Communication, Forgiveness & Reconciliation

Forgiveness is individual. Reconciliation takes both people & isn't always possible.

We all need to enhance our communication. Although we have the gift of speech & a brain to think we really are not very good at effective communication which is honest, calm & clear. We let our emotions interfere. We allow assertiveness to become anger, we allow being upset to stop us really hearing what the other person is trying to say.

We do need to "speak our mind". But whilst we are doing that we need to try to be an "active listener" really hearing the underlying message, which is often the real message.

Conflict is inevitable in relationships & a healthy response to conflict is to deal with it head on. If you don't you carry unhealthy patterns of behaviour into all your relationships.

Empathy is key, we all need to be able to try to really put ourselves into another persons shoes. That doesn't mean that we have experienced the same thing & there are some responses which are completely wrong - "I know how you feel" for example. You don't, you can't, but you can try to understand.

We all have to compromise in life. But we also have to be true to ourselves. We have to be able to hold our own & not become defensive & angry. Those two emotions mean that effective communication & a chance to find the middle ground & reconcile go out of the window. Sometimes we do have to agree to disagree.

Blame is the enemy of good communication & any chance of reconciliation. Saying "you did this or you did that" isn't going to help. Any conflict usually has two contributors. The trick is to say how you feel about what happened, "I was very upset" or "I felt completely ignored" for example.

Good communication is all about truth & understanding. It takes real effort. It is risky. You have to be prepared for the fact that the other person isn't able to make an equal effort. Mending bridges when the river is flooding is never going to be easy - the pillars supporting the bridge might be washed away completely.

Some relationships can't survive if both people don't work together at repairing the damage.

Of course if you just want a superficial, "everything in the garden's lovely" relationship you can ignore all this.