Summarizing Assertiveness - How To Be An Adult

On page 29, David Richo summarizes what he's shared on assertiveness:

Assertiveness is affirming your own truth & receiving others' truth.

My sweet, loving Mom talked as if she always felt uncomfortable with even being aware of her own truth if it might conflict with an other's.  Everything had to go through that filter first  - could this possibly make any other feel uncomfortable, could it create a conflict?   

It meant more than I can express, Mom realizing it wasn't that she didn't affirm & honor her own truth, but that she rarely let herself even know it.  Now, she had permission to know & affirm her own truth, because that's that only way to receive someone else's.

You ask for what you want & honor the response.

It was interesting, realizing that Mom went through life like a canny lawyer, never asking a question without knowing how it would probably be answered.  And if the answer was possibly NO, the question wasn't asked.  The concept of honoring the answer, whether YES or NO, seemed to astonish - and liberate - her.  Not only was it okay to know what you wanted & to ask for what you wanted, it was okay if the answer was NO, because you honored whatever it was.  Again, mind bending!

You share what you feel & accept what others feel.

A build on the last bit.  It made complete sense, knowing Mom's late teens, that she shut down her feelings.  That was the way she could cope, could handle the impossible.  Dad made it safe to have feelings, but that safety didn't extend beyond their relationship.  My guess is his death left her feeling less safe than ever.  

Mom was a classic co-dependent - she had to hear from someone else, someone with authority, that it was okay to feel what she felt & to open yourself to accepting what others felt, even if it seemed disagreeable, uncomfortable.  David Richo fit that bill.

A memory just burbled up.  Mom sharing with me a time someone close to her confided he planned to separate from his wife.  Mom told him that there was more right with his marriage than wrong & whatever had to be done to make it work was what he needed to do.  

Will never forget the stunned - shocked - look of surprise on her face when I asked, "What were the problems in the marriage?"  She didn't know.  "You didn't ask him?  He sought counseling from you, an older person he admired, and you didn't ask for any information before telling him to stick it out, no matter what he had to do?"  

Even then, I understood the why, even if Mom didn't - she couldn't have handled the feelings he would have shared.  Instead, she shut him down with advice that he followed - whatever his wife said, however she saw a situation, it was right.  

It worked - to this day, they are still married.  

I like to think that Mom would have responded differently after reading "share what you feel & accept what others feel."  I like to think she could have heard what was causing him such grief that he'd consider separation, that she could have heard his feelings without being overwhelmed by her own.  

Maybe she would have given the same advice, maybe she could have given him loving counsel based on what he shared, maybe she'd even see - as dreadful as it would feel - that separation was a wise step.

You really are responsible, 

so you act that way & you ask the same from others.

Okay, this one never really hit home with Mom, although she felt she totally aced it.  I doubt that even, in her final days, Mom had the slightest clue that while she readily assumed responsibility, she was utterly completely forever loathe to ask the same from others.  It was one of those areas where I learned Mom could talk about the concept, could understand the importance of asking the same from others, but was massively challenged doing it.  

Practicing assertiveness leads to a realization that you 

have alternatives, no matter how confining your predicament may be.

Alternatives.  The idea that there are other ways to be considered.  Maybe this way doesn't work for you & that way doesn't work for them - so let's consider a 3rd or 4th way.  

Praise be for Viktor Frankl & Man's Search for Meaning!  Those who fared best in German concentration camps were the ones who recognized that even in that hell, they had alternatives, that though they couldn't change their horrific situation, they could change how they chose to experience it.  

This seems essential for so many oldsters & ancients - no matter what their situation, they always have the freedom to choose how to experience it.  The power in having alternatives, if only one of choosing how you experience!

The experience of choice combined with support from others 

offers the best conditions for departure from the 

depressing sense of self as a victim.  

Instead, you get on with your life 

in a powerful, adult, and confident way.

Maybe this is why it can be so powerful to seek help from friends, from ministers, from counselors when you are challenged or in crisis.  You'll never get support with difficulties you refuse to share.  

Mom sought help with me from Mark Carlson because I was frustrated with our relationship - not because she was.  But when she called Kevyn Malloy to set up an appointment, it was what she realized was needed.  Not by me or for me, but by herself & for herself.  

Where did I get the messages that we're supposed to turn to ministers, to wise friends & even just good buddies for help when we are in need if not from Mom?  Because I did.  And she didn't.  

Until this moment, until reading this summary, it hadn't hit me that Mom calling Kevyn was the first time she sought help from anyone other than God.  

Until this very moment, it never hit me how what a radical thing it was to call Kevyn & set up an appointment for help.  

Many years ago, in my mid-30s when we lived on the house on Woodland Road - long before John - I asked Mom if she ever sought help from friends in dealing with her family challenges.  Never.  From a minister?  Never.  Did she seek guidance by reading the teachings of her faith?  No.  

She worked on her problems with God.  

God would give her the answers.  

That was the first time I shared the guy on the roof story with her.  Like the man on the roof, Mom was convinced that God would save her, would send down a direct answer, no need to deal with other pesky humans.  She expected things to change through miraculous intervention.  And couldn't understand why I found that alarming.

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Here's how I see things, rooted in messages I got from others, including Mom!:   No matter our age, no matter how we acted earlier in our life, it's essential to be constructively assertive.  Even if others don't get it & think you are being aggressive, manipulative, demanding.  And it goes way beyond being assertive our self.  It's welcoming, even respectfully demanding, it from others - all the time.  Even if what they say isn't what we want to hear.  

I believe that being assertive requires accepting there's always a choice, always an alternative, even if it's just choosing our response.  

And we can't go it alone.  

God's creations serve as our Creator's heart & hands.  God's love is constant, always flowing, but we need to turn to each other for the support that's our best whack at being constructively empowered.  Then, we can get on with our lives in a powerful, ADULT, and confidant way!