You and Others

Managing important relationships

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This important tool helps you to understand and to improve relationships and can be used personally or professionally.

This popular and powerful tool has been used thousands of times with all sorts of relationships: hierarchical, familial, funders, commissioners, teachers, directors and children, so basically it can help enormously in most situations where people are in relationship. It is especially powerful with figures of authority. Think of Critical relationship as an important relationship to you at the moment where there is a bit of texture or a pattern you don’t quite understand.

This tool aims to:

  • help you to manage important/critical relationships

  • helps you to understand the other person, their patterns of behaviour, thinking and feeling

  • develops a deeper understanding between you and the other person

  • helps to develop your mindful awareness

  • helps to develop your empathy and unconditional positive regard

  • grounds you in the fact you have a choice about what to do

  • the bottom line is it gives you time to think about the other person

The Questions

  1. Make a full description of the person, what they are like in as many ways as you can

  2. Describe their patterns of behaviour - what’s going on for them?

  3. What are their needs? Describe in as much detail as possible their needs.

  4. How can you meet them? Think carefully what you can do to meet these needs.

  5. What would the cost be to you of meeting their needs? List what the costs are.

  6. What is similar in your patterns? Ask yourself the tough questions. What do you do that they do? When do you do the same annoying behaviour? What needs do you share?

  7. What do you choose to do? Having explored in some detail the other person then really ground yourself in the fact that you have both choice and agency. There might be consequences of not meeting their needs but be present and mindful in whatever you choose.

Exploration

1. Make a full description of the person, what they are like in as many ways as you can:

  • physical characteristics

  • what is their energy like?

  • what do you feel physically when you are with them?

2. Describe their patterns of behaviour - this might include some psychological patterns:

Driver behaviour

  • please others

  • try hard

  • be strong

  • hurry up

  • Be perfect

Negative Automatic Thoughts

  • all or nothing thinking

  • catastrophising

  • personalising

  • negative focus

  • jumping to conclusions

  • living by fixed rules

Simple patterns that you consistently observe and would use to describe them to a best friend.

3.  What are their needs? Describe in as much detail as possible their needs. If for example you have unearthed patterns of control it might be that they are scared and need to be kept safe, so explore, behavioural, emotional and psychological needs not just cognitive.

4.  How can you meet them? Think carefully about what you can do to meet these needs.

5.  What would the cost be to you of meeting their needs? List what the costs are: time, loss of face, impacting your own work.

6 . What is similar in your patterns? Ask yourself the tough questions. What do you do that they do? When do you do the same annoying behaviour? What needs do you share?

  • if there is something in their behaviour that annoys you, it might be something you do that you are projecting on to them

7. What do you choose to do? Having explored in some detail the other then really ground yourself in the fact that you have both choice and agency. There might be consequences of not meeting their needs but be present and mindful in whatever you choose.

Now sit down quietly, hold them in your heart, focus on your breathing, allow bright sparkly eyes, imagine the other person as a child and show kindness towards them.