“Lady Liberty” by Mimi Stuart ©
Live the Life you Desire
It feels good to help someone who’s having problems with another person. However, inserting yourself into a conflict between two people can cause more harm than good. When you find yourself listening to complaints or gossip about someone’s relationship to a third person, you may find yourself being triangulated.
Motivation Continue reading
“Tempest” by Mimi Stuart ©
Live the Life you Desire
Worry
Worry, however, is an ineffective state of anxiety where we repeatedly imagine all sorts of negative possibilities. Once our children are young adults and off to college or work, worry on our part degrades the quality of our lives rather than helps our children. While unfortunate things do happen, there is a point where worrying about our children doesn’t help and in fact sometimes can make things worse.
Too much warning
When you continually warn your adult children of all the dangers in the world, it often causes them to be less careful. Even with young children you should make sure not to be overly anxious or you will lose credibility with them. Moreover, you will annoy them by infantilizing them and implying that that they are not capable of thinking on their own.
Imagine being a child. If an adult is constantly warning you of danger, you don’t take on responsibility and accountability for looking for those dangers yourself. Moreover, you soon see the warnings as being exaggerated. So the reckless part of you wants to act out. The degree to which someone focuses on telling you to be careful is the degree to which you will either become overly fearful or overly reckless, and sometimes ironically both.
Learning to evaluate risk
The best way to learn to evaluate risk is by having many experiences of evaluating risk, and sometimes making mistakes and facing the consequences. When you know that you are accountable for yourself, you tend to put more effort into evaluating situations and making decisions.
Children need to be able to make mistakes, sometimes painful, within the context of a safe environment. Of course, small children need to be kept safe. Over time, however, parents should gradually allow their children more leeway to think about the choices they make. Certainly by the time their children become adults, parents are only cultivating codependence, resentment, and rebellion by inundating their children with lectures and warnings.
Thus, if you tend to worry and frequently give caution to your adult children or excessively give warning to your younger children, you need to take stock, gain some self-discipline and resist focusing on your children. If you rarely give advice, the advice you do give will be taken more seriously.
by Alison Poulsen, PhD
Read “I am overwhelmed by worry.”
Read “I fear something bad is going to happen. It feels like the end of the world.”
Read “I found out my daughter has cancer. All I can do is cry and worry.”
“I’ll Have What She’s Having”—Meg Ryan
by Mimi Stuart © Live the you Desire
You have to be tactful when giving forthright advice to people who have not asked for your advice. For example, if you recommend to someone who is having trouble getting pregnant that she stop eating junk food, she may be offended. She will probably view you as being judgmental and intrusive rather than loving and concerned. She may also avoid you in the future not wanting to feel judged whenever she drinks a soft drink in front of you. Moreover, she’s unlikely to take your advice seriously because you are not a nutritionist or a fertility doctor.
So instead you might send her an email with one or two articles attached — not twenty-five — and a note saying, “I thought you might find this new research about fertility helpful and interesting.” You will sound less superior and disapproving. The article will have more authority and be more likely to get her attention.
If she resists the information, it may be best to drop it. While it is loving to try to help or enlighten people, once they are informed, it is best to allow them to make their own choices.
by Alison Poulsen, PhD
Read “Giving Advice: ‘She never listens to me.’”
Read “Motivating Change: ‘I can’t stop criticizing my partner.’”
"Snowflakes" by Mimi Stuart
Live the Life you Desire
Advice is like snow; the softer it falls, the longer it dwells upon, and the deeper it sinks into the mind.
~Samuel Taylor Coleridge
1. Select an appropriate time and private setting to talk.
2. Ask the person whether she would like some advice or if you could tell her a story that might have some bearing on the situation.
3. Find out the person’s state of mind or point of view to make sure your advice is appropriate.
4. Remember that no one knows for sure what is best for another person. Telling a personal story has a greater effect than if you tell someone you know what’s best for her.
5. Frame your advice as a positive suggestion rather than negative criticism.
6. Don’t repeat advice. Pushiness has the opposite effect; it builds resistance.
7. Respect the other person’s autonomy. Let her decide whether or not to take your advice.
The true secret of giving advice is, after you have honestly given it, to be perfectly indifferent whether it is taken or not, and never persist in trying to set people right.
~Hannah Whitall Smith
by Alison Poulsen, PhD
Read “Conversation and Active Listening: ‘It seems like I do all the talking.’”
"Pleiades" by Mimi Stuart
Live the Life you Desire
So what I really meant was…
“I appreciate your wanting to help, but… right now I have a strategy,”
Or “…what I need right now is some time to reflect,”
Or “…now is not a good time.”
It takes a great man to give sound advice tactfully, but a greater to accept it graciously.”
~Macaulay, J. C.
by Alison Poulsen