These Difficult Times

Do you feel it is possible to enjoy difficult people?

I wondered about it when my wife told me about a lecture/workshop named exactly this — “Enjoying Difficult People” — to be taught by Dian Killian PhD from Center for Nonviolent Communcation at the 92nd St Y. Naturally, the topic for this class seemed very interesting to me.

Well, I checked it out and found that it was interesting. The length of the class was only two hours, and consequently Dr. Killian could only touch upon the innermost core ideas of her topic, which in general were about non-violent communication, but she had several specific techniques for every-day communication that she wanted to impart upon us.

I would summarize these techniques as this: When you find yourself with a difficult person, it is possible for you to enjoy your experience, however you must be curious about several things — about yourself, this person, and how you react to the difficult situation.

She said you must do three things:

1. Identify the sensation that indicates you are, in fact, in the presence of a difficult person. What is actually happening? What, for example, would be the facts and actions that a hand-held video camcorder would record in this situation? I noted that possessing the ability to think in terms of these sensations would require a great deal presence and clarity from you; furthermore, I would uncategorically characterize such a mental attribute as being not at all common to possess.
2. Identify your feelings about this sensation. In other words: How do you respond to these sensations while interacting with a difficult person?
3. Identify your needs, or, identify what you seek within this situation. The instructor stressed that you must: (a) Connect with this difficult person, even if you don’t want to, by acknowledging their experience of their predicament and (b) Request that they articulate precisely what they wish to achieve, in the form of a “concret, positive and doable request.”

These three acts of identification will force you to reframe your experience of difficult people, to the point where it is possible for you to actually enjoy them while you learn about yourself.

Two final points then come to the fore. First is: Every difficult person is actually a disguised opportunity to learn about yourself. The second corresponding issue then springs forth from the first: You must be willing to learn about yourself and enjoy difficult people for the lessons they bring you. Are you? I think, for most people, this is the greater difficulty. It is the clincher.

I would add that Dr. Killian’s interesting system pre-requires that you not be solely goal-oriented in your interaction with difficult people. Her system implies that you also must be journey-oriented. Goal-orientation is a mindset whose central motive springs out of the preoccupation to “get things done,” which is generally a good mindset to occupy but which makes difficult people impossible to actually enjoy. When you alter your mindset into include journey-oriented tendencies, you alleviate your instinct to ruthlessly plow through people and leap over potentially meaningful obstacles, and you gain the possibility to actually enjoy difficult people and the lessons they offer you.