May 16, 2024 • 40 mins
Stop avoiding and start confronting, easier said then done! Agreed! Tune in and learn how to approach issues in your relationship in a healthy constructive manner rather then maladaptive methods which only create more problems then solutions.
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Relationships, whether romantic platonic familia,are complicated and can be downright messy,
bringing out the best and worst inall of us. Here's an opportunity for
you to learn effective, concrete strategiesto help you build healthy relationships from the
inside out. It's on Bleep YourLife and Relationships with host Anita Aslak,
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psychotherapist of over twenty five years.Hey, guys, welcome to another episode
of Unbleep Your Life and Relationships.I'm your host, Anita Astley. I'm
a licensed therapist, individual couples andfamily therapists, and I'm also a published
author of the book Unbleep Your Lifeand Relationships. I am always here to
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help you, guys, fix someof those things that are not so working
well in your relationships also within yourself. You know, Greg is here in
studio with me. Always pleasant tohave him here. He adds a male
perspective to some of the stuff wetalk about. We're going further. Hey,
I'm fine, Happy Mother's Day.Thank you. Yes, I was
going to say that it's Mother's Daytoday, and I know the day has
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gone by. It's eight o'clock.It's when this show airs. I just
want to say Mother's Day can bea great day for some people but also
a very difficult day for others.But I do want to say thank you
to my kids, William and Sarah. They always treat me like a queen,
and I think all mothers should betreated like a queen. But that's
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difficult. If you're having a conflictwith your mom, there's something going on
in the midst of that. Andthat's what we're going to talk about today.
Stop avoiding and start I'm bleeping someof that stuff and how we do
it. But I just want tosay this today because it's Mother's Day.
There's still a couple of hours leftin this day. If you haven't sent
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anything to your mom, like flowersor a text or a call. I
always think the phone call is thebest thing to do, but I know
that can be difficult if you're inthe midst of a conflict. What I
will say to you if you're oneof these people, put that conflict aside
for today. Text or call callcan be harder. And that's too hard
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for you. Text her, sendher a message to say Mom, And
if you don't have the words,I'm going to give you the words.
Because I know people will. SoI don't know what to say, Anita,
because we're in the middle of thisfight, and I don't want her
to think I forgem over it.You know, it's not that you're over
it or it's resolved, or thatI'm saying avoid it. What I'm telling
you to do is put it onyour emotional bookshelf and internalize this concept.
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Emotional bookshelf. We all have one, we and if you don't, I'm
going to give it to you today. Visualize a bookshelf. We all know
what it looks like. And whenyou have these kinds we have issues in
your life, which we all do. And there's a holiday, put it
there. Put it there. It'llbe there tomorrow to work on. But
on those days like Christmas, Thanksgiving, but Mother's Day, put it on
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there. Text to call your motherbecause those issues will still be there,
but your mom may not. Yeah, that's true. And I'm in that
situation right now because my mom passedby three years ago, and we had
a rough time in the last coupleof years of her life because she's very
liberal, very conservative, yeah,and we're both stubborn. Yeah, so
we had a lot of problems inthe last couple of years, and I
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wish I would have spent more time. I did call on Mother's Day and
all those but I always felt attentionthere. Yeah, but you can feel
the tension and say, okay tensionand talk to and say I'm going to
put you aside for today. I'mgoing to appreciate what I have today.
It's a holiday, and people whopooh the holiday say, well, why
do I need this holiday to celebratemy brother, my Mother's Day or my
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sibling or whatever Valentine's when we're talkingabout those kinds of things, But do
you do that? Do you takethat time out to celebrate your mom,
even if if you're not having aconflict, but you don't believe in this
hallmark holiday. I bet you don't. These holidays force us to put something
on the calendar, or at leastmake us think about our mom or our
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partner, whatever it is that dayis that we're trying to celebrate, and
when there's tension, put it asidefor that day. You have the rest
of the year. And this isthe opposite of what I say. Most
of the time. Most of thetime it's confront, confront, confront,
But Mother's Day, avoid, avoid, avoid the conflict, put it away,
deal with it later. Holiday,treat it like alday. It's a
holiday, but you know, allholidays trigger all kinds of stuff inside of
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ourselves. But just put it aside, celebrate the holiday, celebrate your mother.
You only have one and who knows, you know how long she will
be here. Like you were saying, you had all that stuff at the
end of the day, how importantis that to you? Is it that
important that she be on the samepage. You be on the same page
some day. Sometimes you're just notgoing to be on the same page with
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your parent. Parent. The littlerelationships, sorry, are complicated, they're
complex, but at some point it'ssaying, Okay, my mom feels this
way, I feel this way.We're never really going to be on the
same page. But she's ninety yearsold or she's eighty years old. What
does it matter. At this point. What I'm going to take from the
relationship is what she can give me, and I'm gonna stay with that because
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she will not be here forever whenshe passes away, and you still have
that conflict that's unresolved grief, andwe're gonna deal with that on a different
day. But this leads perfectly intoour discussion today, which is stop avoiding
and start confronting Chapter six in mybook. Okay, let me start Greg.
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Are you a confronter or an avoidI'm an avoid I avoid confrontation.
And how is that working for you? Not very well? Are you still
doing it at this same Yes,I am. I don't like conflict.
I never did. No one likesconflict. But the avoid avoiding situations doesn't
work. It's a short term solution, but a long term loss because eventually
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that's going to come up, andit's gonna come up more powerful. It's
gonna come up more stronger than everbefore. I call it a relationational cancer.
It will metastasize throughout the relationship.Oh boy, I'm in trouble.
Help me. Well, I'm goingto help you today. But you know,
when I do this show, Ialways like to think about what is
the goal that I have set forthfor the audience, for you guys,
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the listeners, whatever it is we'retalking about, Like today we're talking about
on bleeping conflict. Part of theway to do it is we need to
deal with the terms like avoidance andconfrontation. I like to talk about,
well, what does that mean?Because I think we need to have a
shared vision of it, a shareunderstanding of it. So the what,
the why, why do we docertain things, and why do we want
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it to change? And also thehow. At the end of the show,
I always try to give you sometips, five tips actually, so
you can unbleep some of the thingswe're talking about. What do you think?
Yeah, I'm looking forward to youresolving my avoidance. Well, I
don't have one show. We'll doit. And this is not therapy,
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just sharing my personal experience but alsomy professional experience with you guys. But
don't do this today. As Isaid, delay it until tomorrow. If
you're one of those people that's havinga conflict with your mom today, put
it aside. So let's get toit. Chapter six of my book is
stop avoiding and start confronting. Whatis avoidance? What is it? I
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mean, what is it? Ijust don't like to confront somebody and I
know I'm just turning things around,but it just you feel you don't feel
like you're ready for it. Basically, yeah, you don't want to deal
with the outcome. But there isa psychological definition of what why we avoid
and what it is. It isa defense mechanism. We're naturally wired to
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avoid dangerous, uncomfortable situations. Youknow. Think about it way back,
when we're in the forest, wethink, oh my god, this is
a dangerous place to be. Igot to avoid this. We don't go
there. That's a healthy avoidance.We're avoiding danger. But well, we've
come to do today as humans becausewe always want to maximize our pleasure and
minimize our pain. We avoid certainpeople, we avoid certain conversations, and
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we avoid certain socialization situations like parties. It is a coping mechanism because we
don't want to deal with what's goingon inside of ourselves and within our relationships.
We think that this is going tohelp us to feel good. It
feels good in the moment, butas I said before, it doesn't work
long term. We're avoiding a stressor. That stressor is going to come back
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and it's going to be stronger thanever. If you guys can relate to
this out there, there are certainthings that you can do to stop avoiding.
So have you Greg tried to stopthis or has your wife said,
Greg, like we got to talkabout certain things. Yeah, actually yeah,
it's those that come to Jesus meetings. Yeah, and how do they
go? They resolved whatever, theyresolved, whatever it was. They okay,
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So, but I want to saysomething to you. Guys. If
you're a person who avoids, it'sbecause you're trying to solve a problem.
Right, So it's not a badthing, but it's a bad thing if
you keep doing this repeatedly with mostthings in your relationship. Of course,
we're not gonna confront everything that happens. We have to pick and choose our
battles. But what ends up happeningwhen people repeatedly avoid that avoidance in and
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of itself becomes a problem. Forexample, you have a visa bill sitting
on your desk. I want toopen that. I kind of know what
the number is, but I don'twant to open that. I'm just gonna
avoid it, pretend it doesn't exist. Weeks and weeks go by, You've
missed the deadline to pay it.You know that that is increasing. Actually
you're going to be paying more interest. You're in La la lane, thinking,
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ah, maybe not, maybe Idon't really know the number. It's
causing you stress. In the backof your mind. It's lurking there and
you're gonna have to pay it eventually, So you're not only going to have
to pay what you originally owed,but then you're going to pay what you
incurred because you were avoiding the problem. So the whole point is here to
take in that the avoidance in andof itself, although it started out as
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an attempted solution, becomes a partof the problem. So now you not
only have the problem that you're tryingto avoid, but you have a process
that's malignant. Does that make anysense? It does. Avoidance and confrontation,
that's what we're talking about tonight andUnbleep your Life on News Talk eleven
thirty WISS. This is Wisconsin's mostlisten to radio station, News Talk eleven
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thirty WISD. Everyone strives for healthierrelationships. Here's more of Unbleep your Life
and Relationships on News Talk eleven thirtyWISN. Welcome back to Unbleep your Life
and Relationships. I'm your host AnitaAstley. Today we are talking about avoiding
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and confronting. Most of us liketo avoid because it's uncomfortable and goes against
our human nature as we want tomaximize pleasure and minimize pain. Because people
equate confrontation with pain. Yes,it can be painful. We were just
talking about some of the things thatpeople do to avoid, So let's discuss
that avoidant behavior. What do youthink they include, Greg not don't talk
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about it. Yeah, that's thephilosophy, that's the mindset that gets us
into further trouble. As we werejust saying, but it's anything that we
do to distract us from the thoughtsand feelings that are related to that issue,
whatever the issue the stressor is.And these include I'm sure you've seen
this, drinking, using drugs toescape over spending too much time on the
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golf course. And the one thatI hear about often is yeah, I
spend a lot of time at work. It's because I'm so busy, Anita,
And I'm thinking, no, dude, it's because you are avoiding something.
You don't want to go home becausethen you've got to deal with your
partner who has you got some stuffgoing on. So it's these behaviors that
we start exhibiting not healthy for usinternally and of course not healthy for our
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relationships. Have you ever I've donethat, Like where I'm avoiding I'm avoiding
going to a class because I thinkI'll shoot. You know, I got
some stuff that's due and I haven'tdone it. I'm avoiding it, but
I know that eventually I'm gonna haveto pay the cost. We all eventually
have to pay the cost if we'reavoiding something. How do we get around
that? There's lots of ways toget around it, but one of them
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is we're going to talk about itin a minute. Is to confront the
issue. That confrontation, as youknow, it's not very easy. We
prefer to not talk about it andshut down. Now before we get to
that. What is the root causeof avoidance? What do you think it
is? Why don't we want toavoid? Why do we want to avoid?
Excuse me? We want, wewant, We want whoever we're talking
to to feel good. Yeah,but in the end we don't end up
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feeling good. It is because weare afraid, mostly of losing the relationship,
because we are afraid to say whatwe think and feel, and that's
going to cause some destruction in theinterpersonal stuff. It's not it's actually going
to create the opposite. So it'swe need to confront, but we need
to do it well. And I'mgoing to help you guys. Teach you
guys on how to do that well. But first we have to recognize that
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avoidance is not the solution. Weare also afraid of what happens if I
do like you're saying, if Iconfront you Greg about you know, like
we did last week about the hunging. Oh my god. Maybe what is
the root cause of avoidance? Itis the fear of losing the relationship.
We are afraid that if we actuallyshare what we think and feel, we're
going to be rejected by the otherperson. The other thing is we might
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we might feel inadequate in terms ofhandling the emotions of the other person,
but also ourselves. And you wantto ask yourself, you know, where
does all of this stuff come from? Where did I learn this avoidant strategy?
Or I would say this the thinkingthat somehow avoiding something is going to
solve this problem for me. Youknow, we talk about this often and
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you will hear it often in ourshow. It is the family of origin.
What does that phrase mean? Itis really our family where we came
from. What did we see growingup? Happened between our parents? How
did they deal with conflict? Didthey avoid each other? Did they avoid
the conflict and then did they avoidconflict when we were having an issue or
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did they help us resolve it insome kind of way. So by observing
our parents, we learned certain things, and most of us have some issues
with that. I'm sure. Ican only at this point talk about myself,
which I grew up in a familywhere there was a lot of confrontation.
I don't know about you guys,but it was confront to confront to
confront. But the problem was that'sall it was. We never learned to
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resolve it. So we're like,oh, a lot, you know,
a lot of sharing of emotions.I think a lot of people out there.
You know, my my biological dad, they my mom and my biological
dad. Yeah, always constantly arguing, constantly arguing. So I saw that.
Yeah, but that's where that camefrom. Well, no, that
is exactly where it came from.Because you said you avoid conflict at all
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costs, That's exactly where it camefrom. For myself, it's actually at
the opposite. I am a confrontationalperson, but I had to learn to
do it in a healthy manner becauseI saw my parents confronting. I saw
even the negative ramifications of it.But it was difficult for me to not
repeat it. It is and wellit is still my blueprint. I've adjusted
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it and I talk about that inmy book. What we see, what
we observe, what we learn,all the messages from our parents and then
past relationships we carry on to therelationship we're in and not always healthy.
Like for me, it was confrontation, confrontation, confrontation. I had to
learn to change all of that becausethat is not a healthy way to go.
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I see your point here, Sohow do I get I can change
the blueprint? Right, you can. You can change some of the blueprints,
and but most of that stuff that'sinside of us, we can change
the blueprint. And of course italways starts with self awareness. What am
I doing here? Like you're saying, at least you recognize that you avoid
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and we just figured it out today. I'm not even going to charge you.
You do it because because you watchyour parents do it all the time.
So you thought, okay, thisfighting all the time. I don't
want to have this in my life. So you did the opposite, which
is avoid. And I'm sure somewherealong the line you're still married, so
you know it's a long time ofmarriage, you and your wife kind of
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figured that out. So you learnedthat in your family of origin, what
you do is avoidance, practice avoidanceto not have those fights. But I'm
sure somewhere along the way you andyour wife have figured out how to handle
that properly. I think we have. I think we've we've we actually have
a great relationship. The kids areout of the house now, so we're
spending morning, we're spending a lotmore time together. Yeah. Okay,
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So the other question becomes that I, you know, talked about at the
beginning of the show. We havethe what we have. Now we're going
to talk about the why why.People will say to me, well,
why do I need to confront this? Aniya. It's quite going quite well
because we have peace in the household. Nobody's fight, just like you were
saying, your parents' spot. Soyou don't want to confront. So you
don't confront anything in your relationship oran avoid you do if the relationship matters
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to you, if it's an importantrelationship for you. Avoidance is not going
to work. It's only going tomake things worse. It's a relief in
the short term. The long termit doesn't work. So if you want
to increase the fundamental part of yourrelationship, which is emotional intimacy, then
you can't help but confront the situationeventually. That is the why it's really
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important that we do that. Whydo I need to stop avoiding the problem.
You might be thinking that because it'skeeping the piece, it's working for
you, but it's actually not.You don't have to do that if it's
not an important relationship for you.But if you value it and you want
the emotional intimacy to increase, whichis one of the fundamental parts of a
healthy relationships, then you do.Because if you don't do it, it's
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just going to fester and fester infester, Like we talked about before.
Now it affects you individual, butit also affects you relationally. If you're
avoiding a problem, it generally increasesyour anxiety. Stress causes some people to
be depressed, and the other maladaptivebehaviors that I talked about before, like
the use of substance, excessive shopping, excessive working. That's your individual issues
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that you're going to struggle with.But then of course it impacts your relationship.
It destroys like I just said emotionalintimacy in your relationships. Then you
start doing things like playing games witheach other, like what couples do that
all the time while they play likemind reading, I'm going to try to
guess what you're thinking, You're goingto try to guess what I'm thinking,
or we're just not gonna talk aboutit. But it's the elephant in the
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room. You can't help but notnotice that there's some tension, like you
were saying, there that needs tobe confronted, but of course we are
afraid to do it. There's anegative ripple effect that takes place in your
relationship when you're not talking about somethingthat needs to be talked about. I
know lots of people who avoid theirmiserable marriage, and they do all kinds
of things to themselves, over useof alcohol and spending excessively, but they
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rather do that because the thought ofconfronting their partner is more painful than what
they're doing that that doesn't make alot of sense, But you're right,
it doesn't make a lot of sense. We do a lot of things that
don't make a lot of sense becausewe're struggling internally and we don't know how
to deal with confrontation. Confrontation isan ugly thing in our society, and
we need to work on reframing thatconfrontation is not a bad thing. But
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when we think about confrontation, wegenerally think about somebody yelling, screaming.
It's a negative experience. It doesn'thave to be. It's all about how
we confront somebody about a problem.So I get my confrontation out on social
media. That's right, What doyou mean? What do you mean?
How do you do that? Well, just you know, going back and
forth on social media on certain topics, so not with well, you know
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what, you're bringing up a veryinteresting topic. People do so are all
kinds of wars on social media,and then they're very passive aggressive. It's
how I didn't mean to say anythingabout that. It's just an innocent little
post. No, they're actually confrontingsomebody on something and it's not a healthy
way to do it. But ifyou don't care about that person is what
does it matter what they post andwhat they do. Confrontation Tonight, Unbleep
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your Life on news Talk eleven thirtyWYSN Chevity, Anita Ashley has more advice
on how to Unbleep Your Life andRelationships on news Talk eleven thirty WYSA.
Welcome back to Unbleep Your Life andRelationships. I'm your host, Anita Ashley,
a psychotherapist of twenty five years andpublished author of Unbleep Your Life and
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Relationships, available on Amazon and theSimon and Schuster website. Today we are
talking about to stop avoiding and startconfronting. Now, when we are avoiding,
we might think we are actually incontrol of the situation, but we're
not. What is in control isthe stressor that is in control of us.
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But because we kind of feel goodbecause there's not a fight or something
going on, we think the opposite. That's not true. So if you
want to take control, you wantto lessen some of your anxiety, get
ready to confront the situation, theperson that you're having this issue with.
But you know what, we alldo that to some degree and it's healthy.
But again, in a long termrelationship, we need to be able
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to get to that point. Now, how do we do this? That's
always the question. My patients andyou guys are listeners, are thinking now
that you've told me what my issueis, Thank you. That's so easy.
But what do I do about it? The how It's really important and
part of the goal for me todo the show is to help you guys
take the small steps that you cantake through some of the advice that I
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give you. Again, it's nottherapy, but that can lead to greater
change. Small steps lead to biggersteps and then to change this whole thing,
the whole concept of doing things differently, learning to do things differently that
we repeatedly screw up. It's okay, we all do it, you know,
once in a while, it's okay. But if we notice that it's
something we do most of the timewith conflict that we're avoiding, there are
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certain things that we can do.Here we go. You can ask yourself
why am I avoiding the situation,the conflict with the person? Also number
two, how long can I continueto do it? Is it working for
me? How long am I continueto live with this stress that it's unconsciously
causing me? And you can say, well, if it's unconscious, then
I'm not aware of it. Yesyou are, because I don't know if
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you have ever experienced this. Greatwhen I'm avoiding something or I'm doing something
like what is going on with methat I'm so anxious about the situation or
not wanting to go to a familyevent or something is going on. I
reflect back, I think I'm like, Okay, it's because I don't want
to see my ex brother, mybrother in law or somebody. I'm avoiding
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it. But that's causing me morestress in the long run. I just
need to talk to myself about it. Number three, how does avoiding it
make me feel? We might notbe aware of that, but most people
it causes them exsciety and that anxietymanifests itself in different ways. Number four,
how does avoiding it impact my relationshipwith others? Now, think about
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something that's happening in your relationship.You guys might be able to relate to
this. Whenever we're invited to afamily event. That I was saying,
if most of the time you're avoidinggoing because you're avoiding some family member,
and then your partner says, youknow, I'm really fed up of this.
Every time we're invited to my momsyou never want to go, And
then you can say, well,no, I just don't want to go.
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I'm busy doing this, I'm busydoing that. But when in actuality
you're trying to avoid that person.So that's going to have an impact on
your relationship. You may not realizeit, but again it's going to have
an impact on your relationship. Avoiding, again, guys, is not the
solution. It is quite the opposite. It's the cancer, you can say,
the cancer that I talked about.So we're going to stop avoiding and
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start confronting to be a healthy versionof ourselves, but also to help our
relationships get better. Now, whenpeople think of confrontation, they are scared
because they think, oh my god, I don't want to have a fight.
Do you think of confrontation as afight? I think of mister t
cool. Well that's not well.The first step to attempting to resolving any
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conflict is confronting the problem. Howcan you resolve a conflict if you can
confront it. I listen to patientsall the time in my office talk about
their challenges and their relationships. Andwhen I say, well, did you
talk to that person about it?Have you told them how you feel?
And they're like, what are youcrazy? Why would I do that?
I'm here paying you and that you'reI'm confronting you with it? Yeah,
I'm like, that's fine. I'mglad that you're sharing. You're getting it
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out with me, But at theend of the day, you're going to
have to talk that talk to thatperson, if that person happens to be
your wife or your sister. Weneed to be able to get the confrontation
out. But before we do that, we need to think about confrontation in
a positive way and not in anegative way. So how are you How
do you confront somebody? You know, if you have something going on between
the two, how do you confrontthem? Before you confront them, ask
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yourself the following questions, What thoughtsand feelings are standing in the way of
this confrontation, whether it's with thisperson or this issue. We'll ask yourself
that Sometimes we're just not aware ofit because we're in denial. Remember,
avoidance can happen on an unconscious leveltoo. We're not always conscious of it.
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What's the first thing I say?Ask yourself? What is it about
the situation that I don't want togo there? Okay, let's issue my
mom for exact. Okay, Idon't want to talk about politics. So
what's the first thing I say toher? You say everything that avoids politics.
But I you know, well ifwith your mom, I don't know
how old she was, I don'tknow the specifics. Yeah, but if
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you guys are dealing with this,and we've I've had this conversation with many
people in terms of you know,all the election and all the stuff going
on, Like I can't get togetherfor Thanksgiving with these people because they're all
going to talk about politics. Soyou don't. That's not the place to
confront a person at a holiday.But if it's a repeated thing, then
you're going to have to see yourmom. And you want to see your
mom, you can say to hermom, listen, we're never going to
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agree on the subject. I loveyou. And that's actually the conversation.
That's actually what we did. Good. We did that. Yeah, Because
it doesn't mean confrontation is not thatI need you to come over to my
side and I need to convince youof what I'm thinking and feeling. It's
you can just simply say. Theconfrontation is I'm actually just saying the words.
Because we don't say the words toeach other. We just kind of
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skirt around and we walk around them. But I'm going to say, listen,
I love you. And I loveto see you. But you and
I are not going to be ableto talk about this anymore common ground.
Well, we might never find commonground. We will agree to disagree.
And that's confrontation in and of itselfthat I've confronted you about that we can't
talk about this, that's the actualconfrontation, and that's the actual solution that
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this is as far as we getwith this conversation, and we are just
going to put it on that bookshelf. But I love you and I want
to continue the relationship with you.Does that make any sense? So ask
yourself how important and this relationship isto you. If it's important to you,
then you will begin the process ofconfronting. But again, like we
were talking about, just merely havingthat discussion is the confrontation. How we
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do it can be tricky, andwe're gonna talk about some of those techniques
next week as I teach you guyshow to de escalate an escalating situation,
because confrontations, guess what happens,They can escalate if we don't do them
properly. Okay, now, whengetting ready to confront, we need to
change the way we say the followingwords I'm sure you've heard this before.
(27:33):
I'm in relationships. I hear this, I'm like, ugh, but I
don't have that reaction anymore. Greg, we need to talk. I didn't
have to say anything. It's thosedreaded words, right. Oh no,
you cut your head, you cutyour face, and you're like, oh
my god. I don't want tohear that, especially after a long day.
This only means trouble. And guesswhat my reaction I might be like,
(27:56):
I'm too busy tonight, I gotstuff going on. I'm gonna be
working, I don't feel so well. Anything to avoid it. Again,
it's a demonstration about of how wesay those words. Instead of saying it
that way, we're gonna I'm gonnateach you how to say it differently.
And I hear this one all thetime. I'm going to share this one
with you. For example, ifyou want to confront your partner but the
(28:19):
lack of couple time in your relationship, the way not to do it is
we need to talk. You neverspend time with me. Ooh, that's
how are you gonna? That inviteswhat avoidance? It doesn't invite engagements,
So words are important Instead of sayingit that way in which you're using accusatory
language and extreme language like you neverwe never spend time together. Never stop
(28:44):
using those extreme words. Replace itwith something like this. Listen to this.
Do you have time on Friday afternoon? I'd like to talk to you
about how we can get more timein together. I miss you. Ah,
very different response. Let's unpack that. I'm using eye statements. I'm
very specific by the way. I'mnot saying, let's just talk, because
(29:07):
that's a great opening for somebody who'san avoidant to say, Okay, she
didn't say when or he didn't saywhen, so I'm out of here.
I'm totally gonna say I'm busy forthe next two weeks. We can't talk
about it. It's very specific.I'm saying on a Friday afternoon, I'm
identifying the issue without condemning the person. I'm not condemning you. I'm just
saying, hey, this is aproblem. I'm feeling this way. And
(29:29):
it's a tone of love, isn'tit. Sure? Yeah? I like
that. You know you're saying,hey, on Friday, we should just
get together and we'll talk. Isee what you're saying. How we confront
is so important. My suggestion asalways to use words that invite engagement,
not of avoidance. You saw thedifference there, guys. Yeah, this
is what we need to practice moreof and words are important. Language is
(29:52):
important. We are discussing confrontation andavoidance and some good stuff. As a
matter of fact, we've got acouple of questions from your Instagram that you
can get to and we'll do thatcoming up on News Talk eleven thirty wsn
back to Unbleep your Life and Relationships. On News Talk eleven thirty wys Welcome
(30:15):
back to Unbleep your Life and Relationships. I'm your host, Anita Ashley.
We are talking today about people whoavoid conflict and people who confront conflict.
Of course, we have to knowhow to do it in a healthy way.
Confrontation can go sideways if we don'tdo it well, and avoidance,
of course doesn't work. As wewere just saying, so, here are
(30:36):
some of the things you can doif you're getting ready to confront someone.
Gather Number one, gather your ownthoughts and feelings about what you're confronting exactly,
Be clear, be concise, andbe precise. Sometimes people don't know
themselves and then they try to confrontsomebody and that doesn't go well. So
know exactly what that is. Createa safe place and a space. Does
(30:57):
that make sense? Oh? Yeah? With you don't confront somebody about something
personal at a cafe where you're notable to really have any kind of privacy,
and then of course people are notgoing to say what they think and
feel about it. That's not atrue confrontation. And a true confrontation,
you have to feel safe and therehas to be some space where you can
really share your thoughts and feelings andthe other person can do the same.
(31:18):
Make the time. No doorknobbers.Do you know what a door knober is?
No? What is that? Well? A doorknob It came from the
psychotherapy experience of I'm going to tellyou something really important, but I'm gonna
tell you just as I'm leaving.Oh it's like, oh yeah, I
forgot to tell you, but mymother just died. You're like, wait
a minute. We just had awhole hour, right, and now you're
(31:41):
telling me it's not something I canreally help you with, but you've kind
of left me with it, andnow I have this anxiety, and now
you have this anxiety, and whatare we going to do with it,
So make sure you give enough timeto be able to actually do justice to
that confrontation. No door knobbers.And the other one is say what you
really think and feel. Saying whatyou think the person wants to hear has
(32:02):
probably gotten you to where you aretoday. It doesn't work. I know
it feels good in the moment.Yes, sure, I agree with you.
I feel exactly the same way whenyou know you don't. When you're
confronting, speak from your heart,speak from your mind, but speak your
truth. Okay. The next thingyou can do is use ie statements.
Not you don't do this, butwhat can I do? Share what you
(32:24):
think and feel using an eye statement, Just like we talked about previously.
I gave you that example of whenI said I really miss you, I
miss the time that we have together. How can we get together and how
can we have more time? Imiss you. I didn't say you don't
spend enough time with me. Thatis not going to invite invite something positivity
(32:45):
engagement. It's going to invite whatI'm trying to avoid, which is avoidance
number six. Stay on the issue, don't get sidetracked. People do this
all the time, they go amillion different directions. Take the linear paths,
stay focused, don't get sidetracked,speak your truth, and don't tell
the other person what they think andfeel. We often do that when we're
(33:05):
speaking. You feel this way,you think this way. No, speak
your truth, speak to yourself,and don't get sidetracked. It's easy to
get sidetracked. Yeah. Another thingyou can do is come to the table
with some suggestions, things that youthink will help shift the dynamic, that
will change something. It conveys tothe other person that you've actually thought about
the problem. And then you're justnot speaking out of nowhere or you're just
(33:28):
not attacking the person. You havesome solutions, but you're also opening to
listening to their solutions. It's importantto demonstrate that that you've given it some
thought. Very good. Another oneis don't get in the blame game.
You know we all do that.This is your fault, this is why
we're in this situation. The blamegame, as you know, doesn't work.
(33:49):
It only spirals into creating more conflictand it's not going to invite engagement.
It's not going to invite conflict resolution. Remember, you're there to redefine
the experience and come and make itsomething that's positive in your relationship, not
something that's negative. And if youexperience confrontation as a positive process, you're
more likely to do it right.I mean, if it's something else,
(34:12):
that's what goes back to minimize painand maximize pleasure. If it goes well,
we're gonna do it again. Andof course in relationships, you guys
know this, intimacy breeds conflicts.So if you're trying to maintain your relationship,
build your relationship, nurture your relationship, we need to be able to
confront issues that happen right absolutely.The other one is allow the other person
(34:36):
time and space to process what isbeing shared. You can't expect them to
have a response right away, andI think most people do. They respect
they expect something right away. Welive in a world of instant gratification.
Give me what I need, tellme what I need. No, they
need to give them time to processit and tell them they can come back
to you after maybe twenty four hours. That's what I usually suggest, give
(34:58):
them twenty four hours to process it. It's enough time, I think for
most people to become less emotional.If it's a highly charged emotional situation and
become more rational and then put anotherdate on the calendar. So you know
we're going to continue this conversation.We're going to continue this conversation within twenty
four hours, and then we willget some closure on both sides. Okay,
now, I know we always savesome time to answer a few questions
(35:21):
from your Instagram, which is askAnita, right? Is it? To
look it up? It's ask AnitaAsley on Instagram. I mean it is
the medium that I'm most active on. I am on Facebook, I'm on
Twitter, but if you want tosee day to day stuff, it is
on Instagram. All right, yougot a couple of questions, I do
one question? Here we go,Anita. I know I avoid confrontation at
(35:42):
all costs, but it's finally gettingto me. I grew up around fighting
parents, and I didn't want tocreate that in my own families, so
I'm basically quiet. It's been harderand harder to stay quiet. So at
fifty when I get when am Igoing to get to say what I really
want? And I'm starting to reallyfeel that told of not saying anything on
my relationship, but also individually,I'm fed up and I don't know what
(36:06):
to do. Oh, that kindof sounds like mine? Was it you?
Did you write? Did you writethis question? No? This is
common, you know we and it'sstereotypical. Men are avoiding and women are
always trying to resolve. Thank youfirst of all for sharing your question.
So let's you've gone to the otherextreme, like kind of like you Greg,
you know you grew up with fightingparents. When you grow up with
that kind of stuff, you wantto avoid it as an adult and you
(36:29):
don't want to recreate it in yourown relationship. But you kind of are,
but you're doing it in a covertfashion, meaning the conflict is there,
the big fight needs to kind ofhappen, and but you're you've avoided
it for so long. Now it'sgoing to be like a big bomb.
You know, when we store,we store, we store generally we have
an escalation. So glad that you'rerecognizing that. Glad that you know it's
(36:51):
time to talk. But you knowit's been so many years, Like where
do you start? People say thisall the time, Anita, I haven't
confronted or done anything with this.Where do I start? It's overwhelming,
So I don't do anything, reflectthink of all the things that are bothering
you write them down, because whenwe write them down, we experience them
differently. And then say to yourwife, honey, I love you.
(37:15):
There's some things I really want totalk to you about. And whatever your
number one is on that list,put it on there and say it's because
I love you. Remember, wewant to have a tone of love,
not a tone of attacking the otherperson. You're experiencing cognitive dissonance also because
your intellect knows that you've got totalk, but your emotions are scared because
(37:36):
where you've been in your life withyour family. And don't forget when you're
doing this and your kids see youdoing it is healthy for them. Your
role modeling to them how to resolveconflict and how to have a conversation and
not avoid. Yeah, you're fiftyand if you have children, I'm assuming
you do. But if you don't, okay, But you got to fix
(37:57):
your relationship anyway. But if youdo, your kids have observed this and
they can learn differently too. Whenyou started doing do things differently in your
own relationship. It's time to confrontsome good stuff here tonight. I want
to save some time because every atthe end of the show. You always
give us five pointers, so I'lllet you just take it from there.
Here they are start changing the wayyou think of confrontation. It's not always
(38:21):
something negative. It can be somethingpositive, but we have to learn to
do that. Number two, identifyyour role in your relationship. Are you
the confronter or are you the avoidNumber three, Write down one thing that
you're avoiding in your relationship, whetherit's with your girlfriend, your parents.
Write that thing down and ask yourself. Number four, why am I avoiding
(38:44):
this? What's at the root cause? What is the issue? And number
five tune in next week when Ihelp you to learn how to de escalate
an escalating situation. Radio gig.You're always teaching tea. You're teasing,
and I just want to say,you know, there's a lot of the
relationships are complicated at every age.We experience different challenges. But the number
(39:08):
one thing I always say to peopleis we cannot resolve anything if we can't
talk to the other person and ifwe can't confront that issue. Avoidance is
not a solution. Avoidance only magnifiesthe problem later on. And if that
relationship is important to you, youneed to be able to learn to confront.
(39:28):
I know, easier said than done, but one step at a time.
Whatever you learn on here is practicerehearsal. It's not therapy, but
it is really to help you makethose small changes that you need to make
in your life. All right,well we can find a lot of this
in the book. You can andthe book is available on Simon and Schuster
website and on Amazon. Unbleep YourLife and Relationships with Anita Asley. And
(39:52):
before we end, I just wantto say, wish your mother Happy Mother's
Day. If you're the one whohasn't done there's conflict, put it on
the emotional bookshelf, deal with ittomorrow, but not today. She's your
mom, she loves you. Wewill see you next week on I Bleeve
Your Life on Newstock eleven thirty wisn
Relationships, whether romantic platonic familia,are complicated and can be downright messy,
bringing out the best and worst inall of us. Here's an opportunity for
you to learn effective, concrete strategiesto help you build healthy relationships from the
inside out. It's on Bleep YourLife and Relationships with host Anita Aslak,
(00:23):
psychotherapist of over twenty five years.Hey, guys, welcome to another episode
of Unbleep Your Life and Relationships.I'm your host, Anita Astley. I'm
a licensed therapist, individual couples andfamily therapists, and I'm also a published
author of the book Unbleep Your Lifeand Relationships. I am always here to
(00:43):
help you, guys, fix someof those things that are not so working
well in your relationships also within yourself. You know, Greg is here in
studio with me. Always pleasant tohave him here. He adds a male
perspective to some of the stuff wetalk about. We're going further. Hey,
I'm fine, Happy Mother's Day.Thank you. Yes, I was
going to say that it's Mother's Daytoday, and I know the day has
(01:04):
gone by. It's eight o'clock.It's when this show airs. I just
want to say Mother's Day can bea great day for some people but also
a very difficult day for others.But I do want to say thank you
to my kids, William and Sarah. They always treat me like a queen,
and I think all mothers should betreated like a queen. But that's
(01:26):
difficult. If you're having a conflictwith your mom, there's something going on
in the midst of that. Andthat's what we're going to talk about today.
Stop avoiding and start I'm bleeping someof that stuff and how we do
it. But I just want tosay this today because it's Mother's Day.
There's still a couple of hours leftin this day. If you haven't sent
(01:48):
anything to your mom, like flowersor a text or a call. I
always think the phone call is thebest thing to do, but I know
that can be difficult if you're inthe midst of a conflict. What I
will say to you if you're oneof these people, put that conflict aside
for today. Text or call callcan be harder. And that's too hard
(02:09):
for you. Text her, sendher a message to say Mom, And
if you don't have the words,I'm going to give you the words.
Because I know people will. SoI don't know what to say, Anita,
because we're in the middle of thisfight, and I don't want her
to think I forgem over it.You know, it's not that you're over
it or it's resolved, or thatI'm saying avoid it. What I'm telling
you to do is put it onyour emotional bookshelf and internalize this concept.
(02:34):
Emotional bookshelf. We all have one, we and if you don't, I'm
going to give it to you today. Visualize a bookshelf. We all know
what it looks like. And whenyou have these kinds we have issues in
your life, which we all do. And there's a holiday, put it
there. Put it there. It'llbe there tomorrow to work on. But
on those days like Christmas, Thanksgiving, but Mother's Day, put it on
(02:55):
there. Text to call your motherbecause those issues will still be there,
but your mom may not. Yeah, that's true. And I'm in that
situation right now because my mom passedby three years ago, and we had
a rough time in the last coupleof years of her life because she's very
liberal, very conservative, yeah,and we're both stubborn. Yeah, so
we had a lot of problems inthe last couple of years, and I
(03:16):
wish I would have spent more time. I did call on Mother's Day and
all those but I always felt attentionthere. Yeah, but you can feel
the tension and say, okay tensionand talk to and say I'm going to
put you aside for today. I'mgoing to appreciate what I have today.
It's a holiday, and people whopooh the holiday say, well, why
do I need this holiday to celebratemy brother, my Mother's Day or my
(03:38):
sibling or whatever Valentine's when we're talkingabout those kinds of things, But do
you do that? Do you takethat time out to celebrate your mom,
even if if you're not having aconflict, but you don't believe in this
hallmark holiday. I bet you don't. These holidays force us to put something
on the calendar, or at leastmake us think about our mom or our
(03:59):
partner, whatever it is that dayis that we're trying to celebrate, and
when there's tension, put it asidefor that day. You have the rest
of the year. And this isthe opposite of what I say. Most
of the time. Most of thetime it's confront, confront, confront,
But Mother's Day, avoid, avoid, avoid the conflict, put it away,
deal with it later. Holiday,treat it like alday. It's a
holiday, but you know, allholidays trigger all kinds of stuff inside of
(04:24):
ourselves. But just put it aside, celebrate the holiday, celebrate your mother.
You only have one and who knows, you know how long she will
be here. Like you were saying, you had all that stuff at the
end of the day, how importantis that to you? Is it that
important that she be on the samepage. You be on the same page
some day. Sometimes you're just notgoing to be on the same page with
(04:44):
your parent. Parent. The littlerelationships, sorry, are complicated, they're
complex, but at some point it'ssaying, Okay, my mom feels this
way, I feel this way.We're never really going to be on the
same page. But she's ninety yearsold or she's eighty years old. What
does it matter. At this point. What I'm going to take from the
relationship is what she can give me, and I'm gonna stay with that because
(05:06):
she will not be here forever whenshe passes away, and you still have
that conflict that's unresolved grief, andwe're gonna deal with that on a different
day. But this leads perfectly intoour discussion today, which is stop avoiding
and start confronting Chapter six in mybook. Okay, let me start Greg.
(05:27):
Are you a confronter or an avoidI'm an avoid I avoid confrontation.
And how is that working for you? Not very well? Are you still
doing it at this same Yes,I am. I don't like conflict.
I never did. No one likesconflict. But the avoid avoiding situations doesn't
work. It's a short term solution, but a long term loss because eventually
(05:53):
that's going to come up, andit's gonna come up more powerful. It's
gonna come up more stronger than everbefore. I call it a relationational cancer.
It will metastasize throughout the relationship.Oh boy, I'm in trouble.
Help me. Well, I'm goingto help you today. But you know,
when I do this show, Ialways like to think about what is
the goal that I have set forthfor the audience, for you guys,
(06:15):
the listeners, whatever it is we'retalking about, Like today we're talking about
on bleeping conflict. Part of theway to do it is we need to
deal with the terms like avoidance andconfrontation. I like to talk about,
well, what does that mean?Because I think we need to have a
shared vision of it, a shareunderstanding of it. So the what,
the why, why do we docertain things, and why do we want
(06:36):
it to change? And also thehow. At the end of the show,
I always try to give you sometips, five tips actually, so
you can unbleep some of the thingswe're talking about. What do you think?
Yeah, I'm looking forward to youresolving my avoidance. Well, I
don't have one show. We'll doit. And this is not therapy,
(06:58):
just sharing my personal experience but alsomy professional experience with you guys. But
don't do this today. As Isaid, delay it until tomorrow. If
you're one of those people that's havinga conflict with your mom today, put
it aside. So let's get toit. Chapter six of my book is
stop avoiding and start confronting. Whatis avoidance? What is it? I
(07:20):
mean, what is it? Ijust don't like to confront somebody and I
know I'm just turning things around,but it just you feel you don't feel
like you're ready for it. Basically, yeah, you don't want to deal
with the outcome. But there isa psychological definition of what why we avoid
and what it is. It isa defense mechanism. We're naturally wired to
(07:42):
avoid dangerous, uncomfortable situations. Youknow. Think about it way back,
when we're in the forest, wethink, oh my god, this is
a dangerous place to be. Igot to avoid this. We don't go
there. That's a healthy avoidance.We're avoiding danger. But well, we've
come to do today as humans becausewe always want to maximize our pleasure and
minimize our pain. We avoid certainpeople, we avoid certain conversations, and
(08:07):
we avoid certain socialization situations like parties. It is a coping mechanism because we
don't want to deal with what's goingon inside of ourselves and within our relationships.
We think that this is going tohelp us to feel good. It
feels good in the moment, butas I said before, it doesn't work
long term. We're avoiding a stressor. That stressor is going to come back
(08:31):
and it's going to be stronger thanever. If you guys can relate to
this out there, there are certainthings that you can do to stop avoiding.
So have you Greg tried to stopthis or has your wife said,
Greg, like we got to talkabout certain things. Yeah, actually yeah,
it's those that come to Jesus meetings. Yeah, and how do they
go? They resolved whatever, theyresolved, whatever it was. They okay,
(08:56):
So, but I want to saysomething to you. Guys. If
you're a person who avoids, it'sbecause you're trying to solve a problem.
Right, So it's not a badthing, but it's a bad thing if
you keep doing this repeatedly with mostthings in your relationship. Of course,
we're not gonna confront everything that happens. We have to pick and choose our
battles. But what ends up happeningwhen people repeatedly avoid that avoidance in and
(09:20):
of itself becomes a problem. Forexample, you have a visa bill sitting
on your desk. I want toopen that. I kind of know what
the number is, but I don'twant to open that. I'm just gonna
avoid it, pretend it doesn't exist. Weeks and weeks go by, You've
missed the deadline to pay it.You know that that is increasing. Actually
you're going to be paying more interest. You're in La la lane, thinking,
(09:43):
ah, maybe not, maybe Idon't really know the number. It's
causing you stress. In the backof your mind. It's lurking there and
you're gonna have to pay it eventually, So you're not only going to have
to pay what you originally owed,but then you're going to pay what you
incurred because you were avoiding the problem. So the whole point is here to
take in that the avoidance in andof itself, although it started out as
(10:05):
an attempted solution, becomes a partof the problem. So now you not
only have the problem that you're tryingto avoid, but you have a process
that's malignant. Does that make anysense? It does. Avoidance and confrontation,
that's what we're talking about tonight andUnbleep your Life on News Talk eleven
thirty WISS. This is Wisconsin's mostlisten to radio station, News Talk eleven
(10:30):
thirty WISD. Everyone strives for healthierrelationships. Here's more of Unbleep your Life
and Relationships on News Talk eleven thirtyWISN. Welcome back to Unbleep your Life
and Relationships. I'm your host AnitaAstley. Today we are talking about avoiding
(10:50):
and confronting. Most of us liketo avoid because it's uncomfortable and goes against
our human nature as we want tomaximize pleasure and minimize pain. Because people
equate confrontation with pain. Yes,it can be painful. We were just
talking about some of the things thatpeople do to avoid, So let's discuss
that avoidant behavior. What do youthink they include, Greg not don't talk
(11:16):
about it. Yeah, that's thephilosophy, that's the mindset that gets us
into further trouble. As we werejust saying, but it's anything that we
do to distract us from the thoughtsand feelings that are related to that issue,
whatever the issue the stressor is.And these include I'm sure you've seen
this, drinking, using drugs toescape over spending too much time on the
(11:39):
golf course. And the one thatI hear about often is yeah, I
spend a lot of time at work. It's because I'm so busy, Anita,
And I'm thinking, no, dude, it's because you are avoiding something.
You don't want to go home becausethen you've got to deal with your
partner who has you got some stuffgoing on. So it's these behaviors that
we start exhibiting not healthy for usinternally and of course not healthy for our
(12:03):
relationships. Have you ever I've donethat, Like where I'm avoiding I'm avoiding
going to a class because I thinkI'll shoot. You know, I got
some stuff that's due and I haven'tdone it. I'm avoiding it, but
I know that eventually I'm gonna haveto pay the cost. We all eventually
have to pay the cost if we'reavoiding something. How do we get around
that? There's lots of ways toget around it, but one of them
(12:24):
is we're going to talk about itin a minute. Is to confront the
issue. That confrontation, as youknow, it's not very easy. We
prefer to not talk about it andshut down. Now before we get to
that. What is the root causeof avoidance? What do you think it
is? Why don't we want toavoid? Why do we want to avoid?
Excuse me? We want, wewant, We want whoever we're talking
to to feel good. Yeah,but in the end we don't end up
(12:46):
feeling good. It is because weare afraid, mostly of losing the relationship,
because we are afraid to say whatwe think and feel, and that's
going to cause some destruction in theinterpersonal stuff. It's not it's actually going
to create the opposite. So it'swe need to confront, but we need
to do it well. And I'mgoing to help you guys. Teach you
guys on how to do that well. But first we have to recognize that
(13:09):
avoidance is not the solution. Weare also afraid of what happens if I
do like you're saying, if Iconfront you Greg about you know, like
we did last week about the hunging. Oh my god. Maybe what is
the root cause of avoidance? Itis the fear of losing the relationship.
We are afraid that if we actuallyshare what we think and feel, we're
going to be rejected by the otherperson. The other thing is we might
(13:31):
we might feel inadequate in terms ofhandling the emotions of the other person,
but also ourselves. And you wantto ask yourself, you know, where
does all of this stuff come from? Where did I learn this avoidant strategy?
Or I would say this the thinkingthat somehow avoiding something is going to
solve this problem for me. Youknow, we talk about this often and
(13:52):
you will hear it often in ourshow. It is the family of origin.
What does that phrase mean? Itis really our family where we came
from. What did we see growingup? Happened between our parents? How
did they deal with conflict? Didthey avoid each other? Did they avoid
the conflict and then did they avoidconflict when we were having an issue or
(14:13):
did they help us resolve it insome kind of way. So by observing
our parents, we learned certain things, and most of us have some issues
with that. I'm sure. Ican only at this point talk about myself,
which I grew up in a familywhere there was a lot of confrontation.
I don't know about you guys,but it was confront to confront to
confront. But the problem was that'sall it was. We never learned to
(14:33):
resolve it. So we're like,oh, a lot, you know,
a lot of sharing of emotions.I think a lot of people out there.
You know, my my biological dad, they my mom and my biological
dad. Yeah, always constantly arguing, constantly arguing. So I saw that.
Yeah, but that's where that camefrom. Well, no, that
is exactly where it came from.Because you said you avoid conflict at all
(14:54):
costs, That's exactly where it camefrom. For myself, it's actually at
the opposite. I am a confrontationalperson, but I had to learn to
do it in a healthy manner becauseI saw my parents confronting. I saw
even the negative ramifications of it.But it was difficult for me to not
repeat it. It is and wellit is still my blueprint. I've adjusted
(15:18):
it and I talk about that inmy book. What we see, what
we observe, what we learn,all the messages from our parents and then
past relationships we carry on to therelationship we're in and not always healthy.
Like for me, it was confrontation, confrontation, confrontation. I had to
learn to change all of that becausethat is not a healthy way to go.
(15:39):
I see your point here, Sohow do I get I can change
the blueprint? Right, you can. You can change some of the blueprints,
and but most of that stuff that'sinside of us, we can change
the blueprint. And of course italways starts with self awareness. What am
I doing here? Like you're saying, at least you recognize that you avoid
(16:00):
and we just figured it out today. I'm not even going to charge you.
You do it because because you watchyour parents do it all the time.
So you thought, okay, thisfighting all the time. I don't
want to have this in my life. So you did the opposite, which
is avoid. And I'm sure somewherealong the line you're still married, so
you know it's a long time ofmarriage, you and your wife kind of
(16:21):
figured that out. So you learnedthat in your family of origin, what
you do is avoidance, practice avoidanceto not have those fights. But I'm
sure somewhere along the way you andyour wife have figured out how to handle
that properly. I think we have. I think we've we've we actually have
a great relationship. The kids areout of the house now, so we're
spending morning, we're spending a lotmore time together. Yeah. Okay,
(16:44):
So the other question becomes that I, you know, talked about at the
beginning of the show. We havethe what we have. Now we're going
to talk about the why why.People will say to me, well,
why do I need to confront this? Aniya. It's quite going quite well
because we have peace in the household. Nobody's fight, just like you were
saying, your parents' spot. Soyou don't want to confront. So you
don't confront anything in your relationship oran avoid you do if the relationship matters
(17:08):
to you, if it's an importantrelationship for you. Avoidance is not going
to work. It's only going tomake things worse. It's a relief in
the short term. The long termit doesn't work. So if you want
to increase the fundamental part of yourrelationship, which is emotional intimacy, then
you can't help but confront the situationeventually. That is the why it's really
(17:30):
important that we do that. Whydo I need to stop avoiding the problem.
You might be thinking that because it'skeeping the piece, it's working for
you, but it's actually not.You don't have to do that if it's
not an important relationship for you.But if you value it and you want
the emotional intimacy to increase, whichis one of the fundamental parts of a
healthy relationships, then you do.Because if you don't do it, it's
(17:53):
just going to fester and fester infester, Like we talked about before.
Now it affects you individual, butit also affects you relationally. If you're
avoiding a problem, it generally increasesyour anxiety. Stress causes some people to
be depressed, and the other maladaptivebehaviors that I talked about before, like
the use of substance, excessive shopping, excessive working. That's your individual issues
(18:18):
that you're going to struggle with.But then of course it impacts your relationship.
It destroys like I just said emotionalintimacy in your relationships. Then you
start doing things like playing games witheach other, like what couples do that
all the time while they play likemind reading, I'm going to try to
guess what you're thinking, You're goingto try to guess what I'm thinking,
or we're just not gonna talk aboutit. But it's the elephant in the
(18:41):
room. You can't help but notnotice that there's some tension, like you
were saying, there that needs tobe confronted, but of course we are
afraid to do it. There's anegative ripple effect that takes place in your
relationship when you're not talking about somethingthat needs to be talked about. I
know lots of people who avoid theirmiserable marriage, and they do all kinds
of things to themselves, over useof alcohol and spending excessively, but they
(19:07):
rather do that because the thought ofconfronting their partner is more painful than what
they're doing that that doesn't make alot of sense, But you're right,
it doesn't make a lot of sense. We do a lot of things that
don't make a lot of sense becausewe're struggling internally and we don't know how
to deal with confrontation. Confrontation isan ugly thing in our society, and
we need to work on reframing thatconfrontation is not a bad thing. But
(19:30):
when we think about confrontation, wegenerally think about somebody yelling, screaming.
It's a negative experience. It doesn'thave to be. It's all about how
we confront somebody about a problem.So I get my confrontation out on social
media. That's right, What doyou mean? What do you mean?
How do you do that? Well, just you know, going back and
forth on social media on certain topics, so not with well, you know
(19:52):
what, you're bringing up a veryinteresting topic. People do so are all
kinds of wars on social media,and then they're very passive aggressive. It's
how I didn't mean to say anythingabout that. It's just an innocent little
post. No, they're actually confrontingsomebody on something and it's not a healthy
way to do it. But ifyou don't care about that person is what
does it matter what they post andwhat they do. Confrontation Tonight, Unbleep
(20:15):
your Life on news Talk eleven thirtyWYSN Chevity, Anita Ashley has more advice
on how to Unbleep Your Life andRelationships on news Talk eleven thirty WYSA.
Welcome back to Unbleep Your Life andRelationships. I'm your host, Anita Ashley,
a psychotherapist of twenty five years andpublished author of Unbleep Your Life and
(20:40):
Relationships, available on Amazon and theSimon and Schuster website. Today we are
talking about to stop avoiding and startconfronting. Now, when we are avoiding,
we might think we are actually incontrol of the situation, but we're
not. What is in control isthe stressor that is in control of us.
(21:00):
But because we kind of feel goodbecause there's not a fight or something
going on, we think the opposite. That's not true. So if you
want to take control, you wantto lessen some of your anxiety, get
ready to confront the situation, theperson that you're having this issue with.
But you know what, we alldo that to some degree and it's healthy.
But again, in a long termrelationship, we need to be able
(21:22):
to get to that point. Now, how do we do this? That's
always the question. My patients andyou guys are listeners, are thinking now
that you've told me what my issueis, Thank you. That's so easy.
But what do I do about it? The how It's really important and
part of the goal for me todo the show is to help you guys
take the small steps that you cantake through some of the advice that I
(21:44):
give you. Again, it's nottherapy, but that can lead to greater
change. Small steps lead to biggersteps and then to change this whole thing,
the whole concept of doing things differently, learning to do things differently that
we repeatedly screw up. It's okay, we all do it, you know,
once in a while, it's okay. But if we notice that it's
something we do most of the timewith conflict that we're avoiding, there are
(22:07):
certain things that we can do.Here we go. You can ask yourself
why am I avoiding the situation,the conflict with the person? Also number
two, how long can I continueto do it? Is it working for
me? How long am I continueto live with this stress that it's unconsciously
causing me? And you can say, well, if it's unconscious, then
I'm not aware of it. Yesyou are, because I don't know if
(22:27):
you have ever experienced this. Greatwhen I'm avoiding something or I'm doing something
like what is going on with methat I'm so anxious about the situation or
not wanting to go to a familyevent or something is going on. I
reflect back, I think I'm like, Okay, it's because I don't want
to see my ex brother, mybrother in law or somebody. I'm avoiding
(22:47):
it. But that's causing me morestress in the long run. I just
need to talk to myself about it. Number three, how does avoiding it
make me feel? We might notbe aware of that, but most people
it causes them exsciety and that anxietymanifests itself in different ways. Number four,
how does avoiding it impact my relationshipwith others? Now, think about
(23:10):
something that's happening in your relationship.You guys might be able to relate to
this. Whenever we're invited to afamily event. That I was saying,
if most of the time you're avoidinggoing because you're avoiding some family member,
and then your partner says, youknow, I'm really fed up of this.
Every time we're invited to my momsyou never want to go, And
then you can say, well,no, I just don't want to go.
(23:30):
I'm busy doing this, I'm busydoing that. But when in actuality
you're trying to avoid that person.So that's going to have an impact on
your relationship. You may not realizeit, but again it's going to have
an impact on your relationship. Avoiding, again, guys, is not the
solution. It is quite the opposite. It's the cancer, you can say,
the cancer that I talked about.So we're going to stop avoiding and
(23:52):
start confronting to be a healthy versionof ourselves, but also to help our
relationships get better. Now, whenpeople think of confrontation, they are scared
because they think, oh my god, I don't want to have a fight.
Do you think of confrontation as afight? I think of mister t
cool. Well that's not well.The first step to attempting to resolving any
(24:15):
conflict is confronting the problem. Howcan you resolve a conflict if you can
confront it. I listen to patientsall the time in my office talk about
their challenges and their relationships. Andwhen I say, well, did you
talk to that person about it?Have you told them how you feel?
And they're like, what are youcrazy? Why would I do that?
I'm here paying you and that you'reI'm confronting you with it? Yeah,
I'm like, that's fine. I'mglad that you're sharing. You're getting it
(24:37):
out with me, But at theend of the day, you're going to
have to talk that talk to thatperson, if that person happens to be
your wife or your sister. Weneed to be able to get the confrontation
out. But before we do that, we need to think about confrontation in
a positive way and not in anegative way. So how are you How
do you confront somebody? You know, if you have something going on between
the two, how do you confrontthem? Before you confront them, ask
(25:00):
yourself the following questions, What thoughtsand feelings are standing in the way of
this confrontation, whether it's with thisperson or this issue. We'll ask yourself
that Sometimes we're just not aware ofit because we're in denial. Remember,
avoidance can happen on an unconscious leveltoo. We're not always conscious of it.
(25:21):
What's the first thing I say?Ask yourself? What is it about
the situation that I don't want togo there? Okay, let's issue my
mom for exact. Okay, Idon't want to talk about politics. So
what's the first thing I say toher? You say everything that avoids politics.
But I you know, well ifwith your mom, I don't know
how old she was, I don'tknow the specifics. Yeah, but if
(25:41):
you guys are dealing with this,and we've I've had this conversation with many
people in terms of you know,all the election and all the stuff going
on, Like I can't get togetherfor Thanksgiving with these people because they're all
going to talk about politics. Soyou don't. That's not the place to
confront a person at a holiday.But if it's a repeated thing, then
you're going to have to see yourmom. And you want to see your
mom, you can say to hermom, listen, we're never going to
(26:02):
agree on the subject. I loveyou. And that's actually the conversation.
That's actually what we did. Good. We did that. Yeah, Because
it doesn't mean confrontation is not thatI need you to come over to my
side and I need to convince youof what I'm thinking and feeling. It's
you can just simply say. Theconfrontation is I'm actually just saying the words.
Because we don't say the words toeach other. We just kind of
(26:25):
skirt around and we walk around them. But I'm going to say, listen,
I love you. And I loveto see you. But you and
I are not going to be ableto talk about this anymore common ground.
Well, we might never find commonground. We will agree to disagree.
And that's confrontation in and of itselfthat I've confronted you about that we can't
talk about this, that's the actualconfrontation, and that's the actual solution that
(26:48):
this is as far as we getwith this conversation, and we are just
going to put it on that bookshelf. But I love you and I want
to continue the relationship with you.Does that make any sense? So ask
yourself how important and this relationship isto you. If it's important to you,
then you will begin the process ofconfronting. But again, like we
were talking about, just merely havingthat discussion is the confrontation. How we
(27:11):
do it can be tricky, andwe're gonna talk about some of those techniques
next week as I teach you guyshow to de escalate an escalating situation,
because confrontations, guess what happens,They can escalate if we don't do them
properly. Okay, now, whengetting ready to confront, we need to
change the way we say the followingwords I'm sure you've heard this before.
(27:33):
I'm in relationships. I hear this, I'm like, ugh, but I
don't have that reaction anymore. Greg, we need to talk. I didn't
have to say anything. It's thosedreaded words, right. Oh no,
you cut your head, you cutyour face, and you're like, oh
my god. I don't want tohear that, especially after a long day.
This only means trouble. And guesswhat my reaction I might be like,
(27:56):
I'm too busy tonight, I gotstuff going on. I'm gonna be
working, I don't feel so well. Anything to avoid it. Again,
it's a demonstration about of how wesay those words. Instead of saying it
that way, we're gonna I'm gonnateach you how to say it differently.
And I hear this one all thetime. I'm going to share this one
with you. For example, ifyou want to confront your partner but the
(28:19):
lack of couple time in your relationship, the way not to do it is
we need to talk. You neverspend time with me. Ooh, that's
how are you gonna? That inviteswhat avoidance? It doesn't invite engagements,
So words are important Instead of sayingit that way in which you're using accusatory
language and extreme language like you neverwe never spend time together. Never stop
(28:44):
using those extreme words. Replace itwith something like this. Listen to this.
Do you have time on Friday afternoon? I'd like to talk to you
about how we can get more timein together. I miss you. Ah,
very different response. Let's unpack that. I'm using eye statements. I'm
very specific by the way. I'mnot saying, let's just talk, because
(29:07):
that's a great opening for somebody who'san avoidant to say, Okay, she
didn't say when or he didn't saywhen, so I'm out of here.
I'm totally gonna say I'm busy forthe next two weeks. We can't talk
about it. It's very specific.I'm saying on a Friday afternoon, I'm
identifying the issue without condemning the person. I'm not condemning you. I'm just
saying, hey, this is aproblem. I'm feeling this way. And
(29:29):
it's a tone of love, isn'tit. Sure? Yeah? I like
that. You know you're saying,hey, on Friday, we should just
get together and we'll talk. Isee what you're saying. How we confront
is so important. My suggestion asalways to use words that invite engagement,
not of avoidance. You saw thedifference there, guys. Yeah, this
is what we need to practice moreof and words are important. Language is
(29:52):
important. We are discussing confrontation andavoidance and some good stuff. As a
matter of fact, we've got acouple of questions from your Instagram that you
can get to and we'll do thatcoming up on News Talk eleven thirty wsn
back to Unbleep your Life and Relationships. On News Talk eleven thirty wys Welcome
(30:15):
back to Unbleep your Life and Relationships. I'm your host, Anita Ashley.
We are talking today about people whoavoid conflict and people who confront conflict.
Of course, we have to knowhow to do it in a healthy way.
Confrontation can go sideways if we don'tdo it well, and avoidance,
of course doesn't work. As wewere just saying, so, here are
(30:36):
some of the things you can doif you're getting ready to confront someone.
Gather Number one, gather your ownthoughts and feelings about what you're confronting exactly,
Be clear, be concise, andbe precise. Sometimes people don't know
themselves and then they try to confrontsomebody and that doesn't go well. So
know exactly what that is. Createa safe place and a space. Does
(30:57):
that make sense? Oh? Yeah? With you don't confront somebody about something
personal at a cafe where you're notable to really have any kind of privacy,
and then of course people are notgoing to say what they think and
feel about it. That's not atrue confrontation. And a true confrontation,
you have to feel safe and therehas to be some space where you can
really share your thoughts and feelings andthe other person can do the same.
(31:18):
Make the time. No doorknobbers.Do you know what a door knober is?
No? What is that? Well? A doorknob It came from the
psychotherapy experience of I'm going to tellyou something really important, but I'm gonna
tell you just as I'm leaving.Oh it's like, oh yeah, I
forgot to tell you, but mymother just died. You're like, wait
a minute. We just had awhole hour, right, and now you're
(31:41):
telling me it's not something I canreally help you with, but you've kind
of left me with it, andnow I have this anxiety, and now
you have this anxiety, and whatare we going to do with it,
So make sure you give enough timeto be able to actually do justice to
that confrontation. No door knobbers.And the other one is say what you
really think and feel. Saying whatyou think the person wants to hear has
(32:02):
probably gotten you to where you aretoday. It doesn't work. I know
it feels good in the moment.Yes, sure, I agree with you.
I feel exactly the same way whenyou know you don't. When you're
confronting, speak from your heart,speak from your mind, but speak your
truth. Okay. The next thingyou can do is use ie statements.
Not you don't do this, butwhat can I do? Share what you
(32:24):
think and feel using an eye statement, Just like we talked about previously.
I gave you that example of whenI said I really miss you, I
miss the time that we have together. How can we get together and how
can we have more time? Imiss you. I didn't say you don't
spend enough time with me. Thatis not going to invite invite something positivity
(32:45):
engagement. It's going to invite whatI'm trying to avoid, which is avoidance
number six. Stay on the issue, don't get sidetracked. People do this
all the time, they go amillion different directions. Take the linear paths,
stay focused, don't get sidetracked,speak your truth, and don't tell
the other person what they think andfeel. We often do that when we're
(33:05):
speaking. You feel this way,you think this way. No, speak
your truth, speak to yourself,and don't get sidetracked. It's easy to
get sidetracked. Yeah. Another thingyou can do is come to the table
with some suggestions, things that youthink will help shift the dynamic, that
will change something. It conveys tothe other person that you've actually thought about
the problem. And then you're justnot speaking out of nowhere or you're just
(33:28):
not attacking the person. You havesome solutions, but you're also opening to
listening to their solutions. It's importantto demonstrate that that you've given it some
thought. Very good. Another oneis don't get in the blame game.
You know we all do that.This is your fault, this is why
we're in this situation. The blamegame, as you know, doesn't work.
(33:49):
It only spirals into creating more conflictand it's not going to invite engagement.
It's not going to invite conflict resolution. Remember, you're there to redefine
the experience and come and make itsomething that's positive in your relationship, not
something that's negative. And if youexperience confrontation as a positive process, you're
more likely to do it right.I mean, if it's something else,
(34:12):
that's what goes back to minimize painand maximize pleasure. If it goes well,
we're gonna do it again. Andof course in relationships, you guys
know this, intimacy breeds conflicts.So if you're trying to maintain your relationship,
build your relationship, nurture your relationship, we need to be able to
confront issues that happen right absolutely.The other one is allow the other person
(34:36):
time and space to process what isbeing shared. You can't expect them to
have a response right away, andI think most people do. They respect
they expect something right away. Welive in a world of instant gratification.
Give me what I need, tellme what I need. No, they
need to give them time to processit and tell them they can come back
to you after maybe twenty four hours. That's what I usually suggest, give
(34:58):
them twenty four hours to process it. It's enough time, I think for
most people to become less emotional.If it's a highly charged emotional situation and
become more rational and then put anotherdate on the calendar. So you know
we're going to continue this conversation.We're going to continue this conversation within twenty
four hours, and then we willget some closure on both sides. Okay,
now, I know we always savesome time to answer a few questions
(35:21):
from your Instagram, which is askAnita, right? Is it? To
look it up? It's ask AnitaAsley on Instagram. I mean it is
the medium that I'm most active on. I am on Facebook, I'm on
Twitter, but if you want tosee day to day stuff, it is
on Instagram. All right, yougot a couple of questions, I do
one question? Here we go,Anita. I know I avoid confrontation at
(35:42):
all costs, but it's finally gettingto me. I grew up around fighting
parents, and I didn't want tocreate that in my own families, so
I'm basically quiet. It's been harderand harder to stay quiet. So at
fifty when I get when am Igoing to get to say what I really
want? And I'm starting to reallyfeel that told of not saying anything on
my relationship, but also individually,I'm fed up and I don't know what
(36:06):
to do. Oh, that kindof sounds like mine? Was it you?
Did you write? Did you writethis question? No? This is
common, you know we and it'sstereotypical. Men are avoiding and women are
always trying to resolve. Thank youfirst of all for sharing your question.
So let's you've gone to the otherextreme, like kind of like you Greg,
you know you grew up with fightingparents. When you grow up with
that kind of stuff, you wantto avoid it as an adult and you
(36:29):
don't want to recreate it in yourown relationship. But you kind of are,
but you're doing it in a covertfashion, meaning the conflict is there,
the big fight needs to kind ofhappen, and but you're you've avoided
it for so long. Now it'sgoing to be like a big bomb.
You know, when we store,we store, we store generally we have
an escalation. So glad that you'rerecognizing that. Glad that you know it's
(36:51):
time to talk. But you knowit's been so many years, Like where
do you start? People say thisall the time, Anita, I haven't
confronted or done anything with this.Where do I start? It's overwhelming,
So I don't do anything, reflectthink of all the things that are bothering
you write them down, because whenwe write them down, we experience them
differently. And then say to yourwife, honey, I love you.
(37:15):
There's some things I really want totalk to you about. And whatever your
number one is on that list,put it on there and say it's because
I love you. Remember, wewant to have a tone of love,
not a tone of attacking the otherperson. You're experiencing cognitive dissonance also because
your intellect knows that you've got totalk, but your emotions are scared because
(37:36):
where you've been in your life withyour family. And don't forget when you're
doing this and your kids see youdoing it is healthy for them. Your
role modeling to them how to resolveconflict and how to have a conversation and
not avoid. Yeah, you're fiftyand if you have children, I'm assuming
you do. But if you don't, okay, But you got to fix
(37:57):
your relationship anyway. But if youdo, your kids have observed this and
they can learn differently too. Whenyou started doing do things differently in your
own relationship. It's time to confrontsome good stuff here tonight. I want
to save some time because every atthe end of the show. You always
give us five pointers, so I'lllet you just take it from there.
Here they are start changing the wayyou think of confrontation. It's not always
(38:21):
something negative. It can be somethingpositive, but we have to learn to
do that. Number two, identifyyour role in your relationship. Are you
the confronter or are you the avoidNumber three, Write down one thing that
you're avoiding in your relationship, whetherit's with your girlfriend, your parents.
Write that thing down and ask yourself. Number four, why am I avoiding
(38:44):
this? What's at the root cause? What is the issue? And number
five tune in next week when Ihelp you to learn how to de escalate
an escalating situation. Radio gig.You're always teaching tea. You're teasing,
and I just want to say,you know, there's a lot of the
relationships are complicated at every age.We experience different challenges. But the number
(39:08):
one thing I always say to peopleis we cannot resolve anything if we can't
talk to the other person and ifwe can't confront that issue. Avoidance is
not a solution. Avoidance only magnifiesthe problem later on. And if that
relationship is important to you, youneed to be able to learn to confront.
(39:28):
I know, easier said than done, but one step at a time.
Whatever you learn on here is practicerehearsal. It's not therapy, but
it is really to help you makethose small changes that you need to make
in your life. All right,well we can find a lot of this
in the book. You can andthe book is available on Simon and Schuster
website and on Amazon. Unbleep YourLife and Relationships with Anita Asley. And
(39:52):
before we end, I just wantto say, wish your mother Happy Mother's
Day. If you're the one whohasn't done there's conflict, put it on
the emotional bookshelf, deal with ittomorrow, but not today. She's your
mom, she loves you. Wewill see you next week on I Bleeve
Your Life on Newstock eleven thirty wisn
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