“Paula, get one of your scalpels out of your purse and let’s each take a blood oath,” Lance teased.
Paula put on her mom face, and Lance and Sammy both snickered and straightened up in their chairs. “I guess we’d better get back to being serious about serious things.”
Lance turned to Sammy. “Is there anything you need or want to talk about, anything that needs to be aired here in front of a professional mediator?”
“Uh, no. I think between you and Mom and Dr. B and my new principal at school, I can”—he began to talk like a Shakespearean actor—“dissipate any negative. In fact with what I’ve learned, I can quite easily become completely and absolutely perfect perfection.”
Lance and Paula jumped on him. “You, perfect? Fat chance. Give me a break.”
I interrupted. “Just in case any one of you do need some support on anything, anytime, what are you going to do to get it?”
Sammy said, “Talk to someone positive. Someone who will help me build myself up instead of let me tear myself down.”
“What can happen when you share your problems with someone who is negative?”
“They feed the problems and help you do the same.”
“Even sometimes when they are sympathizing with you, are they actually exaggerating that one issue until it seems to take over every other issue in your life?”
“Yeah.”
“Can it sometimes be so subtle that you aren’t even aware of it?”
“Ummm, I guess it could be.”
“Should everyone have locked away in their mental computer, where it can’t be easily wiped out, who they would talk to, where they would go if things got tight, before an emergency has a chance to arise?”
“That makes sense to me,” said Lance.
“Think of a situation that you might already have faced, or one that you might yet face.”
“Well, if anything like the Mo thing happened again,” Sammy said.
Lance said, “Or the Sammy thing.”
“What other potentially explosive situations might come into your life?”
“I dunno…maybe Blunt or one of the other runners…” said Sammy.
“With the knowledge you have now would you react differently than you would have reacted before?”
“Definitely.”
“Why don’t you take turns naming people or places you could turn to if you needed mental or moral support?”
“I could always call Mom or Dad.”
“You.”
“Sammy.”
“Lance.”
“Paula.”
“Dr. Davidson.”
“I could look in the yellow pages under Mental Health.”
“Call the operator and ask for a crisis line number.”
“Uncle Gordo.”
“I could call Mo or Tommy or Marv.”
Paula and Lance both named relatives, friends, and church people they trusted.
I interrupted. “We don’t want to take up all the girls’ time. It’s just as important that everybody, young and old alike, has someone to call for help when they need help so desperately that their own minds aren’t working clearly. If you’ve got something stored in your brain so that it automatically, by reflex action, kicks in when it’s needed, you’re pretty much taken care of. Sammy, do you feel you’ve got your support standbys lined up just as a reliable insurance policy?”
“Yep.”
“Lance?”
“Yep.”
“Paula?”
“Yep.”
“Then you don’t have much need for me anymore, do you?”
Lance: “Yes, we do. We need to go over that TOXICITY OF NEGATIVITY idea you mentioned, with us and the girls. Isn’t it time to call them in?”
I nodded. “If you think so.”
Sammy hurried to the door.
Dorie scrambled over me to sit by her dad and Sammy. They were like three tail-wagging puppies. Dana pulled her chair as close as possible to Paula’s.
“Is there anything you’d like to talk about, Dana, questions you’d like to ask, or things you’d like to say?”
“Ahhhh…no.”
“Do you feel comfortable with your dad back in the picture?”
She hung her head. “Not completely, but…” She looked up and over at Lance. “I want to. I really want to, it’s just…” She shrugged.
“That’s all right, Dana. It’s perfectly normal and acceptable for some people to take a little, or even a lot, longer to put broken pieces back together again.”
“It’s normal? Whew, I’ve been worrying about that since forever.”
Lance’s love for her was so powerful, it had an almost-physical form. “Next weekend when I come, maybe you and I can have a couple of hours together, just the two of us, so I can let you know how eternally priceless you are, and always have been, to me.”
She smiled self-consciously. “I’d like that.”
“Anything else?” I asked.
“I guess not.”
“What about you, Dorie?”
“I’m happy as Furball when she’s purring her loudest.”
“I’m happy as when Dread Red Fred is sleeping in my bed, with his head on my pillow, drooling on me,” said Sammy.
“Uooooo…You’re sick,” Dorie responded.
Lance ignored them. “Don’t you think it would be a good idea to talk to the girls about having some standby resources in case they need to talk or think something out?”
“Absolutely! Would you like to consider family communication skills for a few minutes? They might help.”
Positive grunts, yesses, and yeahs.
“Actually, the greater part of communication has to do with listening, and we’ve talked about that some. Sammy, Dana, Dorie, Paula, Lance, have any of you ever made an appointment with each other so you could have some uninterrupted time to talk?”
They all shook their heads and looked puzzled.
“Lance, it would be especially good for you to do this with Dana and perhaps even with Paula, for real communication is a highly structured technique, yet at the same time as simple as dirt, like most important things are!”
LANCE: “I agree with that, although I’d never thought about it before.”
PAULA: “I’m finding that many of the things I’ve just taken for granted should not just be taken for granted.”
DORIE: “Like what?”
PAULA: “Like…well, like…just plain talking from the heart! It can make us see things in a completely different way. It can be an important enlightening process.”
SAMMY: (almost as though he were thinking out loud) “Talking from the heart can make you see things as they really are and always have been—instead of how you wanted them to be or doctored them up to be.”
DR. B: “Too often we think people can, or should be able to, read our minds.”
PAULA: “For this family I submit a proposition that from this time on, we all do more ‘talking from the heart’ to each other.”
SAMMY: (Raising his hand) “I’ll vote for that.” The others followed his example.
DORIE: “And we could use our light therapy room for our heart talking and Listening Room, too, couldn’t we?”
DANA: “But we’ve only got one beanbag chair in there.”
LANCE: “Anyone got anything against buying another beanbag chair on the way home?”
DANA: “It’s just the laundry room. It’s not very big or fancy.”
DR. B: “Do important things have to be big and fancy? Can’t they sometimes be small and homey and humble?”
DANA: “I suppose, yeah, maybe humble’s the most important thing. That’s sure what that room is.”
DR. B: “How do you kids feel about, on occasion, when needed, having some special, private time with the person of your choice? Maybe you could even put a DO NOT DISTURB card on the door.”
LANCE: “I can bring you a new one every week.”
DR. B: “It’s imperative, on occasion
, to pick a time when you can talk without interruption—no phone calls, no knocking on the door, and no jealousy. Solemnly schedule with each other one-half hour or whatever time you think you’ll need and treat that commitment seriously.
“There are only three rules in learning skillful communication. Number one is mirroring. Do you know what that means?”
DORIE: “No.”
“It means reflecting something exactly the way it was said to you.”
“I don’t get it.”
“I saw a mother duck and six little ducklings following her in a straight line across the road. Repeat that as perfectly as you can.”
“You saw a duck and her babies crossing a busy road.”
“Let’s try it again. I saw a mother duck and her six little ducklings following her in a straight line across the road.”
“Oh, you mean I should say exactly what you said exactly like you said it, like a mirror shows exactly. That’s not easy.”
“No, it’s not easy, but it is worth the effort, at school and at work as well as at home, if you really want to communicate. Do you know that one study showed that over eighty percent of the time people didn’t absolutely understand what others were trying to say to them? When they tried to mirror back there was a lot of, ‘I thought you said,’ ‘Didn’t you mean,’ ‘It sounded like…’ et cetera. Have you ever had that happen in your family?”
They all answered affirmatively regarding: school-work, time, household or yard jobs, grocery shopping, et cetera.
“Do you understand now that you can’t know what someone else is thinking or feeling unless you can completely mirror, or tune in, to them? What did Dorie miss when she repeated what I’d said?”
“That there were six little ducks.”
“That they were walking in a straight line behind the mom.”
“Dorie said they were crossing a busy road. You didn’t say that.”
“What if someone is trying to say, ‘I’m hurting’ or ‘I’m lonely’ or ‘I’m sad,’ and they can’t get the exact words out?”
Sammy offered quietly, “I think if you were really listening, really communicating, you’d get that message nonverbally from their tone of voice or something.”
“Wonderful! To really communicate, is it important to hear with a listening heart as well as listening ears?”
They all agreed.
“Should the listener feel free to say, ‘Did I get that right’ or ‘Did I hear you say,’ or ‘Did you mean,’ thereby allowing the speaker to say yes or no or add other feelings and/or thoughts?”
Dana said, “I’d think they would have to, sometimes.”
“Do you do it?”
“I don’t think so, but maybe I do. I don’t know, but I’m going to try harder to.”
“Good for you, Princess. I’m going to try harder to improve my old listening heart, too,” said Lance.
Dana looked up at him with adoration and said shyly, “You used to call me Princess Happy Heart when I was little.”
The smile he returned to her was tender and bonding.
I said, “Now to acknowledging, the second part of skillful communication. It doesn’t mean that the hearer has to agree, it simply means they should acknowledge that they understand how the person feels, that their message has gotten through. This is not the time for lecturing or becoming reactive or defensive! Sammy, what did you hear me say about acknowledgment?”
“That…I should let the person know that I’m trying to see things from his point of view. That the person has a right…” he shrugged.
Dana finished for him. “That the person has a right to be different. That his little spot on earth is as important as mine even if I don’t absolutely agree with…” She looked at Sammy, made a silly face, and shrugged.
I said, “You guys are so bright you’ll have no trouble with the third part of skillful communication. Can you guess what it is?”
No answers.
“It’s empathy. That means trying to see things from the speaker’s thinking and feeling and acting level. Trying to feel what the speaker is feeling, then asking if you’re getting the picture. Sincerely conveying, ‘I imagine you feel scared…or lonely…or misunderstood…or angry…or frustrated,’ or whatever. Caring alone can make the speaker feel better and draw two people closer. One of my favorite truisms is ‘PEOPLE MAY NOT REMEMBER WHAT YOU SAID, BUT THEY WILL REMEMBER HOW YOU MADE THEM FEEL!’ It’s the first rule for success and friendship.”
“True! True!” agreed Sammy. “But back to being empathetic. It can’t solve conflicts can it?”
“No, but in most situations, conflict is not the problem. It’s how people deal with a particular conflict that gives it either a happy or an unhappy ending. And we shouldn’t have to always be right, any more than we should have to always be the winner. IF you won every single conflict or IF you were right about every single thing, you would be the loneliest person in the world, for you would be the only person in that bracket, right?”
Enthusiastic, unanimous agreement.
The Gordon family practiced the family communication skills until everyone felt comfortable with mirroring, acknowledging, and empathizing.
Sammy summed it up. “I always thought you guys were the strong, no problems, no-pain people, and I was the weak, whoopsy, screwup. Now…wow! I know we’re all held together by…” He threw up his hands in wonder.
Paula reached over and squeezed his knee. “By each other.”
One by one they started sharing intimate loving stories about family conflicts and noncommunications: the time the family had left Dorie at church, the time Sammy had taken old Mrs. Markum’s fancy birthday cake to Mrs. Miller, the time Dana had gone to the swimming meet on Friday instead of Saturday.
I finally interrupted. “Why don’t you save those for the Family Home Nights you said you were going to start having. For now, let me ask if you think we can be deceived about what we think we see as well as by what we think we hear?”
Dorie laughed. “No. No way! Words can make things seem different, but when you see something, you really see it.”
“Let me show you some pictures to discover if you sometimes see things differently from a different angle as well as hear things differently.”
Are you being sucked down into darkness and pain? Are you flowing away from darkness?
Is your circle-self imprisoned inside your box or free on the outside?
The three girls are all the same size. Measure them. Do you sometimes shrink your self-image?
Are you looking down at life?
Are you looking through life?
Are you looking up at life?
Which way is the bird flying? Have you ever tried to fly both ways at once?
Can you get anywhere if you’re flying in circles?
Are you sometimes so busy seeing things that you don’t see people?
Do you see a couple? A vase? Both?
Are you looking at your book of life with its awesome pages turned away from you?
Are you sitting tensely in a dark corner of your dark little room looking at another dark corner of your room?
DANA: “I’ve really learned some amazing things.”
SAMMY: “Me, too. Maybe I’ll look at, and listen to, things a little differently now.”
DORIE: “I think I’ll listen more carefully, and I’ll care more.”
DANA: “I think I’ll feel more.”
DR. B: “How do you kids feel about making appointments to communicate with your parents like you communicate with me?”
DANA: “I can’t wait.”
DORIE: “I think it will be cool. Just me getting all the attention. Having Mom or Dad alone to really listen to me instead of brushing me off because I’m the littlest kid.”
“Do any of you have any other things you need or would like to discuss?”
When no one answered, Lance said, “I’d like for you to introduce us to the TOXICITY OF NEGATIVITY.”
Dorie
made a weird face and looked up at him. “The…I don’t even know what that means.”
I reached into a drawer, pulled out a candy kiss, and tossed it to her. “Oh, yes, you do. The TOXICITY OF NEGATIVITY is just a series of fancy words for simple, humble little truisms that control our lives. You get the prize for daring to say something about the show-offishness of the title. Maybe we should find a new one.”
Dorie giggled. “No. Let’s not. Sometimes it’s fun to try and keep your tongue from stumbling when it’s trying to get around words like Tosk sicks…tox ticks…tox sig-a-ne…”
“Better stop while you’ve got the candy, kid,” Sammy warned. “But going back to prizes, how come I didn’t get one or two or three kisses when…I was ‘daring’?”
I pulled out the package. “I think we all deserve five or ten. The papers will make good visual aids for our Toco…tocso…TOXICITY OF NEGATIVITY Game. Okay, how many of you know that being negative—thinking negative things, saying negative things, or doing negative things—can be literally poisonous? Toxic and poisonous mean the same thing.”
Sammy raised his hand and waved it wildly. “I do, I do, I do, I do!”
“Can negativity be contagious?”
Dorie beamed. “I know! I know! Yes, it can. If someone says something bad to you, you want to say something worse back to them.”
Dana chimed in. “And if someone comes home from work kind of crabby, it makes you feel kind of crabby, too.”
“Okay, now that we know negativity can be infectious, let’s take turns saying something negative. As we do so we’ll unwrap a kiss and throw the paper on the floor in the middle of our warm, intimate, circle. I’ll begin, and of course, we’ll all have to say things that other people would say, knowing that none of us would ever be negative or messy in the slightest way.”
Everyone looked embarrassed for a moment, then began saying negative things and tossing the papers down.
“I think school is stupid.”
“Traffic tie-ups make me want to lash out at people.”
“Standing in line drives me crazy.”
“The world is full of rude, crude dorks.”