Clearing the Air with Revitalizing Conversations Can Put Your Relationships Back on Track

 

I won’t get into specifics, but I do want to say how clearing the air with loved ones with whom you may disagree politically or in any other way is very refreshing. I highly recommend doing it, or initiating doing it, whichever works in your situation.

 

My own, most recent refreshing, air-cleaning private conversation wasn’t initiated by me, except in a truly ham-handed way. I got in a few relatives’ faces (via email), demanding to know where they stood on the recent (January 6th) insurrection and then listing chapter and verse as to why it was wrong and asking if they still (or ever did) support the people who have incited just such an assault for months by spewing lies, filing bogus lawsuits, and the like, causing far too many of their followers to invade the Capitol looking to “stop the steal” by assassinating lawmakers.

 

I pretty much charged that if anyone still supports or excuses (you know who), they are in league with the Nazis and insurrectionists who stormed the Capitol, with the intent of getting immediate responses back saying, “I don’t support what the insurrectionists did and no longer support the people in high offices who incited them” (the immediate past president, Rudy Giuliani, Ted Cruz, and the others who continued to press the lie that the recent election was “stolen” from them and that the electoral college votes should not be considered the conclusion of the election.)

 

I repeat: I did this in a truly ham-handed way and came across sounding more like a wild-eyed lunatic than a patriot in search of their stand on the matter.

 

My email backfired…but it was also the triggering event that caused yesterday’s truly amazing, truly healing conversation, which I didn’t initiate because I was too ashamed of the way I had handled the first message. I wasn’t ready to confess my sin of assuming that they were still (or ever had been) involved in the Cult of Trump. (I know at least two of them voted for Trump both times. The first time, I could easily forgive. The second: no way!)

 

So, while I was sequestering myself in my office, one of the people I had emailed came over and asked if we could talk.

 

I said, “Sure! Let me get my mask.”  (She was wearing hers.)

 

We went into my bedroom and sat down on my bed, and we hashed it out.

 

We both apologized and we both got misty (I cried) several times during the 45-minute or so purge of how we came to be so uncommunicative with each other over the years, and how we began orchestrating and adopting stories in our minds that caused each of us to feel that the other considered us unlovable or untrustworthy, none of which were even remotely true.  (Brene’ Brown’s Youtube videos on shame and vulnerability are very instructive here.)

 

I wish I could tell you in more detail how we untangled the web and traced the genesis of the de-evolution of our relationship from fondness to fear, but I can’t. That’s confidential.

 

But I highly recommend being as brave at she was in broaching the subject so we no longer had to stay right where we were: trapped in a web of suspicion and separation.

 

There needs to be two adults in the room for the discussion to end as happily as this one did.  There has to be utter transparency (vulnerability) for something like this to work its many wonders.

 

But if you truly love the person you’re interacting with, clearing the air is possible, it’s refreshing, and it’s vital.  Because knowing we’re loved by the people we love, even when we may disagree with them politically or in any other way, is truly refreshing, life-affirming and joyful.

 

I feel years younger today because she had the courage and the insight to know I needed a nudge to get where we needed to go. And once I got it, we went there so vulnerably, and joyfully, and eventually so unabashedly that it felt like a benediction.

 

It was amazing!

 

If there are people in your life you love but with whom you feel you always have to walk on eggshells when you’re together, that’s a good one to do this with.  I plan to do it more often (I don’t have a lot of people I feel “eggshelly” about, thankfully!) now that I know how good the outcome can feel.

 

But again, it takes a willingness to be vulnerable, naked and honest. Your heart has to lead. Your ears have to hear, not just to respond (which is why we usually listen) but to inhabit their feelings and understand their perspective on what happened to derail the relationship. It isn’t easy, but it gets easier as you go along as you feel no pushback or denial of mutual culpability.

 

It really clears the air!