Your Choice – Declutter Your Mind or Your Relationship
Have you been in a relationship where someone you cared about didn’t share what was bothering them? They held their thoughts inside.
I spent over 40 years in a thought-hoarding relationship.
It didn’t end well.
When we allow the clutter of thoughts and emotions to build for too long, we become toxic.
At some point, we have to release the pressure.
Scotland-based author, Don Johnson writes in his bio that he’s lived in meditative introspection as a monk and survived “the shark-infested waters of corporate America.” He offers a guide to saying aloud those things we have difficulty saying.
Why do we hold onto these thoughts when they can be so damaging over time?
Johnson’s view is that we fear we’ll be rejected or upset the other person.
Consider the long-term effects of toxicity.
Do you risk offending someone you care about? Or do you risk burning them after pummeling them with your pressure-cooker of problems?
I believe in dealing with issues as they come along. Bite-sized pieces are more palatable and digestible than swallowing months and even years of toxic thought-vomit.
Few relationships survive the drama that punctuates periods of pseudo-peace.
Explosive behaviors at their worst, result in violence and even fatalities. At the very least, they prove fatal to the life of the relationship.
Johnson offers four tips. Two are to be aware of and then detoxify our “left-hand column”—those thoughts and feelings we don’t express. The next is to having a learning mindset. Be open to other ways of thinking and seeing the world. Finally, he suggests we have a “kitchen conversation” (instead of a dining room conversation). This distinction alone is worth the time it will take to read this short article.
It’s time to face one another and have the difficult discussions. What do you have to lose?
