Own your stuff

Owning your problems, opinions, wants and needs and letting others own theirs is a basic foundation principle for successful communication. It’s not only important when you’re communicating with others, it’s also important when you’re communicating with yourself.
Anger and discomfort can grow when we ruminate about how bad someone else made us feel. First of all: no one can MAKE you feel anything. They may do something and you have a certain emotional response, but they didn’t make you feel it.

Your emotional response to situations arises from your unique makeup of biology and personal history, including experiences ranging from early life to a few minutes ago. Own it—it’s yours.

A couple of things happen when you own your stuff. Now you can look at your emotional responses with a curiosity about how you came to have that particular response to the particular situation that stimulated it. And it effects your motivations for expressing your side of things and expectations of how others will respond. From this position, the purpose in expressing yourself isn’t to make someone else change. It’s to express how something impacts you.

It may be that expressing yourself is enough in the particular situation. There may be relief in “getting it off your chest” or “having your say.” It may turn out that the person you’re talking to decides to make adjustments because of hearing your side of things. You may even decide that you want to make changes yourself after getting clarity about the situation.

You increase your chances of actually being listened to greatly when you communicate from a position of owning your stuff.

© Ann Silvers, MA, LMHC ann@annsilvers.biz  Silverstream Unlimited, PLLC
206-660-9840 http://www.annsilvers.biz/  silverstreamunlimited.com