and me both!

…..

H and I have been spending a lot of time together while planning a long trip out of the country. We chatted  a lot and solved a lot, if not all, of the problems in the world.  He also asked me some questions in regards to my mental landscape during the turbulent period.  Naturally, the topic of detachment came up.  We had quite the conversation on the topic and it prompted me to consider more deeply about some important components of my detaching process. 

When my detachment was in its incipient stages, I became aware that there were some prerequisites before I could make any meaningful steps towards healing and attaining peace in my centre. 

At the top of the list was that I had to accept the truth.  Not ‘MY truth’ as per trendy psychobabble, but objective and indisputable truth.

Objective truth was that our marriage of nearly 3 decades was no more. 

Objective truth necessarily precluded me from making assumptions about what was going on in H’s head, analyze his words and behaviour, or predict the future.

Objective truth shone a bright light on my cognitive biases. After I had read various concepts on MLC and its supposed stages, my mind forged a pathway through which I processed H’s behaviour to fit in with what I had read — rather warped and blinkered thought process. 

Objective truth was that compartmentalizations of pre-BD H and post-BD H was really me performing an Olympic level mental gymnastics to find excuses for H’s unacceptable behaviour and denying his accountability.  Objective truth is that a person is the total sum of everything that emanate from him. 

Acceptance of reality.  That was the beginning of detachment with love and empathy. 

[MadLuv]

Acorn- your post could not have come at a better time. I needed to read every word of it. Thank you

[Nas]

At the top of the list was that I had to accept the truth.  Not ‘MY truth’ as per trendy psychobabble, but objective and indisputable truth.

I love that you made this distinction. I hear the phrase "I'm speaking my truth" all the time as a shorthand for people to verbalize what they want to be true while avoiding what is actually true.
"My truth" (code for "my feelings") changed multiple times early on, but THE TRUTH never did.

[xyzcf]

At the top of the list was that I had to accept the truth.

I think that perhaps as a defense mechanism, it might be hard to accept the truth, but eventually the LBSer will see it and more importantly feel it.

Acceptance of reality.  That was the beginning of detachment with love and empathy.

Acceptance of reality. I agree wholeheartedly! I also think "acceptance of reality" might be a better phrase to use than "detachment". Not sure why, it just makes a bit more sense to me.

Lovely as always to hear your thoughts Acorn!

[JohnnyBravo]

Yep, that's my big hurdle (more like a Berlin Wall): Acceptance of reality. Good words, Acorn.

JB

[Reinventing]

I would say "acceptance of reality" is what happens in the head and that "detachment" describes the emotional healing that comes with acceptance of reality.

Once we accept reality, then we detach and turn our focus, energy, and time on ourselves and not on them because we accept that we can't change what they choose to do and be and that the marriage as we knew it is over, whether a new one is built from the ashes or not.

Essentially it's not what should be, it is what is. It's not what we hope it to be, it is what we are actually experiencing. It's not a dream life, it is this precious life we have to live.

We fully learn that the only person we can control is ourselves.

[Curiosity]

Great discussion, and Reinventing, the way you describe detachment as the emotional healing process that comes after the logical acceptance of reality makes so much sense. I think that this whole process, both the acceptance of THE truth rather than MY truth as well as the detachment, is the very heart of our journeys… and I think that for each of us, the distance between THE truth and MY truth has a lot to do with how long it takes to really get started on that journey.

[MadLuv]

Great conversation!! I think it is easy to get lost in the “my situation is different” also. When you can see your situation in everybody’s story, but you still deny you are in that total circumstance. I have had to really face reality this week and realize my XH is in a much deeper crisis than I wanted to admit and not only am I not helping him by hanging on, I am most likely hurting him. So, If it is hurting him and for sure hurting him. Detach detach detach!!! It took me way to long to get to this conclusion.