According to the renowned family therapist Virginia Satir, there are primarily 5 personality types. (You can also watch my video on this. Please maintain gender neutrality while going over this content.) When you are in a difficult situation, your communication style changes to cope with the stress. You unconsciously take actions to deflect your feelings. Do you identify with any of these? ...
At work, they often appraise us based on our results. If we don’t crack that deal, make a sale, or get more clients, our efforts aren’t recognized. When we reach the stage of having a performance appraisal, we aren’t able to sell what we did when it didn’t get the intended result. In personal relationships, the paradigm is different. Our efforts are more important than the result. If we worked hard to make a good meal for someone and they didn’t like it, the effort is more important; if we tried to be the best version of ourselves in a relationship and it failed, our attempt to have a good relationship counts more than the fact that it didn’t work out. ...
I once met a young man who had difficulty holding a conversation with a woman. He wanted to get into a relationship, but whenever his type of lady walked into the room, he didn’t have the courage to initiate a conversation. If she spoke to him first, he got cold feet and excused himself. Needless to say, this wasn’t getting him anywhere. ...
We often believe that if we don’t say how we are feeling, people will not know. Invariably, people catch our energy and feel the same way about us. The world of the unspoken is mysterious indeed. Ironically, it is far more accurate than the spoken world. Suppose I say to someone that I think highly of them but don’t really think that way, the feeling will get conveyed. How you feel about others eventually becomes how they feel about you. The vice versa is also true because our thoughts travel to people. ...
People stop trusting you when you hurt them. If they believe you did so consciously and intentionally, then even more so. If they think you are a person who breaks their promises, doesn’t live up to commitments, manipulates them or speaks about them to others, they are skeptical about you. In short, they feel hurt by your behaviour and don’t trust you with their feelings again because—if left in your hands—you could play with them. The more you break their trust, the more they distance themselves from you, either physically or emotionally by holding back their feelings. How can you change things in this case? If you have lost the trust of someone, start doing things to gain it back one tiny step at a time. Spend time understanding their needs and meeting them. Clarify and set expectations early in the relationship to avoid disappointment down the road. Lastly, apologize sincerely if you made a mistake. Provide no justification for your behavior; just a promise to take care of things in the future. Gaining trust back might be easier said than done. If your behavior has hurt them then your behavior needs to change for them to trust you. No amount of words can substitute that. When they sense your sincere commitment toward gaining their trust back they are very likely to give it to you. ...