12
   

Relationships and Nature of Conflict: "Please Understand Me"

 
 
Ragman
 
Reply Mon 19 Jan, 2009 05:12 pm
I've been reading and re-reading this excerpt a few times to help me better understand dynamics of people in conflict: DIFFERENT DRUMMERS

Excerpted from 'Please Understand Me II'
David Kiersey

If I do not want what you want, please try not to tell me that my want is wrong.

Or if I believe other than you, at least pause before you correct my view.

Or if my emotion is less than yours, or more, given the same circumstances, try not to ask me to feel more strongly or weakly.

Or yet if I act, or fail to act, in the manner of your design for action, let me be.

I do not, for the moment at least, ask you to understand me. That will come only when you are willing to give up changing me into a copy of you.

I may be your spouse, your parent, your offspring, your friend, or your colleague. If you will allow me any of my own wants, or emotions, or beliefs, or actions, then you open yourself, so that some day these ways of mine might not seem so wrong, and might finally appear to you as right -- for me. To put up with me is the first step to understanding me. Not that you embrace my ways as right for you, but that you are no longer irritated or disappointed with me for my seeming waywardness. And in understanding me you might come to prize my differences from you, and, far from seeking to change me, preserve and even nurture those differences."
  • Topic Stats
  • Top Replies
  • Link to this Topic
Type: Discussion • Score: 12 • Views: 27,921 • Replies: 80
No top replies

 
Foxfyre
 
  1  
Reply Mon 19 Jan, 2009 05:15 pm
Any particular question or comment Ragman? (I just led a workshop using that very material this past Saturday.)
ossobuco
 
  1  
Reply Mon 19 Jan, 2009 05:22 pm
@Ragman,
So you'll never warn someone if a person near them, offline or on, has (for argument's sake) a history of sociopathic (not, I think, a clinical term) behavior?
abusive behavior? Perhaps someone who does not understand the word sociopathic?
Ragman
 
  1  
Reply Mon 19 Jan, 2009 05:26 pm
@Foxfyre,
Foxfyre: thanks for dropping by here. Based on your A2K interactions, I respect your opinion. I just learned of this book today. Perhaps, you could feel free to wing it and describe how this workshop went for you when you first attended it and/or others, seeing that you led? How well have you (and others) been able to put these fine ideas into practice in your (or others) own life/lives? Is this a workshop that is a one-time workshop. Please tell us more.

Though, I will say, I'd like to direct the convo to keep the FOW fiasco out of this discussion as much as can be helped. It's pretty well "jumped the shark".
0 Replies
 
Ragman
 
  1  
Reply Mon 19 Jan, 2009 05:33 pm
@ossobuco,
I'm not sure, Osso, so I'll listen for Foxfyre's comments, but perhaps this more applies to people in ongoing relationship with some sort of history. At least MY interest is more about ongoing established relationships.
0 Replies
 
Montana
 
  1  
Reply Mon 19 Jan, 2009 05:34 pm
@Ragman,
I'm going to frame that and put it on my wall. Kitchen I think, since most would see it there. Maybe the Foyer.
0 Replies
 
sullyfish6
 
  2  
Reply Mon 19 Jan, 2009 05:40 pm
That quote basically says: Love me the way I am and don't try to change me. It's an old mantra, left over from the Hippy Generation.

That's OK for setting some ground rules in adult relationships, but you could not raise children or run a compnay or teach a classroom using that philosophy.

I don't think there's REALLY such a thing as unconditional love, anyway.
Ragman
 
  1  
Reply Mon 19 Jan, 2009 05:43 pm
@sullyfish6,
The concepts behind this have far deeper non-Hippy roots. Sullyfish, your cynicism and over-simplification is duely noted. Where is it that anyone said/wrote that you can run a company with this? I think that it could be helpful in a company using it is one tool to help resolve SOME conflicts might be useful with willing participants. But my main focus here is to discuss the dynamics within ongoing personal non-work relationships.
0 Replies
 
Foxfyre
 
  1  
Reply Mon 19 Jan, 2009 05:48 pm
Ragman and Osso, Kiersey's work is in temperament sorting/typing to better help us understand those components of our temperament that is pretty well hard wired and to deal with and appreciate the relationships in our lives. It has absolutely nothing to do with abnormal or socially unacceptable behavior of any kind.

I've been doing these kinds of workshops--everything from a couple of hours (which allows for a good introducton only) to all day seminars to week long sessions--off and on for more than 30 years now. Kiersey's stuff is the bedrock of my teaching materials, but it isn't exclusively limited to that.

But the excerpt Ragman posted is the foundation upon which it all rests.

Essentially it helps us address the fact that too often we judge others based on what we think, how we feel, what is important to us. We have notions of how people should behave or communicate or respond. We think our perceptions should be obvious to others . We think others should appreciate and share most of what we hate and what we love. And we may feel negative or irritable or critical of those who see things differently than we see them or who respond to things differently than we respond.

Temperament sorting/typing helps us understand the differences in tempermanet and understand that everybody doesn't see or hear or respond in the same way that we do and that's okay.

We will come to accept and appreciate people much more when we stop trying to get them to be like us and/or stop condemning them because they aren't like us.

That's pretty much it in a nutshell, though there is a huge area of complexity built into it all. Fascinating stuff though. I have yet had anybody attend a workshop who didn't find it interesting, but then maybe it is people willing to hear and understand who are more likely to attend exercises like this.
Montana
 
  1  
Reply Mon 19 Jan, 2009 05:52 pm
@Foxfyre,
I know I would attend if I were close by.
Foxfyre
 
  1  
Reply Mon 19 Jan, 2009 05:57 pm
@sullyfish6,
sullyfish6 wrote:

That quote basically says: Love me the way I am and don't try to change me. It's an old mantra, left over from the Hippy Generation.

That's OK for setting some ground rules in adult relationships, but you could not raise children or run a compnay or teach a classroom using that philosophy.

I don't think there's REALLY such a thing as unconditional love, anyway.



The folks who hire me (or ask me to volunteer) to run the workshops are interested in family relationships and organizational relationships and find it useful for both.

For instance, to understand that your out going extraverted kid is simply being who he is while your more reserved, introspective introverted kid is absolutely normal and okay is a good thing to know and accept. If you make decisions based mostly on objective, impersonal criteria and your spouse makes decisions based more on how he or she feels about something, you can both absolutely be being your normal selves and it is okay. It is not asking us to condone bad behavior, but it does help us to understand that somebody else's annoying way of saying things or responding to something may be 100% right for him/her, and once we accept that, it becomes a lot less annoying and possibly even endearing.
0 Replies
 
ossobuco
 
  1  
Reply Mon 19 Jan, 2009 06:00 pm
@Foxfyre,
Ah, I jumped to a conclusion I guess wasn't warranted.

I get that we have different ways and temperaments and a right/privacy for them.
Not ever speaking critically of another's (say, a mate's) point of view? Never irritation? All communication couched in cushions or not expressed? Sounds like dealing with a pillow.

Foxfyre
 
  1  
Reply Mon 19 Jan, 2009 06:04 pm
@ossobuco,
ossobuco wrote:

Ah, I jumped to a conclusion I guess wasn't warranted.

I get that we have different ways and temperaments and a right/privacy for them.
Not ever speaking critically of another's (say, a mate's) point of view? Never irritation? All communication couched in cushions or not expressed?




Not exactly. Again, adopting this philosophy does not mean nobody will ever make you mad again or that you find somebody else's words/behavior acceptable. You aren't relinquishing your value system in any way.

But it does help us be more accepting of the natural self of another person and allowing that person to be that self without undue criticism or trying to change them. Once we can do that, there will be much more harmony in our lives. It won't mean that we will click with everybody or enjoy everybody's company from then on though. But it does help us understand why we do click with some people and not with others, but appreciate that this does not mean that those others are necessarily wayward or off base.
Foxfyre
 
  1  
Reply Mon 19 Jan, 2009 06:06 pm
@Montana,
Montana wrote:

I know I would attend if I were close by.


I think you would pick up on this in a heartbeat, Montana, and probably would have a very high aptitude for it. That shouldn't be interpreted as the rest chiming in here wouldn't though.
Montana
 
  1  
Reply Mon 19 Jan, 2009 06:12 pm
@Foxfyre,
Thanks Fox. I think it's something I'd find very interesting.
0 Replies
 
ossobuco
 
  1  
Reply Mon 19 Jan, 2009 06:26 pm
@Foxfyre,
Ah, well, that is obvious to me, most of the time. I seem to be in the wrong thread.
(backs up)


Foxfyre
 
  1  
Reply Mon 19 Jan, 2009 06:30 pm
@ossobuco,
? Why wrong thread?
Ragman
 
  1  
Reply Mon 19 Jan, 2009 06:32 pm
@ossobuco,
why do you feel that you are in wrong thread?
0 Replies
 
ossobuco
 
  1  
Reply Mon 19 Jan, 2009 07:17 pm
@Foxfyre,
Well, the whole idea of not changing people into copies of yourself is too obvious to belabor, at least re my interest.
I did take this at first as a comment on the Fow/Montana roundabout, which is why I clicked to read. Thus, backing out.
hawkeye10
 
  1  
Reply Mon 19 Jan, 2009 08:21 pm
The push/pull that goes on between two people is a huge portion of the engagement between the two. The alternative to engagement is nonengagement, that is too say weak relationship. One can never eliminate push/pull and only fools try. Conflict is not in and of itself a problem, which is why relationship pros talk about fighting fair not about conflict avoidance. Those who continually avoid conflict are unhealthy, and their relationships can not avoid being unhealthy as well.

However, if a relationship becomes consumed by conflict the individuals must be taught how to back off of it, which is of course disregarding the advise to stop trying to change people.
0 Replies
 
 

Related Topics

A good cry on the train - Discussion by Joe Nation
I want to run away. I can't do this anymore. Help? - Question by unknownpersonuser
Please help, should I call CPS?? - Question by butterflyring
I Don't Know What To Do or Think Anymore - Question by RunningInPlace
Flirting? I Say Yes... - Question by LST1969
My wife constantly makes the same point. - Question by alwayscloudy
Cellphone number - Question by Smiley12
 
  1. Forums
  2. » Relationships and Nature of Conflict: "Please Understand Me"
Copyright © 2024 MadLab, LLC :: Terms of Service :: Privacy Policy :: Page generated in 0.16 seconds on 12/06/2024 at 03:53:03