Hi Sad Girl: What would you say to a client who came to you with the same problem? It will happen. Hopefully you will say nothing and just "get" their thoughts as considerations and encourage them to talk. However, I'm a communication-skills coach and my ego is such that I think I might be able to facilitate you and others through this phase a bit quicker.
There are two main issues:
The first one is that you are at effect of your family and friends. This is typical, you're supposed to be going through this "at effect" phase. Just hang on. The ride will soon be over. You have yet to develop a strong sense of self and so you question and invalidate your own experience. I say "hang on" meaning, keep your mouth shut, which I know you can't consistently do yet. It will take longer to complete your experience of invalidation if you allow yourself to get suckered into arguments. Choose to experience the experience of invalidation rather than resist it (find the truth in it), and you will come out the other end empowered. Put another way, intend for them to be saying what they say.
For example: There is a way to communicate other than how you have been, it's referred to as the intentional communication model. Actually it's a place to come from, to communicate from. You've been coming from victim. Instead of resisting them pooh-poohing your plans and advice-activity create that you are intending for them to say what they say. This is a powerful game to play. Walk into the kitchen and say (or non-verbally communicate), "OK naysayers, you're awful quiet today. Come on, gimme your best shot. Invalidate me with all you got." Or, "Tell me what you'd like to change about me."
And then remain silent, no matter what you hear. Why? Because there is some truth in it. The criticism you can't be with, can't own, you'll be at effect of for life. With this intentional communication model you are tapping into the wisdom of other's. Find the truth in what you are causing them to say. Remember, they have no choice; they are addicted to putting others down. Have compassion. I say, "be silent" because silence will produce a different result. It will cause them to see that their communications had an effect, which is what this whole thing is about. They have a need to hurt you. Put another way, the look on your face when you've been invalidated and hurt is a truth they can recognize; it's far different than the look on your face when you're arguing. Arguing masks (denies) your experience. It doesn't communicate the truth. The truth is it hurts to be invalidated. They don't experience being gotten so they have to keep saying it. Something about how you have been communicating with others, your communication model, drives them to put you down. I suspect it's how you handle your brilliance, it can come across as condescending arrogance.
Silence can, when communicated with intention, have an added possible positive effect; it can cause them to experience their integrity, of not feeling good about their abusive communication, in which case they might say, "I get that that didn't feel good." This is service at it's best.
The second issue: We don't know if you have merely found a clever way to fight with your mother. Again, another typical phase you are supposed to go through. What we do know is that you are already stuck in the adversarial communication model. That's to be expected. Ninety-nine percent of the population is stuck in adversary, in abusing and being abused. How do we know that you are addicted to abuse? Because, whether you know it or not, you are causing it. You are unconsciously intending it. It's all part of your master plan. An actualized person would know that your family and friends need counseling and merely "get" their communications. If they said the ceiling was the floor, or some other obvious lie, you would know they need a reality-check if not therapy. You would not be questioning your experience of what you know to be so about floors and ceilings. So here they are saying obvious lies and you do something with the lies. You react. You argue. If only in your mind, you try to invalidate their lies, lies you ostensibly know come from unconsciousness and ignorance.
Many an adult is stuck in a profession they are ill suited for or are not happy with because they are still resisting some communication their parent tried to deliver earlier. [I'll show you. You are wrong. I can do it. I will do it.] One gives up choice when they act against another.
If another's words can thwart, dissuade, or upset you then you might consider another profession. Find someone, one person, with whom you can share your experience and thoughts about what comes at you (more accurately, what you cause others to say and do to you). In this way you'll not get stuck dramatizing them for life. One of the bennies of the mental health profession is that you are required to clear out, complete, all these kinds of incompletes during training, and for life thereafter.
The President's Analyst is a hilarious movie that addresses this subject. It takes hundreds of hours of communication exercises for any adult to complete life's incompletes, their childhood invalidations; few learn how to communicate from their experience during childhood. Great letter, thank you, —Kerry
PS: My advice is to major in speech-communication and minor in psychology and do your M.A. in psychology, and, assist in as many communication-skills workshops as possible. Take the fundamental communication course offered by Scientology (Dianetics) and do Landmark Education's Forum. Stay current with Werner Erhard's projects/interests (in my experience a master of communication). Also, read everything on
Community Communications' especially
The Clearing Process, the
Teen Forum and the
Big Island Forum —these all offer perspectives that are not commonly found.
Note: It's not that any of these educational experiences themselves result in communication mastery, but they do give you an excellent foundation for recognizing the difference between talking and communicating and of knowing (an enhanced ability to predict outcomes). Also, such a curriculum supports the purpose of serving.
Last edited 3/2/18
