Say What You Mean

Two days after I delivered my first child, I was barely able to walk. However, my blood pressure had stabilized and doc permitted me to receive limited visitors. I felt fat, ugly and ill. One sweet visitor said, "You don't even look like you had a baby". I nearly cried! I thought she meant I was so huge that I still looked pregnant. What she meant was I didn't look like I had been pregnant at all.

Whoever said communication was key to good relationships was so correct. It makes all the difference in the world to a marriage or friendship. If we are not happy with something involving a friend or partner and cannot constructively and positively articulate it, it could ruin the relationship. Conversely, if we appreciate our relationships and fail to articulate it, it could end in ruin.

Remember when ‘positive reinforcement' was the big catch phrase 20 years ago? Teachers and psychologists instructed parents to be more positive when we disciplined or corrected our children? We were encouraged to replace negative instructions like, "Don't run!" with "Please, walk". Shame on anyone who needed instructions not to demean their children or loved ones with reprehensible remarks like, "You're stupid".

We might act more politically correct these days, but do we push the parameters as far as we can without actually crossing the line? For example, have you ever heard an angry individual say, "you're not stupid" and felt their secret smile at getting away with the reverse implication - a negative reinforcement. No one gets away with it.

And likely more often than not, whenever anyone articulates what he feels, how it's said makes a difference in how it's received. People know sincerity when they hear it. Unless perhaps it's a fat, ugly day.