549:
If we get the ‘go-ahead,’ from someone were speaking to, to
put our case forward, it implies they’re willing to listen. We may have their
attention, but we might not have it for long. If we bore a listener, however
much goodwill there is, we’ll be cut off. Permission and holding someone’s
attention amounts to much the same thing.
It’s
different if they WANT to go through the issues, if their ear is willingly open
or perhaps they signal that they’re ready for a full-on argument. Then we can
talk. And if we both enjoy the struggle over the details, then we can both
enter into the spirit of the thing, and be ready to get as good as we give.
This is fighting without personal aggro, and yes, there’s tension and disagreement,
but without any danger of personal disapproval or dislike creeping in. Then
there’s nothing wrong with showing anger, as long as we’re acting it out, as
parents sometimes do with kids, when the kids know the anger means nothing
personal.
We can show, by our freedom of
expression, a trust in the other person’s feelings towards us. It’s about
mutual respect. It’s about having a well established egalitarian starting
point, without which nothing can work.
In a good stoush there may be
shouting and screaming, interrupting, conceding, ferocious points-of-principle
hammered home, and all kept in balance by both parties when they are showing
that they are sincerely searching out a point of common empathy or agreement.
To make progress in the face of
disagreement we must never allow our stoush to deteriorate into quarrelling.
Throughout, we continually confirm our mutual regard, as fellow travellers who
are not wanting to score points off the other. We must continually emphasise
the bond between us, leaving no room to get personal or become value-judging.
Unless we’re in control of a
conversation in this way (on this difficult subject) it won’t get anywhere.
Even with anger, if I don’t control it, it will control me. The Australian
stoush is truly something to behold! It shows that below the rough exterior of
one type of behaviour lies another that is sensitive to the feelings of the
other.
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