DO YOU WANT TO BE RIGHT OR DO YOUR WANT TO BE IN RELATIONSHIP?
I occasionally celebrate my experience of growing up in in a time when the world of social
media had not yet materialized. DMs were passed notes between friends that could be thrown
away. What needed to be said was only offered through human connection, and not plastered
on public platforms that lingered through decades. Cancel culture incubated in the recesses of
our minds or the private quarters of our homes and corporate offices. Humanity was not yet
able to hide behind computer screen courage to dehumanize one another, and internet wars
were not a thing.
Our present culture promotes a one-sided rightness that threatens our evolution. We all form
an opinion based on what meets our eyes without clear context of celebrity feuds, influencer
beefs, or the messiness of our social media friends that overshare, particularly when in conflict.
I grew out of participating in the argumentative process of proving my rightness in the virtual
world of social media and in my personal life. I found it to be futile, as I was often left with the
vibrations of irritation and agitation. After all my typed pontificating the perceived
“opposition” was still positional about what they believed, as was I. I want to be in healthy
relationship. I want to know and be known in ways that inspire transformation and conversion
towards my highest self and invites others to do the same.
I read the inquiry “do you want to be right or do you want to be happy” in a couples counseling
book for therapists centered in the work of John Gottman, a world renown couples therapist
and researcher. I am a student of being in healthy relationship as I work with individuals and
couples who desire to be in nourishing intra-personal and interpersonal connections. In my own
intimate partnership, I find value in discerning when to speak on a thing out of my desire to be
right and when to simply SHUT UP! I use the following guidelines for myself:
Is the person speaking to their direct experience of me or through their sight of wounding?
Am I in a place where I can offer my thoughts and feelings constructively?
What is happening in my body and is my own trauma being triggered?
Is my safety and/or wellness threatened?
Is the person speaking a truth that is difficult for me to receive?
Is their more value in taking an opportunity to listen for understanding and practice a
posture of discovery or to be right?
These guidelines support me in entering all my relationships, particularly when in conflict, with
curiosity. The work of healthy relationship requires humility and self-awareness which are daily
practices. I can own that I don’t always get it right. If I am aware that a person is speaking to me
and seeing me through a trauma-colored lens I know it is not about me. Why defend or speak
to something that is not you or about you? If your being right is to metaphorically cut someone
that you say you love, is your rightness worth them bleeding? If your being right wants to show
up in a public moment to curate embarrassment for the one you say is friend, is that the
practice of friendship and camaraderie you also want to experience? Being right can often
distance us from the ones we love, and when it is a habitual practice, it has the propensity to
pull us away from our own humanity and disregard the humanity of others. Do you want to be
right OR do you want to be in relationship?
#BeKYND #PracticeHealthRelationship #DoYouWantToBeRight
#DoYourWantToBeInRelationship