Continuing the Conversation Through Discomfort | Others Over Self®

Hey friends, Shelly here with a disclaimer. I don't want to offend anybody, but—

You have already offended me, Shelly.

Did I really?

I'm offended.

Oh my gosh.

I am offended.

I invited Major Laverne back to help me work through this issue because it happens all the time. We call it accidental offense. No matter how hard I try to craft my verbiage, I feel like sometimes I'm just offending somebody. Will you help me with this, Laverne? What do we do?

Absolutely, Shelly. That is so true. And as a mental health professional, I see this as a serious issue that's shaping our communities and impacting how we're engaging with one another.

Now, sometimes in conversation, we are genuinely offended, right? And we shut down and we ignore these feelings that we're having sometimes. And the conversation, it just stops. And what it does is it puts a brick wall between us. And what we're missing out on is this relationship with each other.

That's so true. That's right. Being able to continue the conversation when you feel comfort can be a wonderful method of healing. If we shut down, we should recognize that it's okay, I'm shutting down. So then we can identify why it's happening.

Now talk to me a little bit about this word trigger. Is it always a bad thing? I mean, consider there's things, messages out there that are always trying to get us to do something, right? To move, to act, click the button, do this, think about that. So from one Army veteran to another, Is trigger always a bad word?

Um, there's a difference between discomfort and trauma. A trigger affects our ability to remain present in the moment. This is why we may feel that shutting down effect. Overall, we want to be healing ourselves and our communities. Trauma is real, so we owe it to ourselves not to be tearing each other down, but to be supportive, and we can do that by working on ourselves.

French author Joseph Joubert says that the aim of argument or discussion should not be victory but progress. If you're noticing yourself shutting down or refusing to engage in conversations, then we encourage talking to a professional counselor like Laverne, and they'll help us work through these situations. We want to be aiming here to be able to have meaningful conversation with one another. Instead of constantly feeling like we're trapped in a world of offense. Okay, I'm Shelley reminding you that the needs of others will always be greater than your own, even when you feel those levels of discomfort.

See you soon. See ya.