00:00 

Hey there. Welcome to Intentional Living with Tanya Hale. This is episode number 369, "Normal, Difficult, Human Interactions." Welcome to your place for finding greater happiness through intentional growth, because we don't just fall into the life of our dreams...we choose to create it. This is Tanya Hale and I'm your host for Intentional Living. 

00:23 

Well, hey there everyone. Welcome to the podcast today. So happy to have you here and I am so happy to get to share with you the content that I prepared for you this week. Before we jump in, next Talk with Tanya is going to be August 12th. It is always the second Tuesday of the month at two o'clock Eastern. That is 12 o'clock Mountain and if you can make it, we are just having some of the best discussions. We are doing some coaching. We're diving deep into topics. You can show up and ask questions about podcasts that we've talked about or ask me questions about my divorce, ask me questions about my second marriage. We can talk about situations that you're in. It's all free game. Fair game, is that better? It's all fair game. So if you can make it to that, go ahead and go to my website. You can go to the "group coaching" tab at the top and there's a place for you to sign up for this free webinar. It's just super easy to sign up and it's super easy to come. And a lot of times there are other people who want to talk. So if you just want to come listen and hear what's going on, that is great. These are not recorded, so they are not replayed anywhere. So these have to become too live. But if you have a specific question or something that you want to talk about, then that is great as well. 

01:45 

Okay, that being said, let's go ahead and jump into today's topic. We are talking about normal, difficult, human interactions. So, okay, let's be honest, human interactions can be so difficult? No, they're not always, because some relationships are easier than others. And I find that for me, that's usually because me and the other person have a tendency to like the same things and to have similar ideas of how the world should work. And yes, I did just use the should word. And that's because I recognize that how the world should work is completely subjective, depending on my own life experiences. There is no right or wrong in most instances. So whether I buy the name brand or the generic brand, it doesn't matter. Whether I want to spend money on a home remodel or on a new car, that doesn't matter either. There is no right or wrong. 

02:42 

But when I'm interacting with Sione, we are going to have different ideas about how we want things to be, how we think they should be. And that can lock us into a position that can make it difficult to see another point of view. It takes a very concerted effort to be able to expand our view beyond our own because our primitive brain holds so tightly to what we feel is the right thing. 

03:10 

So here's a simple example of something that I wanna share with you about different ideas. So you're gonna laugh, but here we go. I'm a firm believer that a bed should be made and it should have some decorative pillows in addition to the ones that we lay our heads on at night that we sleep with. Sione would probably prefer the decorative pillows went away since they are just extra work to take off the bed at night and to put back on in the morning when the bed is made. So I value being able to walk into our bedroom and feel that things look put together and that they look pretty. And he values efficiency and really just cares that the bed is comfortable. Why do we value these different things? Well, part of it's probably genetic in how all that works, but a lot of it is also the nurture part. It's because of the way that we were raised to view the world. Our experiences have created our likes and our dislikes, our preferences and our priorities. 

04:14 

Why do I like the pillows? Okay, I'm sure part of it goes back to the age old idea that some of my self-esteem as a woman comes from my home and how it looks and how it runs. Now, I don't think I have a ton of my self-esteem still based on my home, but maybe the years of tying into those ideas of my worth have actually affected my preferences to how I like my home to look. I think as well that when I see my bed looking what I consider as being nice and put together, that I feel put  together as well. I feel that I'm creating a home that feels comfortable and looks nice and reminds me that I'm doing great job showing up the way that I want to, taking care of the home and the possessions that I've been given. And I feel respect for myself in doing that. 

05:06 

So if all that's true, then why does Sione not love the pillows? I mean, he likes them. He agrees that they look nice, and he knows that I like them. So he lovingly puts them on the bed when he makes it, but he would be just as happy not having them on the bed. He sees them as more of an annoyance, just one more thing to do when he already has a super long list of responsibilities in his life. So who's right here? Me liking the pillows or Sione not necessarily liking the pillows? Well, neither of us is right, and neither of us is wrong. We just get to have our preferences, and these don't make either one of us better or worse than the other. There is nothing morally superior to having a bed with a few throw pillows or having a bed without. They're just pillows. Now, would I sleep just as cozy if I didn't make the bed with the extra pillows? Of course, they're not necessary by any means. And my life would be just as happy and fulfilling if we didn't have them. Because let's be honest, I have other things that create my feeling of self-respect and other things that tap into my I've got my life together vibe, but I still just like them. I think they look pretty, okay? 

06:22 

But at some level, Sione and I had to figure this out after we got married. In this particular situation, Sione was super amenable to putting pillows on the bed. It's not hard. It really doesn't take much effort and he knows I like it. So he's willing to do it and I appreciate it. And if he decided that he hated the pillows that much, I could have been and still would be just as amenable to not having them on. But don't let him know that, right? He might change his mind. Okay, but here's the deal. There are other things. I know that that's a simple kind of a silly example, but there are other things in our relationship that matter more to him and that I have made adjustments because I know they're important to him and I love him. And I want his life to be easier because I'm in it. 

07:13 

And in a marriage relationship, there has to be a lot of discussion and communication around these types of things. Whether you're a newer marriage like us or whether you've been married for decades. When we stop communicating about the small stuff, relationships get tricky fast. This is why I often talk about the "no back burner issue" concept. Everything that bumps up against you gets talked about. This doesn't mean you're always gonna get your way. It doesn't mean that everything has to be a big, huge compromise or a collaborative discussion, but we have to have discussions about all the things. 

07:52 

Presumably this should be easier with someone that you're married to if you've been keeping things clean and updated. But if you haven't, and the waters have gotten really muddy, it can be harder with the person you're married to. But they are always going to come up, these backburner issues, this bumping up against each other because none of us are static. None of us is the same person that we were even a week ago, let alone 25 years ago. We change and we evolve. And often in very different ways than our spouse. We have daily experiences that are different. 

08:30 

For example, a lot of days I never leave our home because I work just down the hall from our bedroom, just up the stairs from the kitchen. Sione works at a few different medical facilities. So he leaves home by about 7am most mornings. He's gone working with a lot of people. He's interacting with colleagues. He's learning and performing medical procedures all day. And he gets home, I don't know, five o'clock at night. Around ish, right? I'm working with clients on relationships and life struggles creating content for this podcast or my weekend win or my blog or an upcoming class. I'm listening to podcasts. I'm reading books. And he's involved with patients and patient care and doing surgeries and all of that kind of stuff, delivering babies if he's on call. 

09:16 

Though our lives are intricately Intertwined they're also very different and the concepts and ideas we are both exposed to during the day change the way that we see the world, the way that we experience the world. And when we take time on a regular basis to connect and discuss the views that we're encountering and our honest thoughts about them, we stay aware of the small shifts in each other. Some of the things our spouse encounters we may be a hundred percent on board with and other things we may not be and we get to learn how to create a safe space for this other person that we are in the relationship circle with. We get to give them a safe space to grow and process ideas and change ideas and beliefs, even when they step into a place of developing what what might be a different political or religious or moral perspective. It's not  their job to stay where they were or to keep it hidden from us. If we truly want deep intimacy, it is our job to create a safe space for them to discover their thoughts and feelings and feel safe enough to be honest and share them with us. 

10:31 

If it makes us uncomfortable, that is our work to do. We don't ask them to change who they are or withhold sharing information with us in order to manage our own discomfort. When we are in the relationship circle with someone it is our job to make it safe for them to explore and discover new aspects of who they are and how they want to grow and develop and if we are struggling with their changes, that struggle is ours to manage. Our discomfort with their change is ours to manage. Now that's not to say that the other person might choose a path or a lifestyle that is a non-negotiable for us. They might and that's okay, but the process here is giving them a safe space to choose that, to be honest about what they're choosing and to grow into who they want to grow into. We can absolutely allow them to make those choices and also be honest that those aren't choices we are okay with, but we're not trying to control their choices. We're just setting boundaries and consequences if they move in ways that we don't want in our lives and in our relationship. 

11:47 

But all of this change, this growth, these differences in our relationships are all part of the normal, difficult human actions, interactions that life offers us. We won't ever be able to find a whole tribe of people with whom we have everything in common and with whom we have all the same ideas and beliefs. That just won't happen. Our experiences and perspectives as people are all just too different. But learning to offer others grace, learning to assume best intent, these are such valuable skills in living alongside others who don't see the world the same way we do. 

12:26 

So many of us have adult children who have different beliefs than us politically, spiritually, and maybe even morally. They may be living different lives than how we raise them to live in our home. Or maybe we're the ones who have changed our ideas about the world. Either way, these are all normal, difficult human interactions. We get to learn how to create a safe 

space for these people in our lives, for people that we love desperately. And it can also be difficult to figure out how to be in relationship with them when so many of the common, convenient relationship attributes have shifted. Because they will. I think it's fascinating to look at me and my seven siblings. We were all raised by the same people, but also kind of different people as the parents I had changed a lot by the time the youngest sibling was born 16 years after me. 

13:22 

And I was the third child, right? But living in the same home when we were younger, we seemed to have more similarities than we do now, 30 to 40 years later. We've all grown into adulthood. We've had our own experiences with work and education and places we've lived and people we've interacted with. We've married different people who come from their own unique family culture with their own belief systems, some of which are different than the ones that we grew up with, and all of this impacts and shifts how we each see the world. 

13:53 

I've noticed in my extended family situation that we have grown into very different people, even though we were raised fairly similarly during those first 18 years of our lives. We have at this stage different political views, different religious views, different ideas about parenting and work and education. Some of us are liberal, and some of us are conservative. Some of us are hardcore living the gospel by the book, and others of us are taking a more spirit of the law approach. And we still get together for reunions, and we chat, and we play games, and sometimes there is some bumping going on. 

14:31 

At our last reunion, just this last May, some of us ended up having a great discussion about the political climate in the United States and our thoughts about the direction it's going and what we believe about hot topic issues like abortion and healthcare and immigration, we were all over the place. It didn't ever get heated, but there were some strong opinions, mine being one of them, right? We didn't fight, we all sought to create a safe space for the different viewpoints. And to be honest, this is one of the few times that my family has done this. Generally, we keep things pretty surface and shallow, so there isn't any discomfort for anyone. 

15:09 

But it was so out of character for my family that the next meal we had that there was a prayer was given by one of the younger kids and he prayed that we would all just get along, which cracked me up because we weren't fighting. We were just having a discussion with different ideas. But this child kind of interpreted it as us not getting along. And because we  were getting along, we're just humans who have different ideas and we were sharing them. These are the normal, difficult human interactions that we all get to grapple with. And it's not about getting all the people to show up the way that we want them to. Controlling the people will never be what this life is all about. 

15:54 

In fact, the more I do this work, the more I come to my own understanding that agency is such a part of our Heavenly Parents' plan. And it's my responsibility to use my agency in a way that feels right and authentic to me and to create a safe space for others to use their agency in a way that feels right and authentic to them. And those may be different things. Again, we see and experience the world so differently that what may be right for me and feel in alignment for me may not feel right and in alignment for somebody else, even someone who I am close to, someone I love a lot and want to have a great relationship with. Maybe my children, maybe my spouse, maybe my siblings, maybe some dear friends. 

16:41 

The challenge then becomes, how do I allow for all of the normal differences, for the diverse beliefs and understandings, for the dissimilar viewpoints of life, and continue to treat this person with the respect that I want to show them? 

17:00 

How do I create tolerance for the differences without stepping into a one-up position? How do I show up as an equal? Because this is to me what it means to honor other people's agency. To accept that they see the world differently and truly believe that it's not only okay, but it's how it all works and it's what's required for me to grow into my next best version. 

17:26 

When I taught middle school, after having a substitute, I inevitably needed to have a discussion with several of my classes about respect. When they defended their poor behaviors, my understanding of poor behaviors, with the argument that the sub didn't deserve our respect, based on how the substitute had shown up and treated them, I always sought to remind them that we don't treat people with respect because they deserve it. 

17:53 

We treat them with respect because that is the person that we choose to be. We choose to be a respectful person, a person who treats others with kindness. So when people show up differently than us in any way, how do we honor their agency to view and approach the world in the way that they do, while also standing solid in our differing view? If we just white knuckle it and force ourselves to keep our mouths shut and not say anything, we will be seething inside. It will grow and the pressure will get worse. And I promise that it will ooze out of you in some way. It may not come out in words, but it will show up in your eyes, in your eyebrows, the tone of your voice, your other facial expressions or other body language. It will show up. 

18:48 

If we really want to respond to human differences with compassion, we can't start in the action line, meaning we can't just change our actions or our behaviors. We have to start in the thought line. So we can't just not say anything because it does show up in other ways. We have to start with our thoughts. We have to change the way that we think about other people having different thoughts and beliefs than us. Rather than thinking that they are wrong or ridiculous or stupid for their point of view, we get to learn to have more compassionate and kind thoughts, thoughts that will create a feeling of compassion, love. 

19:32 

I know that I grew up feeling really defensive every time someone would have a different idea than me because I made it mean that they thought that I was stupid and not smart enough. I made it mean something about my own worth. But people having different ideas doesn't have anything to do with them thinking anything about me. This is what's fascinating. Their different ideas come from them just being a human and having their own life experiences and making sense of them the way that they do. It's not like they're thinking about me and saying, "I'm going to say a different opinion just to get hurt angry," right? They just are living from their own life experiences. And when I can learn to really understand and believe that a different idea is just that, a different idea. 

20:21 

And that it is not meant to say anything about me or about my worth, it can be easier to feel something besides defensiveness or attacked or insecure. What if instead I sought to feel intrigued by their different opinion? That feeling would create genuine curiosity in me and I would ask questions to really understand their point of view. So what thoughts would I need to be thinking in order to create the feeling of intrigued? 

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20:50 

Here's some examples: "They're smart. I wonder how they came to that conclusion. I don't get that idea at all. I wonder what I'm missing. What don't I understand about their thinking that leads them to that conclusion?" Something along those lines, right? If I can look at their point of view and go, "huh, I wonder, I wonder what makes them believe that. What are the facts that they believe that they see?" When we can stop thinking in terms of right and wrong, in thoughts of one up and one down, and rather home in on thoughts of equality in seeking to understand other people's viewpoints and ideas, then everything changes in our interactions when things could have the potential to be difficult and uncomfortable. 

21:42 

But when I feel insecure in my thoughts, unless others agree with me, when I feel attacked by a different point of view, when I feel uncomfortable with conflict, conflict only meaning that somebody has a different idea than me, then I will have a hard time creating space for anything different than my point of view. The more confident I feel in me, the stronger my sense of self, the more capacity I have in my life to look at and seek to understand different ideas. Because not only do I understand that they have nothing to do with me or my intelligence or my worth, but if there is valuable information that I'm missing in establishing my views, I want to be open to it. 

22:28 

It's okay if I find more information that helps me to unpack my beliefs. In fact, it's more than okay. It's what I want for my life. I'm not worried about who is right. I'm more concerned with finding the best information to help me feel more in alignment with my values. In essence, finding what is right for me rather than being concerned about who is right. What if some of my information isn't in alignment and I don't recognize it? When I can really embrace and understand that humans are humans, that we are all different and we all see the world differently, then of course we will have ideas and beliefs that bump into each other. Of course we will want different things and have different priorities. that doesn't make me one-down or one-up to the other person. It just makes me a person who has had different experiences and thus views the world differently. There is nothing to feel insecure or shameful about. 

23:33 

There's also nothing to feel superior or prideful about. Interesting that the way you are currently viewing and believing in the world, it may be completely different in three years from now, based on the experiences that you're going to have. I remember thinking just a handful of years before my divorce that people who were choosing divorce were just not committed enough because if I could make my difficult marriage work, anyone could make it work. I know super, super judge 

24:04 

y thought, but that's kind of where I was. Interesting that then about five years later how my life and my beliefs about divorce changed and I got divorced. And in the last three years of my marriage to Sione, I've experienced a lot of changes in my beliefs about things that I felt fairly solid on before. I'm interacting more with people who have different views here and I'm learning about those views. I'm seeing where my previous views didn't really align with my values and I found myself shifting in many ways. 

24:41 

But I'm shifting in ways that actually feel more in alignment with who I am and who I really want to be with how I really want to be. Learning to let go of my need to be right. Addressing my insecurities about being wrong have allowed me to be more genuine, more curious, and more available to being more in alignment with my values. 

25:05 

In fact, it's so easy to use the terms "right" and "wrong," but maybe I wasn't wrong before in my thoughts, even though I've shifted now. Maybe I was in complete alignment with the knowledge that I had at the time. And, now that I have increased my knowledge base and awareness, I can make small shifts to things so that I feel more aligned with who I am and how I really want to be. We as humans will always bump up against other humans, whether it be in ideas like we've talked a lot about today, or whether it's viewpoints about the best way to drive, or whether to put shopping carts in the stall, or what language or clothing is appropriate in certain situations. 

25:49 

We will never all see the world the same. And what if that's okay? What if it's actually better than okay and it's just how our heavenly parents set up the plan of salvation so that we can grow and progress? What if being able to create a safe space Powered by Notta.ai

for others by addressing my own insecurities and fears is the exact process of growth and progress that the plan of salvation is about? What if this is the way that we become more Christ-like and compassionate? What if this is how I learn to have grace like Christ has? All of these difficult human interactions, they are perfectly normal and they're even necessary for our growth and our progress. And understanding this and moving into this is one of the most beautiful parts about growing up into middle age. And I love growing up, don't you? 

27:02 

Okay, and that's going to do it for me today. If you feel like coaching might be a great option for you, I offer a free coaching and consult about coaching. And it's 90 minutes long, which I actually really, really love being able to offer that much time to you as an introductory call. We get to do some really great coaching about a tough situation that you're in. And then we talk about what coaching might look like and you can decide if it's going to be a good fit for you. But you can access that on my website, tanyahale.com. Just go to the "free consultation" tab at the top and click on that and you will have access to my calendar and you can get on my calendar and find a time that works for you. 

27:47 

And just a reminder as well, if you look in the show notes, you will be able to find other podcasts that talk about this same topic. So if this was intriguing to you, if you want to dig a little bit deeper, get a little bit wider in your understanding, go down to the show notes and find those podcasts, look them up and listen to them. And hopefully you'll find some great stuff to help you continue your journey into becoming a better version of who you really want to be. Okay my friends, that's gonna do it. I hope you have a really, really fabulous week and I will see you next time. 

28:23 

Bye! Thank you so much for joining me today. If you would love to receive some weekend motivation, be sure to sign up for my free "weekend win" Friday email: a short and quick message to help you have a better weekend and position yourself for a more productive week. Go to tanyaHhale.com to sign up and learn more about life coaching and how it can help you get to your best self ever. See ya!