Last Summer I received a somewhat threatening e-mail from a stranger. It ominously alluded to the fact that he had been to my website and knew what I looked like and where I lived and that I would have no way of recognizing him should he approach me. It was scary. My rational side said that it was just a sick joke. My irrational side simply did the Charlie Brown yell.

As luck would have it, I received the e-mail the night before Rick was leaving town for the week on business. I had a class on Tuesday evening and I got home around 10:00. The best parking spot I could find was several houses away from mine. It seemed like a very long walk.

When I was safely locked inside my home, and, after checking the closets while carrying my trusted baseball bat, I phoned Rick. He was at a baseball game with clients. This didn't sit well with me: here I was facing certain death and he's at a baseball game! I told him – in somewhat colorful language – that I thought it was quite insensitive of him. There was a slight pause and then he said, "I understand that this is scary. I know that you are scared and you hate that. What can we do to make you feel safe?" Talk about diffusing a bomb!

This incident (and, yes, I know that I wasn't at my most reasonable) illustrates an important point about communication: it is almost always silly to argue about a feeling (can you imagine where the conversation would have went if Rick had told me that I was being silly for being scared?). Rather, you are much better off to acknowledge the feeling and then move the discussion to the real issue and to resolution. To be clear, you can acknowledge what someone else is feeling without taking responsibility for that feeling. Look at how Rick handled it:

1. He acknowledged that I was scared;
2. He didn't try to tell me that I shouldn't have been scared; and,
3. He moved us towards resolution ("What can we do to make you feel safe?").

The way he asked the question was key. Using the word "we" (as opposed to you or I) did two critical things: 1) it told me that I wasn't in it alone; and 2) it didn't shift the responsibility to Rick.

How can you avoid a debate about the validity of feelings and get to the real issues?

To Your Success,

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