Imagine two brothers aged 4 and 6. The four-year-old has been crying and his brother is sitting with his arms folded tightly and his shoulders raised. You’re talking to the older one. What do you say?
When I imagine this scenario, I picture trying to get the defiant child to apologise, but he refuses. I feel the tension as I try and get these two to restore relationship.
If you’ve ever lived through something like this, in whichever role, you know that getting a defiant person to apologise is not an easy task, nor is it something that you should be pushing – especially in front of the one who’s upset. A forced apology doesn’t have the cathartic effect of a genuine apology, but why not?
Relationship is not about behaviour management; it’s about heart connection.
Where you’re trying to get someone to behave according to social expectations, you might get compliance, but you don’t get heart change. I’ll change the words of that sentence slightly for effect: where you’re trying to get someone to perform according to social structures, you might get observance, but you don’t get connection.
Think of an actor going through the motions without any feeling. It shows.
What you really want for those brothers is their relationship restored. You want them to have care and concern for each other. You want them to be each other’s champions, upholding each other in an uncertain world.
That might sound idealistic, but fundamentally, we desire for family to be batting for each other, not against. Family is the training ground for life; children don’t always get it right. The family is where they learn and grow skills in communication and relationship that they will practise in their social circles. Hopefully with careful nurturing, children will grow to value and respect each other.
Notice that I didn’t say that they’ll learn to hide their feelings to keep peace in the home.
Somehow, we want these two siblings to reconnect. In the moment, it’s hard! You’ve got these two with broken relationship, hurting each other. Perhaps it’s somewhere public and you’ve got others looking on. You need to resolve the situation, at least enough to move forward; the pressure is on.
Perhaps you opt for behaviour management in the moment. Whether you deal with heart stuff in the moment or not, it’s important to circle back there and ask those heart questions. What was going on at a heart level for them? How could they move through their feelings to understand the other person better? Does that help with their own feelings?
Our behaviours might be different, but our hearts face similar struggles and fears, the world over.
Do you value the person who hurt you enough to realise that they have a story too? When you gain some understanding on what’s going on for them, you can balance that with your own emotions and rewrite the story. You might make some changes, but out of understanding, not out of offence.
How does your heart respond when someone speaks their name? Do you leap into hostility overdrive? Can you articulate what is going on? What is your heart response?
What needs to change in your heart, whether reconciliation ever takes place or not?
Just because you understand why they did something doesn’t make it okay. You can make changes to keep yourself safe in the future. Perhaps a broken relationship will look different when it’s mended. Perhaps you put things together in a healthier form. Whatever steps you take, are they an outflow of your heart, or are they a mask put on to keep the peace?
Just like acting can be appropriate within boundaries, there are times that we just have to get through – put on a brave face, we just have to survive this moment. But let’s not live there. When acting comes off the stage into our personal lives, something is off. You might have survived the moment, now, be sure to circle back and deal with your heart.
When we put on an act to keep the peace, we’re separating a part of ourselves off and requiring it to work independently from the rest of us. That creates tension. We can put it on for a short period, but over time, the tension will transform into resentment.
Some tension is good. If you have no tension on a conveyor belt, the belt won’t rotate. Without a healthy amount of tension, things won’t get done, things won’t move. But tension beyond safe limits needs to be addressed.
When we carry resentment, we’ve laid out poison that slowly seeps into other parts of our being, creating bitterness, anger, rage, and eventually violence.
If you live on the edge of rage or violence, take stock. Even if you feel bitter or angry, ask. What resentment did you ignore until it poisoned your being? Did you opt for behaviour modification rather than addressing issues of the heart? Even now, are you just trying to contain the anger or pain? What is going on in your heart? What longing has been neglected? What hurt lead to believing a lie? What is that lie, and what truth exposes it?
If this hits a nerve, I encourage you to sit with the questions and explore where you substituted heart change for behaviour modification.
The only way to deal with this type of poison is forgiveness. Forgiveness takes wrestling with. When you’re out of practise, forgiveness is a challenge. For someone who is overwhelmed with hurt, that challenge can seem insurmountable. Forgiveness is worth fighting for.
Reconciliation may or may not be a good idea. But healing your heart? That’s always a good idea.
I’m not talking good intentions here. You can intend to take action and never quite get around to it. So, if forgiveness is too big an ask, what can you do? Start small. Could you acknowledge how you’ve been affected by hurt? Could you think of the situation in a different way? Can you identify what’s going on in your heart now? If these things are too difficult, could you contact a professional and make an appointment? If you need someone to blame when you get there because you don’t actually want to talk about it, blame me. Tell them you read this. I can take it. Just take the first step.
When something that carries tension snaps, the impact goes a long way. Ease the tension, lessen the chance of words or emotions flying. How do you ease the tension? Deal with the heart.
The thing with children is that they wear their hearts on their sleeves. It is uncomfortable to deal with these two hypothetical children because what you see is what you get. If their heart attitude is foul, their behaviour is too. Seeing heart change might take time. They’re not going to turn the emotion on or off as quickly as we would like them to in the moment. They haven’t perfected the artistry of acting. Perhaps we need to be okay with that or come up with a new strategy. We try to put a band aid on to fix the situation quickly, but what is really going on for them? We train a child in the way they should go, but do we do it in a way that they understand, or with a list of rules and regulations? What is the goal of our training, good behaviour or good connection?
Can we really expect a hurt that we’ve carried for a period of time to resolve in a moment? Give yourself time to process. Those children can’t turn it on in a moment, in reality, we can’t either. As you wrestle with your situation, where will you choose to change?
Do we want to build connections with those around us, or will we settle for good behaviour? At what level do we want to see change? How long do we want the change to last? What is the cost?
