It is indeed sad how a person is not able to respect another’s need for space in a relationship. One may think it is banter or even taking liberty, when acting in a particular manner, but does he or she realize the level of discomfort the receiver goes through, without resorting to putting their foot down, because they do not want the encroachment to happen? Many a beautiful friendship and relationship has been lost out, simply because this basic respect for the other person is not maintained.
I had a friend (call I use that word I wonder?) with whom I got in touch with, through my writings. We exchanged messages and ideas and we seemed to be on the same page on a lot of things that we discussed. But somewhere down the line, I started feeling the questions were becoming a little too many, the ideas were becoming a little too forceful and the boundaries were becoming a little too diffused. I don’t mean there was any wrong message being conveyed; just that persistence on some issues was becoming uncomfortable. I guess this is what one means by connect. I would expect a person who I think understands me or with whom I am able to connect would be also able to understand certain unstated messages, or ulterior transactions. Somewhere down the line, I missed this connect. Not even saying things outright to this person and clarifying my stand on certain issues was able to convince this person that I meant what I said. It does get draining after a while, and what starts off as a possibly enjoyable fulfilling relationship comes across as a strain and heavy to hold on to! I wonder whether I was really wrong in understanding this person initially, or whether I overestimated this person’s emotional quotient. Whatever the case, when I gave my point of view, it was not accepted and the defenses came on so strong, it answered my earlier question: I overestimated this person’s e.q.! I would have thought that once my stand was understood, we would realign our thoughts and carry on our intellectual conversations. But obviously, the miffed reply made one thing very clear to me: I cannot communicate as well with anybody as I can do with myself: hence the blogging!
I guess this is what one means by intrapersonal conversation. I am very happy with my own thoughts for there is none that I need to convince, none that I need to please, except myself. Long live Thoreau! Though this world I am living in is not my Walden Pond, I would soon create one of my own!
Mohana Narayanan
January 30,2011
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Friday, January 21, 2011
UNNAMED DISCONNECT !!!
It is difficult to sometimes answer a client’s questions, especially when it has nothing to do with their troubles, but more to do with how I fare as a counselor, listening to people’s woes day in and day out!
I wish I could tell them; my professional domain is separate from my personal one, but at times it does merge. A close friend of mine called in today after quite a while and we got chatting, and during the course of our conversation, she wanted my counselor to surface! How to handle a spouse who no longer seems to be actually bothered about how she feels, she wondered? Superficially they were getting along just fine; he was going about his life, she was going about hers. There had been an undercurrent of discord for sometime, but while earlier he would be willing to sit and talk things out, of late she had found that he was not even evincing an interest to even counter her queries or respond to them, let alone initiate heart to heart conversations. Functional communication was happening, not interpersonal ones. She was not able to understand how to handle this, according to her, utter passivity and nonchalance when it came to understanding her need for emotional sustenance.
I guess this does happen in very close relationships, where you have not been really very honest with each other. The connect seems to start disconnecting! It is not being taken for granted; it is just that one person in the relationship may start feeling the need for a change in the way he or she may look at issues, which may not be the same perspective the partner has. This change does happen naturally, and I guess neither of them are to be blamed. I guess it has got more to do with the growth and the way individuals evolve over a period of time, and sometimes this intrapersonal evolving does surface as distance in what would otherwise seem to be a very harmonious relationship.
Then how do we get around resolving this constant conflict? It is all the more difficult, since the conflict is not very overt either. Well, one way out would be honest communication. Whether the resultant environment is to the satisfaction of both the parties involved, at least the connect is reestablished, and the hurt person has the satisfaction of knowing that the thoughts have been conveyed. Resort to electronic means of communication if need be: the mail, the chat rooms etc. I remember seeing a movie where total disconnect sets in between the partners and the wife is feeling extremely lonely. For want of anything better to do, she gets to chatting with a stranger and finds that she is really able to interact with him and they seem to understand each others’ feelings so well. Towards the end of the movie, they decide to meet, both with a sense of guilt and apprehension. Yeah you guessed right. The stranger was her husband! In the midst of his climbing up the corporate ladder, he too had started missing companionship and did not know how to connect back to his wife.
What resulted was a redefining of their relationship, a better understanding, and a greater bond. Admittedly, it was a movie but then don’t they say that somewhere the lines between fiction and reality gets blurred???
Mohana Narayanan
January 19,2011
I wish I could tell them; my professional domain is separate from my personal one, but at times it does merge. A close friend of mine called in today after quite a while and we got chatting, and during the course of our conversation, she wanted my counselor to surface! How to handle a spouse who no longer seems to be actually bothered about how she feels, she wondered? Superficially they were getting along just fine; he was going about his life, she was going about hers. There had been an undercurrent of discord for sometime, but while earlier he would be willing to sit and talk things out, of late she had found that he was not even evincing an interest to even counter her queries or respond to them, let alone initiate heart to heart conversations. Functional communication was happening, not interpersonal ones. She was not able to understand how to handle this, according to her, utter passivity and nonchalance when it came to understanding her need for emotional sustenance.
I guess this does happen in very close relationships, where you have not been really very honest with each other. The connect seems to start disconnecting! It is not being taken for granted; it is just that one person in the relationship may start feeling the need for a change in the way he or she may look at issues, which may not be the same perspective the partner has. This change does happen naturally, and I guess neither of them are to be blamed. I guess it has got more to do with the growth and the way individuals evolve over a period of time, and sometimes this intrapersonal evolving does surface as distance in what would otherwise seem to be a very harmonious relationship.
Then how do we get around resolving this constant conflict? It is all the more difficult, since the conflict is not very overt either. Well, one way out would be honest communication. Whether the resultant environment is to the satisfaction of both the parties involved, at least the connect is reestablished, and the hurt person has the satisfaction of knowing that the thoughts have been conveyed. Resort to electronic means of communication if need be: the mail, the chat rooms etc. I remember seeing a movie where total disconnect sets in between the partners and the wife is feeling extremely lonely. For want of anything better to do, she gets to chatting with a stranger and finds that she is really able to interact with him and they seem to understand each others’ feelings so well. Towards the end of the movie, they decide to meet, both with a sense of guilt and apprehension. Yeah you guessed right. The stranger was her husband! In the midst of his climbing up the corporate ladder, he too had started missing companionship and did not know how to connect back to his wife.
What resulted was a redefining of their relationship, a better understanding, and a greater bond. Admittedly, it was a movie but then don’t they say that somewhere the lines between fiction and reality gets blurred???
Mohana Narayanan
January 19,2011
Wednesday, January 05, 2011
There are a lot of activities that mankind can do on his own; save one. That is communication. Of course he can communicate with himself but barring that, it is one of the basic tenets of the act of communication that you need a receiver and a originator of a thought, for active communication to happen. Now, the presence of two individuals alone in an act is not enough. The willingness to communicate is the most important ingredient I feel, more than the presence of any other factors that are normally listed as principles of effective communication. This is very obvious, as when one individual, in all good intention, conveys her thoughts to her partner and would want a reciprocal acknowledgment at least, of her feelings and thoughts, and the partner chooses to remain silent. I mean, how much more passive can aggression get?
I had a client who came in for a session, very troubled by the fact that she is no longer able to communicate effectively with her husband. One of the major accusations he has against her is that if they have an argument, she would always succeed in convincing him to see her point of view, because she is a much better speaker than he is, so he chooses to avoid talking about the conflicting issues! She admitted that she was a forceful speaker, and she realized that this could be a reason for his not talking out things. She then resorted to sending him mails on issues that bothered her and she wanted sorted out, for she was unable to simply let go of issues without reaching an emotional closure. She had always prided on the fact that they both had their share of conflicts but they have been able to talk it out and resolve it. Since she did not want him to feel she had an upper hand on issues, simply because of her ability to verbalise her thoughts more effectively than him, she thought writing to him would appear to him to be less confrontational. What hurt her now was the fact that he did not even bother to acknowledge her mail! It made her feel it no longer mattered to him what went on in her mind; or that things that were unresolved were of no consequence to him… Did it mean she also as a person mattered less?
I was not very sure. This is only a case in point. Seeing this in a larger perspective, why do we choose to ignore messages? In an age of technology, where we jump up when we receive a message tone on our phones, why is it that subtle messages sent by loved ones through silence, through body languages and signals are totally ignored? I am sure my client would have sent enough silent messages about her distress, before resorting to technology!
Mohana Narayanan
January 1,2011
I had a client who came in for a session, very troubled by the fact that she is no longer able to communicate effectively with her husband. One of the major accusations he has against her is that if they have an argument, she would always succeed in convincing him to see her point of view, because she is a much better speaker than he is, so he chooses to avoid talking about the conflicting issues! She admitted that she was a forceful speaker, and she realized that this could be a reason for his not talking out things. She then resorted to sending him mails on issues that bothered her and she wanted sorted out, for she was unable to simply let go of issues without reaching an emotional closure. She had always prided on the fact that they both had their share of conflicts but they have been able to talk it out and resolve it. Since she did not want him to feel she had an upper hand on issues, simply because of her ability to verbalise her thoughts more effectively than him, she thought writing to him would appear to him to be less confrontational. What hurt her now was the fact that he did not even bother to acknowledge her mail! It made her feel it no longer mattered to him what went on in her mind; or that things that were unresolved were of no consequence to him… Did it mean she also as a person mattered less?
I was not very sure. This is only a case in point. Seeing this in a larger perspective, why do we choose to ignore messages? In an age of technology, where we jump up when we receive a message tone on our phones, why is it that subtle messages sent by loved ones through silence, through body languages and signals are totally ignored? I am sure my client would have sent enough silent messages about her distress, before resorting to technology!
Mohana Narayanan
January 1,2011
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)