Interpersonal Effectiveness

Goal:

To give you new tools to express your beliefs and needs, set limit and negotiate solutions to problems, while protecting yourself and your relationships (and treating people with respect) at the same time.

In short we will discuss:

1.The quality and quantity of relationships in your life

2.How effectively you deal with those relationships

We have spoken about ways to manage distress and some of the alternative ways of dealing with emotional distress as well as mindfulness skills – taking time to STOP before we react and acting non-judgementally or with Radical Acceptance as well as balancing our emotional and logical minds to respond to situations with a wise mind.

Trying to have healthy relationships in our life is helpful in emotional reactivity. Surrounding ourselves with supportive people gives you a sense of stability in your life, and having positive influences around you can help you to live your life in a more healthy way. Having people to talk to who are not as influences by their emotions as you are can help you practice wise mind more often as well.

Exercise:

If you experience a crisis, do you have someone you can call for help? Who?
Do you often find yourself in conflict with family or friends?
How often do you go out and socialise with your friends?
Are you able to ask for help when you need it?
Are you able to say no to people when they ask you to do something that you don’t want to do?
Do you have unhealthy relationships that you want to end, but don’t know how to do so?
Do you think your relationships are well-balanced, so that you and the other person are both giving and receiving from one another?

Think about family, friends, mentors, professional helpers, your imam and your spiritual community.

Nurture your Relationships

Relationships are like a car that needs petrol, oil and a service every now and then. To take care of your relationships you need to do two things:

You need to prevent problems, call someone rather than wait for them to do.
Take care of the squeaks before they become a problem. Don’t assume it will go away or get better on its own. Address a problem when it comes up rather than allowing it to fester.

How can we do this?

I want to talk about communications styles, these include

1.Passive

2.Aggressive

3.Passive-Aggressive

4.Assertive

Passive

Passive people often don’t communicate at all. If you are a passive person who will keep your emotions to yourself, rather than expressing them because you fear you might hurt the person or make them uncomfortable. Perhaps you don’t believe your feelings or opinions matter as much as others or you don’t want to rock the boat.

The problem is that this opens you up to the violations on your own rights. And you might end up feeling resentful that your needs are not being met, as it usually the case.

Aggressive

Aggressive communication is about dominating and controlling others. It’s about getting your own way no matter what the cost. You are direct, but in a forceful, demanding and even brutal way. You might feel self-righteous, which fuels your aggression and leaves others feeling resentful, hurt or fearful of you. This will have obvious impacts on your relationships as most people will not tolerate being disrespected and mistreated.

Passive-Aggressive

Passive aggressive communicators don’t directly express themselves. They share the passive person’s fear of confrontation, but still makes attempts to make their needs met through indirect means. You won’t come out and say what you want, byt will be more subtle for example being sarcastic, giving people the silent treatment, slamming doors, telling someone you will do something you don’t want to do and then “forgetting” about it. Because of mixed signals people get confuses. Many of these techniques are thought of as manipulative and have a negative impact on relationship.

So how do we get our needs met without hurting others or being manipulative?

Assertive

By being assertive...

Assertiveness skills will increase your effectiveness in interpersonal interaction while preventing damage to your relationships. At the same time you will feel good about yourself for acting skilfully.

Assertiveness is expressive your thoughts, feelings and beliefs in a direct, honest and appropriate way. You respect yourself and the person you are communicating with. Both of you get your needs met. If you are assertive, you listen effectively and negotiate so that others choose to willingly co-operate with you.

Exercise: Think about he styles of communication among your family and friends. Are they passive, aggressive, passive-aggressive or assertive

How to communicate assertively

Know what you want
Ask for what you want in a way that doesn’t damage the relationship

Non-judgementally describe the situation
Describe what you think and feel about the situation
Assert yourself

Negotiate conflicting wants
Get Information

Find out what the other person wants or needs

Say no in a way that won’t damage the relationship
Act according to your values
Mindfully listen to the other person
Use validations

I understand that you are angry
I get what you are feeling
I understand why you are feeling that way

Think of the big picture

This helps to validate the other person as you are able to image where they are situated

Adopt an attitude of openness

Be willing to engage in problem solving, which will help the other person remain open

Only apologize when you have done something that deserves an aplogy

Some people apologise all the time, which can lead to them being disrespected. Apologise when you have hurt someone or behaved badly.

I hope I have helped to remind you of how important relationships are and how we need to nurture them. You need to know how you are feeling and what we want in order to communicate assertively so that you can respect yourself and others. At the same time being assertive will help you feel good about yourself for acting skilfully.