Zander on Passive Aggression

The world is filled with wordless communications. I’m not thinking here about broad smiles that boost confidence or winks that signal thumbs up — I have in mind another type of message. Picture if you will — rolled eyes, deep sighs, impatient facial expressions, raised eyebrows, tapping fingers and even tongue clucks. These are a mere sampling of the many ways we impart not-so-nice feelings and thoughts without saying a word. Daily Health News contributor and life coach Lauren Zander calls such communications “the unsaid.” She explains that “many people have a commentary going on in their heads all the time that they try to keep hidden, yet it leaks out in a surprising variety of physical ways.”

 

The Up-front Agent and the Other

 

Zander explains that the unsaid has to do with the two parts everyone has — the external part that she calls the “agent” and the inner part that she calls the “double agent.” The agent does the talking and generally wants to be perceived as nice and likable and definitely does not want to provoke or take part in confrontations. However, the “double agent” holds a strong place, too. This is the part of a person that mutters silently about his or her real thoughts and feelings and often describes things in terms that are nowhere near as kind as the ones verbalized to the world.

 

Here’s an example that you may recognize from your own life. Say you ask your partner to do a common chore, maybe take the car in for an oil change, and he says fine… not a problem… will do it tomorrow. But let’s say you know from experience that “tomorrow’s” oil change is very unlikely to happen and that once again you will be stuck with the responsibility. Now you have two choices — you can confront your partner about his previous lack of follow-through and the unhappiness it has caused… or you might say “Okay, sure” and then roll your eyes or shrug your shoulders a bit dramatically, or you might say nothing but just walk away. Your body signals have now negated the words that you said and revealed your true feelings of exasperation and resignation. Real communication has hit the wall and the result is you’ve made your partner a “bad guy.”

 

A Slippery Slope

 

The first step off this slippery slope is to look not at the other person but at yourself, says Zander. What are you doing when you send out your unsaid thoughts and the feelings that lie behind them? Are you secretly feeling sheepish, angry, volatile or resigned? Chances are good that if you are like most people, you have no idea that you’re sending these signals. An excellent way to explore your physical expressions, she says, is simply to ask the people in your life to describe them for you. If you have kids, they can tell you immediately what you do — remember how you knew instantly that your mom was mad by, perhaps, the way she stiffened her back or raised one eyebrow? Some things don’t change. So ask your kids or spouse about what funny body “tics” you have and what those tics mean to them. Note: You have to be sure not to take it personally when/if they give you a truthful answer. Just take it as the information you are seeking.

 

Decoding the Other

 

Of course, sometimes, like Freud’s cigars, a sigh really is just a sigh and it might convey nothing more than a bit of fatigue. As you work on your awareness about your own verbal tics, you will become more conscious of the ones you make that are silent criticism versus those that are meaningless in the greater context. This will help you increase sensitivity to the verbal tics of the other person as well. At some point, though, it is crucial to ask if he or she is willing to tackle the “unsaid” problem together. The idea is for you both to transform all those silent messages into spoken ones, thus turning them into honest and fruitful communication.

 

The major leap that you will have to make to get this conversation going is to actually take your partner’s word over yours, since these tics tend to be blind spots, and the truth is that our own dynamics are hard to own. Basically, you have to ask someone to see something you can’t. It happens to us all.

 

Once you’re ready, Zander has specific suggestions about how to make this conversation a success. Of course it will require tact and timing. Drawing heavily on both, here is how she says to go about it…
  • Wait for a peaceful time in your relationship when you are not fighting and there is no fight on the horizon. This will allow you to have a conversation that’s relatively anxiety-free.
  • Let the other person know that this is a conversation that comes from love and a desire to add to both the other person’s happiness and the quality of your relationship together.
  • Ask permission to point out the other person’s unsaid signals as he or she is making them and to ask on the spot what they mean. Be sure when doing this that you are neither accusatory nor judgmental — your positive attitude will keep the conversation from turning into a fight that would include further hostile signals.
  • Remember to ask what you do that may be irritating and at times even infuriating to the other person — and be willing to discuss those things as well.
Reaching the Goal

 

If you are able to help each other through this conversation, it can totally change the locked-in positions that work their way into relationships. “Working on this together is a brilliant way to stop a negative dynamic,” says Zander. “Instead of getting mad about those silent signals, you can have fun catching yourself and each other as it’s happening. It is all about understanding the other person, and in no way is it about right or wrong. By taking that aspect out of it, it becomes a form of play between two people who are now on the same team.”

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