How to improve our relationships

This month in my Fresh Air Fridays sessions we have been talking about our relationships with others and focusing on those interactions which irritate us. 

How often do you find yourself saying something like?

 ‘she made me angry’,

‘they were so frustrating’ or perhaps

‘he wound me up so much I couldn’t enjoy myself’

All of these are our reactions to behaviours which we have seen in someone else and have chosen ourselves how we will react to them.

When we started thinking about occasions when someone had irritated us recently, it did not take long for all of us to come up with recent examples.

One person talked about their manager who always wanted more from her, and the team member who was forever doing different tasks to the ones she had been asked to do. Then there was the lodger who was irritating one of us because he hadn’t done something that had been asked of him several times and seemed to be taking no notice of several the rules he had been asked to sign up to when signing his lease.

For all of us, these were small things that were annoying us but we all noticed that they were gradually distracting us more and more because we were avoiding having a difficult conversation.

Thinking differently about the relationship

After identifying interactions that were irritating us we then went on to consider the interaction from a different perspective and to see if we could reframe it into something more positive.

We also thought about what positive intention the other person may have had in the way they behaved. By looking for a positive intention and reframing the behaviour of others into something more positive we can start to change how we react to their behaviour.

It doesn’t matter whether the positive intention is what the other person is actually thinking because it is a story we are running for ourselves, in the same way as our reaction to their behaviour is a story we are running.

The team member who was doing different tasks was new to the team and was perhaps looking to go over and above what had been asked to make a good start and feel that she belonged to the team. The lodger was having a difficult time at work and perhaps he had overlooked some of the house rules due to being overwhelmed and feeling unwell.

When looking at the relationships from these new perspectives, we all found that we could consider things more objectively and came up with plans on how to have the conversations we wanted to have in a respectful way.

Next steps

Next time you notice that you are starting to feel annoyed or irritated by someone else’s behaviour, acknowledge this and see if you can find the positive intention in what they are doing.
If you find you are really stuck with this and can’t feel better about the relationship, then go for a walk and give yourself permission to feel whatever negative emotion there is without any judgement. This is often the first step in dissipating the negative feelings.

To join my Fresh Air Fridays groups or for one to one coaching -  contact me