The Glory of Small Talk

Once in awhile someone will send me a gentle email asking me if I can figure out how to get the gang to stop being so chatty before meetings so that we can get onto the topic at hand. I explain that I am powerless and our routine continues. People chat, even on zoom, and I love it.

Here's why. Casual but friendly social interaction is a signal to our body that the world is a safe place. So in our community, we encourage this inefficient but helpful use of chit chat and companionable sharing because it is one more step in, you got it, completing the stress response cycle.

Even if you personally are not feeling light and breezy, practice making a little small talk today, see how it goes!

The Liberating Power of Taking Responsibility

If we want to grow, then we best learn how to take responsibility for our problems. One of the things that brings me the greatest joy is working with our son Scott on a daily basis. Few parents have this privilege. Sometimes Scott and I have conflict and we get to sit down and figure out what's going on. This is really a great problem and has brought us a lot closer - in my opinion.

Early on, I would sometimes get defensive if he disagreed with me over an issue. Not always, but under the right conditions, I took exception to his feedback. Thanks be to God and our work with the Enneagram, we began to get more clarity around our habitual ways of getting out of sorts with one another. That cleared up a lot of the conflict.

But not all of it. And here's why. Part of the issue was rooted in my own insecurity. This was part Enneagram stuff and part historical context but it was ALL 100% my responsibility to work on - and I have done just that. Failure to take responsibility for every single bit of my life could have had disastrous consequences for our relationship. I might have continued to ask HIM to take responsibility for my own insecurity by changing how he "handled" our conflicts. That was NOT his work to do. This was easier than it could have been because Scott takes responsibility for is stuff too. Separately and together, we work on taking responsibility for our own work and that means we have far fewer instances where we confuse responsibility with fault-finding.

Last week Scott had a power outage right before our Thursday night meeting - which he was leading. He threw his stuff in his computer bag and rushed to our house to get set up in time to run the group. After the group, instead of assuming that there was fault to be called out, I instead took responsibility to follow up with curiosity. "Hey, I thought you were a little grumpy tonight. Is everything ok?"

He replied, "With the group?" Looking chagrined and no small amount of mortified.

"No! That went fine, I thought you were a little short with me." I clarified.

He paused. He thought. He answered, "Man, I was really stressed. I was worried that I would leave everyone hanging on that call. Sorry you got the brunt of that." He took responsibility and I immediately knew that he was also not finding fault with me. He was not saying I was an annoying mother with many faults that he tolerates. No one was at fault, everyone was taking responsibility for speaking about their experience.

I concurred with his assessment and reiterated that the problem at hand got solved, which was a big win. No residual conflict or feelings or issues stand between us and our treasured relationship. When we take responsibility for our lives, it is liberating.

You Have to Validate to Cooperate

For a month’s worth of posts, I (Scott) am critiquing my own past blog posts. I’m viewing this as an experiment in being willing to admit when I’m wrong, change my mind, and to do so publicly.

From yesterday:   How do we draw accurate conclusions about what has taken place during a fight?

If both parties are at least a bit wrong in every confrontation, then that means the truth of the situation does not exist on the side of either person but, instead, somewhere in the middle.  

In order to draw accurate conclusions about a fight both parties must be committed to an ongoing dialogue and both parties must remain legitimately open to what the other party has to say.  The only way to find truth is to cooperatively navigate through the filth of what transpired.  

If one side or the other is not committed to the process, both will be abandoned to guesswork and confusion.  Neither of these serves a relationship well.  

Looking back from the future:

One thing I would say with some additional time and perspective is that it just isn’t that important to get at the exact facts of an argument. It is critical that each person’s concern is heard, that each person’s feelings are validated, and that there is a spirit of cooperation in seeking a solution.

Remember, validation is not about agreement- it’s acknowledging what’s there without judgment. I don’t always agree with Brittany’s reasons for being upset with me- but it’s absolutely crucial that I get to a place where I can say, “I hear you’re upset, and it’s okay to be upset.” It’s only once both people have been heard that you can really cooperate on a solution.

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