Tell me how you really feel!
By: Donal Greene
Tags: Help, Blog, Philosophy, Talks

“How you doing?” One of the most common greetings we use across the globe (I think). What’s the usual response to this? “Good, and you?” Followed by “Good”. And then we just keep it moving. But what if we began responding honestly? Could normalizing telling people how you really feel improve our lives? Let’s see.

Think of this scenario. A young couple are married for 2 years. They have a 1 year old child who is having difficulty sleeping at night. Both work full time jobs and have agreed that they are going to split night time duties with the child. This has been going on for months now. They are tired, more than tired they’re exhausted. They begin lashing out at each other due to this. Before this they had a great relationship and great communication and were able to discuss issues and come to agreements and make things work. But the sleepless nights have become tolling mentally and physically. They aren’t thinking straight. And they are not on great terms because of it.

The wife has a great friend at work she usually discusses things with and gets good advice in return. She tells this friend how she really feels because she knows that friend will give a genuine caring answer or if needed will just listen and allow her to get things off her chest. But this friend does not have children. She does not have any experience dealing with a child with difficulty sleeping through the night.

The husband has an older brother who he confides in. Similar to the wife’s work friend. He can talk to his brother when things get hard. His brother has 2 kids. However neither child ever had issues with sleeping through the night. He does not have much advice to offer to help him through this.

The wife brings her child to a doctors appointment. A routine checkup. She and her child sit across from a woman with 2 kids a little older than her own, maybe 3 and 5, who are being loud and crazy. The woman looks at her smiles and says “How are you?” “Good, and you” she responds. “Fantastic” says the woman. The conversation ends.

The husband shows up to work one morning. He sees his coworker getting dropped off by his wife. He doesn’t know him very well but he had heard rumors that he and his wife were having troubles at home. But they seemed so happy this morning. They both got out of the car gave each other a big kiss, his wife handed him his coffee, he walked towards the building with a big smile and his wife got back in the car with a big smile and drove off. “What happened with them?” Thought the husband. He shrugged it off. Both the husband and the coworker got in the same elevator. The coworker looked up smiling and says “Good morning! How you doing today?” “Good, and you?” Says the husband. “I’m great thank you” says the coworker. The elevator door opened and they went their separate ways.

A few more months went by and the husband and wife were at their wits end. They couldn’t take it anymore. The wife decided to go stay with her mom with the baby for a while. Her mom may be able to help. The husband reluctantly agrees. But it did not work. A year went by and they ended up getting a divorce. It became too much. They didn’t make it.

Let’s go back a bit. The woman the wife spoke with at the doctors office had 2 children with her. One of them had very bad issues sleeping through the night as a baby as well. She found that swaddling the baby and playing white noise in the background was the solution. And this was through trial and error. She had tried no swaddling with rain noise. Then swaddling with soothing music. She tried a multitude of things before figuring out it was swaddling and white noise. The woman would’ve gave this information to the wife without hesitation if the woman would have just said how she really felt. But she didn’t. She said “Good, and you?”

The husbands coworker and his wife had gone through extensive therapy and got amazing results in their relationship. They found ways to express themselves and come to a common ground using exercises learned from their therapist. They did not allow stress and outside circumstance come between them using these practices. The coworker too would’ve gave this information to the husband without hesitation if he had just said how he really felt. But he didn’t. He said “Good, and you.”

Do you see now what I mean when I say normalize saying how you REALLY feel? Sure we may come across people who are just asking to be polite and do not want to actually want to hear how you really feel. This does not mean that you should not burden people with your problems. It means that they should stop “asking politely”. If you do not want to hear how somebody actually is simply say “Hey, have a good day”. But do not ask if you do not want an honest answer.

There are so many people that have had so many experiences in this world and some of them have the answers to the issues plaguing us if we only give them the opportunity to tell us. It’s great to have that one person you confide in and go to with all your problems but sometimes that person just doesn’t have the answer you need. So again.

NORMALIZE SAYING HOW YOU REALLY FEEL!

Donal Greene