3 Ways to Make Peace With Stubborn People
~ by Tera Warner
It’s true. We’re not all angels. While I’m sure you’re a cool cat who manages to keep her cool when conversations get hot under the collar, you might like a few tips to handle those less Zen than yourself. 😉 Here are three tips to help you hone your communication ninja skills when in the presence of people who need to be right and challenge your patience.
1. Be There Comfortably and Face Them
Your ability to comfortably face experiences and people in life, is KEY to creating more happiness in your life. It doesn’t mean you should suppress yourself or hold your thoughts and ideas back to make others comfortable. But when you’re feeling those butterflies, or the red rising in your cheeks, before you burst, explode or express something you may regret later, just be there and comfortably face them.
For life and communication to get easier between people, you need to be able to take a few punches without dishing them back out again.
Sometimes when you finally stop enough to just observe (instead of argue, fight back or get frustrated) you start to see things you weren’t noticing before. You can find more things you admire or notice about the person and sometimes clarity and understanding will just pop in place right there!
2. Find Out What’s Right About Them
No matter what someone has done to you, no matter how crusty, crabby or cranky people get, you can ALWAYS find something about them that can be liked and admired. Find it, and put your attention on it and watch your relationships improve.
If you’re in an argument with someone who can’t or isn’t willing to see their responsibility for something and insists on being right, then your job is to find something, some tiny element of what they’re saying or doing or something about them that they can be right about and put attention on that.
People cling to their need to be right because they’re afraid of being wrong. We all are. It’s a totally normal response. But when people cling to it irrationally, it can start to take relationships down. When you encounter something like this, find something right about the other person and let them know.
Their fear will start to melt and conversation will get a lot easier.
3. Get Present To Your Environment
If you are in an argument with someone, it’s pretty safe to assume that one or both of you has spiritually “left the building.” You are likely caught in a cycle and being triggered by your past experiences, relationships and history–reacting to fear and emotion, rather than making sense of what’s actually happening.
It’s safe to assume that if you’re engaged in an irrational, hot-under-the-collar kind of conversation including antagonism, anger, yelling, etc. NO ONE is going to win, and the best thing you can do is
- going for a walk.
- getting some fresh air.
- noticing things in your environment and doing what you can to remain in the present moment.
It’s easy to want to run, bolt, avoid, sever ties and do all kinds of crazy things when pressure is high and buttons are being pushed. Stop! Breath! Do anything you’re able to do that will inject a bit of space into the equation.
If you’re –
- cool like the evening breeze…
- not reactive, explosive, easily insulted…
- able to stand there and just comfortably observe the situation for what it is…
- able to see them for where they are and understand their behavior…
…then your own need to be “right” will disappear.
And you’ll truly understand that people act the way they do because they’re suffering, confused, insecure and afraid. Which doesn’t justify it. I’m not saying this excuses their behavior or yours, for that matter. It doesn’t.
People who are struggling with a stubborn need to be right, aren’t feeling that alive, confident or empowered to begin with. Self-correction is a luxury that happy, confident people can afford. So no reason to butt heads and make things worse. Understand where they’re coming from and liberate yourself ifrom the need to fix, fight or get frustrated about it.
At the end of the day, [tweet_dis]your ability to love others, in spite of all the reasons you have not to do so, is the one thing that will set YOU FREE[/tweet_dis] — to live a life unbound by conflict and moving in the direction of your dreams.
So get busy making your life and stop butting heads with stubborn people. Enjoy the luxury of not needing to be right so you can be happy instead!
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