Welcome everyone and pull up a seat at the table. It’s Lunchtime in Rome. Tonight’s episode 223 entitled “A Better Way”. What if there was a better way to tell someone that they have hurt you? What if you could start your own healing process when you've been hurt by a loved one? What if there was something out there that you haven't ever considered that could help all of your relationships?
There is a better way and you haven't heard of it.
Pull up a seat at the table and join us!
Seek Understanding
* Introduce Seeking Understanding
* Rather than forgiveness
* It shows that you understand the impact of the hurt
* It’s about them, not you
* Cleans out the hurts and allows the relationship to move on
* But what about when expressing a hurt?
* Typical - when you did this it hurt me
* No emotional need attached
* No grace given to the offender
* It’s, to some degree, selfish
* It, in some ways, assumes the worst (or allows it) of the offender
* It will probably cause the offender to become defensive
* Which is why you get FLR
* It leads to a back and forth, far from the resolve
* What if there was a better way to approach this?
* Seek to understand the offender
* Express the hurt - When you did this it made me feel this way (express emotional need not met and or taken from you)
* Remind them of who they are to you - “I know you love me and don’t want to hurt me.”
* Ask them why they did what they did - “Help me understand why you did/said/didn’t do X that hurt me.”
* Remind them that you value the relationship - “Our relationship really matters to me. You matter to me. I don’t want a misunderstanding to get in the way of that.
* This sets the tone for the goal - the relationship
* This sets the priority being finding and fixing the misunderstanding rather than assigning blame and demanding an apology
* It VERY MUCH gives the person every shot at understanding your pain rather than defending their actions
* Try hard to understand where they were coming from and why they did/said what they did
* In other words, give them the benefit of the doubt
* Remember, odds are they didn’t mean to hurt you
* When you try to understand why they hurt you, it gives them the best opportunity to understand your hurts
* Examples
* Someone in ministry was hurt by my words
* I didn’t know the whole situation at all
* I wasn’t given the benefit of the doubt
* I did apologize and sought to understand but…
* They weren’t interested in understanding me
* I was left hurt in my
* Respect - I wouldn’t hurt them in that way
* Security - Everything was fine and not it’s not
* Comfort - I was trying to help another situation which caused me to say what I said, now both situations are bad
* Bella roommate situation
* I didn’t seek understanding from THEM but I sought it
* I was able to see that, perhaps, they weren’t horrible people
* It didn’t diminish my comfort for Bella
* It kept me from being more angry and hurting others
* Potential problems
* It doesn’t work - then the normal way wouldn’t either
* You can’t understand why they said/did what they did - you’re still further along than before
* You start to feel like the only one trying - you probably are the one most gifted in this ability, expect it
