I have discussed the topic of crying and how it relates to how much respect a person might have for the crier in several earlier posts (see hereand here). In those earlier posts we looked into the following questions: If I cry when criticized, does that mean I should view myself as acting like a baby? Is it right to view someone who cries as immature? In today’s post I’ll try to enrich some of these earlier issues by discussing Bob Dylan’s “Theme Time Radio Hour “show on the theme of tears (most of his shows are available on YouTube”.
Bob Dylan on Tears
Bob begins his show on tears as follows:
Well, welcome to Theme Time Radio Hour. In the background, some very sad music because this week, we’re gonna learn about sad clowns, crocodiles, and tear-stained make-up. We’re gonna look at a river of tears as we learn about crying. So grab yourself some Kleenex, heck, you better grab the whole box. Not that songs about crying are necessarily sad. This one at least sounds happy. It’s by Question Mark and the Mysterians–“96 Tears.”
Here are some of the lyrics to the song:
Too many teardrops For one heart to be crying Too many teardrops For one heart to carry on
You`re way on top now since you left me You’re always laughing way down at me But watch out now, I`m gonna get there
We`ll be together for just a little while And then I`m gonna put you way down here And you`ll start crying ninety-six tears Cry, cry, cry…
Hmmm, if this guy who is singing was a friend of mine actually going through a similar experience, how could I be helpful?
Well, just listening for awhile in a caring manner is almost always a good start. Rather than to be too quick to start offering advice or criticizing in any way, I might just softly summarize, every couple of minutes, what my friend has been saying, thus assuring him that I am accurately listening. If my summary is off the mark in any way, my friend will clarify.
At some point, I might explore with my friend his desire to not be crying. I understand that many people in our culture feel it is an immature act. You see this when someone does begin to cry in front of you and he or she quickly starts to apologize for crying. Is there some reason to change this attitude that crying is an act that only immature people do? Different people have different views about this.
Getting Back to the Dylan Show
After Bob opens his tear-soaked Theme Time Radio Hour show with “96 Tears,” which gave us an example of a man being bitter about his break-up with his lover, he plays a song by the lovely and talented Anita O’Day. In “And Her Tears Flowed Like Wine” Ms. O’Day provides us a woman’s perspective on what it’s like to be crying over how a lover mistreated her.
And her tears flowed like wine Yes, her tears flowed like wine She’s a real sad tomato She’s a busted valentine Knows her momma done told her That the man is darn unkind
Next up on Bob’s show is a tune by the great blues singer, Bobby Charles, who reminds us that even “Big Boys Cry:”
I cried last night until I couldn’t I’ll cry tonight, I know I shouldn’t It hurts to know that I can’t reach her I learned to lose, she was my teacher
Well I try to hide all the tears down deep inside But even big boys cry
I climb the walls, I chew my fingers I run around but her love lingers Her friends say she don’t talk about me They say she’s doing fine without me
Well I try to hide all the tears down deep inside But even big boys cry Oh
Well I try to hide all the tears down deep inside But even big boys cry
There are quite a variety of songs that Bob Dylan plays that remind us that crying is part of life for pretty much everyone. Bob introduces one of my favorites like this:
Thomas Fuller once said, “We’re born crying, live complaining, and die disappointed. Hank Williams knew what he was talking about. This song is about a very specific depression inspired by a troubled relationship with his wife, Audrey Sheppard. Here that Lonesome Whippoorwill. He sounds too blue to fly. I’m so lonesome I can cry.
What human being is unable to relate to these sad lyrics?
I’ve never seen a night so long When time goes crawling by The moon just went behind the clouds To hide its face and cry
Did you ever see a robin weep When leaves begin to die? Like me, he’s lost the will to live I’m so lonesome I could cry
The silence of a falling star Lights up a purple sky And as I wonder where you are I’m so lonesome I could cry
After a couple of more sad songs, Bob lightens things up a bit:
We still have plenty of tears to shed here on Theme Time Radio Hour’s crying edition.
He then plays a little of the audio track from the movie A League of Their Own. Tom Hanks, playing a manager of a women’s baseball team begins to shout criticism of one of his players. We hear the player begin to cry. Incredulous, Tom asks, “Are you crying?”
“No,” comes the reply from player, but then we hear her weeping.
“Are you crying?” Tom asks again, but now he is yelling. “There’s no crying! There’s no crying in baseball! There’s no crying in baseball!!! No Crying!!!!!”
For those who didn’t see the movie, it might be hard to understand why this scene strikes so many of us as funny, while touching at the same time. I guess you just have to see the movie to understand. I will say this, despite what Tom says in the movie, I have seen many men even in the major leagues crying after losing a big game. Often, they throw a towel over their head in an effort to hide their tears.
Oliver Wendell Holmes
As Bob’s tear-fest show begins to wind down, he provides us a quote from Oliver Wendell Homes-“Laughter and tears are meant to turn the wheels of the same machinery of sensibility. One is wind power, the other, water power.”
Then he he tells us that “poets have always used crying as an inspiration. Here’s an example by Dylan Thomas.”
Clown In The Moon
Dylan Thomas
My tears are like the quiet drift Of petals from some magic rose; And all my grief flows from the rift Of unremembered skies and snows.
I think, that if I touched the earth, It would crumble; It is so sad and beautiful, So tremulously like a dream.
Well that’s pretty much my blog post for today. I hope it has provided you some food for thought about this whole crying stuff. And with that, let’s end with the words that Bob uses as he ends his show on tears:
Well, the old clock on the wall says it’s time to go. It’s a good thing because I’m out of Kleenex anyway. So I’m gonna hop in my car, head down the Robinson Freeway and get myself a beer I can cry into. In the meantime, remember the words of our former president, Woodrow Wilson: There is little for the great part of history except the bitter tears of pity and the hot tears of wrath.
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Some people will enjoy reading this blog by beginning with the first post and then moving forward to the next more recent one; then to the next one; and so on. This permits readers to catch up on some ideas that were presented earlier and to move through all of the ideas in a systematic fashion to develop their emotional intelligence. To begin at the very first post you can click HERE.
Dealing with the frustration that goes along with challenging conflicts has some similarities to sailors dealing with stormy seas—it is best to utilize a well-rehearsed plan.
For dealing with conflicts, one such plan begins with thinking of the word “DIG.” With a little practice, we can use this word to remind us of a simple way to summarize the conflict even in the midst of swirling frustration.
The letters of the word “DIG” aids us to remember the words, “Desire,” “Interference,” and “Guilt.” Once we recall these words, we use them in a particular way.
First, we state what our desire is in the conflict, then, what is interfering, then, why we believe the other party in the conflict is guilty of doing something wrong. After doing this from our perspective, we then go through the same process from the perspective of the other party.
If we are thoroughly practiced in using this skill, the word “DIG“ not only helps us to create this concise description of the conflict even while in the midst of rising anger, it also helps us remember to dig a little to consider not just the most obvious desire that is involved in the conflict, but also what might be other desires that are involved.
Of course, in simple, low frustration conflicts none of this is necessary. There are times, however, that you will find that when all of those around you are beginning to get lost in a storm, your even-tempered, systematic guidance will calm the waters and lead to inviting harbors.
Conflicts in Which Happiness is the Desire
Now, sometimes when we describe a conflict it takes the following form:
“I desire to be happy, but the other party is interfering. The other party is guilty of making my life miserable.”
The desire to be happy has a special place in the life of many of us. Nevertheless, today I would like to advocate that you think twice whenever you, or the other party in a conflict, describes the desire part of the conflict as “to be happy.”
What’s wrong with Happiness as a Desire?
Describing a desire in a conflict as “to be happy” is too vague. With a little effort you can usually dig a little deeper and find a more specific description. Typically, it is better for a boss to say something like, “I desire that you come to work by 9 A.M. at least 95% of the time than, “I desire that you make me happy.”
Another reason to avoid happiness in your descriptions of your desire has to do with earning respect. If you are like so many of us, you probably want to avoid coming off as shallow or having superficial desires. To explain a little more of what I mean by this, I’m going to discuss a little of what Albert Einstein said on this topic and then present a little parable.
Albert Einstein on Happiness
In a book titled, Living Philosophies: A Series of Intimate Credos, the first chapter is by Albert Einstein. There he states:
The ideals which have always shone before me and filled me with the joy of living are goodness, beauty, and truth. To make a goal of comfort or happiness has never appealed to me; a system of ethics built on this basis would be sufficient for a herd of cattle. (p. 4)
When I read the rest of Einstein’s chapter, I came away with the following image. He kind of viewed happiness as one-half of an oscillation process, with sadness and happiness going back and forth, thrusting his ship forward, and where he chose to steer his ship was in the direction that led to goodness, beauty, and truth.
This is a deeper way to view the nature of happiness, and for those of us who want to be respected for being deep, in contrast to shallow, I think that there may be some value in meditating on this.
To further challenge you to think more deeply about the nature of happiness, please consider the following parable.
The Parable of Probliss
Once upon a green-blue planet, a scientist invented Probliss, a super powerful happiness pill. It made people as happy as anyone ever dreamed of. In fact Probliss was so effective in improving the happiness in people’s lives that a group of psychiatrists developed a plan that would have all of the people on the planet lie down on gurneys in sanitized rooms and then be hooked up intravenously so nourishment and Probliss could be directly delivered into the veins of everyone. If at any point people felt a little less than perfectly happy, all they had to do was press down with a fingertip and wonderful Probliss would soar into their lives creating pure, pure happiness.
Some didn’t like this plan. “What, no music, no love, no friends? Man, that sounds bleak!”
“True, none of that,” said the psychiatrists, “but far more happiness.”
And it came to pass that studies were done. The results proved indisputable–those on these gurneys who were attached to these machines that provided nourishment and Probliss developed far fewer diseases. They lived over ten years longer, and they were less of a danger to themselves or others when compared to those who lived their lives going out in the world without Probliss. Those who chose to live their lives in the old way, were much more likely to die in car crashes, accidental falls, and homicides. People on Probliss never died from these types of causes because all they did was lie on the gurney in a completely sterile, happy, and healthy state.
Once these results came in, the psychiatrists decided that everyone, from now on, would be tied down to gurneys, even if it was against their will. “It was for their own good,” the psychiatrists explained.
Now some men and women did manage to escape into a deep, green forest, experiencing anguish and tears, love and creativity, but not perfect happiness.
The End
Conclusion
And so, whenever you think you want to seek happiness, consider the value that goes along with identifying a more specific desire. You’re still likely to experience some happiness while seeking this newly identified desire, and some sadness too as setbacks tend to occur. These alterations of happiness and sadness are part of the process that keeps our lives moving forward. Choose wisely in what direction you truly wish to head. And learn to appreciate that there are deeper values in life than happiness.
My Best,
Jeff
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Some people will enjoy reading this blog by beginning with the first post and then moving forward to the next more recent one; then to the next one; and so on. This permits readers to catch up on some ideas that were presented earlier and to move through all of the ideas in a systematic fashion to develop their emotional and social intelligence. To begin at the very first post you can click HERE.
When you first learned to ride a bicycle, it probably helped that someone told you some basic ideas. Perhaps your big brother explained to you that when you want to go forward on a bike, you must push down with your foot on the pedal that is highest. When you do that you will see the other pedal start to rise up. When the other pedal comes all the way up, you have to push that one down with your other foot.
This type of verbal description can be very helpful, but no amount of it will get anyone to be a smooth bicycle rider. For that, people have to get up on the bike and try to coordinate all that they have heard, fall down, get back up on the bike, and try again and again, until they learn by doing.
Learning skills that lead to emotional maturity is similar in many ways. To learn them, you have to apply what you have heard or read by doing it, make mistakes, and try again and again until you get smooth at coordinating the skills. In today’s post, I offer a suggestion for practicing the skills taught on this blog that won’t cost you a red cent.
A Suggestion for Skill Practice
Go to your calendar and for each week over the next month, draw a circle on a day that you can spare five minutes. Next to the circle, write “CONFLICT?” This message is designed to remind you that on each of the circled dates you are to take five minutes to write down on a sheet of paper the most difficult conflict that you had or are currently having during the week. Keep this paper on your refrigerator door. You will see it there each time you reach for some food. This will help to remind you to check your calendar and to follow through with this plan.
When you write out your description of the conflict, use two sentences to describe the conflict from your perspective and two sentences from how you think the other party views or viewed the conflict. Remember to use the DIG Conflict Model for doing this.
In addition to these weekly calendar reminders, also draw a double circle on your calendar on a day that falls close to a month after you start this plan. Pick a day for the double circle day that you can spare a half hour to do the following: Take down from your refrigerator your list of the different conflicts that you described each week. Go to the first post of this blog and then begin to flip through the next 5 blog posts one by one by pressing the link below each post that takes you to the next post in the series. You’ll find these next post links toward the bottom right of each post just before the comments section. They appear as arrows pointing toward the right. As you skim through each of these posts, think about how they might apply to any of your recent experiences and take note of some ideas that have begun to fade from your memory.
Read over a few of the comics. This will refresh your memory of some of the ideas that are connected to how the comic was used in the post. It will also help you to keep your sense of humor as you wrestle with your conflict problems.
When you come upon posts that are specifically related to the various conflicts you described over the course of the month, thoroughly reread them. If you have resolved any of the conflicts, write out the resolution and comment how well the resolution worked out.
As you do this, from time to time you will come up with some ideas about how you can better handle a similar conflict if it should come up in the future. Write these ideas out. Then, close your eyes and imagine you are carrying out these ideas. Rehearse what you would say in your mind, how you would say it, and how you would reply depending on three or four possible reactions from the other party in the conflict.
Once you can smoothly carry out your imaginary rehearsal, do it three more times. It helps to practice a little beyond just being smooth because this will help you to carry them out if the situation becomes emotionally charged.
After the first month of carrying out this plan, do it again each month over the course of a full year and you will find that you now can almost instantly describe conflicts using the DIG Conflict Model. Moreover, you will have been practicing for a full year how to apply the conflict resolution skills taught on this blog to the types of conflicts you tend to face in your own life.
To help you to follow through with this skill enhancement strategy, let someone who is particularly reliable know about this plan. Have that person ask you once a week if you have followed through with this plan. During these reminders, spend a few minutes to discuss with this reliable person what you have been learning.
Such help should not go without a reward. Let the person who is to be giving you the reminder know that if you manage to complete a whole year of this exercise, you will treat him or her to dinner at a fine restaurant. If you are too young to take someone out for dinner, then see if your parents will be your reminder. Parents can often be persuaded to help their sons and daughters just out of pure love.
A fun way to supplement this strategy is to read the Cool Steve Trilogy, a coming of age series of three novels that take you on exciting adventures of a boy and his friends seeking to learn the secrets of becoming respected (see HERE). There you will find endearing characters that face many of the challenges that we all do. How they grapple with them will deepen your own understanding of how to handle similar challenges when you come face to face with them.
Conflict resolution training programs have not advanced so far as to eliminate the need for problem solving every now and then. Nor has there been an intervention created that will keep anger from rearing its mischievous head from time to time. In order to prepare for such events, I encourage you to view lapses in your skills not as a sign of helplessness, but as a sign to get yourself as quickly and safely as you can to the region of challenge. Once there, wisely use the relative period of peace and calm.
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Some people will enjoy reading this blog by beginning with the first post and then moving forward to the next more recent one; then to the next one; and so on. This permits readers to catch up on some ideas that were presented earlier and to move through all of the ideas in a systematic fashion to develop their emotional and social intelligence. To begin at the very first post you can click HERE.
“How’d things work out between Blondie and you?” you ask in a concerned voice upon running into your friend, Dagwood. “Did you manage to resolve your conflict?”
“Yeah, um…well, I’m kinda not sure,” he replies.
When it comes to whether or not a conflict has been resolved, sometimes people feel confused, or they end up engaging in needless arguments about this. Today we spend some time clarifying this issue.
The DIG Conflict Model removes much of the uncertainty about this issue by:
being precise about the definition of a conflict
introducing the concept of conflict intensity
being precise about the point at which a conflict is resolved
introducing the concept of related conflicts
The Definition of a Conflict
A conflict exists whenever the following three conditions exist:
Party A desires an act will occur.
Party A perceives that another party is likely to act in a manner that interferes with the desire.
Party A perceives that the other party would be guilty of doing something wrong if he or she carries out the interfering act.
When using the DIG Conflict Model, we describe a conflict by using the word “DIG” to remind us to identify the three conflict conditions, the desire, the interference, and the guilt. Sometimes a given situation has more than one conflict but people end up getting confused because they think that all of the conflicts are one big conflict. When using the DIG Conflict Model, we clearly describe each of the conflicts separately and systematically. This process dramatically reduces confusion and simplifies finding resolutions to each of the separate conflicts. Sometimes we have to dig to identify all of the conflicts in a situation but the DIG Conflict Model provides us some tools to make this relatively easy (see posts titled DEALING WITH CRITICISM BY DIGGING DEEPER and RESOLVING RECURRING CONFLICTS).
Conflict Intensity
Toward reaching our goal of reducing confusion about whether or not a conflict has been resolved, we have just clarified what it means to have a conflict. We now move on toward this goal by learning about the intensity of a conflict.
The three conditions of a conflict (desire, interference and guilt) are not just present whenever a conflict exists. Each of these three conditions may be present at a very high degree, a medium degree, or a low degree.
DESIRE
As an example, let’s say that in the picture on the right, John desires Mary with all of his might. Asked to rate how much he desires Mary on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the greatest desire he can possibly have, he rates his desire for her a 10.
We asked John a few months later to rate his desire for Mary. Some of Mary’s mannerisms have begun to annoy him, and there are times when he has begun to think of finding a new girlfriend. He still has some desire for her but at a lower degree then when he first met her. This example illustrates how the desire component of a conflict can vary over time.
INTERFERENCE
Now let’s look at an example of how the interference component of a conflict can be present at higher and lower degrees. In the picture on the left, Sue desires to get to a long-eared stuffed animal but Fred is interfering. Sue knows Fred pretty well and she is convinced that once he decides to not let her get something, he usually sticks to it for quite some time. Asked to rate how much Fred is likely to interfere with the achieving of her desire on a 1 to 10 scale, she answers 8.
But let’s say a few months later Fred’s behavior begins to change. He still will interfere with Sue achieving her desire to get something but only for a minute or two. By then he has grown tired of that game. When Sue wants to get her long-eared friend down from the shelf and Fred tries to stop her, she knows that by waiting for a short period of time things will work out fine. Now when asked to rate how much Fred will interfere with her achieving her desire, she answers 2.
GUILT
Finally, let’s look at an example of how the guilt component of a conflict can be present at higher or lower degrees. In this picture on the right, Mike comes home from work and sees his wife and some guy in each other’s arms passionately kissing. Mike’s first reaction is that his wife and this guy are guilty of doing something terribly wrong. If he was asked to rate just how guilty they were, he might say 10. But let’s say that moments after he first sees this kissing scene he notices that there are four other people in the room all holding a script for a play.
His wife quickly withdraws from the embrace of the male stranger and warmly greets her husband. Then she says, “Honey, I got the part I tried out for. We’re all here rehearsing.”
Now Mike recalls that his wife did have plans to go this morning to a play audition. He doesn’t like the fact that his wife usually gets sexy, passionate parts, but he had agreed to marry her anyway.
Once Mike understands that his wife was rehearsing her part in a play when he had walked into the house, he still feels uncomfortable about what he had seen, but he now recognizes that his wife and the male stranger are not as guilty as he originally thought. If asked to rate how guilty they are, he may say 2, or even a zero.
In the DIG Conflict Model, the higher each of the three components are rated, the higher the intensity of the conflict. Sometimes when a conflict’s intensity had been very high, if it is no longer as high, people think the conflict has been resolved, but not according to the DIG Conflict Model.
The Point that a Conflict is Resolved
According to the DIG Conflict Model:
Whenever Party A perceives that a conflict exists, it will be resolved from Party A’s perspective when Party A lowers his or her rating of any of the three conflict conditions to zero.
An example of a resolved conflict will be provided in the next section. But first, let’s take a look at what a related conflict is. Then we will be familiar with four important aspects of conflicts–its precise definition, its degrees of intensity, the point that it is resolved and that some conflicts are related to other conflicts. Then we will see how this will help us to avoid many misunderstandings that lead to needless confusion and arguments.
Related Conflicts
The best way to understand what is meant by a related conflict is by considering the following parable:
The Parable of Jack in the Restaurant
A dad takes his wife and five-year old son, Jack, to a restaurant. Jack’s meal comes first, a nice big plate of spaghetti and meatballs. After Jack quickly shovels into his mouth a couple of forkfuls of his dinner, the dad says, “That looks pretty good, Jack. Do you mind if I have a little taste of the tomato sauce? If I like it, I might want to get something with it next time we come.”
“NO, DAD! I just have enough for me!”
This is frustrating to the dad and he perceives that he has a conflict with his son because he desires a taste of the sauce and perceives that his son is interfering with his desire. Additionally, he believes his son is guilty of being selfish.
As he thinks about what to do about this conflict, his wife and he receive the meals that they ordered.
About fifteen minutes later, the dad still desires a taste of the sauce, but not quite as intensely as before because his hunger has subsided. He then glances over to Jack and notices that there is about half of his original portion of spaghetti left on his plate and the pace of his eating has slowed up quite a bit. His son’s desire to eat his spaghetti has also become less intense.
“Jack,” the dad says softly, “do you still mind if I have just a little taste of your sauce?”
“Sure, you can have some, Dad. I’m starting to get full.” And with that, Jack slides about a third of the remaining spaghetti on his dad’s plate while making sure that there is an ample amount of sauce along with it.
In the fifteen minutes that the dad first desired a taste of the sauce, the situation transformed from a clear conflict situation to a non-conflict situation because the dad has achieved his desire to taste the sauce. But wait! A minute later, the dad, still a bit bugged about something, suddenly realizes he still does have a conflict with his son. He tries to summarize it by using the DIG Conflict Model. “I desire that Jack not be selfish,” he thinks to himself, “but his actions at dinner suggest that he will continue to interfere with this desire if I don’t do something about it, and he’ll continue to be guilty of being selfish.”
This conflict, although related to the earlier one, is different for it has a different desire. The original conflict’s desire was about getting a taste of the tomato sauce. That conflict was resolved when the dad got a taste of the tomato sauce. If asked to rate how much he wants to taste the sauce right now on a 1 to 10 scale, he would say zero. This new conflict’s desire is about Jack not being selfish. Thus it is different enough to be thought of as a new conflict with perhaps a distinctly different set of approaches required to address it.
Now that the dad has clarified in his mind what the new conflict is all about, he begins to reflect upon possible resolutions. “Perhaps I expect too much from a five-year old boy. There is still plenty of time to teach Jack to care about others, and as he matures, he may just naturally become more altruistic. Perhaps it might help if I tell Jack some stories, from time to time, about heroes who act in unselfish ways even when they are hungry or are struggling to meet other needs. And if I model altruistic behavior for Jack with my own behavior, this too can help. As I think on this some more it occurs to me that maybe in the future if I would like to have a taste of Jack’s food, it would be wise for me to wait until he is at least half done with it. This way, if Jack was in a particularly irritable mood because of his hunger, he will have some time to take care of his own hunger desires and to calm down a bit.”
A conflict is related to another conflict when at least one of the three conflict conditions of the original conflict is similar to at least one of the conflict conditions of the other conflict. In the parable about Jack and his dad, initially the dad had the following conflict with his son— I desire a taste of the sauce and perceive that in attempting to get a taste, Jack will create a loud disturbance in the restaurant. Additionally, I believe Jack is acting selfish. A few minutes later, the dad, recognizing he has resolved his first conflict but now has another conflict, says to himself, I want Jack to not be selfish, but his actions at dinner suggest that he will continue to act selfishly if I don’t do something about it. It’s wrong to be selfish.” Both the initial conflict and its related conflict are connected because both of their guilt conflict conditions are similar (Jack is guilty of being selfish).
Discussion
We have now become familiar with four aspects of a conflict–its precise definition, its degrees of intensity, the point that it is resolved and that some conflicts are related to other conflicts. Familiarity of these four aspects of conflicts help to avoid some unnecessary confusion and arguments.
For example, let’s say a young woman named Sally had a very high intensity conflict with her boyfriend. A week later she now finds that it is much less intense. She may think, perhaps it has been resolved. How can she decide?
She can begin by describing her conflict when it originally surfaced using the DIG Conflict Model. Then she can rate what the degree of each of the three components (desire, interference and guilt) had been on a scale of 1 to 10 . Then she can rate each of these three components as they are currently perceived. If none of the three components are at zero, she would recognize that she still has the same conflict with her boyfriend, but it is just at a lower intensity.
This process clarifies in her mind that she still has some work to do if she really wants to fully resolve the conflict. It also draws her attention to each of the three specific components of the conflict.
If you practice using this process, in time you will discover that this simplifies what remains to be done and opens avenues that may lead to problem solutions. For an excellent illustration of this, see the post titled THE ABCs OF POWER AND THE GUILT CONDITION.
Now, let’s change our Sally example a bit. This time she goes through the process of clearly defining her conflict and rating the degree of each of its three conditions. She discovers that she actually did resolve her original conflict, but it has turned into a related conflict. She now has a clear way to understand what has happened. Moreover, as with the Jack in the Restaurant parable, the process of defining precisely what the new conflict is can point her to some solutions she might not have otherwise considered. Recall that Jack’s dad, once he clarified in his mind what his related conflict’s desire is–reducing his son’s selfishness–found it helpful for coming up with ideas about how to teach his son to become more altruistic.
Well, I hope you find in this week’s post some food for thought. May you all have a week with some peace, some excitement and moments of wonder.
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Some people will enjoy reading this blog by beginning with the first post and then moving forward to the next more recent one; then to the next one; and so on. This permits readers to catch up on some ideas that were presented earlier and to move through all of the ideas in a systematic fashion to develop their emotional and social intelligence. To begin at the very first post you can click HERE.
A conflict exists whenever the following three conditions exist:
Party A desires an act will occur.
Party A perceives that another party is likely to act in a manner that interferes with the desire.
Party A perceives that the other party would be guilty of doing something wrong if he or she carries out the interfering act.
On this blog, when we think about describing a conflict we use the word “DIG” to remind us to look into the situation for a desire, something that interferes with the desire, and the perception of guilt. If there is no guilt, there is no conflict, but there still remains a desire-interference problem. All conflicts contain a desire-interference problem, but when guilt is present we have a conflict.
In the above Blondie comic, it is pretty clear that Dagwood has a desire to take a nap and interfering with this is his promise to fix a doorknob. He seems to me to be struggling with whether or not to feel guilty if he doesn’t keep his promise.
Also in the comic, we see that Blondie appears to have a conflict with Dagwood. That is, she desires that the doorknob gets fixed and interfering with her desire is Dagwood’s nap. She seems to think he is guilty for not keeping his promise. Is she seeking to punish him for his guilt by not preparing his sandwich?
Today’s post focuses on the guilt condition of conflicts.
Guilt and Conflicts
On the right we see Mary and Ron. Ron desires Mary and she desires him. They currently are not experiencing a conflict.
Consider a different scenario, one that we all have faced from time to time. You are going to the dentist and you have a desire to experience no pain, but you perceive that the dentist will probably act in a manner that will interfere with this. Do you perceive that under this set of circumstances you are likely to be having a conflict with the dentist? Why?
The DIG Conflict Model, which uses our above definition of “conflict,” indicates that if you do not perceive that your dentist is guilty of doing something wrong, there is no conflict. If you don’t blame the dentist for the pain but accept it as a necessary part of the dental procedure, the interfering condition is experienced in a very different way than when we experience a conflict.
In the dentist situation that I just described, you would still have a desire-interference problem–how can you get through this situation as best that you can given that you desire not to experience pain, and yet you are likely to experience some pain? All conflicts have a desire-interference problem in it, but not all desire-interference problems are conflicts.
Consider, if you will, a slightly different set of circumstances then our original dentist scenario. This time you have had a dental procedure done almost painlessly by Dr. Beam. Now a new dentist, Dr. Vopee, is performing the same procedure and as he does so, you are experiencing a great deal of pain.
According to the DIG Conflict Model, how you perceive this situation is crucial in determining whether or not you are experiencing a conflict. If you are blaming Dr. Vopee for this pain, believing he is doing something wrong, you are very likely to be experiencing a conflict with him. On the other hand, if you perceive the pain as due to the fact that no two procedures are exactly alike and that the pain must be due to the difference in the procedure rather than any incompetence of Dr. Vopee, then you will NOT experience a conflict with him.
What people who are in any given situation perceive is far more important than any act by itself. It is very possible for Sally to perceive that she has a conflict with Bob when Bob has done nothing to interfere with her and has no intention of doing so in the future. This can happen, for example, if Sally’s neighbor lies to her about Bob’s actions.
Let’s explore a little more what it means when we say someone perceives that someone is guilty of doing something wrong.
1: the fact of having committed a breach of conduct especially violating law and involving a penalty; broadly:guilty conduct
2a: the state of one who has committed an offense especially consciously b: feelings of culpability especially for imagined offenses or from a sense of inadequacy :self-reproach
3: a feeling of culpability for offenses
My Definition of Guilty
As far as I’m concerned, you are free to define “guilt” or “guilty” in any way you choose. I have a very specific reason to use the word guilty in the sense that I choose–because I want to distinguish it from a very different experience and this can get muddled if I use the word too loosely. And so, I define “guilty” as follows:
If I perceive that someone has done something wrong and I become frustrated and angry at the person and I begin to seek to punish the person, I view that person as guilty.
For example, if I make a wrong turn to go to my friend’s house and when I discover my error if I have a strong emotion of frustration that springs up in me and I cry out, “What an idiot I am for making that mistake,” I am feeling guilty that I made the mistake and the reason I am calling myself an idiot is because it is my angry effort to punish myself.
I use that specific type of definition for “guilty” to distinguish it from how I define responsibility, which, as I view as a more mature response. When people act responsibly, they recognize that they did something wrong, experience a strong feeling of frustration, recognize at the same time that as long they are a human being they are going to make mistakes. They recognize that the strong feeling of frustration is a good thing because it leads them to focus on what they did wrong, and the emotionality helps spur a process that increases the possibility of fixing the error in the long term, decreasing the chance that they will make the same mistake. Part of this frustration reaction leads me to focus on what I can do next time to prevent the mistake. This is a wonderful process and I welcome the experience as I would a helpful friend. When I see guilt springing up in me, I have been getting more and more skillful at transforming it into my helpful friend.
Some people think guilt occurs whenever they see that someone has done something wrong. It is not wrong to define it this way except when we are using the DIG Conflict Model. But even when we are not using the DIG Conflict Model, it will still be beneficial to keep the idea of angrily desiring punishment when someone does something wrong separate from the idea of learning from the experience of making a mistake by experiencing frustration in a friendly, non-punishing manner.
If you see that your five-year old son has made a mistake when trying to add 7 plus 3 and he came up with 9, you may see that he has done something wrong, but you might experience this as somewhat different than when you feel someone is “guilty” of doing something wrong. You may think that your son almost got the right answer, and he’s trying, and this is part of the learning process. You might not feel angry at him, nor think he deserves to be punished for his efforts. Perhaps you might gently correct him and give him a warm smile.
Another Example
A husband comes home from work. He doesn’t look like he is responding in a friendly, gentle manner as he perceives that his wife is doing something wrong. His face looks angry about it. We can easily imagine that he is likely to make some punishing statements toward the two people who are kissing, and perhaps he might even go further by making some other punishing acts such as hitting or seeking to divorce his wife.
When thinking about conflicts, it is useful to distinguish between guilt that arouses anger and seeks to punish versus viewing someone doing something wrong without it being accompanied by anger.
Now, some of my students ask me, isn’t there a place in this world for righteous anger? Doesn’t the guy who finds his wife cheating on him have a perfect right to be angry and to seek to punish the cheats?
The DIG Conflict Model does not attempt to decide this philosophical issue for all people for all situations and for now through to the end of time. Instead, it seeks to free people who have learned when they were young a rigid pattern of responding to their perceptions that someone did something wrong. If you have learned to react to a perceived wrong in only one way–with frustration, anger and punishment, perhaps you may welcome the freedom to choose between guilt or a friendlier response.
Well, that’s my post for today. I hope you find that it offers some food for thought. Have a great week!
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Some people will enjoy reading this blog by beginning with the first post and then moving forward to the next more recent one; then to the next one; and so on. This permits readers to catch up on some ideas that were presented earlier and to move through all of the ideas in a systematic fashion to develop their emotional and social intelligence. To begin at the very first post you can click HERE.
As you can see, eventually the conflict is resolved.
But a few days later, the two have another conflict.
Again and again other conflicts spring up between these same two individuals. These recurring conflicts come about with a distinctly higher frequency than usual for two people in the types of situations in which they live and interact.
When we see two people having an unusual amount of recurring conflicts, at some point we might want to dig a little below the surface to figure out why.
Using the DIG Conflict Model to Help with Challenging Conflicts
From time to time on this blog, we have been using the word DIG to remind us of a simple way to briefly summarize any conflict. The letters in the word “DIG” reminds us to look for a desire, what is interfering with achieving the desire, and if someone feels that the person who is viewed as interfering with the desire is guilty of doing something wrong. We also noted earlier that the word “DIG” is a useful memory device because sometimes we have to dig below the surface to understand a conflict (see DIG FOR THE CONFLICT and DEALING WITH CRITICISM BY DIGGING DEEPER).
In an earlier post, I discussed two digging tools that help us to find ways of improving our style of providing criticism and resolving conflicts (see WHY IS CRITICISM SO HARD TO BEAR?). There, I mentioned that it is helpful to stay mindful that when people are criticized, their desire to be liked and to maintain their freedom may become threatened. By keeping this in mind, we can often come up with less threatening alternative styles to engage people during our disagreements. During recurring conflicts, these tools for digging can be very helpful.
Today, we are going to look at three other digging tools because they are especially helpful when we notice that we are dealing with recurring conflicts.
Three Digging Tools Especially Helpful for Resolving Recurring Conflicts
The three digging tools we will focus on today are in the form of questions:
1. What desire might be motivating the conflict?
2. What other desires might be motivating the conflict?
3. Why do the people involved in the problem have this desire in this situation?
To familiarize yourself with this aspect of conflicts, please consider the following Beetle Bailey comic:
From this comic, we might get the impression that Sarge views this situation as a conflict he is having with Beetle, a conflict that we might describe from his perspective as follows: Sarge desires Beetle to wait in a certain spot and interfering with his desire, Beetle wants to wait in a different spot. Sarge believes that if Beetle doesn’t follow his order, he will be guilty of insubordination.
Suppose we ask Sarge if, from his perspective, these two sentences capture a conflict he is having with Beetle, and he replies, “Yes! That lazy bum is trying to goof off again!”
At this point, something strikes me over the head, urging me to dig a little deeper than the two-sentence conflict description Sarge has said captures his conflict with Beetle. It seems to me that Sarge and Beetle seem to be having far more conflicts with one another than is usual between a sargent and a private under his command.
Hmmm. To begin digging into this conflict, I put my tools out there where I can easily get at them. In bold letters I write out the following three questions.
1. What desire might be motivating the conflict? 2. What other desires might be motivating the conflict? 3. Why does the party have this desire in this situation?
As I begin to think about this a little more, I wonder if the desire that I identified in my first attempt to describe the conflict is the best that I can come up with. Is this really about Sarge’s desire to have Beetle wait in the exact spot that he has pointed to?
In this situation I don’t see how Sarge thinks Beetle is likely to behave in a manner that is interfering with what Sarge says he desires. Beetle just asks if he can wait sitting in the shade. Sarge knows Beetle well enough by now so that he must realize that once he orders Beetle to wait where he tells him to wait, he isn’t likely to be insubordinate. Moreover, it wasn’t any problem for Sarge to figure out how to get Beetle to wait where he wanted him to wait. All he had to do was bark orders at Beetle, something he’s done numerous times. Perhaps Sarge has some other desire that is part of the reason he is getting so worked up here.
My memory scans over the other recent conflicts I’ve seen happen between Sarge and Beetle. I recall, over and over again, situations that had Sarge perceiving Beetle as lazy.
I also recall seeing many times over the years Sarge becoming furious about Beetle’s laziness.
OK, so in most of the situations that conflicts spring up between the two, laziness is an issue.
Let’s pretend, for instructional purposes, that I can explore with Sarge whether or not we can reword the original conflict description as a recurring conflict.
“Sarge, I’m gonna describe your conflict a little differently than before because I don’t think the original description is as good as we can make it. If you don’t mind, let me know if it is more or less accurate. Earlier I described it from your perspective as follows: You desire that Beetle wait in a certain spot and Beetle interfered with your desire when he indicated that he wants to wait in a different spot. You believe that if Beetle doesn’t follow your order, he will be guilty of insubordination. You agreed that it is pretty accurate. But what if I describe it instead like this: You have a desire to have privates under your command that are energetic go-getters, and after Beetle was assigned to your outfit you have found his laziness has been interfering with this desire. You believe Beetle is, and will continue to be, guilty of laziness.”
“Yes, that is a much better description of my conflict with Beetle than your original description.”
“I thought it might be. Beetle has been in your outfit for years. Specific conflicts arose. To deal with his laziness I’ve noticed that you have yelled at him, given him KP duty that required that he peel potatoes up to his ears, and used all manner of threats and physical attacks.
Beetle at least listens to your orders, though sometimes taking them a bit too literally. But, nevertheless, he is never blatantly insubordinate. Although Beetle continues to be lazy, you found that with a little assertive hollering (“I SAID WAIT HERE, AND I MEAN RIGHT HERE!”) he usually complies even if he has to stand in place while a steam shovel comes roaring by.”
“Yeah, but he keeps acting lazy. It’s driving me BERSERK!”
“I can tell it’s starting to really get to you.”
“You’re telling me!!!”
“This last conflict you had with Beetle was resolved with so little difficulty that it really didn’t qualify as a conflict or even a problem. And yet, Sarge, you remained angry. And this kind of troubling interaction with Beetle has been happening in one situation after another. Something else has to be going on.”
“Sarge, I noticed that in each situation that you get angry with Beetle Bailey, it usually has to do with his laziness.”
“You’re right about that!”
Once Sarge clearly understands the nature of his recurring conflict, he is in a better position to seek out a resolution. Before he understood this, when he would complain to his fellow sergeants about Beetle not doing this or that, they would ask, “Well, did you get him to do it?” When Sarge would answer yes, they would shrug, and say, “At least he’s not insubordinate.” But now Sarge tells his fellow sergeants, “See if you can help me with this problem. I want privates under my command to be energetic, hustling team members, and after Beetle was assigned to my outfit I’ve found his laziness has been interfering with this desire. Beetle continues to be guilty of laziness. Any of you have any ideas to fix this?”
“Well, I had a recruit once by the name of Bob,” says one of the sergeants, “and he was the laziest bum I ever saw in my life. Well, what I did was, I told this here Bob, the next time you do anything that strikes me as lazy, I’m gonna put you on KP duty until you go a whole two weeks without my catching you acting lazy. Then I’m gonna let you off KP duty until I catch ya being lazy again. We’re gonna keep doing this until you stop being lazy. Anyway, it worked like a charm.”
Now I’m not saying this plan is ideal or that it will work every time. I simply lay it out there as a part of a parable designed to give you an example of a recurring conflict and to suggest that by digging a little to better define a conflict, we are oftentimes better positioned to seek more specific, helpful advice.
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Some people will enjoy reading this blog by beginning with the first post and then moving forward to the next more recent one; then to the next one; and so on. This permits readers to catch up on some ideas that were presented earlier and to move through all of the ideas in a systematic fashion to develop their emotional and social intelligence. To begin at the very first post you can click HERE.
If you have been following this blog, you know that from time to time I have been discussing insults and criticism. In earlier posts, we looked at situations in which people end up feeling insulted because someone provided negative criticism.
I have argued that rather than to feel insulted, it is possible to learn to welcome criticism, as well as words that might come off as insulting. When we learn to respond skillfully to negative criticism and insults, we develop a confidence in these types of situations. This dramatically reduces our defensiveness.
An important step toward mastering this skill is to learn to clearly recognize when criticism is occurring.If you can’t identify when a red light is flashing, you won’t be able to know when to apply the brakes on the car, and you are likely to end up in a serious accident.
Illustration by Lois Hubertz
Similarly, if you can’t identify when criticism is occurring, you won’t be able to know when to begin to put in place the plans that effectively deal with criticism.
Although some forms of criticism are as easy to recognize as a red light, some forms of criticism are far more subtle and therefore often go unrecognized as criticism. I therefore have presented posts that discuss dealing with direct and implied forms of criticism. I’ve noted that when someone makes a suggestion, this usually implies some negative criticism.
We also took a good hard look at certain forms of levity, in which negative criticism is designed to be charmingly provocative. It seeks to get people to think more deeply about an issue. As George Bernard Shaw put it in his provocative book, Back to Methuselah:
“When a thing is funny, search it carefully for a hidden truth.”
Shaw, to ward off defensive reactions to his quips, often created fictional plays and had the characters in the plays say them. Great examples are:
“No man ever believes that the Bible means what it says: He is always convinced that it says what he means.“
“The difference between a lady and a flower girl is not how she behaves, but how she’s treated.”
“Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.”
Today we will spend a little more time practicing enhancing our skills for recognizing subtle forms of criticism. This will help to improve our ability to know when to start using our dealing-with-criticism skills.
More Examples of Subtle Forms of Negative Criticism
As we move forward, please keep in mind that for the purposes of this blog, if someone evaluates something as negative the evaluator has made a negative criticism.
FIRST EXAMPLE
In the above Calvin and Hobbes scenario, Miss Wormwood politely asks Calvin to put his tiger, Hobbes, in his locker. Calvin objects to this request by crying out—“In my locker?! He’ll suffocate!”
Calvin’s response to Miss Wormwood’s request is an example of indirect negative criticism. He doesn’t directly state he has evaluated her request and found that there is something wrong with it, or that it is bad, or something of that sort. Nevertheless, he indicates that if he did what she asked, his tiger would suffocate. To recognize this as a form of negative criticism, it helps to notice that in addition to Calvin’s statement there are other indications that he thinks there is something wrong with Miss Wormwood’s request. The exclamation marks after Calvin’s statement, the drawing of Calvin with his mouth being wide open as if he is shouting, and the fact that he is practically flying out of his seat while he is shouting, all add up to indicate that Calvin’s reply is rightfully classified as a form of negative criticism of Miss Wormwood’s request.
Although Miss Wormwood takes Calvin’s negative criticism in stride, other teachers might become defensive, and yell something like, “Don’t you talk back to me, young man!” This might silence students, but leave them seething with anger that is expressed by a rejection of the school enterprise; or it might lead to shouting back at the teacher, creating an escalation of conflict that takes valuable learning time away from the class.
If Miss Wormwood would have become defensive and started to yell at Calvin in response to his negative criticism, this would, according the the DIG Conflict Model, be rated an immature level of responding (see Responding to Criticism: Four Levels of Maturity). Instead, she steers in the direction of Calvin’s criticism by offering the compromise of putting his “tiger” under his desk where it will be at least out of the way. This, according to the DIG Conflict Model, is one of the most mature responses (see Responding to Criticism: The Most Mature Level). We see, in this example, that Calvin quickly complies and his teacher can now go on with her lesson without any further delay.
SECOND EXAMPLE
Here’s a Sally Forth comic that illustrates that whenever there is a transaction involving a request or demand, we would be wise to anticipate negative criticism will be present as well.
In this comic, because Sally is visiting her mother for a few days, Ted is left on his own to deal with his nine-year-old daughter, Hil. When Ted tells Hil it’s time for bed, she begins to reject his demand. Is Hil’s rejection of the demand a form of criticism?
Well, consider her reply to her dad: “But Mom’s not here! We don’t need a bedtime!” Hil has negatively evaluated her dad’s demand by expressing her disagreement with it. If you tell someone you disagree with what he or she has done, you have negatively criticized the person’s act.
If Ted was skillful at first recognizing that Hil was providing him criticism, he would be in a better position to say to himself, “From what I’ve learned about the different levels of maturity, let me see if I can design a mature response.” What if he came up with something like this?
“Hil, I admire the way you seek to defend your freedom. I want to encourage that. And you know I’m crazy about you. At the same time, I also love your mom, as I know you do. It seems to me that we don’t want to break her rules behind her back. The bedtime schedule is designed for you to get enough rest so you will do well in school. Both of us have seen what happens to you when you don’t get enough rest. When your mom gets home, if you want to discuss the rules, we can do it with her, you and me all altogether. That would be the fair thing to do, wouldn’t it?”
These Examples are Designed to Encourage Deeper Thought
Above, I provided two examples of someone providing negative criticism. For each example, a response was described that I think is pretty mature. Please note, however, that I am NOT claiming that they are the ideal responses. Nor am I trying to make the case that the responses portrayed in the above examples are the only mature responses that can be made. There is a great deal of flexibility that we have for coming up with high level responses. I present the above examples in an effort to challenge you to think more deeply about what mature levels of responding look like according to your own lights.
Well, that’s my post for this week. To all of you who celebrate the beautiful Christmas season, I wish you good cheer, peace on Earth, and good will toward all of our fellow human beings!
With Warmest Regards,
Jeff
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Some people will enjoy reading this blog by beginning with the first post and then moving forward to the next more recent one; then to the next one; and so on. This permits readers to catch up on some ideas that were presented earlier and to move through all of the ideas in a systematic fashion to develop their emotional intelligence. To begin at the very first post you can click HERE.
We find a charming illustration of Dagwood utilizing a simple source of personal power below:
These three frames are just the beginning of a very early Blondie comic from 1932 that I found in The Smithsonian Collection of Newspaper Comics. At that time Blondie was depicted as coming from the lower classes who had recently married the wealthy Dagwood Bumstead. Many from his social circle believed Blondie married for money.
I have discussed sources of power quite a bit on this blog. The simple source of power that Dagwood used to get Blondie invited to the party is often referred to as offering a fair exchange. That is, Dagwood offered to give his mother something that she wanted, but only if she gave him what he wanted. She wanted Dagwood to come to her party, he made it clear that he would come, but only if Blondie would also come.
As we will soon see, there are six more panels to this Blondie-Dagwood comic strip. But before we get to them, let’s use the DIG Conflict Model to quickly conceptualize the events that are taking place in the first panels of the comic.
Using “DIG” to Briefly Describe a Conflict
Those who have been following this blog know that when we seek to briefly describe a conflict, the letters in the word DIG help to remind us to look for the three conditions of a conflict–DESIRE, INTERFERENCE and GUILT.
During the first frame, Dagwood clearly desires that Blondie join him at his mother’s party, but interfering with this, his mother indicates she is refusing to invite her. To be a conflict according to the DIG Conflict Model, in addition to a desire and an interfering condition, there has to also be a guilt condition as well.
In the second frame of the comic, Dagwood says to his mother, “Remember, after all she is your daughter-in law.” This suggests that Dagwood believes that his mother is guilty of being wrong for not inviting Blondie.
There are several ways in which this apparent conflict can be resolved. To illustrate some essential points, let’s first look at a couple of examples that do not actually occur in the comic. As we look at these examples, please keep in mind that when we describe resolutions using the DIG Conflict Model, we are instructed to consider not only the short term quality of the resolution, but the long term quality as well.
First Example
Here is a different outcome to Dagwood’s conflict with his mother than what we will be seeing in the actual Blondie comic strip. Take special note that this different outcome leads to a couple of post-resolution regrets.
Dagwood talks to his mother and she convinces him that because of the way she was brought up, and because of the way the other party guests might react, she is not wrong in wanting to keep Blondie from attending her party. Dagwood ends up agreeing with his mother and he does not bring Blondie to the party.
From Dagwood’s perspective his conflict with his mother was resolved at the point when he came to believe his mother is not guilty of doing anything wrong when she insists Blondie is not to come to the party. The plan that was used to resolve the conflict was his mother persuading Dagwood that she is right.
Now, let’s look at the quality of this resolution. By resolving the conflict in this way, Dagwood ends up not having his desire to have Blondie join him at the party fulfilled. Because Dagwood wants to do things more with Blondie than his parents, he begins to see them less and less. When he looks for job opportunities he feels little desire to remain close to his parents. One day he sees an opening with the Dithers Company several thousand miles from his parents. He applies and lands the job. When Dagwood and Blondie start having children, his mother begins to wish she had been more accepting of Blondie early in their relationship for Blondie has turned out to be a wonderful wife to her son.
Oh, how Dagwood’s mother regrets antagonizing Blondie during their early marriage. And that’s not all. Dagwood’s mother is often heard wandering around her luxurious home moaning. From time to time she can be heard crying out, “If only I could be closer to my grandchildren! How this would give so much meaning to my life!”
Dagwood also feels that raising children with their grandparents close by would have been a good thing, but he reluctantly feels that, with his mother so rejecting of Blondie, it wouldn’t be a good thing for the children to be exposed to such rejection of their mother on a regular basis. And Dagwood really cares about his mother who has become increasingly depressed over the years. Both he and his mother have some post-resolution regrets about how things have turned out.
Second Example
Here’s another scenario that according to the DIG Conflict Model would lead to this conflict being resolved, and this one also leads to some post- resolution regret.
Dagwood decides that there is nothing he can do about bringing Blondie to the party, and so he just doesn’t show up. The party comes and goes without his desire being fulfilled. But in time, he forgets about it. When he forgets about it, the conflict has been resolved. As for the quality of this resolution, Dagwood finds that, since the party, he frequently has waves of anger overtaking him. When he is with his mother, he treats her with little respect. This leads to angry outbursts between them. Their quality of life has thus been diminished.
Now let’s look at what actually happens in the 1932 comic.
Dagwood resolves the conflict as follows. In an effort to achieve his desire, he tells his mother that he refuses to come unless Blondie is invited, too. His mother offers a compromise; he can bring Blondie if he promises to keep her in the background. Dagwood doesn’t explicitly say that he agrees with the compromise, but by thanking his mother it appears he has tacitly agreed to her stated terms. The conflict Dagwood was having with his mother is resolved at the point Dagwood realizes his mother will no longer interfere with his desire to bring Blondie to the party.
How about the quality of this resolution? In the short run things look pretty good. Although Blondie expresses some concerns about going to the party because Dagwood’s mother is so against her, Dagwood expresses optimism when he says to Blondie, “Now, don’t worry Darling — in time she’ll learn to love you just as I do!” The comic strip goes on from here to provide us some additional information. When they arrive at the party…
In this scenario Dagwood has used some skill that leads to his specific desire being fulfilled—Blondie gets to go to his mother’s party. He has a related desire as well—that his mother will learn to love Blondie. As things worked out, this desire takes a beating.
Contrasting the Blondie Example with the Pygmalion Example
People who are powerful at achieving their desires tend not only to develop a plan to achieve some obvious desire of a conflict, but they pause to consider how each plan that they consider would impact the achieving of other desires that are associated with the obvious desire. Consider the story of George Bernard Shaw’s great play, Pygmalion, which was later turned into the magnificent musical, My Fair Lady.
There are some similarities to My Fair Lady and the Blondie story we just discussed. One of the chief characters is Liza Doolittle, who is about Blondie’s age. She too is from the lower classes.
Professor Higgins desires to bring her to a party where the upper classes will be in attendance—the royal ball. But the good professor realizes that getting Liza invited is a relatively small problem for him. What he wants additionally is that she is a success at the ball. He and his friend, Colonel Pickering, pause to consider what being a success is.
They decide that to be successful, Liza will have to improve her speech, be able to move gracefully around the ballroom, and to learn to dance as the other ladies do. Once they understand this, both gentlemen devise a rigorous plan involving training for six months before they take Liza to the ball. Although their plan doesn’t come off entirely without hitches, the viewers of the play clearly come away understanding that the thoroughness of the planning and the practicing of the skills were enormously helpful.
Now, what have we learned from these scenarios? First of all, when you try out a plan that has promise to fulfill your desire, you are attempting to increase your power. If your plan is well designed and skillfully carried out, it may succeed in fulfilling your specific desire. However, short term success of a plan to achieve a specific desire might be offset because it ends up interfering with the likelihood that other desires will be fulfilled. Dagwood fulfilled his short term desire of getting Blondie to the party, but by putting her in a situation where she had a large chance of embarrassing his mother, he may have hurt his long-term goal of getting his mother to like Blondie. If you want the quality of your resolution to be high, increasing your power requires that you become skillful at fulfilling desires in the short and long term.
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Some people will enjoy reading this blog by beginning with the first post and then moving forward to the next more recent one; then to the next one; and so on. This permits readers to catch up on some ideas that were presented earlier and to move through all of the ideas in a systematic fashion to develop their emotional intelligence. To begin at the very first post you can click HERE.
If you have been following this blog, you know that I have often discussed different ways to respond to insults.
Illustration by Eric Sailer
For example, some people respond to negative criticism that is designed to be constructive as if it was an insult. They then become angry, defensive and end up storming away. In a post titled CRITICISM AND WISDOM, I encouraged people who respond in this way to this type of criticism to learn to change their attitude. I explained that this type of criticism does not have to be viewed as an insult, but rather, as something potentially helpful and something that can lead toward wisdom. Rather than becoming defensive, we can learn to welcome this type of criticism and even encourage the criticizer to feel free to provide additional criticism in the future. This takes practice, but it can be achieved.
Sometimes people begin to throw insults at you because they are angry about a conflict they have with you. In this type of situation, rather than to respond to the insults by becoming defensive and returning the insults, I advocated in an earlier post learning a plan to DIG FOR THE CONFLICT in a friendly, assertive manner.
More recently, I mentioned that in certain types of situations RESPONDING TO INSULTS WITH QUIET SADNESS can be helpful. This type of response is most helpful when the insults are being provided because the insulter is in a stressed-out mood about something that has nothing to do with you, or because the insulter is jealous of you.
When I engage in discussions about the above types of responses, people sometimes ask me what I think about just ignoring an insult.
In the above Luann comic strip, Delta tries to get Luann to consider ignoring Tiffany. I wonder if it would be better to ignore her insult but not ignore Tiffany.
This ignoring insults strategy has been with us for a long time. I remember a principal many years ago advocating that kids should learn to ignore insults because tossing insults at someone is a lot like a game of tennis. That is, in tennis, if Ron serves a ball to you, if you refuse to hit the ball back, Ron will quickly become bored and find someone else to play with. Similarly, if Ron throws an insult at you, if you ignore it, rather than throw the insult back, Ron will soon become bored and leave you alone.
There are times when I have used the ignoring approach fairly successfully. I remember a time when I was about 12-years old. I was passing three guys who were hanging out on a street corner. They appeared to be around 18. When they started insulting me, I ignored it and just kept walking. They let me pass with just one more insult. It was all over in a matter of seconds and no physical harm had occurred to me. And so, the ignoring strategy worked pretty well.
However, when I got home, my imagination took flight. I wondered if my sense of being a “true” man had gotten roughed up just a bit. Maybe, I thought, if I really had guts, I should have told those guys a thing or two even at the risk of being beaten to a bloody pulp. Then I imagined being Superman, and I used my super powers to beat all three of them up.
But now that I’m quite a bit older and I have a far more secure sense of my manhood, I think that under the circumstances that I found myself as a 12-year old, my actions were indeed reasonable. I’ve learned over the years that nothing I could have done differently would have been really likely to have had any real positive impact on those three guys.
To create real change with boys like that requires an intervention that a typical 12-year old could hardly be expected to create. It would have to involve, for example, someone the older boys genuinely respect, or creating a coalition of citizens working together to take the type of nonviolent actions that was used to put a stop to the disrespectful treatment of blacks during the civil rights demonstrations of the 1960s.
For young children and those individuals who have trouble learning words, the great benefit of the ignoring approach is that it is perhaps the easiest strategy to learn. Not even a single word is required, and it indeed can often produce better results then returning insults with insults.
Close cousins to the ignoring approach, is to learn to use a particular word or phrase in response to the first insult followed by ignoring any following insults. The most popular of course is “Sticks and stones will break my bones but words will never harm me.” Others are:
“So.”
“Good one.”
“Nice try.”
“I’m not going there.”
This “word or phrase approach” can give the person using it the experience of doing something to stick up for oneself. The word or phrase is meant to convey to the insulter that you recognize the game that the insulter is trying to play, and you are smart enough to know how to refuse to play it if that’s what you wish to do. There is a sense of empowerment that comes with being involved in a choice and taking some outward action to exercise your choice. Ignoring, or covering your ears to pretend to ignore, without saying anything may seem “weaker” to you than at least saying something on your behalf in a pleasant, self-assured manner.
This strategy works best when the word or phrase is uttered in a pleasant, friendly tone while looking squarely into the eyes of the insulter. If you instead say the word or phrase with a sneer or with any other action that tries to convey that you are somehow better or smarter than the insulter, the strategy is likely to make the situation worse. You don’t want to do anything that makes the insulter angrier than he or she may already be. That might lead to an escalation of any underlying conflict and violence. A sneer amounts to returning the insult, when that’s just what you want to avoid. Any action that comes off as returning the insult will most likely motivate the insulter to try harder to make you feel bad.
Now, although ignoring or using a quick word or phrase followed by ignoring is easy to learn and often much better than returning the insult, for most situations trying to first find out why the person is throwing out insults is a much better course of action (see INSULTS: A COMIC STRIP LOVER’S GUIDE). By asking the insulter in a concerned manner the reason for the insult can lead to a quick fix for some underlying problem. And of course, if this “asking in a concerned manner” approach doesn’t work, you can always use the ignoring approach or one of its cousins afterwards.
Well, that’s my post for this week. I’m hoping readers will take some time to post a comment about these ideas. What has worked for you? What has been your experience in trying any of these strategies? I’d love to hear from you.
Have a great week!
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Some people will enjoy reading this blog by beginning with the first post and then moving forward to the next more recent one; then to the next one; and so on. This permits readers to catch up on some ideas that were presented earlier and to move through all of the ideas in a systematic fashion to develop their emotional and social intelligence. To begin at the very first post you can click HERE.
Audrey is at a fine restaurant with her parents celebrating her law school graduation.
“Well, your mother and I are so proud of you, Audrey,” says her father.
“Thanks, Dad!”
“Now you know, Audrey, I think it best that you begin your career in my Wall Street firm,” says her father.
“Dad, we discussed this already. I’m going to get a job in the Department of Justice. I made some connections there and that’s where my heart is.”
“We discussed that several months ago, and just briefly,” her father replies. “Now that the real decision is right before you it’s time to get serious. I want to make sure you really think this out thoroughly to prevent you from doing anything foolish.”
I’m twenty-five years old now, Audrey thinks to herself. Dad should respect my decision on this. It’s my life for crying out loud!
As these thoughts fly through her mind she begins to see that her temper is rising. She takes a deep breath, and says, “Dad, I know you’re concerned about me because you love me, and I certainly love you for that. Today I just want to celebrate what I’ve accomplished. Let’s put some time aside next week to fully discuss your concerns.”
“I don’t see why we can’t discuss it now,” says her father. “We have the time right now!”
“Not now, Dad!” Audrey says firmly. “I’m not prepared for this.”
“I think Audrey is being very fair, John,” says Audrey’s mother. “It’s really Audrey’s decision. It’s her life. She agreed to discuss it with you next week. Make a time to do this and let’s get on with the celebration.”
“Okay, Audrey,” her father says with a frown. “We’ll have dinner at home next Friday, and we’ll discuss it then.”
“Thank you, Dad,” Audrey says, and she leans over and gives her father a kiss on his cheek.
Illustration by Eric Sailer
Later that night, Audrey is back in her apartment. She gets comfortable in bed and begins to ponder, while imagining her friendly self is listening.
I’ve heard Dad’s arguments twenty times already! Why should I bother to listen again? I wish he would just let me make my own decisions. I’m not a baby anymore!
She pauses, and wonders what her good friend in her mind might say. “It is understandable that you are angry,” comes the imaginary reply. “Don’t you think it would be a good idea to take a few seconds to observe your internal physical sensations?”
“Oh, OK,” Audrey responds. She then closes her eyes and observes tightness in her stomach and that she is chewing on her lip. She continues to observe her internal sensations, without trying to put any words to them. Soon, her anger fades.
A wave of sleepiness comes over her.
I’ll think about this some more tomorrow, she says to herself. Heck, probably the best thing to do is to just listen to Dad once more over dinner next Friday, and then I’ll smile and tell him that I heard him out. Then I’ll declare that I’m going with a career at the Department of Justice.
She smiles, and then she slides down into her bed covers. After an hour of fitful tossing and turning, she finally falls asleep.
The next day, Audrey once again considers how to deal with her father’s concern.
OK, she thinks to herself, it’s time to try out this two-step process. First Step: Spend a few minutes going through the experience in which I became angry with Dad from a few steps back from what actually occurred, observing my distant self in the event.
After going through this experience, Audrey says to herself, I feel like I can be a little more reasonable about what happened. Now I’m determined to achieve my desire to resolve this conflict. Don’t forget that the stress I’m experiencing is normal and fulfillment is not found in easy comfort, security, and routine, but rather in the continual growth in wisdom through what is learned from negative and positive experiences of an active, changing life. Those thoughts are firing me up!
Audrey then takes a deep breath and resolves to get down to the task at hand. Is the plan I came up with yesterday sufficient? she asks herself. Hmmm. Last night I thought that the best way to handle this conflict is to just listen one more time to Dad. Aaaa, he’ll get angry with my decision and then I’ll get angry with him. I’m just not comfortable with this. That means I got to go through a bunch of other stuff to prepare,. Maybe I should just tell Dad to mind his own business and that’s that!
But then she read a Calvin and Hobbes comic that was sitting on her coffee table.
After smiling, she says to herself, I still have several days before my Friday dinner discussion with Dad. There’s no pressure to come up with an immediate plan. I think I’ll try out Step 2—Carrying out a more complete decision process. But I’m going to take another day just to put this all aside.
It’s the next day. Audrey reminds herself that she is at Step two. OK, I have to do three things to carry out a more complete decision process. First, I have to describe my anger conflict using the DIG Conflict Model. That’s easy. I desire to get a job with the Department of Justice and Dad isinterfering with this by insisting I consider more thoroughly what my job options are. I think Dad is guilty of not minding his own business. Let me see if I can frame the conflict from Dad’s perspective. He desires that I go into his Wall Street firm andinterfering with this he knows that I’m determined to go to work for the Department of Justice. He thinks I am guilty of being wrong because I have not thought about this as thoroughly as he would like.
Hmmm. As I think about this some more, my guess is that the real conflict Dad has with me has nothing to do with how expert I am at making these types of decisions—he really just wants me to work with him and to guide my career. But unless I address the conflict as he is now defining it, we’ll never get to the real issue.
Now, the next thing Step 2 has me doing is to go over my ABCs of Power list. Here it is. I see the first source of power is A for Advancing Skills.This source of power refers to working toward developing a talent that people you care about value.
After Audrey thinks about the other sources of power, she takes a mile walk just to relax for a while.
When she gets back to her apartment, she sits down on her couch and says to herself, Okay then, tomorrow I’m going to go to the library and spend an hour studying up on what it looks like to be an expert on making decisions. Then when I see Dad on Friday, I’ll impress him with my knowledge, and we’ll go through the decision process together. I’ll make sure that by the time the evening is over he will know that I heard him out. I’ll then summarize his position and declare my decision.
Illustration by Eric Sailer
The next day, Audrey begins a search in her library’s bookshelves and comes upon a book titled Decision Making: A Psychological Analysis of Conflict, Choice, and Commitment, by Irving L Janis and Leon Mann.
On page 11, she finds that the authors extracted from an extensive literature review seven major criteria that can be used to determine whether decision-making procedures are of high quality. She writes these down:
Decision makers, to the best of their ability and within their information-processing capabilities:
1. thoroughly canvass a wide range of alternative actions;
2. survey the full range of objectives to be fulfilled and the values implicated by the choice;
3. carefully weigh whatever they know about the costs and risks of negative consequences, as well as positive consequences, that could flow from each alternative;
4. intensively search for new information relevant to further evaluation of the alternatives;
5. correctly assimilate and take account of any new information or expert judgment to which they are exposed, even when the information or judgment does not support the course of action they initially prefer;
6. reexamine the positive and negative consequences of all known alternatives, including those originally regarded as unacceptable, before making a final choice;
7. make detailed provisions for implementing or executing the chosen course of action, with special attention to contingency plans that might be required if various known risks were to materialize.
Later in the chapter, the authors review some of the research supporting this approach. Hmmm, Audrey says to herself, there’s some pretty good evidence this procedure can be helpful.
She then quickly lists the three job alternatives that made the most sense to her—a job with the Department of Justice, a job with her Dad’s Wall Street firm, or opening a private law practice in a small town. She then lists the pros and cons of each.
When Audrey finishes this, she decides that it would be a good idea to talk to some experts about what are, for each of the three alternatives, some pros and cons that she might not be aware of. She decides that the experts for this task are people who are currently working in each of the three types of jobs.
Dad is a good expert for the job as a Wall Street lawyer, she thinks to herself. I’ll have him help with this at our Friday dinner meeting. But he wants so much for me to join his firm, he’ll probably be biased, and he’ll end up playing down the negatives. It would be better to ask someone who doesn’t care if I become a Wall Street lawyer.
To track down lawyers in each type of job, Audrey emails professors from her law school that then put her in contact with former students of theirs who had gone on to careers in each of the three jobs. The discussions she has with these former students are very helpful.
By the time Audrey and her father meet for their Friday dinner, Audrey has given her career a great deal of thought. She impresses her Dad with her knowledge of what it takes to thoroughly consider her job options, the type of research that supports the procedure she had chosen, and the information that she had gathered on the specific options that she considered. She then asks her father for his input.
When her father is done, Audrey carefully summarizes what he had to say. She pauses for a good few minutes, showing her dad she is really thinking over all the information she has gathered. Then she announces her decision that she is going to stick with her initial choice, a job with the Justice Department. Her father once again objects, making a few final pleas for her to reconsider. Audrey recognizes this as negative criticism of her decision.
She pauses to think about how she can respond at level five which requires that she try to come up with some way to steer in her father’s direction. Suddenly, an idea comes to her.
After summarizing what her father had said, using her most loving voice, she says, “Dad, you make some very good points. Here’s what we’ll do. After one year of my job at the Department of Justice, you and I will meet again to discuss my career. I’ll have a lot more information by then about what I like and don’t like about that job. You’ll have a whole year to think up some new reasons for me to go into your firm. I’ll only be 26 by then, and so it won’t be too late to change my career path. And if I do decide to change, I bet at least some of the stuff I’ll be learning at the Justice Department will be helpful for a Wall Street lawyer to know.
Audrey’s father looks a little sad as she tells him of her final decision. Still, he nods, and says that he appreciates that she will remain open about the possibility of changing her decision after a year. They conclude their meeting with a sweet hug.
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Some people will enjoy reading this blog by beginning with the first post and then moving forward to the next more recent one; then to the next one; and so on. This permits readers to catch up on some ideas that were presented earlier and to move through all of the ideas in a systematic fashion to develop their emotional intelligence. To begin at the very first post you can click HERE.
So grab yourself some Kleenex, heck, you better grab the whole box. Not that songs about crying are necessarily sad. This one at least sounds happy. It’s by Question Mark and the Mysterians–“96 Tears.”
Too many teardrops
Well, just listening for awhile in a caring manner is almost always a good start. Rather than to be too quick to start offering advice or criticizing in any way, I might just softly summarize, every couple of minutes, what my friend has been saying, thus assuring him that I am accurately listening. If my summary is off the mark in any way, my friend will clarify.
After Bob opens his tear-soaked Theme Time Radio Hour show with “96 Tears,” which gave us an example of a man being bitter about his break-up with his lover, he plays a song by the lovely and talented Anita O’Day. In “And Her Tears Flowed Like Wine” Ms. O’Day provides us a woman’s perspective on what it’s like to be crying over how a lover mistreated her.I cried last night until I couldn’t
Thomas Fuller once said, “We’re born crying, live complaining, and die disappointed. Hank Williams knew what he was talking about. This song is about a very specific depression inspired by a troubled relationship with his wife, Audrey Sheppard. Here that Lonesome Whippoorwill. He sounds too blue to fly. I’m so lonesome I can cry.
I’ve never seen a night so long
“No,” comes the reply from player, but then we hear her weeping.
Well, the old clock on the wall says it’s time to go. It’s a good thing because I’m out of Kleenex anyway. So I’m gonna hop in my car, head down the Robinson Freeway and get myself a beer I can cry into. In the meantime, remember the words of our former president, Woodrow Wilson: There is little for the great part of history except the bitter tears of pity and the hot tears of wrath.
Dealing with the frustration that goes along with challenging conflicts has some similarities to sailors dealing with stormy seas—it is best to utilize a well-rehearsed plan.
On the right we see Mary and Ron. Ron desires Mary and she desires him. They currently are not experiencing a conflict.
Some people think guilt occurs whenever they see that someone has done something wrong. It is not wrong to define it this way except when we are using the DIG Conflict Model. But even when we are not using the DIG Conflict Model, it will still be beneficial to keep the idea of angrily desiring punishment when someone does something wrong separate from the idea of learning from the experience of making a mistake by experiencing frustration in a friendly, non-punishing manner.
A husband comes home from work. He doesn’t look like he is responding in a friendly, gentle manner as he perceives that his wife is doing something wrong. His face looks angry about it. We can easily imagine that he is likely to make some punishing statements toward the two people who are kissing, and perhaps he might even go further by making some other punishing acts such as hitting or seeking to divorce his wife.
There are times when I have used the ignoring approach fairly successfully. I remember a time when I was about 12-years old. I was passing three guys who were hanging out on a street corner. They appeared to be around 18. When they started insulting me, I ignored it and just kept walking. They let me pass with just one more insult. It was all over in a matter of seconds and no physical harm had occurred to me. And so, the ignoring strategy worked pretty well.
This strategy works best when the word or phrase is uttered in a pleasant, friendly tone while looking squarely into the eyes of the insulter. If you instead say the word or phrase with a sneer or with any other action that tries to convey that you are somehow better or smarter than the insulter, the strategy is likely to make the situation worse. You don’t want to do anything that makes the insulter angrier than he or she may already be. That might lead to an escalation of any underlying conflict and violence. A sneer amounts to returning the insult, when that’s just what you want to avoid. Any action that comes off as returning the insult will most likely motivate the insulter to try harder to make you feel bad.
