Tag: good advice

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Relationships and love

Don’t pretend

When something disconcerting, hurtful or wrong occurs in your relationship, there are usually are three options that arise.

1. Acknowledge event, but don’t address it
2. Acknowledge and address the event
3. Pretend it didn’t happen and act like you are fine when you aren’t

The healthiest choice would be number two, acknowledge and address the event. However, it is the manner in which you do this that can ultimately affect the outcome.

Generally, when we’re hurt our emotions take over and our response could vary from anger to being withdrawn. When acknowledging something painful and addressing it with the person that has hurt you can be difficult at best. The key is to address the event itself and not attack the person.

If necessary, wait to address the person and event until you have time to process all of the emotions and circumstances. Sometimes things aren’t always as they seem.

Once you’re in a place to have the necessary conversation, it’s helpful to be in a neutral space, plan for enough time and privacy.

Try and place yourself in the other person’s shoes as you discuss how you feel and why. It’s important to think about how you would want somebody to address you, if you were the one that created the hurt. This is not to minimize the event, but to have beneficial, helpful communication so that the event or behavior is not repeated.

Options number one and three, acknowledgment without addressing and pretending the hurt didn’t happen, only ultimately hurts you.

Healthy relationships thrive on open, constant, mature communication. No partner is perfect, there are bound to be misunderstandings and hurts. The key is that both partners are willing.

Leah Kay Rossi

Categories
Relationships and love

Are you Honey?

or ARE YOU VINEGAR?

Photo by Abdulrhman Elkady on Pexels.com

Most people have heard the phrase;

“You get more bees with honey; than you do you do with vinegar”

If you haven’t heard it before, now you have.

Think about it this way…

Who do you think I’m going to call back and assist first, if it all?

The person that left me a expletive riddled message (vinegar) or the person who was respectful with their request (honey)?

Whose food do you think the server is possibly going to mess with?

The person who berated them for taking too long with their cocktail order? Or the person that was patient and thanked them when the drinks did arrive?

Who’s car in still in the shop “waiting for parts”?

The list is endless with scenarios like those above and the real events below.

Last week I witnessed an angry, middle-aged male customer verbally bash a young female retail worker in a department store as she tried address his concern. As I rounded the corner, the interaction was quickly escalating. Just then another male customer approached them and told the irate man to stop harassing the woman. He stepped in, stopping the verbal abuse that contained foul language and name calling. The angry man, obviously “vinegar” then began to verbally assault this gentlemen, who promptly said, “Let’s take this outside.” Of course, it ended there because the irate man was a coward.

It was awe inspiring to see a stranger step in and defend someone being bullied that way. Truly a hero.

To me, being polite/nice is just about being a decent person. But, for many people like myself who work in the public service industry receiving basic politeness is sadly becoming more uncommon.

Recently, I went to have a few thick glass shelves cut shorter to re-purpose them. While waiting l watched the master glass cutter cut other pieces of glass along with my pieces like they were butter. I sincerely complimented him on his work. He refused to let me pay and stated he appreciated my patience and that he didn’t feel like he had to rush his work.

When these types of events occur, they solidify polite “honey” behavior and create a pay it forward domino effect.

Keep “vinegar” in the bottle and share some “honey” today.