These last couple of weeks, I’ve been hearing a theme in my work with people – “How do I disagree with my partner in a respectful way?”  A young couple I’m seeing in my practice have been going around with this one for a while.  I certainly remember being in the first years of my relationship with husband, David (going on thirty years now).  We sure have bumped up against the challenge of respectfully disagreeing.

It’s not uncommon when we disagree with someone to feel disrespected or not heard.  We can all easily make the mistaken assumption that our loved one’s disagreeing, their having another point of view, means that they either don’t hear us — after all, if they really heard what we were saying, how on earth could they disagree!? — or that they are simply being disrespectful.

Disagreeing is neither.  Disagreeing simply means that the other person has a different perspective.  Sometimes, the only way David and I could find our way through an argument was to take a deep breath and say, “You know, you and I just aren’t the same.”  That can feel like a hard fall from the sweet space of falling in love.  Others say, “the honeymoon’s over.”  Yes, and . . .

Learning to disagree and equally important, learning to accept that our sweet one doesn’t see life the same way we do is essential to fully respecting each other.  Cultivating the hard won appreciation that our beloved sees the world through their own eyes and not ours ultimately grants a kind of serenity you might feel after practicing a balance pose over and over and finally standing on one foot with complete equipoise.

Here are few tips to help you hold your balance when you are thrown off by disagreements:

1.  Listen, really listen.  Make sure you really hear what the other person is saying.  Listen for the content and the feelings beneath the content.  What are they feeling?  What need are they trying to express?  Reflect back what you hear to make sure you fully understand.  As much as possible, reflect your understanding with kind words and a kind open expression.  Sometimes, if you are still feeling charged up because you are not being heard, this kind of listening might be very very difficult.  If that’s the case, practice self control and/or take some time and clear the charge you are feeling so  you can listen more carefully.

2.  Practice being courteous.  One of the qualities that gets lost in many relationships is simple courteousness.  Everyday, aim to treat “your people” with kind courtesy.  This might mean treating each other like guests in your home, it might mean doing tiny kindnesses for them.  In disagreements, this means sharing your point of view politely in a calm voice.  Again, if you are feeling too charged up, learning to clear the emotional energetic charge can really help you listen to your beloved and express your point of view with heartfelt respect.

3.  Ask if your disagreeing partner is ready and willing to hear your point of view.  Be ready to wait as they really and truly may not be in a place that they are ready to listen to you.  If they are ready and willing, share yourself.  Share your thoughts and the rationale behind what you think.  As best you can, share your needs and your feelings.  Don’t make them guess.  Remember, you do not need to abandon or sacrifice self respect to respect someone else.  Share from a position of truly sharing, not to try to convince or persuade, just to share.  Part of your sharing might include how hearing your partner has influenced your perspective.  Or perhaps has you listened, you could hear some truth in what your partner shared.  You might even have clarity about what need of yours is in play. What need is being met or not met by your perspective.

4.  Finally, remember that coming to agreement does not necessarily mean that you will 100% agree with each other and it doesn’t always mean compromising.  There are gradients of agreement.  And from my perspective, the value of learning to disagree with each other respectfully is coming back to the sweet spot of truly seeing and being seen by the one you love.  That’s the true aim of disagreeing respectfully.

I wonder how our world might look if we all learned to disagree respectfully and honored gradients of agreement.  What are your tips for disagreeing respectfully?

Anger generally has an outward directed energy.  Someone in your life does something that does not meet your expectations or standards and you get mad.  Or they don’t do something they said they would do and you get mad.  Or they fail you or someone you care about and you get mad.

Often this “mad” is also accompanied by a kind of righteous indignation.  It’s that righteous indignation that is so very seductive to the ego.  It wraps its gnarly little hands around your heart and puffs itself up in your mind.  Righteous indignation has its own energy and for some people can be quite compelling.

Take a look at the most recent time you felt mad about something.  Was there also a sense of righteous indignation?  Can you see how that feeling seems to justify your anger?  Can you see how puffed up righteous indignation is?

Alternatively, if you release yourself from the grip of righteous indignation, it might just be easier to more fully understand the anger you are feeling.  It will likely be easier to engage in a little self-inquiry and gain insight about the best course of action.  For often, anger calls for action.  Yet, when you jump into action without fully understanding the anger and it’s root source, you are likely to create more distance in your relationships and more stress in your heart.  In the same way, if you are still scrambled up with the full energetic charge of the anger you are likely to create more problems.

Therefore, a good strategy is to first release the energetic charge of the anger (there are a number of tools you can use for this), then engage in a little self-inquiry and finally decide on a course of action to take.  Because the root of most anger is some unmet need or want, your self inquiry might mean asking yourself a few questions like, “What did I expect that didn’t happen?  What do I need that I’m not getting?  How can I get my needs met without verbal violence?”  Most people get that it’s not cool to try to get your needs met with violence.  However, when you are caught up in your anger, you might think that their verbal violence is justified.  That’s one of the reasons it’s best to clear the energetic charge of the anger first.

What are your tricks for clearing the energetic charge of anger?  How do you release yourself from righteous indignation?

One of my precious clients told me a heartbreaking story about being excluded from family gatherings during the holidays.  (Truth told, I think all of my clients are precious.  They trust me with their heart, their spirit, their dreams.  They invite me into the intricate intimacies of their lives, understanding and trusting that I can help them re-establish themselves in a steady state of peace regardless of the storms of life.  Here’s a little shout out to all my clients!)

Back to my client’s story.  Being excluded from family gatherings broke her heart and was truly not justified, this is NOT someone who is intrusive, demanding and, well, crazy-making.  She is generous of spirit and graciously kind.

Unpacking the pain of this experience took a little while.  First there was the hurt, then there was the anger, and then, another layer of hurt.  The anger was hiding for a while.  Many people who are committed to their spiritual journey sometimes avoid or deny the “A” word, anger.  Yet, anger has a lot of energy that can be used for your advantage and support your evolution.

That said, you can learn a lot from anger and make tremendous strides in your unfolding.  You just need to uncover the wisdom in the anger.  The first step is to do a little self-inquiry (if you don’t know how to do that, check out my series, Reclaim Your Life.) Find out what is at the root of the anger.

The primary sources of anger come from only three places:  you’ve been told a lie, your boundaries have been violated or you want or need something you are not getting.  Essentially, as the Bhagavad Gita says, “From desire, anger is born.”

Thus, the first step is to figure out, what is the unmet need or desire.  In relationships, most people desire both honesty and respect.  This desire in and of itself is not a problem, it’s the attachment to the fulfillment of that desire where people get in trouble.  In the same way, anger itself is not the problem, it’s what you do with the anger that’s the problem.

Discovering what is at the root of your anger can go a long ways towards revealing the wisdom in the anger.  For once you know the root of the anger, you can begin creating a plan to meet your needs and release the attachments connected to your desire.  And as we all know, releasing attachments is a good thing on the spiritual journey.

Your plan might include creating safe space for a courageous and calm conversation with the person involved.  It will likely include acceptance of you and them.  I often includes radical acceptance of the other person with full knowledge of their tendencies.  This means releasing them from any expectations, no matter how reasonable the expectation.  Finally, it might mean seriously limiting your contact with them.

Sounds so simple, yes?  Not so fast.  For many people before they can even begin the self-inquiry to find the source of the anger, they need to release the incredible energy that accompanies anger. Or they need to know how to create safe spaces for courageous and calm conversations.  Or they need to access their resources and find someone to help them heal and release the knots in their heart and their relationships

Those are posts for another day.  In the meantime, how do you release the energetic charge that accompanies anger?

A client recently shared that she and her husband had a bit of a row.  And, although she now has a plethora of effective tools at her fingertips to clear and release negative feelings, she just wanted to feel bad for a while.  So she gave herself 5 minutes, “I’m going to be as mad as I want to be for 5 minutes and then I’ll let it go!”

Now, there’s a couple of points I want to make here.  First, recognize that there is a part of all of us who derives a kind of pleasure from the deliciousness of feeling bad (perhaps that’s something that would be worth clearing) AND, we all have the power to let things go . . . if and when we want to do so.

What I love about this is that she indulged that delicious feeling of being mad and then did her work to release the feeling.  The 5 minutes of being mad reminded me of having a small slice of yummy chocolate cake as opposed to sitting down and eating the whole cake.

This whole scenario took no more than 15 minutes.  Within 15 minutes, she restored her state.  She was able to clearly articulate her point of view to her husband and listen to his AND resolve the issue.  That’s not easy to do if you are all wrapped up in the emotional turmoil of feeling bad.  If you are caught up in the “charge” of feeling bad,  it’s pretty tough to authentically and lovingly connect with yourself and others.

Years ago, I started telling people that I thought that nothing was more important than their feeling good.  Recently, I heard an Abraham-Hicks tape where Abraham said the same thing.  I think it might be easy to mis-interpret that statement.  And, I stand by it.

Feeling good re-aligns you and me so we can see and appreciate the beauty in ourselves and others.  From that place of feeling good, you are empowered to flow with the current of LIFE and move in the direction that will support you in creating a fulfilling life.

It’s not as though I’m advocating that you squash those around you so you can feel good.  I’m advocating for each of us to take full responsibility for our own feeling good and learn how to restore our state to a state of feeling good.

If you are interested in learning a practical tool for restoring your state to a state of peace and feeling good, sign up for my FREE tele-class, Make Peace With Where You Are!