I have been a psychologist and marriage & family therapist for over
25 years. As a seminar leader and as a counselor to clergy over the years,
I have discovered that many pastors experience a small number of parishioners
as more stressful and challenging than the rest of the flock combined. This
newsletter and related teleclasses* I will be offering are dedicated to informing
pastors about my own and others' professional perspective and best advice
on win-win coping with people-being-difficult.
I like the term "Practical Transcendence" to refer to a set of practical
and learnable skills, strategies, and attitudes that many find helpful with
the spiritual and psychological challenges and lessons presented by difficult
people. Spiritually, transcendence means rising above your own and the other's
lower self and demonstrating God's love and forgiveness from a place made
calm by your own acceptance of Grace. "Father, forgive them for they know
not what they do."
Evolving within the Judeo-Christian tradition, psychological theories
and practice offer very specific ways to think and behave in the pursuit
of transcendence. Empathic listening and win-win problem solving, for example,
are two such practical skills. These skills follow naturally from a theory
of "reframing" that posits that difficult behavior is generally motivated
by a good reason, a positive intent, or a desirable outcome -- from the point
of view of the person being difficult. This understanding makes it much easier
to step back mentally from ones own agenda and feelings and to extend
compassionate curiosity about the other's perspective and behavior. Ways
to do this with increasing ease can be learned and practiced.
Feeling loving or transcendent is difficult to achieve directly as an
act of will, but listening is a behavior and can be done as a deliberate
act of will. I find in my practice of psychology that the behavior of listening
results automatically and rather easily in feelings of respect and
compassion.
Here are a few of the principles that will be covered in more detail
in future newsletters and teleclasses:
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It is a simple but elegant truth that if we always do what we've always
done, we will almost always get what we've always gotten. Change is key to
new results, and it requires that we stretch beyond our customary comfort
zones. First examine and consider changing your own behavior. If changing
the other had worked, you probably wouldn't consider them a difficult person.
Besides, they're most likely experiencing you as difficult. Address the beam
in your own eye before confronting the mote in another's.
-
You are the professional to your parishioners. Acknowledge it or not,
you are in a "big person" position, and you can avoid much disappointment
and frustration by getting your personal needs met primarily outside your
pastor/parishioner relationships. Know that some people see you as more powerful,
feel threatened, and may act in a variety of defensive ways. Know also that
others may see you as less powerful and an easy scapegoat. Enjoy the appreciation
you do get from many parishioners, but don't count on it as your primary
source of good feelings about yourself.
-
People generally want to like and to be liked, even difficult people.
When they are tripping over their own defensive behavior, they will accept
your pastoring more gracefully if you help them escape their own traps in
a way that allows them to save face.
-
People become fanatics about their own point of view when they feel attacked
or threatened. Remember that people are difficult for reasons that feel valid
and critically important to them. Learning their "good reasons" by asking
or with educated guessing and then treating those reasons with friendly interest
and respect will go a long way toward disarming others. As Covey advises,
seek first to understand and only then to be understood. When difficult people
feel that they and their good reasons are understood and appreciated, they
are much more open to negotiating a win-win solution or understanding.
-
A disarmed "enemy" is much easier to love. Powerlessness and failure
are greatly underrated options. Success is much more likely when you are
not constricted and tortured by the specter of failure. Accepting and
acknowledging your own limitations sets a good example for others and,
paradoxically, frees you to be more flexible and creative. Asking for a difficult
person's help in finding win-win solutions is often much easier and more
practical than struggling to be strong enough and brilliant enough to resolve
things single-handedly.
-
Knowing your own calling/mission very clearly and specifically provides
a set of criteria with which to make decisions about what to do in a difficult
relationship, and it helps in educating others about what to expect (and
what not to expect) from you.
-
It also helps immensely to have a spelled-out church or parish mission
statement to use in decision-making or conflict-resolution. Especially important
is specifying the values and processes to be used in reaching mutually acceptable
conclusions. How we decide is at least as important as what we decide.
-
Most important of all, cultivate one-on-one and group support systems
for the emotional and spiritual support that you absolutely must have in
order to manage your own stress and challenges. Taking good care of you is
a prerequisite for taking good care of others.
Copyright 4/2000 by: Nathan Claunch, Ph.D.
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