Validation Prevents Relational Roadblocks

Many conversations break down because of the failure to validate. I like to jokingly refer to this as “failure to launch” because a failure to validate tends to prevent a conversation from even getting started. If we don’t get started, then we have very little hope of going deeper. Let’s use a made up example of how a conversation could go downhill very quickly between me and Brittany.

Brittany: Hey, I know I said would get the trash out this morning and Norah was going crazy and it just didn’t happen Scott: You know that we’re going to get fined next week since we’ll have to put out two weeks of trash now, right?

We don’t need to go any further. We know how Brittany will react from here: she’ll be defensive and, likely as not, we will start quibbling about something that is not super significant (like trash fines). If things go really bad, we’ll start saying things like, “You never do what you say you’re going to do,” Or, “I do more things than you do,” or whatever...there’s a million ways things can go wrong from here.

Imagine if I had said, “I know exactly how all consuming it can be to deal with a toddler who is melting down.” (This is what validation looks like). It would be a totally different conversation, right?

With her first statement, Brittany is trying to apologize and take ownership for forgetting to take out the trash- it’s just not happening at the most explicit level. So, to respond by expressing disappointment is to reject her desire to take responsibility for her part in the mishap (and yes, it’s a very insignificant mishap).

When this happens, the conversation never gets off the ground. It fails to launch.

And let us consider each other carefully for the purpose of sparking love and good deeds. 25 Don’t stop meeting together with other believers, which some people have gotten into the habit of doing. Instead, encourage each other, especially as you see the day drawing near.

Hebrews 10:24-25, CEB

Yikes!

The Big Book of AA says, “The spiritual life is not a theory. We have to live it. Unless one’s family expresses a desire to live upon spiritual principles we think we ought not to urge them. We should not talk incessantly to them about spiritual matters. They will change in time. Our behavior will convince them more than our words. We must remember that ten or twenty years of drunkenness would make a skeptic out of anyone.”

Not all amends go well. Here is an example of an amends gone bad:

“ ‘Joey, I know I treated you and your sisters badly when you were kids,’ he began. “One of the things I’ve learned through Alcoholics Anonymous is that you have to admit that you’ve hurt people and let them know how sorry you are. I know that I did some bad things back then, and I apologize. Son, I’m sorry for anything I may have done to harm you.’ Then he stuck out his hand. I did not have it in me to forgive him, as absolution was not my line of trade, but I shook his hand anyway, if only because this creepy vignette made me uncomfortable and I wanted it to be over. Clemency was not included in my limited roster of emotions, but because he seemed to be making an effort to turn his life around, I did not express my true feelings at the time. Still, the whole thing rankled. I didn’t like the way my father phrased his apology; it sounded like he was working from a script. I knew, of course, that the self-abnegation-by-numbers routine was a stunt suggested to people like my father by Alcoholics Anonymous. You have done many bad things and now realized that you were powerless before the fearsome suzerainty of demon alcohol, but you were man enough to fess up to your mistakes. You said a few words, you stuck out your hand - meekly, if you were any good at this sort of thing - your apology was accepted, and then everything was even-steven….Nothing my father had done in all the years I’d known him infuriated me more than this fleabag apology.”

Joe Queenan, Closing Time

What went wrong? What principles did Joey’s dad violate? How can we learn from this experience?

NOT an Apology

Step Nine can be abused, particularly when we confuse an amends with an apology. An amend is not an apology. Amends making inevitably results in us changing our behavior. An apology side-steps that process. If we seek an apology rather than an amend, we are avoiding the hard and painful work of recognizing and feeling another person’s suffering. This is why an appropriate amends inevitably involves listening. We ask, “Did I miss anything?” We ask, “How can I make this right?” We ask so that we might listen, understand and have empathy for the person we once hurt.

When we say, “I’m sorry” we are changing the focus from our wrongdoing to our uncomfortable feelings. We are manipulating the other person to focus on the shiny object of our remorse. This is the very thing that got us into trouble to begin with - using someone else in an attempt to benefit ourselves. Saying “I’m sorry” doesn’t change anything.

A decent amends requires us to focus on how the other person feels. Perhaps the secret sauce to any good amends is listening. Not how they listen to us, but how we listen to them as they interact with our efforts to make a wrong right.

So often the drive to do the Ninth Step comes from the desire to get guilt off our back. I have a friend who once was so overcome with guilt about an affair he was having that he decided to make an amends - for an affair his wife knew nothing of! It was a disaster. He was blindsided by her rage. He was shocked that his relief was so fleeting as the consequences of his actions tumbled down on him, his wife, his family and even his friends like a ton of bricks. He swiftly moved from guilt to outrage as the divorce papers arrived via special messenger. He lamented, “My wife is not acting like a good christian!” Oh boy. He was not able to see her pain, as he focused in so attentively on his own.

When we ask someone to speak about the pain we caused them AND listen without apology and without excuses, their pain will only add to our own because we realize afresh that we have been the reason for someone else’s suffering. This is hard stuff but together, we can do hard things! But we need support and help and prayer and wisdom and God’s grace to get through it.

Disclosure

We are disclosing animals, wired for unburdening. It’s what we do as a species.

-David Rakoff, Half Empty

One of the unfortunate side-effects of poor listening involves harming ways. People in recovery are taught to understand this - but I’m not sure the rest of the world has received this gift of humble learning. If you’ve practiced these steps, you have the experience of arriving at Step Nine, where we actually make the amends we have been preparing for. Others of us are not walking these steps with quite the same precision as others - but we can still glean wisdom from the process! In Step 9: We make direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others. We screw up our courage and face our fears. We ask permission to make amends to people we have harmed, set an appointment up with the willing and DIRECTLY acknowledge our wrongdoing and then ask to make it right. Although this step in no way obligates another to forgive us, forgiveness is certainly a desirable outcome.

Our initial inclinations to run after those we have harmed and apologize may have morphed into a low grade dread. We are learning that the days of “I am sorry” are behind us. We are figuring out how to make amends and then actually taking the actionable step of doing so.

I have struggled with two primary issues when making amends:

1. I find it difficult to make an amends to someone who has also harmed me

2. My fear of rejection, my pride, my loose relationship with honesty, my selfishness and self-seeking - all holler at me to deny, deny, deny rather than admit.

When I was a kid my dad always told us to NEVER, EVER admit wrongdoing. He said that it was a sign of weakness and even in the face of proof of wrongdoing, if you claim your innocence loud enough, most people will back off. Unfortunately, he was right. It is similar advice a pastor gave me once, “Teresa, part of leadership is repeating what you want people to do over and over until they think it is their idea and they go along with it.” Unfortunately, in some toxic environments, this works.

Take a minute and consider what you have been taught about amends, apologies, and forgiveness. Do you think you have been given access - and practice time - to learn how to apply biblical principles in concrete, tangible and executable ways? I was not. But that is no excuse. I need to learn. How about you?