08/07/2021
When someone tells you that you’ve been hurtful, pause. Take a deep breath and slow yourself down so that you can meet this moment with the kind of care and grace it requires. You don’t get to decide whether their reaction is legitimate. The following do not negate harm:
* You think they are too sensitive
* You didn’t mean it
* You wouldn’t be hurt if the roles were reversed.
Step 1: tend to the hurt. I’m not saying this is easy! Your defensiveness may feel like a mighty force, but you can do it.
* Position yourself like a reporter, putting together the sequence of events. Drop the emotion and the meaning and focus on what happened.
* Seek to understand their world, “Can you say more about how you felt?”
* Reflect it back to them, “What I’m hearing you say is... Have I got that right?”
* Make sure you’ve got it all, “What else do you need me to understand?”
* Discern what the repair looks like. To what degree is it relational, a process for you guys to work out together? To what degree is it personal, something you need to step away and look at on your own?
The nature of the relationship and the triggering event shape this process, but your compass north is seeking to understand rather than seeking to be understood.
You may feel incomplete, wanting them to understand where you were coming from. It’s hard to be face to face with your shadow. You are more than your hurtful action. Shaming yourself into change sucks, and doesn’t work. If you meet the moment with empathy, your chances are greater that, at a later time, they’ll be available to learn more about your perspective... which doesn’t minimize theirs but adds richness and context.
All of this is SO much more important to get right when you occupy a position of achieved or ascribed power in the relationship:
* Boss/employee
* Older/younger
* Male/female
* White/BIPOC
* Parent/child
All of this is more challenging as we have all internalized a problematic story that the powerful don’t need to apologize/validate/see the powerless. Which is why you need to feel all the more proud of yourself when you bust up that old story with your willingness to be accountable!!
