Doing Conflict with Love

Advice of the Day: 

Enter every difficult conversation with someone you love with the idea held clearly and firmly in your mind *that you love them*. If you engage in every single conflict or disagreement, however major or minor, from a place of love, you will default to respectful language and kindness even when you're frustrated. You will actively strive for a win/win, and engage in conflict in the spirit of collaboration. You will stop being afraid to express yourself because you will learn to trust that the space will be safe even in the midst of conflict. 

If you love a person, you do not have any desire to harm them. In fact, you would willingly do whatever was required to protect them from harm. This includes verbal harm, first and foremost, even though sometimes we forget that words are fully functional weapons. This includes *even if/when they have harmed you first* and you feel it is grossly unfair for you to have to do any emotional heavy lifting or apologizing. If you love a person, you know you lose nothing when you apologize first, because your priority is resolution, not retaliation. 

If you love a person, this includes taking no pleasure in making your loved one cry or in saying whatever cruel thing you can conjure up to ensure they end up feeling as badly as you do. If you love a person, you do not kick them when they're down, you reach your hand out and help them up. You feel as invested in their happiness and comfort as you do in your own. 

Sometimes when we are in a really sad or hurt or angry place, it seems nearly impossible to muster up positive intentions towards even our most intimate partners. But conflict, when done well, is about catharsis. It's about saying what needs to be said so that you can find a way to move forward and let go of the problem once it's solved. It's not an inherently negative thing to have conflict. Some incredibly healthy relationships can contain a fair amount of conflict, especially when you combine two strong personalities. It's not the conflict itself that is damaging, it's the *collateral* damage of unnecessary harm caused by sharp words and emotional retaliation. 

If you love a person, always remember that you love them. If you can't talk to them right now, remember my earlier advice and say "I love you too much to have this conversation right now" or once engaged in conflict, one or both of you might want to say "Don't forget that we love each other." Being able to hold in your mind that you first and foremost love this person and wish them no harm will radically change the way you do conflict. (I promise- it works).


Next class on How To Do Conflict Well (aka Don't be an A-hole) is Thursday, 9/1 from 630-830 p.m. in my office. $50
www.millercounseling.org

"Active happiness"

The question of "comfort vs. happiness" comes up repeatedly in my sessions. A lot of my clients come to me to help sort out where they are in their lives and how it aligns with and supports where they want to be. Often, people are feeling some kind of existential "emptiness" that they can't quite put their finger on. My first question is always this: 

"Are you happy?" 

Usually the answer is…"not really" followed by a "…but…" 

The rest of this post has moved to its new home at https://www.patreon.com/posts/8808380

JUST ASK THEM.

Advice of the day: If you really want to know what or how someone is thinking or feeling, or you are wondering how you should interpret their behavior in the absence of clarity...before you jump to conclusions and risk harming the relationship, **just ask them**. 

Be direct. Be honest. Own your shit. Say "this is how that seemed to me; what did it mean to you?" and give them the opportunity to correct your interpretation if indeed you were mistaken. 

I almost always do this. It's taken practice, and sometimes I wait too long and things get messier than they need to, but overall my relationships are far stronger as a result. But you would be surprised how unusual it is. Very often, when people are complaining about someone, I'll ask "okay, did you tell them you felt that way?" and 9 times out of 10 the answer is no. WTF? How do you expect people to stop doing things you don't like or to start responding differently if you don't actually talk to them about it? 

I've said this before, but it bears repeating: PEOPLE CANNOT READ YOUR MIND. The very worst thing you can possibly do in a situation like that is to just draw your own conclusions, and behave as if your version is true. It usually is not.

I love you too much to have this conversation right now.

Advice of the day: 

For those of you inclined to lose your temper and lash out in anger at people you love, I'm going to offer you my most valuable piece of advice ever. I won't even charge you my standard rate for it, but you're welcome for potentially saving your marriage or relationship (or friendship, or whatever) from some unnecessary damage. It's definitely saved mine a time or two, because while I am definitely slow to anger, once I get there it can be ugly. 

So, when you are angry, and you feel yourself at that threshold beyond which you KNOW you're going to say a lot of shit you don't mean and/or should never say, instead form your mouth (or fingers, if god forbid it's via text) around these words immediately: 

"I love you too much to have this conversation right now." 

And step away. Or set the phone down. Or whatever you need to do. Wait until your heart slows, the shaking stops, your core temperature returns to normal, and you are once again able to think clearly. Then, think about why you reacted that way. What did the situation trigger for you? What were you feeling in that moment? Then, respond thoughtfully and with intention. Then, you can say, "The reason that made me angry was because _______" and go from there. 

Never, I repeat, never speak to someone you love when you're angry if you can possibly help it. It's okay to have conflict; sometimes conflict is necessary for growth, as painful as it can be. However, while it is okay to disagree or have conflict, it is not okay to be harmful. 

Practice so that this line enters your lexicon and becomes a reflexive response to anger: "I love you too much to have this conversation right now."

Thoughts on the Ashley Madison information leaks

August, 2015 

(This was written in response to an online article about all the people who have committed suicide after it leaked that they were involved in the "cheating website" Ashley Madison. I can't find the article now but I'll update this post later if I find it. My points remain the same.) 

So. Infidelity is a complex thing that's much more nuanced than "s/he is a cheater". I may have unique insight given that I do a lot of marriage counseling post-affair and as such I get access to deep reflection on how and why infidelity occurs. And I'll say that it's almost always complicated. 

Both personally and professionally, I tend to not be judgmental of people who have affairs, because most of the time, happy people don't cheat. Most of the time, infidelity occurs as a symptom of a gap in connection or as the result of an unattended wound in a relationship. It rarely is *just* because somebody wanted to have sex with someone else or because they are a callous person who intends to harm their spouse/partner. And if it were simply about wanting to have sex with someone else, I would still not be terribly judgmental because I also think we do people a disservice by culturally enforcing the idea that monogamy is a one-size-fits-all recipe for a happy life. For some people it's simply not, but they try it anyway, and then fail because it does not suit them or they do not actually want to live that way.

All of that is to say, generally speaking (**although I'll admit to some smug satisfaction with people like Josh Duggar being outed because it's just icing on the hypocritical cake that is his faux-religious life**) I think the outing of the AM users is much more negative and damaging than it could ever be "just" or "right". Living in alignment with one's publicly stated values is important, as is honoring the commitments one has made, but so is privacy and the right to self-determine one's life without such public shaming.

The moralizing around this leak is gross to me. Basically everyone has something in their past or present that they'd prefer not get out, something that paints them in an unflattering light, or about which they are not proud. I would venture a guess that nearly all of the people who are tsk tsking and finger-wagging from their high moral ground live in a glass house and probably shouldn't be throwing stones. Shaming people for shit we ourselves do or have done or might do someday is a shallow source of satisfaction.

The idea that people have committed suicide over this information leak is also troubling and sad. I hope that for most of the outed AM users, this will be an opportunity to more wholly live their truths and own up to whatever they haven't been owning up to, whether that be about sex or love or connection or power or whatever. Hopefully at least some of the marriages will end up stronger, and the ones that don't will end as amicably and painlessly and shame-free as possible.

be brave enough to break your own heart.

This blog has moved to its new home: www.patreon.com/amymiller

You can learn more about that with this video of me! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xdi7T93kaBI

"this is what you shall do…"

“This is what you shall do; Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body.”

-Walt Whitman