Inner voices, self-saboutage, answers
That inner voice that says 'eek, eek, nobody will listen, there's no point in asking, what's the use anyway' -- Where does it come from?
And in writing that question, in the space of a few heartbeats at most, I have my answer. In me, it comes from a set of childhood experiences of wanting my Dad to be a different way than he was, and finding that many of my requests for change were ignored.
Of course, in 'real life' I bet he didn't "ignore" them.
When I asked, at 10, for him to 'not have a drink' before we sat down to talk about some problem I had, I bet he felt stung, and pushed the thought away, and poured himself a double instead. (I'm guessing about his inner experience; the double, I saw.) When I asked, at 16, if I'd done something so awful (what? what?!?) that he couldn't love me any more, I bet he felt struck dumb, with no way to say what was true, no idea how to reassure me. What he said, of course, was that "of course" he hadn't stopped loving me, certainly not! ...and what was the matter with me (he really asked that) for thinking so? What I'm guessing, based on much later conversations with my Mom, and even later than that my own experience of parenting teenagers, is that he was finding my nubile body much more sexually attractive than was comfortable for him to acknowledge even to himself, and all he could do was suddenly keep me at arms' length. It only bothered me because of the abrupt contrast in a family that was routinely huggy and kissyface with one another.
So nowadays, with a mate who has many of my Dad's best qualities and some of the problematic ones, when there is something to negotiate of course I assume (silly me) that it will be impossible.
But here's what happened. First I said that I needed to negotiate for change on a topic I anticipated tey might find difficult. I acknowledged that I felt fearful about the conversation, uncertain how or whether I could express well what I wanted to convey. I asked when would be a good time for us to try, and agreed to the time my mate suggested.
Then I used I-referenced language as much as possible. I acknowledged that some of what I saw as "your behavior" might just be "how a result of your behavior has been affecting me" and requested assistance with sorting that out. I expressed my wish for change in terms solely of results, not those aspects of ter behavior that are none of my business. I acknowledged that, while I might have a preference of how tey treat temself, in fact this is none of my business, and made clear that what I was requesting was a reduced impact on me -- NOT making a decision or demand on what tey did.
An important result of that approach seems to be that we talked well and clearly about several issues between us that had been difficult to discuss in the past. When the conversation ended, we had each agreed to be more conscious and intentional about outcomes. We had NOT agreed on any 'specific, measurable' changes in actions -- and we HAD agreed on 'specific, measurable' changes in results.
It's been more than a week since that conversation and we have been more comfortable together than before it. Results have been much more acceptable on both sides. Each of us has taken responsibility for making our own course-corrections in our own actions, but without much feedback of the 'is this good enough for you?' variety (which I'm pleased with).
A bonus is that our sailing-related choices have been gentler, speedier, and less angstful. Yay!
It's been a busy week, too -- Sunday we finished the little dinghy (which I bought for a few dollars with two holes in the bottom, and which we patched together in about three days of work) and put it in the water. I rowed it out to the sailboat, but since thereafter it rained for two days, I haven't yet mated it to its ancient Seagull engine and found out if the Seagull would start.
Monday we picked up the big dinghy from the shop that's been working on its Yamaha outboard, and this morning we got that into the water. We motored it around to the dinghy dock and parked it, then my mate drove the trailer back to storage.
Thursday, we think, we'll be heading off to the next leg of cruising, as the weather will finally have cleared Wednesday night (according to current forecast) ... but as of right now we aren't sure if we'll be going West or East, up the West coast of Florida to Sanibel Island? or up the Northern half of the keys and over to the Bahamas.
Stay tuned.
And in writing that question, in the space of a few heartbeats at most, I have my answer. In me, it comes from a set of childhood experiences of wanting my Dad to be a different way than he was, and finding that many of my requests for change were ignored.
Of course, in 'real life' I bet he didn't "ignore" them.
When I asked, at 10, for him to 'not have a drink' before we sat down to talk about some problem I had, I bet he felt stung, and pushed the thought away, and poured himself a double instead. (I'm guessing about his inner experience; the double, I saw.) When I asked, at 16, if I'd done something so awful (what? what?!?) that he couldn't love me any more, I bet he felt struck dumb, with no way to say what was true, no idea how to reassure me. What he said, of course, was that "of course" he hadn't stopped loving me, certainly not! ...and what was the matter with me (he really asked that) for thinking so? What I'm guessing, based on much later conversations with my Mom, and even later than that my own experience of parenting teenagers, is that he was finding my nubile body much more sexually attractive than was comfortable for him to acknowledge even to himself, and all he could do was suddenly keep me at arms' length. It only bothered me because of the abrupt contrast in a family that was routinely huggy and kissyface with one another.
So nowadays, with a mate who has many of my Dad's best qualities and some of the problematic ones, when there is something to negotiate of course I assume (silly me) that it will be impossible.
But here's what happened. First I said that I needed to negotiate for change on a topic I anticipated tey might find difficult. I acknowledged that I felt fearful about the conversation, uncertain how or whether I could express well what I wanted to convey. I asked when would be a good time for us to try, and agreed to the time my mate suggested.
Then I used I-referenced language as much as possible. I acknowledged that some of what I saw as "your behavior" might just be "how a result of your behavior has been affecting me" and requested assistance with sorting that out. I expressed my wish for change in terms solely of results, not those aspects of ter behavior that are none of my business. I acknowledged that, while I might have a preference of how tey treat temself, in fact this is none of my business, and made clear that what I was requesting was a reduced impact on me -- NOT making a decision or demand on what tey did.
An important result of that approach seems to be that we talked well and clearly about several issues between us that had been difficult to discuss in the past. When the conversation ended, we had each agreed to be more conscious and intentional about outcomes. We had NOT agreed on any 'specific, measurable' changes in actions -- and we HAD agreed on 'specific, measurable' changes in results.
It's been more than a week since that conversation and we have been more comfortable together than before it. Results have been much more acceptable on both sides. Each of us has taken responsibility for making our own course-corrections in our own actions, but without much feedback of the 'is this good enough for you?' variety (which I'm pleased with).
A bonus is that our sailing-related choices have been gentler, speedier, and less angstful. Yay!
It's been a busy week, too -- Sunday we finished the little dinghy (which I bought for a few dollars with two holes in the bottom, and which we patched together in about three days of work) and put it in the water. I rowed it out to the sailboat, but since thereafter it rained for two days, I haven't yet mated it to its ancient Seagull engine and found out if the Seagull would start.
Monday we picked up the big dinghy from the shop that's been working on its Yamaha outboard, and this morning we got that into the water. We motored it around to the dinghy dock and parked it, then my mate drove the trailer back to storage.
Thursday, we think, we'll be heading off to the next leg of cruising, as the weather will finally have cleared Wednesday night (according to current forecast) ... but as of right now we aren't sure if we'll be going West or East, up the West coast of Florida to Sanibel Island? or up the Northern half of the keys and over to the Bahamas.
Stay tuned.