I work with people daily who are dealing with difficult people in their lives.  Sometimes it’s a case of people working through a conflict and just being able to show up more maturely which can then strengthen the relationship or maybe end a relationship all for the better.  Somewhere in the middle of this though is the process of really identifying that someone is having a crazy impact on you and are playing the role of a kind of villain in your hero’s journey.

When we’re involved with difficult people it’s very easy to lose our frame of reference and to doubt ourselves.  This is often a point people start to engage in sessions with me.  Recognising that our experiences are valid and that we are worthy of respect can be an important start point from which we can then figure out what is going to be the best communication style for the person at hand.

I see people start to tackle the smaller challenge people first which all makes sense.  Then people move on to new levels.  Being able to hold your own reality and to be able to respect yourself enough to be able to get into the driver’s seat of your own life and see someone as genuinely problematic can be a challenging while also empowering experience.  

I work with people in my sessions and also in my foundation builder program to get into the driver’s seat of their life as the hero in their story.  By making this into a kind of game and quest it can be helpful to see like in any quest there are villains to deal with.  There can be grief which comes up in seeing the truth clearly but also a relief in creating a clear vision of where we want to get to and identifying strategies of how we deal with the villain.

It’s good to ultimately recognise how seeing clearly really is in the long run the least painful and more pleasurable option.  I often support clients to reach this point.

Who do we need to be to deal with this person well ?  What kind of communication tools do we need ?  How do we manage our time and energy so we can dance around them so to speak and still move towards our goals ?

I find it’s always a journey of building the foundations in yourself combined with finding the best communication strategy.

In making it gameful by seeing the villain we can also look around us at where our power ups are.  What makes us feel good ?  Who are our allies to support us and cheer us on?  Seeing the villains clearly is playing a new level of a game.  You will likely get scared and overwhelmed but by getting traction and clocking up some wins it’s more than possible to move to new levels and a new way of being.

I find there are two ways which are useful to play with the negative internal dialogue. One way is just accepting that there is a ‘critic within’ which is always there to one degree or another. By recognising it and allowing it to have a voice we can be assertive and speak back to it to ground it more in reality. The book Psychocybernetics by Maxwell Maltz gives a good discussion of this as he speaks about starting a new career and the way his critic within attacks him. The talk going back to the inner critic may be something like ‘Hey wait a minute, it’s true that I’m a bit out of shape to do this run, but there’s no reason why if I put the effort in I can’t get fitter.’

Whereas we all have limitations within us it’s important to be able to get to a healthy ‘self concept’ as Maxwell Maltz would say. Again the more impacted we have been by negative relationships the stronger the critic within likely is. Again I’d recommend this book to work with and perhaps to complement sessions with me.

Another way to work with me which my Coach passed on to me was a more speaking out. Like you are having a conversation. Almost as if you are in the Counselling session or just speaking out to God, a higher power, or a good friend. It may be something like: ‘I just don’t know what I’m doing and how I can possibly do this.’ Then allow a supportive response to come back to you.

One way or another to have a good healthy life where we are feeling progress we need to be able to create a healthy internal dialogue.

Negative relationships often lead to negative self talk so part of my work with you in sessions and my foundation builder program will be around helping you to get this back so everything feels more constructive. Having a vision of yourself that is positive and healthy is vital to living a good life.

I had a lot of Counselling myself in early 2000s which was really helpful for me and lead to me wanting to be a Counsellor myself.  Whereas the space to be and explore is incredibly helpful as is getting insight about why you are the way you are it is ultimately action towards the vision which helps you to make progress.

It’s interesting to study Counselling and Psychology as I have and see ideas thrown around such people moving towards being more ‘fully functioning’ or ‘self actualising’.  More Psychoanalytic therapy like Freud keeps diving into the past and our primary relationships and different conflicts we may feel inside.

I learned first hand though from this the potential to keep going around in loops and searching and searching for something and maybe even reinforcing an idea that there is in fact something wrong.

When I worked in the UK I worked for the NHS where their were limited sessions to help people. 8 sessions dedicated to help someone work through something around depression or grief worked wonders.  I have clients now where we have real Counselling conversations where we hold space and take an edge off then they move on.  There’s great work to be done here.

It was later on though I wondered when people keep trying to improve themselves does pure Counselling work.  I felt that this wasn’t the case.

There’s only a certain amount of insight and information about yourself you can keep getting and a point where it can just become counterproductive and not create movement at all.

I wanted to find an overall way of working to help people through a whole journey.  Not just healing the pain but moving towards what Carl Rogers would call being more ‘fully functioning’.  I realised it was more Coaching which gave this which I practiced later.

Having the insight about why we are the way we are helps to free us from the past.  When we get to this point it can be highly beneficial to really look at accountability.  What are we actually doing from one session to the next and what’s the thing we’re really creating for ourselves.  

Getting a real focus at this point is where the real fun begins.
I’m always flexible with clients as we keep working and we can keep clearly identifying without judgement whether we are in a more Counselling or a more Coaching type of conversation.  The insight is useful but it’s ultimately the repeating action over and over and being accountable for this which is truly going to create the new canvas and a life we want more based on our integrity.

I find it’s typically a dance between anchoring our own world mixed with the necessary conversations (sometimes challenging) to take place with other people.  Really getting locked in some idea of what you may do between one session and the next and maybe even some items of accountability can work wonders to get traction in sessions.

Just knowing the session is coming up can give the motivation to get stuck in and take the needed action to stop us getting lost in analysis paralysis and just getting more and more insight.

The classic empowered communication I teach is ‘adult to adult communication’.  Key words here are to be assertive, honest, time appropriate, and to express our wants and needs.  

This is the communication style to practice classically in romantic relationships or with friends or people in your immediate surroundings when although there are things you may wish to improve that you don’t feel in any imminent kind of danger.

If you have been feeling disempowered and frustrated in your relationships it’s likely you have a level of ‘child’ in your communication whereas you are being passive and your needs are not being met.  This typically leads to inner distress, disempowerment, frustration, and depression.  This is a sad space to be in and is a path to nowhere fast.

It takes courage to show up in a more adult way and we need to be aware that the other person may not immediately like it .  We may need to push harder than we have before so we can create something new.  

You may be saying to yourself well this sounds good but I really don’t feel I can.  It’s just too hard.  This is where the therapeutic process comes in to get a healthy level of connection with yourself.

In my counselling and coaching sessions I create a supportive space for you to just be.  In this environment I find people are able to explore their experiences with more compassion and learn to put themselves first more.  It’s strange that putting yourself first is what leads to the best relationships !!

I find this journey of practicing adult communication goes hand in hand with the building a healthy relationship with yourself.  Recognising that you are a person of value with a right to exercise certain expected standards in your life can often be a major breakthrough and have ripple effects way beyond the current circumstance.

By working with me weekly I create a trusted space to allow you to explore your emotions around what is going on and to just allow you to be you.  Some of the answers will naturally come from you but also together we can then create possible strategies around how you may work better with the people of concern to us so you can feel better about the relationship.