Moar poasts!
I'm sad. I'm sad because Suzannah is sad. It's interesting how one's happiness an be tied up in another. And then you want to control the other person and make them be happy. But it doesn't work like that. You can't "do" happiness for someone else, it's an internal phenomenon, and trying to force it on someone else is not only ineffective, but generally counter productive, because telling someone you don't like them being unhappy can make them more unhappy. Generally, hard feelings need to be acknowledged, accepted, heard, received, to then release on their own.
And though there are definite actions one can take, to improve one's well being, trying to make someone else take those actions is also often counter productive. Psychological reactance dictates that when you try and force someone to do something, even if they kind of wanted to do it to start with, they will then switch to not wanting to do it, as a reaction to that attempt to coerce, force, control.
This is one of the reasons I'm so interested in Motivational Interviewing, it's about how to talk to people about change, without making it harder for them to change. To in fact make it easier.
There's this concept they call "the righting reflex" where we try and tell people what they should do, or get them to do what we think they should do, that MI specifically says it's best to avoid. It's got a name because it's kind of a knee-jerk reaction most of us have, to other people struggling. Maybe that's what I'm dealing with.
But I know I dislike it when I'm on the receiving end of that righting reflex, so I want to do things a better way. Still figuring out what that looks like though.
I'll leave this post there, as there are plenty more to write to catch up on my backlog.
Oh, I suppose I should take the other side for a bit though, and say sometimes advice is great and useful. But usually best to ask if it's wanted, before giving it. And good to remember there's often a better approach.
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