Grandinite Says: Work It Out, Or GTFO

Feedback is a method of relating to one another. If you accidentally dropped a bowling ball on my toe, and I failed to indicate my displeasure with a polite “Fah Q”, you might not ever learn how your ball-droppin’ ways affect me.

Without that feedback, you would most likely drop more balls on my toes, and if I again betrayed my pain and kept silent, it would probably lead to anger or resentment, and we’d grow apart.

You can’t sweep crap under the rug for too long. Eventually you’ll just end up with a carpet-covered pile of shite, and nobody wants to live in a living room that has a giant steamer stinkin’ up the place.

So here’s the point of the matter. If someone does something by accident that displeases you, hurts you or breaches your moral code, they are not going to realize you’ve been harmed unless you give them feedback. If you fail to speak up about it, you’re tolerating their behaviour and allowing yourself more pain than you need to.

Picture yourself giving a stick to a little kid. If little Johnny What’s-His-Name starts poking out your eyeballs and beating in your face with it, and you’re all “Booshie Booshie Boo!” while he’s doing it, but on the inside you’re wanting to punch his lights out, you’re giving that kid the wrong feedback. He’ll associate stick beatings with parental gushing and will likely go on to harm others because he’s been misled as to how his actions hurt them.

If he knows that beating people with sticks correlates with angry parents, a curt talk and some alone time in the corner with a dunce cap and no dinner, then he’s at least learning which actions are hurting others.

We’re not all perfect, and sometimes we don’t know better. I think it’s an ongoing process in life. We don’t always understand how we are perceived by others. This comes from a false assumption that assumes others see us as we see ourselves, or worse yet, how we wish they saw us. (To learn this, listen to some audio recordings of yourself - you sound different in your head than you do in speakers). We all want to see others for who they are without facades, and we want others to love and accept who we are. Warts and all.

So whenever we relate to one another through this process of feedback, we will see something in another that makes us twinge. At first we let it slide because it hasn’t affected us yet, or perhaps because we see ourselves as forgiving people.

Well, another person can’t experience your forgiveness unless you’ve explained to them just how, and in what way they have harmed you. That takes some strength and self esteem to do. Your pain is real, at least to you. Each of us has our own bag of emotional hammers, and we’re all different. It’s tough to know how your actions affect others.

I’ve learned about this process in the past week. It goes like this.

1. Person harms you (usually unintentionally)

Possible responses:

Of these three, only step B will lead to the ultimate goal of reconciliation because it involves getting another to see something through your eyes.

It’s entirely possible that you’re interpreting the other person through a lens tarnished by past pains. But you won’t know for sure unless you both communicate. If they’re awesome, they’ll be sensitive to it and will want to help you work through it. If they’re seriously non-awesome, they’ll ignore it or dismiss it outright.

In the event of “wrongdoing” between two people, the one who has wronged you is not the only one who ought to try to engage in some empathy. They may have done it without realizing why or how they did it. But don’t let that enable you to rationalize away your pain. Sure, a person might say things that sound hurtful because that’s how they grew up. You can use that as an excuse to let it slide, but that’s wrong because it’s an avoidance mechanism. Bringing it up will be difficult, but it’s for the best.

Here’s how the Bible says we should deal with conflict in relationships, and I like it.

A Brother Who Sins Against You

Step 1: Tell the other how you have been harmed. And try to work it out between the two of you. Complaining to others about them might give you some insights into the problem, but it won’t bring you back into intimacy with the person you really want to deal with. How they respond to your pain lets you know what kind of a person they are. If they dismiss you outright, then they are probably self-centered. If they change the subject, they prefer to avoid problems. If they tackle it head on and want to know how they have hurt you, you’ve got a true friend.

Step 2: If that person doesn’t listen, talk to others and ask them if they see what you see. Odds are, they will. I remember a friend of a friend who was raped by her Dad at a very young age. When she piped up, others came forward to confirm his ways, as he had raped nine other girls at his school. When other people come forward with you, you all share a common experience with the one who is doing bad in your midst, and a shared experience constitutes a common truth. Hopefully the person will weigh the costs of their relationships with the benefits (conscious or unconscious, admitted or denied) of doing these things to people, and will change their actions.

Step 3. If a person who is doing wrong will not listen to the pain and hardship they are causing, they can GTFO.

(Apologies to all who are offended by that pic. I just find it funny, because Jesus gets angry, too).