The conclusion...
The conclusion is the the problem was not him......it was me.....
I had entered into a
codependent dynamic.....
"Everybody's got to live their life. And got know's I've got to live mine" The Smiths
Everybody has their own life goals, their own tastes, their own motivations....everybody's on
their own life journey.....everybody's on different stages of growth....
Furthermore, if I am overly concerned about how I think somebody else should be living their life, I'm in
essence neglecting my own goals and my own well being. Well so far as being overly concerned with someone else life, how could I possibly be living fully my life in the present moment....
.....and what a tangled mental mess it becomes trying to change other people........"Lost in a maze of my own making, no way out that I can find"...The Stone Roses.............
Since then, this is the maxim I have tried to apply in all my dealings in real...
"Never give advice. The wise don't need it and fools won't heed it" Benjamin Franklin methinks.
Now, people like to get ****e off their chest and talk about issues...........in my opinion the majority of people jump in and give
unsolicited advice....
......when people are talking about stuff, and I'm talking about the outside world here, not when people post looking for advice on internet sites, usually they are not looking for advice....
....they are looking to be heard and to be understood.......yes they are probably entering into the child ego state...........
Stephen Covey states: seek first to understand and then to be understood..........whereas most people have that backwards....
So when they are let's say "getting stuff" off their chest, which everybody does, just randomly start going on about their job or something..........my initial reaction used to be...."jesus there just complaining" and then offer unsolicited advice........I think the hidden
message given when you offer unsolicited advice is the following: I don't believe you're intelligent enough to work out the problem yourself, so i'm not going to let you get it off your chest and work it out yourself, I'm going to butt in and give you the solution and then I will feel superior and you will feel belittled and instead of walking across a communication bridge together we will instead erect a small rift with my condescension and your resentment.....
I've been trying the following in my interactions and the result has been good...
Understand
Empathize
Elicit
Eliciting the answer from them instead of offering the solution to them on a plate allows them to work it out for themselves and frees me from getting tangled in their problems.
How questions are great.....
How do I get what I want? What is it that you want? How can you make that happen?
An example: a plate had started to go on about her job.........
In a nutshell, she's weighing up whether to move on because 1. She's not progressing and 2. an apparent b¡tch of a manager was suppose to be leaving and she would have got her position....is now not leaving and is apparently being a b¡tch...
She was making the manager the issue when really it was the question of progression. It would have been easy to jump in and tell her about keeping her frame or whatever. So the question they love....."how does that make you feel? (understanding) she's able to get it off her chest......."yeah, I don't blame you....." (empathy).........."but what will you do if you change jobs and you find yourself working with an even bigger b¡tch?" (eliciting) her: Well I'll just have to learn to not let her get to me and concentrate on doing my job.............Well what's stopping you applying that mentality to this b¡tch? (eliciting) it could be an opportunity to practice dealing with a difficult person..................her, looking at me : you're right.....
back to my brother......off course he was not coming to me with issues......talk about unsolicited codependent advice............everybody has different goals......and different interests.........so I've been a little more Dale Carnegie with him........
talk in the other persons interests.............don't get me wrong....I talk about my own life and my own interests....I'll also tell stories about women and if that rubs off in a positive way it rubs off in a positive way, if not oh well.....but in place of offering him unsolicited advice about how I believe he should live his life......I'll talk about
his interests........the result has been better communication......
It reminds me of something Bill Hicks said about smoking weed.....
When people offer their unsolicited advice saying "weed will kill your ambition"
his response "what if my ambition is to sit in my underwear and watch cartoons in
my living room, while smoking weed..."
