Assertiveness practice

NinjaFrodo · Post by **NinjaFrodo** » Wed Nov 10, 2010 9:00 am

Dad; "I don't know why you are building that new fence, you aren't going to be staying here to enjoy it or use it"

DH; What is it that gives you the impression that we aren't going to be staying here long? [inquiry]

Dad; "Well, I'm having buyer's remorse and I could sell this house and make a profit."

DH; I feel really offended and concerned when you say you are having remorse and are considering selling the house to make a profit. You sound like you are upset about us living in the house. Is this correct? [I feel,emotional empathy]

Dad--Yes, I am worried about my wife and being able to meet all medical bills for her and for me. Since we are in our late 70s.

Note: My Dad moved from CA after selling a fixed up property, besides another home that I grew up in. My mother worked as a nurse and had a very good retirement as well as my Dad from working in computer world.

(this is a toughy and in a situation like this you may have to compremise)
DH; I understand you are in your 70s and are looking out for your future with your medical bills. They can get very expensive! Do you feel that the rent that we'll be (or that we are) paying will not be sufficient enough to cover this? (disarm, inquiry)

Dad--The rent is adequate, I don't think you can build your business w/o my help enough to get a loan on your own while I'm still alive. You're a poor businessman.

[DH; It sounds like you're saying that I can't run a business without your help. I do admit that I have alot to learn and I may not be as good of a businessman as you. (This was my original response and then I went back and looked in the book at the examples for some refrence and thought that it wasn't sufficient enough)]

DH; I feel offended right now. You say i'm a poor business man and that you don't think I can build a business without your help. Maybe you think i'm not good enough to build a business on my own. I want to understand you better, can you tell me why you feel the way you do?

(I do know how difficult it is getting to respond to this because you aren't your father and so its difficult to know exactly what he is thinking. You don't have to continue if you don't want to but it could be very helpful. You don't have to worry too much about making the best possible responses. You can just mention random things that you think might be a problem and I'll be trying to figure out everything that makes him think that way. I'm planning to ask if there is anything else that makes him feel the way he does, if you can't think of anything then you can say no, thats fine.)

Mike

NinjaFrodo · Post by **NinjaFrodo** » Wed Nov 10, 2010 9:11 am

THH;

Thank you, this does feel like a really good approach. My past responses felt like I was trying to win the arguement and I was just agreeing with X in order to shut him up. It also felt very robotic however that being said it is important to practice these techniques slowly and maybe one at a time. I would like to take the example statement that we are responding to and make up a number of diffrent responses. Hopefully I can respond using all of the techniques on their own and then make a last responses with mixing them.

After I had done that last response I felt like I was being more compassionate and having a heart to heart instead of winning a war on a battlefield. I think also that video you posted in the lesson 8 challenge was also very helpful. This type of thinking makes me actually want to go and hangout with people who don't feel listened to and actually listen to what they have to say and then see what happens in return. This definately could be a life changing way to communicate...not only for the person doing it but for the people they interact with. Would you like to give it a try? Do you need more information or examples? Or would you like me to work with my idea of making many diffrent variations to a negative remark? What is it that you want and need?

Oh and the signature is the statement that automatically gets put onto my messages just below my name.

Mike

mcshope · Post by **mcshope** » Wed Nov 10, 2010 4:03 pm

Mike,

I see what you are doing with the communication stuff... It is great.
I know you are good in paraphrasing what the other person is saying, and I see that you have been analizing you converstions and understanding them more.
I'm happy for you.

Hope

Paisleegreen · Post by **Paisleegreen** » Wed Nov 10, 2010 4:39 pm

DH; It sounds like you're saying that I can't run a business without your help. I do admit that I have alot to learn and I may not be as good of a businessman as you. (This was my original response and then I went back and looked in the book at the examples for some refrence and thought that it wasn't sufficient enough)]

DH; I feel offended right now. You say i'm a poor business man and that you don't think I can build a business without your help. Maybe you think i'm not good enough to build a business on my own. I want to understand you better, can you tell me why you feel the way you do?

(I do know how difficult it is getting to respond to this because you aren't your father and so its difficult to know exactly what he is thinking. You don't have to continue if you don't want to but it could be very helpful. You don't have to worry too much about making the best possible responses. You can just mention random things that you think might be a problem and I'll be trying to figure out everything that makes him think that way. I'm planning to ask if there is anything else that makes him feel the way he does, if you can't think of anything then you can say no, thats fine.)

Dad--"Well, you didn't do very well in your first business that you bought that went under and I had to help you out with lawyer fees. You made a bad decision and the previous owner wanted to sue you for money owed that you refused to pay due to lack of inventory that he said was there.

I'm just trying to get the money you owe me out of you after all these years."

NinjaFrodo · Post by **NinjaFrodo** » Wed Nov 10, 2010 8:53 pm

mcshope;

Thank you. I am definately getting better at paraphrasing but I still find it such a struggle to do so. Sometimes it takes me like 10-20 minutes just to figure out how I want to respond. Yes I try to use any example I can find.

You are definately welcome to join in too if you like.

Mike

NinjaFrodo · Post by **NinjaFrodo** » Wed Nov 10, 2010 9:08 pm

Dad; "I don't know why you are building that new fence, you aren't going to be staying here to enjoy it or use it"

DH; What is it that gives you the impression that we aren't going to be staying here long? [inquiry]

Dad; "Well, I'm having buyer's remorse and I could sell this house and make a profit."

DH; I feel really offended and concerned when you say you are having remorse and are considering selling the house to make a profit. You sound like you are upset about us living in the house. Is this correct? [I feel,emotional empathy]

Dad--Yes, I am worried about my wife and being able to meet all medical bills for her and for me. Since we are in our late 70s.

Note: My Dad moved from CA after selling a fixed up property, besides another home that I grew up in. My mother worked as a nurse and had a very good retirement as well as my Dad from working in computer world.

(this is a toughy and in a situation like this you may have to compremise)
DH; I understand you are in your 70s and are looking out for your future with your medical bills. They can get very expensive! Do you feel that the rent that we'll be (or that we are) paying will not be sufficient enough to cover this? (disarm, inquiry)

Dad--The rent is adequate, I don't think you can build your business w/o my help enough to get a loan on your own while I'm still alive. You're a poor businessman.

DH; I feel offended right now. You say i'm a poor business man and that you don't think I can build a business without your help. Maybe you think i'm not good enough to build a business on my own. I want to understand you better, can you tell me why you feel the way you do?(I feel, thought empathy, disarm, inquiry)

Dad--"Well, you didn't do very well in your first business that you bought that went under and I had to help you out with lawyer fees. You made a bad decision and the previous owner wanted to sue you for money owed that you refused to pay due to lack of inventory that he said was there.

DH; I made a bad business decision that resulted in the business going under and you had to help me out because the guy was suing me for money I owed. Is there anything else that makes you feel that I am a poor business man and need your help to build the business. (Thought empathy, inquiry)

Dad; I'm just trying to get the money you owe me out of you after all these years.

DH; You also want the rest of the money owing which you definately deserve. You've helped us out alot and we really appreciate it and yes that business decision was a bad one that was very costly which I have learned alot from with your help. I would prefer to try building another business and I would really appreciate it if I could run by some of my tougher decisions with you. (thought empathy, disarm, stroking?, disarm)

(I'm not quite sure if that ending statement was adequate enough. How do you feel about it? Is there something I'm missing or just not understanding here?)

Mike

Paisleegreen · Post by **Paisleegreen** » Thu Nov 11, 2010 5:36 am

Mike, I think you are doing great and DH pretty much did all these things to where we had almost weekly meetings that ended like this after DH and Dad would fight it out. I was never part of them, just would hear the arguments from the other room.

This is too painful, maybe I should be working on present problems. Because eventually we did get the house in our name, but it took a clergy leader to convince my Dad to give us an "asking price" for the house so that we could take it to the bank for a decision on a loan. My DAD was grumpy til he died sprinkled with just a few good moments. He was over 90 and he was just too controlling. Reversed roles after my mother started to have her mini-strokes.

At least with me, the roles reversed as they ended up living close to us for 11 years. When we first bought the house we live in, he was looking at putting a mobile home or small house on part of our acre property. We were glad to hear that they couldn't do it. We were so glad.

It was a painful time for me all my married years, due to him helping us in the beginning and always held that over our heads no matter what other accomplishments I or DH made. I think he was living vicariously through us, as he ended up running a service business w/ his brother and father until the computer world began. Even then he didn't get a degree which would have brought in more money which my mother wanted him too. She had gotten her college degree and had made more than my Dad.

NinjaFrodo · Post by **NinjaFrodo** » Thu Nov 11, 2010 6:43 am

I hate my last response though it bothers me.

DH; You also want the rest of the money owning which you definately deserve. You've helped us out alot and we really appreciate it and yes that business decision was a bad one that was very costly which I have learned a great deal from with your help. You are a good business person but I really prefer to build this business on my own and learn what I have to in order to maintain one instead of having it done for me. I hope you can allow room for both of us to make mistakes and I'm open to hearing some suggestions when it comes to solving some problems and I may ask you for that but I'd like you to respect my wishes. I can assure you that we will give you your money back.

I think that response is alot better. If your father continues to say something like "ya right" or "I don't believe you" or "but you did this and this" then we just continue to repeat the message of what was said.

"I understand what you are saying and there is some truth in it however I've decided to stick with my decision" (broken record technique)

He will eventually have to give up.

Paisleegreen;

Did all which things?

I understand that it is painful and we don't have to go through this but aren't you sick of running away from the pain only to have it resurface? It does sound like there is alot of pain there when you say he was grumpy and only had a few good moments as well as how you describe him as controlling. It may not be as effective that we did a role playing with your husband and your dad as it would be to do a role play with your dad and you. If you want we can do that and this time we can reverse the roles and you can look at some of the examples and come up with some responses. I don't want you to feel pressured into this however. It's up to you.

I'm assuming you were glad not to have him staying there on the property because of all the controling behavior and how negative it made you feel. It does sound like you had a very hard time. I can't say I can recall a time when someone helped me and then held it over my head and disregarded all my accomplishments but there have been times when people have really helped me out and I was holding that over my own head (when they lent me money and I had a hard time paying it back) and I disregarded all the things I was doing to reach my goal of paying them back so I can somewhat relate to the guilty and frustration feelings.

Mike

NinjaFrodo · Post by **NinjaFrodo** » Thu Nov 11, 2010 8:53 am

Ok so I've started to put some of these scripts and the ones in dr.burns's books onto tape and I was looking around in the book and found some more good information. Well I've been struggling with knowing when to use the feedback and negotiation technique. I understood that you use the first 2 techniques I posted at the start of this thread to listen and understand but when do you start to use I feel messages or express yourself? Well the book said you find out all the criticisms the person has towards you and then you respond. I'm not sure how this will work with the roleplaying but I'd like to give it a shot.

Mike

Paisleegreen · Post by **Paisleegreen** » Thu Nov 11, 2010 8:56 am

Yes, it is very painful. And it was what caused me to become clinically depressed and has affected my husband's self esteem and probably his reaction to me when I speak up for myself.

My husband felt the same way when he went in to work w/ my past psychologist who was becoming nit picky and controlling in his sessions with him.

This Dr as you say, was trying to find things wrong for him to "fix" to keep "the money" coming in. One thing this Dr pointed out with my Dad is that my Dad didn't have peace. That in his last days of life, he was more concerned about money, then mourning the loss of his Wife and Grandson.

My brother has had to save my father from himself, because he had ordered a $10,000.00 mail order program off the TV to teach you how to run an Internet Business. What he got in the mail was a box with videos and books that was not worth $10,000.00 and my Dad couldn't even use the computer to properly do our business books, so that's why we took the business books away from him.

A large sum of money had been taken out of his account on the day my mother died from a debilitating stroke after being on morphine for 10 days until she passed on.

The company reversed the credit card charge. Then my brother found another one of $900.00 that my Dad had just done. He just gets these ideas from watching TV and he has money so he orders them.

But then right after my mother was buried he did show up with having Lymphoma, so part of that and aging could have contributed to his behavior. Maybe not.