Talk it out!

So the other day I was listening to Danny Silk's sermon 'Resolving conflict' from the series 'Defining the relationship'. It’s an awesome series to listen to especially for those planning to tie the knot. Am not done though, but it did remind me of a ‘conflict resolving’ incident that happened 18yrs ago.

18yrs ago I was in class 7, at Kalimoni boarding school. I think it was on a Friday evening when my pal's dad popped in to visit her and her sister. She then shared with me a little bit of the fries that her dad had brought for them. Now in boarding school, junk and home food were like gold especially when twaz in the middle of the term, and there was no sign of you being visited soon; so I wasn't about to share my little fries with anyone. Another friend, Maria, saw me nibbling on my handful of fries as I walked to my dorm study room, and asked me to share. I explained that I hadn’t been visited, I had been given the fries by Agnes, and there was only enough for me. She understood, and we were cool (or so I thought). It was almost time for the night preps so we each headed to our respective dorm study rooms. Minutes later, this girl, Dorcas, approached me saying she had a message from Maria, which was a bunch of insults for refusing to share the fries. I sent her back to Maria to ask her what her problem was. We sent Dorcas back and forth with messages for each other for a while, before the bell rung indicating the beginning of the night preps. By this time, the final message was that Maria was going to beat me up after preps.

After preps my gang and her gang met outside the area between our dorms to confront each other. It began with shoves before developing into slaps and blows between us, as our gangs cheered on. Other pupils also gathered around us and started cheering. With that kind of noise, the matron was forced to race from her house to come intervene. We were soon separated and everyone was sent to bed. The following day Maria & I found ourselves in the boarding mistress’ office, accompanied by the matron.  After giving us a piece of her mind and asking a series of questions, we realized that Dorcas had been the cause of all the drama as she would intentionally distort the messages between us. When she was confronted, she said she just wanted to see what would happen. We then realized that we’d fought each other for no reason at all. You can imagine how dumb we felt.

We live in a culture where relationships are inevitable; man is not an island, and God works with relationships. Many are the times we have failed to honestly communicate on various issues between us and ended up like Maria and I. Just a few minutes ago I heard on radio that the Nairobi governor Mr. Kidero slapped the women representative Mme. Shebesh over something they’d have sat and cleared out.

Sometimes it doesn’t end up in slaps and blows but we end up carrying this perception about each other, which then denies us the chance to truly enjoy the connection we have, be it professional, family based, friendship, marriage. They key is not merely honest communication; the key is doing it in love. I believe if we are able to speak the truth to each other in love, we’d avoid a lot of unnecessary misunderstanding and hurt.

 

You should also remember that the other person cannot read your mind hence you need to speak out, if something in your relationship is causing you anxiety or whatever. Yesterday I heard this lady share that she gets pissed at how her hubby is always on phone texting, whatsapping and surfing the net every evening. Another shared of how it worries her when her hubby stays out late. I asked both women “have you communicated this to your hubbiez?” and their answers were similar. They said “I have, but he only gets upset and nothing changes.” I then asked “how exactly did you communicate?”I am no marriage counselor and neither I’m I an expert on relationships but I believe there’s how to communicate. Danny Silk gave an example of how it should go, and called it the “I message”. E.g. “I feel ignored when you spend the evening chatting and surfing on the phone when I would like to spend time with you. Or with the rising insecurity, I feel scared and worried whenever you stay out late”

Sometime we tend to allow people with a stronger personality than ours to domineer over conversations and even make conclusions for us on how we feel. Communication is two way and if we are not also expressing ourselves truthfully then there’s a problem. Let’s learn to be assertive, and lets learnt to listen to others too.

I am also learning how communicate honestly in love; for a long time I would key into my journal instead of confronting the person. I would then avoid the person, give them silent treatment or treat them differently while they had no idea what was going on. When I started learning on expressing myself, I would then attack the person with information and conclusions, telling myself that that was how one went about confronting someone. I’m sure am not the only one, others have probably done/are doing worse (e.g. Kidero shamelessly slaps Shebesh). I am now learning how to do it right: Speaking truthfully, in a calm manner, allowing the other person to express themselves and accepting correction where I had been wrong.

Instead of making speculations over what the other person is thinking, taking a third party’s information about someone as the truth, attacking the other person verbally/physically or making conclusions about why someone said or did what they said/did, why don’t we sit down and talk it out in love.