My wife often remarks on how surprising it is that I can calmly and cooly keep my head during a disagreement when I come from a family where arguments are notoriously heated and even inflammatory. I’ve always felt that it was my regular exposure to people who had live together as a family but didn’t take the effort to express themselves effectively that trained me to be a neutral interpreter and mediator.
After reading this week’s chapter I now have the right language to explain the techniques that I’ve used and hopefully the knowledge to expand on them. Although, I can only imagine the looks of incredulity I would get from my family if I told them I was going to formally mediate one of their disputes.
In particular, I find it easy to understand the difference between what someone says and what they mean and translating it in a way that the other person can hear. In other words, I know how to effectively reframe things. Being able to restate a problem in new wording was also a helpful skill during the years I worked in tech support. One of the job skills that was taught was to restate the issue and gain agreement with the customer that this was the issue you would be working on together.
I feel like I could have written a post very similar to this one. My family is full of non-effective communicators, consisting of both aggressive and passive-aggressive personality types. I used to partake in these types of conflicts with my family but in the past few years, have managed to remove myself from the conflicts and view it more objectively. I try really hard not to get involved with the problems that are not my own and I try to stay level-headed and neutral when I find myself being dragged into unpleasant confrontations not only with family, but with others as well.
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