Having the Last Word : Agree to Disagree | Tips for Disagreeing Productively & Finding Common Ground

Hello everybody, and welcome to Assertiveness Validation and Getting the last word. I'm your host, Dr. Donnellice Snipes. In this video, we're going to explore why some people always want the last word. We'll identify the consequences of demanding the last word and review some strategies to help you communicate more assertively and hopefully more effectively. So let's start out with why some people feel a need to have the last word. And I went online to just kind of see what the Internet had to say about it. And I kept coming back to two of my least favorite words, narcissist and egomaniac. And it's important to not jump to conclusions, not to over generalized what's going on. Behavior is communication. Behavior has meaning. But what are the possible meanings of needing to get the last word? Some people want to have the last word. They because they feel like they need to tie things up. They are the way they learn. They like to summarize things. And so it may feel like they're making a power play, but many times all they're doing is paraphrasing for themselves what they heard or what the discussion was in order to make sure they're on the right, on the right path, on the right track. Now, they don't always say, does everybody agree? They may just say, and I know I do this when I close meetings. I say, we talked about these things today and these are the actions that we're going to take and you know, we'll meet back next Tuesday or whatever. And then I dismissed the meeting. Now obviously in that situation, I'm sort of in a power position, but I'm not summarizing things in order to silence other people's voices. I'm summarizing to make sure that everything that was said is kind of accounted for and people have the opportunity to say, oh, and don't forget. So part of it is how you do it. Some people feel they need to have the last word because they are competitive. They need or they feel like they need attention or recognition. Maybe it's at work where they want to get a promotion. Maybe it's at home and they are one of a bunch of siblings and they want to get recognized or noticed because they feel like people don't see them. They feel like they're ignored or they blend in or maybe they're just competitive and they like to push those boundaries and they like to quote, win. We need to consider, and we're going to talk about the consequences, what the motivation is and whether it is helping you move Toward what's important in your rich and meaningful life. Sometimes people feel a need to have the last word because it's a cultural or a respect thing. For example, many times parents want to have the last word with their children. They will be talking about something and the parent will say, okay, this is what you're going to do. So it's not so much that they are the last one to speak, but ultimately they are the one that makes the decision, and they are the one that controls the situation. That can happen in other cultures, too. For example, there are many cultures out there where elders are respected and elders are the ones that people submit to their opinions. It's not always true, but it is important to consider, is this person from a culture where they expect to be the one that is in the position of respect? They expect to be listened to. And that can be challenging, especially in our current environment where there are people from many, many cultures. And it's. It's important. Before we assume someone is trying to be aggressive or violate our boundaries because they want the last word, we need to look at it and go, is this something that they were raised to believe is culturally appropriate? Fear. Now, this is one of the main reasons people feel a need to have the last word. Fear. When they are not. When someone is not agreeing with them, when someone is not listening to them, they feel invalidated, they feel rejected. Now, some people and fear, remember, is a threat response. When somebody feels like they are disempowered or out of control, they often either get fearful or angry or both. Sometimes the fear may come because the person fears that the other person is making a mistake. And, you know, as a parent, I can think of many times when I have wanted to convince my children that I'm right because I felt like the choices they were making were going to be a mistake. And when they're 5, that's one thing. When they're 15, when they're 25, it's important to consider where they're at developmentally and respect their boundaries as is appropriate. But there is a part of being a parent, for example, where you want to protect those underneath you. You. You want to keep them from making a mistake. And if you see them doing something that you feel or maybe even you know, factually is going to be a disaster, you may want to protect them from it. However, at what point do you need to enable them to make their own decisions and potentially make their own mistakes? Some people feel fearful if they feel like they're not in control of a situation. And so they need to regain control of the situation. You will listen to me and you will do what I say because I need to be in control. Many times people who've experienced trauma, for example, maybe regularly feel like they need to be in a position of control in order to stay safe. So if you're one of those people who needs to have the last word so people know that you're in control of the situation, it's important to examine why is that? Why do you need to be in control? What is so scary about letting somebody else be in control? Some people need to have the last word because they fear that the other person is uninformed or mistaken. And because of that lack of information or because that other person's mistaken, they may experience negative consequences. Or worse yet, they may do things that negatively impact you. So for example, at work, if you think that your supervisor, for example, is uninformed or mistaken about something they're getting ready to do, and you want to have the last word, you need them to hear you and do what you say, then you may start to become aggressive. You may start to feel feel fearful that if they don't get all the facts and get their head on straight and it's going to negatively impact you. And finally, displacement. When people feel unsafe or disempowered or invalidated in other situations, for example at work, then they may feel like they need to be in control in other situations. So they may be more aggressive in their communications at home, they're more passive at work because they're afraid of getting in trouble, they're afraid of losing their job. So they displace that frustration, that fear, and they try to take control in other situations where it's safer. Self esteem is another reason some people feel they need to have the last word. If they feel like when somebody disagrees with them or has a different opinion that they are being rejected as a person, then it may make them feel very anxious and threatened. If they need other people to tell them they're okay. If they've got a low self esteem and they rely on other people to say, hey, you're okay, I like you, you're right, you're smart, you're safe. Then when people disagree with them, that feels very, very threatening. And finally, transference. Maybe there was somebody in your life that regularly disagreed with you, that regularly disempowered you, that rejected you, and you're interacting with somebody now that reminds you of that person. So whenever they start to disagree with you, it triggers those feelings from that past relationship and you react with the same sense of threat and verbal aggression that you reacted with in the past. And it's important to differentiate. Are you threatened by this person's response? Are you upset with this person? Or are you upset based on that past experience? And this person's just bringing that stuff up again, and they may not even realize it. What are the consequences of always having to have the last word? Well, guess what? If you are always the one that has to be right, that has to be agreed with. That has to, has to, has to. You are violating other people's boundaries. You are violating their emotional boundaries and their cognitive boundaries, which means they're going to feel disempowered and invalidated. If you're constantly telling them why you're right and they're wrong. You don't like feeling that way, why would somebody else be okay with? Discourages autonomy. Remember I said a lot of times, parents want to have the last word because we want to protect our children. Same thing with supervisors. Sometimes. Sometimes there are multiple ways to solve a problem and we need something done. However, there's a time, even with supervisees, where it's important to let them try to figure out how to solve problems and not solve them for the person. Not always tell them what to do, not micromanage, because that discourages autonomy, that disempowers the person. It may leave them feeling helpless and unqualified. When you always have to have, have to have the last word, it also creates an echo chamber. What I mean by that is people who always have to have the last word, always have to be agreed with, often surround themselves with people who, guess what, agree with them so they're not hearing other opinions, they're not hearing other perspectives, and they're not getting the full picture. In reality, none of us has the full picture about most anything. So it's important to be able to hear other people's perspectives. You don't necessarily have to agree with them, but it's important to hear their perspectives and be able to consider H Is that something I want to integrate into my perspective or not? Echo chambers can be very dangerous because it leads us into a fallacy of believing that we actually have all the information and isolation. When you feel like you always have to have the last word, sometimes people just don't want to bother. It is too exhausting to. To interact with you, or they feel like you're being disrespectful to them, and they just. They don't want to go there. So they set that boundary, and instead of getting into a power play, they just ignore the situation altogether. So what can you do about it? If you recognize that you're one of those people who feels like they need to have the last word, who gets stressed out if people start to disagree with them? What can you do about it? First, prepare for a difficult or what I call an impassioned discussion. If it's something that you're very passionate about, recognize that if somebody starts to disagree with you, then it's likely to trigger a strong response because it's something you hold close to your heart. It's something you're very emotional about. So you may start reacting from an emotional stance. Identify your hoped for outcome. What is it that you are hoping the other person will agree is the case or the right thing to do? Explore. This is before you have the discussion you're preparing, explore what disagreement actually means. If somebody disagrees with you on this, what does it mean? Does it mean they're rejecting you, or does it mean they're rejecting your idea? Does it mean they're going because they disagree with you? Is it going to keep you in any way from living your rich and meaningful life? What does it exactly mean and why do you feel you must have this person's approval? Psychologists sometimes refer to musts as irrational or unhelpful thoughts. Because there's very few things that we must do in order to survive. There are a few. But you need to examine, is this something that must happen? Must this person approve of you? You would like them to, but if they don't, is it a actual threat to you? Is it going to keep you from living a rich and meaningful life? And yeah, sometimes even our family is going to disapprove of us. Does it mean that we can't live a rich and meaningful life? Not necessarily. And yes, I said disapprove of us, not disapprove of our ideas. Because sometimes they will lump it all together and they just, just don't like what we do. They don't like how we think. Okay, if that person is not on your same wavelength, are they preventing you from living a rich and meaningful life? You might want to have them in your life, but are you able to live a rich and meaningful life without them joining up, so to speak, visualize or rehearse communicating your ideas? How are you going to bring up this topic and what are your points? How are you going to make your case for whatever it is that you want to have happen? Whether it is you want to move or you want to quit your job or you have a passion about a particular thing. I've done animal rescue for 25 years. I think that's a pretty safe one that I can pick on. So I feel very passionate about adopting animals from the shelter and so communicating my ideas to people who are breeders. For example, number one, do I even need to go there? Is that something that is a good use of my energy? However, if, for example, I have somebody in my family who decides to start breeding animals, might I communicate my ideas? Maybe. So I need to rehearse. How am I going to communicate this in a respectful way way where I use I statements and I communicate how I feel about it? How can I validate the other person's point of view? And especially if it's something you're passionate about, sometimes it can feel very difficult to acknowledge their point of view. However, it's one of those sometimes you got to agree to disagree. For example, when my children were young, we decided, my husband and I decided we were going to homeschool. And my mother was adamantly opposed to that. And so it was important when we would communicate that I defended my position, I articulated my position about why we were doing it, but I also needed to paraphrase her points of view so she knew she was being heard. I didn't have to agree with her points, but I needed to acknowledge her point of view and her concerns. And we need to recognize the difference between rejection of an idea and rejection of you. Did she not like the idea of us homeschooling? No, she did not. However, she didn't reject us. She was just rejecting that behavior. She didn't like that behavior. And it was important to visualize and rehearse how I would handle that when it would come up. So I was prepared for it. And so I could remind myself during the discussion, she's not rejecting me, she's rejecting this idea because that's not what she was raised to do. That's not what the culture was back in the 70s when I was a kid. Think of two times you have not gotten the last word. What were your thoughts and feelings after you didn't get the last word, what were your thoughts and feelings? And what were the consequences of not getting the last word? Were there any negative consequences? Sometimes when we let go of control, when we don't get the last word, when we're not the one in the power position, we're afraid bad things are going to happen, but they don't actually. We are reacting and forming memories based on feelings, not facts. Think of two Times you did get the last word, what were your thoughts and feelings and what were the consequences of getting the last word in the long run, what were the consequences? Did it improve your relationship with that person or did it harm it? When you're going to have those impassioned discussions now, we talked about preparing, now let's talk about how do you have it Minimize vulnerabilities physically, if you are exhausted or if you're hungry or hangry, that is not the time to engage with somebody. You are more likely to react strongly with a stress reaction than when you are physically good if you will. Affectively, cognitively. If you are already angry about something else, stressed out about something else, or overwhelmed with everything that's going on, you're likely already, you've got that stress meter sort of pegged out already and it's not going to take much to go from simmering to boiling and environmentally remove the audience. Many times we start feeling like we've got to have the last word, we've got to defend our position. We have to be validated that if there is an audience, remove the audience. Don't have these discussions in front of other people. Go to a, go to a private room somewhere where you can have this discussion and make sure that you're giving each other your full attention. If you're only half paying attention or if that person's only half paying attention, that, number one, that's disrespectful. Number two, you're not going to hear or effectively communicate the whole message. So once you've minimized your vulnerabilities, you're good. Okay, you are solid physically. You are not overwhelmed or anxious. You're grounded and you don't have an audience. Take a few breaths, trigger that relaxation response. You know, there's slow belly breathing. Pay attention to your posture and non verbals. If you're getting ready to have a discussion with somebody, maybe it's a subordinate and you walk into their office and they're sitting at their desk and you tower over them while you're telling them something. That's a power position and that's a threatening position. It's a lot more effective if you come in and you sit down in a chair so you're looking at them eye to eye. It's important that both people physically feel like they are at the same level of power. Ideally, you'd be sitting down. If for some reason this conversation comes up at a mixer and everybody's standing up, okay, well, you're standing, that's fine. But still Pay attention to your posture and non verbals and if you start crossing your arms and you know, doing, doing the shoulder thing and like whatever, then that is going to come across as closed off and disrespectful. And it's a power position. It is passive aggressively invading that person's boundaries. You are shutting, putting a wall up so they aren't invading yours, but you are refusing to hear what they have to say. Mind your stress meter. If you start feeling like your stress is increasing, they're not hearing you, or you've repeated the same thing four times. Whatever it is, you start feeling your stress rise, be willing to call a timeout. It is much better to call a timeout, take a few breaths and trigger that relaxation response and then re approach the situation, then continuing to push through it when you're already getting stressed out. Because as soon as your cortisol and glutamate and all those stress hormones start coursing through your body, your cognitive abilities go down. Your ability to be assertive often goes down because you're in fight or flight mode. Now, one person speaks at a time. If the other person is speaking, even if you don't like what they're saying, practice breathing. Note your breathing while they're talking, hear what they're saying. When they're finished, give yourself a minute. You don't have to respond right away. Give yourself a second, paraphrase what they've said. So what I hear you saying about this is blah, blah and blah. Okay? That gives you a minute to get your thoughts together. And then if they say, yeah, that's, that's what I said, then you can present your case. If you interrupt, you're violating their boundaries. That is a aggressive stance. When you interrupt somebody, that's, that's a show of aggression. If you completely dismiss them, they're probably going to repeat themselves. In counseling, one of the things that beginning counselors are all worried about because most of us don't sit there with a notepad and take notes and they're like, well, what if I missed something that somebody said? And I had a supervisor one time that said, if you missed something that they said that was important, don't worry, they'll say it again and again until you hear it. When people don't feel like they've been heard, when they don't feel like they've gotten the point across, then they're likely going to continue to repeat themselves. Each time they do, they may feel progressively more frustrated though. So it's important when somebody stops talking that you acknowledge what you heard. You don't have to agree with them. You don't have to say, you're right. It's just what I hear you saying is then objectively state your point of view. And I say objectively because for some reason our culture has gotten very unkind in their communication. It's important to state your thoughts, your feelings, your facts without calling names. Not saying that is a stupid point of view. Well, that's going to put the other person on the defensive. And as soon as they're defensive, they're not able to hear as well. It's important to, again, not only paraphrase what they say, acknowledge what they said, but then present your statement equally. This is what I hear you saying, okay? If you want to say you make some good points, that's fine. This is my point of view on the situation. If it gets to a point where you realize that you and that person are not going to be able to actually make it through this discussion, it may be necessary to write it down. Write down all of your points, and then you can go through them one at a time, point by point, and that's often not necessary. But if it is a particularly heated conversation, you may go through like a pro and con list, for example. You may go through that together. And as I said, repetition indicates lack of communication. If you feel continuing to repeat yourself, either they're not listening and they've put up a wall, or they don't understand what you're saying, it's important to kind of consider that if you feel like the other person is not hearing you, is continuing to try to be heard an effective use of your energy? If you're trying to explain this and it's just going over their head, is it worth continuing to try to explain it to them if they don't get it, if they don't understand? And a lot of times as parents, we have these discussions with our teenagers as they are trying to become more independent. They just don't hear us. They don't think that what we have to say is right, or they don't understand what we're communicating. Is continuing to try to be heard by them an effective use of our energy? If we stop, what are the potential consequences if the other person has heard you, they heard your words, they understood what you said, but they don't agree with you and they're just like, fine, I'm going to do whatever I want to anyway. I hear your argument. I disagree with your conclusion. In what ways does respecting their boundaries and point of view negatively impact your ability to live your rich and meaningful life. Said another way, if you think they're getting ready to make a big mistake, in what way does allowing them the autonomy to make their own decisions and potentially make their own mistake keep you from being able to live your rich and meaningful life? And it's hard. It is really hard when you see somebody you love getting ready to do what you think is a huge mistake. However, it's important to respect boundaries. Behavior is communication. If you are regularly trying to get the last word, explore what that means to you. Are you trying to get acceptance? Do you need other people to approve of you in order to feel okay? Do you feel unheard? Do you feel like people just ignore everything that you say and like you don't matter? Are you trying to control the other person by invading their boundaries? Like I said, it's a little bit different when you're talking about a toddler or a five year old. You're gonna have the last word about things a lot of times, but even then they're individuals. If they decide they're not going to eat their vegetables, it's likely that they're not going to eat their vegetables and they're going to have to experience the consequences, whatever that means. Explore the facts for and against the belief that you must. I'm using that word, you must have the last word. To have a rich and meaningful life, do you need everybody to agree with you in order to have a rich and meaningful life? Do you need to be the one that's always right to have a rich and meaningful life? Do you need to be right or be in the power position with certain people in your life in order to have a rich and meaningful life? Only you can answer those questions.