The Dance of Connection: How to Talk to Someone When You're Mad, Hurt, Scared, Frustrated, Insulted, Betrayed, or Desperate

by Harriet Lerner

Authenticity brings to mind such elusive qualities as being fully present, centered, and in touch with our best selves in our most important conversations.

We create a healthy boundary around the self by exercising some control over what we conceal from—or reveal to—others.

Whenever we feel acutely vulnerable, the first line of business is to do whatever it takes to feel a little bit better. This may mean baring our soul to a trustworthy party who can give us the gift of empathy and attention. It may mean talking to someone who will either help us make a plan or even take over for us for a while. Or it may mean going to a movie, reading, gardening, or walking alone in the woods.

We can’t deny our rage, pain, and vulnerability without also denying our capacity for joy, love, and intimacy.

The clarity of our voice rests on the clarity of our self-awareness regarding what we want and feel entitled to, and what we are willing to settle for.

Instead, a bottom-line position evolves from a focus on the self, from a deeply felt awareness—which one cannot fake, pretend, or borrow—of what we need and feel entitled to, and the limits of our tolerance. We clarify a bottom line, not primarily to change or control the other person (although the wish to do so may certainly be there) but rather to preserve the dignity, integrity, and well-being of the self.

We can only keep the other person’s full humanity in mind and never forget that every human being is better and more complex than the worst things he or she has done.

Paradoxically, the more enduring a connection, the more vulnerable we are to getting stuck in conversations where our experience of our self and the other person becomes fixed and small. Disconnection can become a way of life for people sharing the same home, a common history, or the same bed. In couple relationships and family life we may need to make a special effort to engage in novel conversations that will create a larger view of who we are and what our relationships can become.