#166 Being Real without Ruining Your Relationships
// Last week, we talked with Shasta Nelson who wrote a book about how you have friendships at work and why are they that important. This week, we’re picking right up with a specific question I asked Shasta during our conversation that I feel deserves a deeper look.
In this solo episode, I share how the experience of choosing a table in a school cafeteria is like being around people who have differing opinions, the various options for how to handle being around people who have opinions you don’t agree with, the costs and benefits of each of those options, why we need to turn to grief before we turn to anger when processing our differences with those we care about, and more.
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Transcript
Hey there! It’s Andrea, and welcome to the Voice of Influence podcast. So the last couple of weeks, we’ve been talking about friendship, in particular, friendship at work.
Last week, we talked with Shasta Nelson who wrote a book about, “how do you have friendships at work, and why are they that important?” So, if you haven’t heard that episode, I’d encourage you to go back and find that one. Because today, we’re going to, kind of, jump off part of the conversation that I had with Shasta where I was asking about what do you suggest for people who are in relationships right now? In friendships right now that feel a little contentious in ways that they don’t usually. Particularly because of the pandemic and beliefs around whether or not, you know, what we should do about it, I should say, as that also politics and that seems to be such a big issue for everybody right now.
So, we had a bit of a conversation about that. And I wanted to kind of dive in a little bit deeper into something that I said about it, which has to do with what are you really wanting out of that relationship – are you wanting to influence somebody, or are you wanting connection because sometimes we have to choose?
So, a little illustration that I like to use is that, you know, in middle school when you got your food, your tray from the lunch line, and then you’re walking into the lunchroom. And you’re looking around for a spot. Which table am I going to sit at? Which table is a place that has a spot for me? Where do I fit? Where do I belong?
And let’s say you had somebody turn around and see you and smile and say, “Here’s a seat right next to me at this table.” And there’s just like this, sort of, flood of relief, at least for those of us who weren’t the ones who just kind of made a table for ourselves all the time, because some people just do that. Most of us have a little bit of apprehension about making a table for ourselves.
So, anyway, somebody invites you to their table, you have a seat and you’re sitting there, and it’s great because you know that you belong. We all want to feel like we belong. But that’s not the end of the story. So, while you’re sitting there at the table, you’re looking around, people are having conversation, they’re talking about what to do, they’re talking about what they think about things. And the question then becomes, do you speak up? Do you share your voice at that table, or do you sit there quietly and just be content with belonging? Because the truth of the matter is that if your voice doesn’t really matter to everybody at that table, it’s hard to feel like you’re really truly connected to those people.
So, they might be talking, and so you stay silent and isolated. Even though you’re with people, you’re quiet. But maybe it’s good enough, maybe that’s all you need on this day. But most of us really want to not only have that belonging, but we also want to have an impact. And whether we speak up and everybody agrees with us at that table or not, may not matter. If we can just have a conversation, if we can be in on the dialogue, if everybody is being respectful of one another and considering each other’s opinions at that table, then we all sit there and feel like, “You know what, we don’t totally agree on everything, but my voice matters here. It matters to someone, and I’m contributing to this dialogue, and that’s important to me.”
I think that that’s what most of us really want. We want our voice to matter to someone. We want to belong, but we also want to have impact.
But what happens when we’re sitting at that table, and everybody else is saying something completely different than what you believe or what you have seen? How do you decide whether or not to speak up? I think that that’s where a lot of us are finding ourselves because, regardless of where you fall on the spectrum of political belief, you’re probably around people who disagree with you. In some form or another, you do not completely agree with everybody else that’s around you.
So what do you do with that? What do you do when you have relationships that you care about, people that you care about, but you’re not sure how to deal with the fact that this really big monster of a thing that’s right in our face is right here with us? I can’t just ignore that. What else do we talk about besides the pandemic and politics right now? There are certainly other things, but it’s hard. It’s hard to find those things, especially if you put much thought into them. And for people who listen to our podcast, you tend to be people who are quite thoughtful; you spend time thinking about things. You want to make wise decisions. You want to think through things. You have expertise, and so you have a respect for others who have expertise.
So, it does make it very difficult for people who are like that to know what to do when everybody else around them feels like they are not maybe thinking through things, or they’re thinking through it, and they’re coming up with a different conclusion. So, what do we do with this in our relationships? And really, I think the question becomes, what do we do with our ideology? What do we do with our relationships? What is the most important thing to us?
And I want to suggest a few different options and just think through a little bit what this would look like if you choose this option. What are some of the natural kind of consequences and relationships because of that?
So, one of the first options that I can think of is to just stay silent. And then probably, the more that you hear other people around you saying things that you disagree with, the more likely you are to pull back and isolate yourself. So, that is certainly an option to be quiet and isolate yourself.
And in this option, I think, what we preserve is we preserve the possibility for a friendship to continue again after we get over this hump of this politics and pandemic being in our face. That preserves the opportunity for us to kind of slide back into a relationship that maybe doesn’t talk about those things in the future. Of course, when you think that idea of isolating yourself though, that can be very, very lonely and frustrating to be silent.
There’s certainly a personal cost to choosing isolation and there’s also a cost to the relationship too because who knows if that person is, you know, going to want to pick it back up again. But I’d say that they’re probably more likely to pick it back up again than if you get really in their face with your ideology that may be different than theirs. So, the number two option would be to just sort of dig in and double down on being right.
So, I have to find the right answer. I am going to dig into the voices that are saying what I want to hear. I’m going to keep thinking about all the reasons why I believe what I believe, and I’m going to sort of stay in that place where I’m just thinking about that all the time, my reasons. And then I’m going to let people know about it. But here’s the thing, here’s what I’ve seen happen with this, and I must say I’ve done all of these things. Everything that I’m talking about here, I’ve done them all. And this one in particular, what I found in myself and what I have therefore kind of observed in others as well is that when you dig into what you believe and your reasons and you stay there in that place and doubling down, you tend to start to have bad feelings about other people. Bad feelings or maybe another way to put it would be you think poorly of somebody else. You lose respect for people who don’t believe what you believe because you know that you are right. You’re so confident that you are right. And that the people that you’re listening to are right that it’s easy to think that everybody else is wrong, stupid, unintelligent, evil even.
This one works particularly well for those who want to believe that this or anything is a good versus evil kind of scenario. If in your mind the ideologies that you hold are good, and the ones that you are against are evil, then it’s easy to fall into, therefore, that person who disagrees with me and has that opposite ideology that person is evil, and I am good. If you get to that point, then it’s going to be very difficult for you to mask that in front of anybody else. People are going to know that you’re judging them. People are going to know that you feel like you’re better than they are. And it may come out in the form of sarcasm, may come out in the form of hatred, or sometimes violence. It could come out in the form of just being angry in general. And that anger that you start directing it at a person, at people who hold on to a belief that you disagree with.
If you turn that person, if you in your mind to turn that person into an evil person then that is what is going to spread – people are evil. This person is bad. I am good. That divide just widens and widens and widens. And it makes it incredibly difficult for anyone who even questions the ideology that you have. Even if they question it, it makes them feel unsafe around you. If you talk about another group of people, like “the Republicans” or “the Democrats” as a whole being evil, being bad, what does that do to your relationships? Because if you hold on to a belief that is that strong, there are plenty of people in your life who are staying silent around you because they are choosing the relationship over arguing with you.
But when you talk poorly about people that are like them, they haven’t even told you that they’re one of them yet – they feel unsafe. They feel like you are unsafe. And so, therefore, they’re willing to preserve this, sort of, surface-level relationship with you, if they are willing to preserve that. Many people aren’t. But if they’re close, they want to preserve that relationship with you, but they are not going to be talking with you about anything that’s important to them. You’re not going to have a voice with them. You’re not influencing them in a way that encourages them to think about the differences that you might have. Instead, you’re pushing people away by being that way and by thinking like that.
I guess my question for all of us is what is more important to you? Is your family more important to you? Your relationships, are they more important to you? Or are your reasons or your determination to be right, is that more important to you than people?
It’s a hard question to ask. It’s a hard question to answer, but it’s one we have to wrestle with when we are choosing to double down on our beliefs, choosing to not listen to anybody that’s different than us, and truly take it in. So, it’s a difficult thing.
I find myself doing this, I find myself isolating myself because I don’t want to do this thing that I’m talking about right now. I don’t want to even know what other people think because I fear that I would think less of them. I would have, I don’t know, less respect for somebody and I don’t want that and I don’t even know if that’s right. And so part of what I’ve done and, you know, it’s easier to do when you’re in a pandemic to isolate yourself but that’s probably part of what I’ve done, I’ve pulled back. I don’t know what to say other than I know that it’s lonely. And it’s lonely for not just me, it’s lonely for everybody.
But if you’re somebody that’s doing that, I don’t know, maybe we need to do something a little different. And here’s another thought that I have, another way that we could handle this; and this is, I think, what I’m striving for. I definitely am not there. I definitely do not do this perfectly, but I know it in my head that this could be a good option. And that is to take my ideology, my relationships we’re talking about, am I choosing influence, am I choosing my relationships? I want to choose. I don’t want to let go of what I believe in order to have, you know, good relationships.
The ultimate goal then in my mind would be that we would get to the point where we could have respectful dialogue, where we wouldn’t be demonizing the other side. We wouldn’t be silencing our own voices, but we would be able to have lively conversation, serious conversation where we’re actually listening to one another. Imagine that. But it is kind of hard to imagine sometimes. Maybe you’ve had that, maybe you’ve had an opportunity or maybe you had a friend or a relationship that actually in this category or not categorized, but it’s characterized by that kind of respect and dialogue. And that is a pretty special thing to have. But what if you don’t have it? Even if that’s the goal, let’s say that’s the goal. I want both. I don’t want to sacrifice my voice and I don’t want to sacrifice my relationships – I want both.
And that is the ultimate goal is to have respectful dialogue, but we’re not there yet, how do we get there? And I hate to say it, but I believe it starts with each of us. It starts with me. It starts with how I think about other people. It starts with me, letting go of my need to be right. It starts with me looking at my anger and saying sadness is under anger. And so, if that’s the case, what is sad to me about the situation? And instead of speaking in anger and living my life in anger, being able to get down to that grief, the grief or the pain of disconnection, the grief of the pain of things not being the way that they should be because if I don’t do that, if I don’t look at myself, if I don’t take that step back and say, “Oh, this is not good, this is not right and I’m not just angry about it, I’m also actually grieving.” If we can grieve, if we can tap into what is the actual thing that we’re wrestling with inside of ourselves, then we can actually come out with healing. But anger disrupts. Anger doesn’t heal. Anger disrupts. Sometimes things need to be disrupted.
But when you’re in this place where you’re trying to figure out how to get to a respectful dialogue, it is so important that we go to grief because grief has the potential to heal. Grief, where we grieve well, where we are honest about the things that are hard, we, you know, allow ourselves to express our grief in healthy ways, such as crying or talking to somebody, writing artistically expression. When we allow ourselves to kind of feel that emotion and allow it to come back out again in ways that are healthy and not disrespectful to others then we can have a chance to really be more centered to heal, to feel like, “Okay, I don’t have to let this rule over me. I want to be right, but I don’t have to be right. I can let go of things I can. I can release the tension that’s inside of myself.” “I can stop feeling so resistant to other people that are around me and I can release the pressure that I’m putting on myself to be something or to do something.”
Grief is so incredibly important. So, when we’re looking at what do we do to actually get to respectful dialogue, we have to start with ourselves. We have to start by looking at why are we so adamant that we’d be right that I’m right. I need to be right. What if you’re not right?
I’ve had a couple of psychologists on in the last few months. And that’s one of the questions that’s come up for them that things that they say we need to ask ourselves: “What if I’m not right about this? What if I’m not right? What if this is more nuanced than I realized? What if there are actual human beings that are affected by my ideology in really negative ways? How do we cope with the tension that we feel, that dissonance that we feel with what we believe and what we actually see with our own eyes?”
These are things that are not easy to deal with. They’re complicated. It’s messy. It’s not super fun, but I tell you what’s worse. To me, it’s worse if you don’t really have a seat at the table. To me, it’s worse, if you’re just standing up on your own table and yelling out your own ideologies and pushing everybody away. To me, it’s worse if I’m at a table and I have to completely silence myself because if I don’t, nobody else here will like me or want to be around me. I won’t have those relationships.
Those things to me are far worse than doing the hard thing, the honorable thing of grieving what needs to be grieved. Of letting go of what needs to be let go of, so that I can truly have respectful dialogue with others who disagree with me on things, so that I can have good relationships with people who I care about people, people who make this life worth living. Our relationships are so important. And if there’s anything, if there’s anything that I hope that we all take from this, including myself, is that it’s worth the effort. It’s worth doing the hard thing.
So, I encourage you, friend, I encourage you to do the hard thing to take a look at yourself, to take a look at the things that are frustrating to you or angry about, ask what is making me sad here. What is actually sad about this to go ahead and grieve, and then to see if your attitude might be changing for those around you. You might feel more compassion for others. You might actually be able to hear the pain that they’re going through, the reason why they’re expressing anger, be able to look for that in others. You can’t do that until you do it for yourself.
So, anyway, it’s been a good few weeks. And I’m really glad that you’re here. I am really honored and grateful that you spend any amount of time listening to what we have to say, to considering for yourself how you might become even more influential and more connected.
My book is Unfrozen: Stop Holding Back and Release the Real You. But the other line underneath the book is, this is “the unexpected path to connection and impact.” And I think that’s what we all want. We all want to make a difference. We all want to love well, and I think grief is a big piece of it. So, thank you so much for being with us today. And I encourage you to go check out my book. Come to our website voiceofinfluence.net and see the resources that we have for you there.
If you’re wanting to work with me one-on-one, hit the contact button on our contact form on our website, and just let me know what are you looking for because we can offer a strategy call as an initial clarify your voice where we really look at yourself and what are the momentum builders for you, what are the friction points in you, not just your life, but in your message and what you’re trying to get across. You’re trying to figure out your strategy, you’re trying to figure out, you know, what is my next step? That is what that call is for. And from there, we have other programs that we can point you to that might be really helpful and have proven to be really helpful for others.
Yeah, so I’d encourage you to come to check us out at voiceofinfluence.net. And thank you for sharing this with others who need it. Your voice matters; let’s make it matter more!