Advocating For Yourself When You Feel Like They Aren’t Listening
Have you ever thought to yourself, “Well, what’s the point in saying anything? They never listen to me anyway.”
Have you ever said, “You know we don’t talk about this subject in front of ___.”
Have ever held your tongue to protect the peace around you, all the while destroying the peace within you?
Yea, me too. In fact, it’s been the downfall of many of my relationships — personal, business and the most important relationship — the one with myself. The problem with this mindset is that we tend to blame others and their inability to “get it,” when in fact we’re the ones to blame because we stopped articulating what it is they need to “get,” or why it is our feelings are important in that moment. Or my personal favorite — we silence our feelings, ideas, and thoughts because we have a FALSE perception that we don’t count as a person. Ouch.
That’s the story I have told myself — as a significant other, a son, a father, a friend, and as a business partner. I have no doubt that many of you have told yourself the same things. In this blog, I want to break down this terrible story we have told ourselves and talk about ways we can advocate for ourselves. In turn, change the dynamic of our relationships regardless if those relationships are personal or business.
The Back Story
I had a call with one of my coaches this week and I realized that I do this. A lot. I predict the future based on prior instances and apply that history to current contexts. What I realized is that mindset limits my ability to advocate for myself in any particular moment because I have a self-fulfilling prophecy that it doesn’t matter what I think, say or feel — the result will be the same; therefore, I can use that as a secondary benefit to say, “Well, what does it matter? They won’t care anyway.”
In that moment, I am using the external circumstance to justify the internal dialogue. Dammit! Shit! Fuck! God bless! Daniel, you teach this for a living and you still do the same bullshit you tell everyone else NOT to do. WTF.
A lot of this behavior comes from my own child hood trauma. My father left me as a toddler and had zero interaction with him. He died in 2019 without every having spoken to me beyond the age of 2. This is not a pity party circumstance but rather a moment to help you see that my natural instinct is to protect myself from anyone else who would, “leave me.” Just to give you some context around what “leave” looks like — leaving is not always a physical action. It can be an emotional one too — when you ignore the thoughts, ideas and feelings of others, it can feel like that person left you. They left you alone without a care of your thoughts and feelings and therefore you do not count as a person.
Now, is it true that you don’t count as a person? Of course not, but the feeling you experience and the story you tell yourself based on that experience produces a very real response that often looks like withdrawing from that person or that setting.
Guess what though — no change comes from more judgement. Change comes from the desire to create different outcomes. Notice the use of the word, “create,” here — it is up to you to create the outcome NOT settle for “whatever happens.” Your happiness goes to die in “whatever happens.”
Who Is To Blame?
Honestly, both parties are.
It’s quite easy to sit back and form a narrative that sounds like this: “Well, if you would actually listen to what I have to say then I would be more inclined to say something, but you always shut me down, so I just stay quiet. What’s the point in talking about it if I’m going to constantly get a rebuttal that favors your thoughts and feelings on the matter?”
Yes, it’s true that the offender has to accept ownership of the actions that created this feeling— AND ALSO, you as the person who feels like your opinion doesn’t count has to find a better way to be noticed and heard. It’s also your responsibility to work on the triggers associated with that trauma and break that pattern of resistance that continues to produce actions that don’t serve you.
It’s easy to sit back and play the victim and site all the ways someone else made you feel unheard and invalidated, but you also let that shit happen. You thought there was only one way of communicating and you didn’t take the time to go further in the discussion. Instead, you created a narrative that this person doesn’t value you, your time, energy, or effort, and so you shut down.
This happens most of the time because somewhere in our subconscious we believe that people don’t have our best intentions in mind. We are looking for all the ways they will mistreat us, so we can then justify our exit. Now, I’m not saying there aren’t selfish people out there that will use and abuse us. What I am saying is that the majority of close relationships in our lives WANT to see us succeed and be happy. It’s time we start assuming that people have our best interests in mind and approach our conversations from that place rather than one from the offensive.
If you’re stuck in a place of helplessness, you’re also stuck in the thought process of, “nothing works.” But — what if you replaced that thought with the sense of possibility?
New Communication
What I often see happen is that we attempt to drive our points home in the same fashions. We say things like: “Yea but….” And then enter a cyclical fashion of repeating our ideas RATHER than stating our feelings. Let me show you an example.
Her: “I think it would a good idea if you just got up earlier and took our child with you to that appointment and then dropped him off after.”
Him: “Yea that’s not really going to work for me. I don’t want to juggle that situation in the morning before this appointment.”
Her: “Well, I don’t see what the big deal is. It’s not that much earlier. You could just get him up when you get up and then….”
Him: “Like I said, that really isn’t great for me and getting him up earlier is a pain.”
Her: “Well why don’t you just try it this time and see how it goes.”
Can you see the cyclical nature of this conversation? She is repeating the same pattern, arguing her feelings on the matter and he is responding the same way. The pattern never changes but the internal dialogue is one that sounds a lot like, “Why doesn’t he/she listen to my views on the matter? I guess my thoughts aren’t important, so next time I just won’t say anything.”
These cyclical types of conversations happen everywhere in our day to day — without spouses, our teams at work, our children — everywhere. We defend our thoughts on a subject by continuing to state the same things over and over rather than taking a moment to break that cyclical pattern in order to see someone else’s side or to address how their neglect is making us feel.
This happens because of 2 things: we don’t want to be vulnerable and we don’t want to acknowledge an other opinion than our own.
No one likes to be wrong, but just even if you’re right, you can stymy the effect you desire based on the presentation of your “right.”
Vulnerability opens the conversations to a deeper level of consideration and thinking. If you truly desire to be heard or want to hear what the other person has to say, you must open up to the vulnerability of your feelings.
A better conversation looks like this:
Her: “I think it would a good idea if you just got up earlier and took our child with you to that appointment and then dropped him off after.”
Him: “Yea that’s not really going to work for me. I don’t want to juggle that situation in the morning before this appointment.”
Her: “Well, I don’t see what the big deal is. It’s not that much earlier. You could just get him up when you get up and then….”
Him: “Like I said, that really isn’t great for me and getting him up earlier is a pain.”
Her: “I’m feeling a little bit like you’re not really listening to me. This is making me think my ideas don’t matter and you’re discounting me as a person. How can I articulate my ideas/thoughts better so we can have a discussion about tomorrow’s plan?”
Now, do you see how her response breaks the pattern and forces a different conversation? She could’ve continued on the cyclical path which could eventually lead to her feeling unseen and unheard, which would’ve undoubtedly turned into the blame game. Instead she took it upon herself to state what she was feeling, how it was affecting her, and how she could better communicate it.
Now, there is a less productive, more offensive way of handling this that sounds like, “I’m feeling like you’re just not listening to me and you don’t care anything about what I’m saying, so just do whatever it is you wanna do and don’t ever ask me again.”
This happens all too often because we get in our feelings of past trauma and will most likely leads to unproductive communication.
What did happen was 2 things:
She took an action of vulnerability stating how she was feeling — ie, addressing the feelings caused by the past trauma of feeling unimportant or discounted as a person
She took a secondary action of not blaming him, but rather asking how she could better communicate her thoughts so they could enter a better discussion
All in all, she advocated for herself and her desire to be heard. For any of you thinking, “Well, she shouldn’t have had to do this,” let me help you. On any given day each of us is hit with thousands and thousands of commercials, thoughts, arguments, highs and lows, good juju and bad shit. This is why we’re often met with an, “Ok,” when someone asks, “How was your day?” We don’t know what the other person is thinking, feeling, or what their distractions are. Its not always on the other person — sometimes you have to take responsibility for the outcome YOU desire.
Ever experienced this is your work life too? How could you change the pattern in the conversation?
Conclusion
Ultimately, if you continue you to protect yourself by not communicating, you and your relationships will never grow and nothing will change. All your habits will stay the same and life will become stagnant around YOUR stored issues.
There are too many rules about all the things that happen externally due to the internal disturbance they MIGHT cause. Living like this kills the opportunity for joy and happiness. Most people go through each day protecting themselves and making sure nothing goes too wrong — the “I survived today mentality.” These people see life as a threat and a good day is defined as not getting hurt.
The longer you live this way, the more closed off you become.
Stay Edgy -
Daniel Tribby, ATC, CNP
Co-founder, The Edgy Entreperneur
© Edgy Entrepreneur, LLC. • 51 E. Jefferson St. #3292, Orlando, FL 32802 • www.edgyentrepreneurs.com
