The Mindful Migraine

As the mother of two teenage daughters, I feel like I am perpetually putting my foot in my mouth and messing things up. I love my children without measure and would never mean to hurt them… and yet… even I can say things that are less than all-loving.

My eldest daughter is very close to moving off her Australian drivers’ “Learner License” (explained here). The other day, she pulled up in our driveway, and I’ll be frank, her reverse park was crooked-as. If she’d parked that way at the mall she would have left a long gauge in the neighbor’s car. Silly me, as I came out to greet her, I said, “oops – that’s a bit lopsided”. Well. That didn’t go down well. And rightly so, I guess. No one likes to have their errors pointed out to them. Worse, what I didn’t realize was that the lesson with my husband had been a difficult one and she had struggled to complete some practice runs at parallel parking (which is hard even for the best of us… ahem… me).

My casual comment, intended as a… I don’t know… a light-hearted aside (?), was painful to her.

I mucked up again a few days later with the other daughter. I was kissing her goodbye at the front door as she was headed off to school. I noticed that the makeup under her chin was a bit blotchy. Silly me, I said so. All she could do was shrug. The school bus was coming – there was no time to fix her makeup. My feedback was completely unhelpful and potentially planted a massive seed of self-doubt in her soul. Worse, after she had gone, I remembered that last week some girls had mocked her for her choice of long pants on the sports day, and she was now super self-conscious about her appearance.

My casual comment, intended as a… I don’t know… a learning moment (?), was not helpful to her, and potentially very painful.

SIGH.

For a short period of time, I fell down the “woe-is-me-I-get-the-bad-mother-of-the-year-award” thinking trap. Then I reminded myself that we all make mistakes, and we need to show compassion to ourselves when we “fail”. I should make my casual (yet inadvertently cruel) asides a learning moment and try to do better.

I recently heard a saying “you can’t prepare the road for the child, you have to prepare the child for the road” – the idea is, life is tricky and fraught with challenges, including teasing and criticism and bad news, and trying to sweep it all away for your loved ones might feel like you’re doing them a favor, and gracing them a gentle passage through life filled with soft landings. But real life is not like that. In theory, you’re better off gifting them a “bouncy bum”, reminding them that life is messy and they’re going to fall over, and need to get back up again – you need to teach them resilience.

I get that – BUT – I think learning how to be a more compassionate communicator is a skill we could all use more of.

There’s more than enough evidence on TV at the moment that reveals how easy it is to belittle people, talk down to them, over them, even hound them into some sort of silent submission. Sometimes, the culprit then shrugs and says, “oh it was just a bit of fun… a light-hearted aside… a learning moment…”

I don’t want to be that person.

I want to do better.

So, after reading a dozen websites, there seems to be a lot of repeated ideas – most of which are common sense (but then we seem to be missing a bit of that these days!). As such, what follows is a summary of the advice I found out about compassionate communication.

First – the easiest way to get your head around this subject is to start with what is NOT compassionate communication:

• name calling or insults
• using a sarcastic or mocking tone
• putting someone down, or talking down to them
• deflecting, redirecting or interupting the conversation
• criticising or demeaning their expreseed opinion
• constantly correcting others as they speak
• using the interaction as an interrogation
• introducing blame or shame into the situation

Now that all that yuk is out of the way, here’s some tips on how to be a better, more compassionate communicator:

• let the other person lead the conversation
• listen attentively
• pay attention to non-verbal cues (their body language & facial expressions)
• treat them as your equal
• prioritize learning about their needs / interests
• be open-minded and suspend your judgement
• try to put yourself in their shoes
• maybe even challenge your preconceptions
• foster respect for the person and their outlook
• look for common ground
• but also allow the conversation to run where it will freely
• practice patience and understanding
• respect boundaries
• pause before you speak
• ask yourself is your comment kind / necessary / helpful
• seek opportunities to be vocally empathetic
• make yourself emotionally available
• validate their opinions where possible
• be honest and authentic in your replies
• occasionally* repeat or paraphrase what they are saying
• create a sense of safety and trust around the conversation if possible
• use this time as a form of mindfulness – be truly present in the moment

[ * I added the word “occasionally” to the given advice, as I think you should use the repeat-paraphrase approach sparingly. I have seen this method go horribly wrong. Applied too regularly it feels very un-authentic, even robotic, and instead of being a comfort to the other person it feels almost insulting… “are we having a conversation person to person on equal ground or are you inserting yourself into this situation as if you were my therapist?”]

[In a similar way, we were taught at one of my retail jobs to compliment shoppers on their hair, clothes or jewelry to make them feel good. “Oh, I love your necklace” was meant to place the person at the checkout at ease, improve their customer experience, and potentially encourage them to recommend us to other shoppers. There IS a real buzz that comes from being complimented, even by a stranger… but again… chose your moment wisely. Used too often or in the wrong situation, the gushy-admiration for your old t-shirt can seem gimmicky or even downright stalker-creepy. Worse still, that moment when you walk past another cashier and hear them repeat the exact same compliment to another shopper! Doh!]

Interestingly, several sites set compassionate communication up as a dualistic opposite of violent communication. One is a version of restorative, shared power, whilst the other is about achieving retribution or dominance. One leans into abundancy thinking, the other maintains a scarcity outlook. One opens up opportunities for choice and collaboration, the other slams the door (mind your toes!). One form of communication is all about connection, the other reinforces separation. One encourages everyone to go away FEELING heard, the other only cares about one person BEING heard.

What was also an important message I took away from my research, was that compassionate communication does not mean you forgo your own needs and wishes. Not being a bully-big-mouth doesn’t mean you suddenly become a door mat which the other person gets to wipe their feet on. It should be a win-win situation. Ideally, the other person is ALSO employing compassionate communication, so you will feel as validated as they do.

I’m going to suggest that such an ideal is a moving target.

When a friend or family member comes to you in distress – your role is to listen – your own needs and wishes might just have to take a back seat for a moment. That said, (and this is where it gets a bit tricky from personal experience), you still have a right to maintain your boundaries and protect your own mental health. Them pouring all their toxic angst out on you, might help them, but accidentally burden you… at some point I think it’s OK to get out from underneath the drama if you can.

As someone who lives with chorinc pain, I am well aware that not everyone wants to listen to my list of woes. But I also know that it can be difficult to listen to other people list out their woes, especially if they feel small in comparison to mine, or the events that are taking place in the wider world. I have to constantly remind myself, “if this is the worst thing that is happening in their life at the moment – then they have a right to be sad about it”. (But then sometimes, I also have the John Denver song I’ve written about before (here) playing on loop in my mind as he sings “I’m so sorry for myself” over and over.)

Remember – everyone deserves to be heard and treated with respect – including you.

So, then… compassionate communication with my daughters… I think I tick most of the boxes, most of the time. I am, however, going to practice a couple of key points more often: “pause before you speak, and ask yourself is your comment necessary / helpful”.

Life is about living AND learning.

Here’s to more all round, and hopefully, some politer people on TV!

Take care taking care, Linda x