A Lesson from Alien Girl

 
Image source: http://www.astrofreaks.net/2012/07/03/sirius-the-movie-in-race-against-timeline-for-false-flas-alien-invasion/

I had this friend once, she was legit crazy.  She believed in all these conspiracy theories about aliens and mermaids.  She was a very high maintenance friend and one of those who had lots of problems but had already “tried everything” so you couldn’t fix her.  Anyways, she did teach me one very valuable lesson about life.

I had a calling in young women’s and for the most part all the girls loved me (I mean how could they not, right??), but there was one girl that I just could not get through to and she and I never saw eye to eye.  It was like her sole purpose in life was to give me grief.  Then in moves Alien Girl.  She gets called into young women’s and upon her first interaction with this troubled teen she has completely won her over and has her eating out of the palm of her hand.  I was extremely jealous.  She had accomplished in 5 minutes what I couldn’t do in 3 years.

So how did she do it?  Well I had to find out.  I asked her what her secret was.  She told me that when she approached miss troubled teen and introduced herself, the teen immediately recounted how awful her life was and how much she hated everything (typical for her).  It was how Alien Girl responded that made all the difference.  She replied, “Wow that sucks.  My life sucks too.  Wanna be friends?”

See what she did there?  That my friends is called empathy.  Something that I really struggle with, but am working to improve in my communication skills.  I’ve always been the friend that tells you to “look on the bright side” or say things like “it could be worse”.  Of course my heart was always in the right place and I was only trying to make the other person feel better the best way I knew how, but I was missing a key component.  When I would say things like that, it was as if I had completely mowed over those other people’s feelings to get to the greener grass on the other side.  Let’s not talk about sad things let’s talk about happy things!  Effective communication requires us to actually care about what the other person is saying and feeling.  We have to validate those feelings (because all feelings are valid!) first before we try to cheer them up.  And then there are people that don’t want to be cheered up…but that’s a discussion for another time.  (Hawkins, Dollahite, & Draper, 2012)

So now when people dump all their sadness on me I am making a conscious effort to change my initial reaction.  Instead of retreating into the land of happy right away, the first words that come out of my mouth are, “Wow that sucks.”  (Or any other similar variation on the phrase.)  The conversations almost always go more smoothly from that point.

The ability to communicate effectively not only helps us navigate relationships with our peers, but it is key in being able to communicate effectively as a couple.  You must actively show the other person that you HEAR them.  Isn’t that what we all want?  To be heard?