This is part 5 and the last of a series on relational communication, equipping people to enter into relationships in a more healthy and loving way. I highly recommend starting with part 1 of this series and continuing on from there as this post draws upon points already established in previous parts.

You’ve learned all the skills. You have all the answers. You know what to do. But when you look at the people and the conversations you have before you, it can be hard to motivate yourself, or you can only take on so much at once.

I see you. I’ve been you. Some times, many times, I am you. God is the only One who is limitless. We are limited, and that is good. It is right and good to learn our limits, set boundaries, and keep them. It is also right and good to start with God and that when He (and He alone) calls you to stretch for His good purposes, that you walk alongside Him as He does it.

So how do you know when it’s time to hold a boundary, and when it’s time to stretch into a new place?

By way of reminder, these are our foundations for healthy communication.

Foundations

• Not everyone values the same things you do! Take time to find out what they do value and what does motivate them before assuming they are like you.
  • Different generations value different things more highly: truth, being real, saving the world, or experiencing beauty are 4 very different motivating factors for 4 different kinds of generations! 
  • How will you interact differently with other generations knowing they see things from a different point of view than you do?

• LOVE someone enough to try to understand them. Lean in.
• Assume the best of others until they prove otherwise (see below).
• We are responsible for ourselves; how we act and how we react. Others are responsible for themselves; how they act and how they react. No one makes you do anything.
  • You can also create a space for others to be more likely to act and react well by:
    • framing your conversation, 
    • using subjective & situational language, 
    • stepping back and observing, 
    • consider both/and (vs. either/or, or ‘all or nothing’ thinking), 
    • mining for conflict, and 
    • interrogating the direction to its natural end.
• 99% of the time, no one is trying to be a jerk, even when they hurt you. Usually, conflict with others comes from miscommunication or from misplaced expectations:
  • Miscommunication: when you both say one thing but mean two different things, or when you both use one word but mean two different things.
  • Misplaced expectations: didn’t have realistic or honestly communicated expectations of the other person going in
• It’s NOT about winning; it’s about deeper relationships.
• “So far as it depends on you, leave at peace with one another”. In conflict, you do your part; you cannot make them do theirs.
  • If, as you are trying, they are unwilling to have the conversation, you can try a mediator (see below) or stop trying.
  • If, as you are trying, they are unwilling to give any space to listen to you even when you ask for it, they may not be worth the effort.
  • If you have tried but you get nowhere, try bringing in a mediator (neutral third party) – especially if your conflict is within an organizational structure. If, as you bring in a mediator, they are still unwilling to have the conversation or to listen, then either more people will be brought in or you will have done your part.

Healthy Engagement:

Here’s a little exercise for you as we get started!

Think of a time when you (or someone you know) engaged a disagreement in a healthy way.

• How did you/they go into it?
• What happened? 
• How do you know it went well?

Think of a time when you (or someone you know) engaged a disagreement in an unhealthy way.

• How did you/they go into it?
• What happened? 
• How do you know it didn’t go well?

Signs you’re ready for a Healthy Engagement:

(even one of these is a good sign; even more is even better!)

• You’re green-lining.
• You’re confident that your relationship with this person/these people is secure no matter how the conversation goes.
• You’re not stressed about other things.
• You’re not tired / you’re well-rested.
• You have mental and emotional bandwidth (when you consider entering into this conversation, you do not feel overwhelmed).

Side-note: if you’re typically a conflict-avoidant person, until you’re practiced in entering into conflict well, you may experience anxiety, apprehension, or stress going into every conversation with likely disagreement for a long time. This doesn’t mean that you aren’t ready to engage. It means you have to be persistent in practicing healthy techniques that we’re covering below.

Knowing When to Stop Engaging

It is ALWAYS ok to stop or to ‘just not’ right away, in order to make sure you can stay in the conversation and do it well!

The Goal should ALWAYS be to do whatever it takes to be able to enter in well, as soon as possible (assuming it’s important enough to enter into in the first place). It is never good to let something fester.

Know your Priorities Before You Start:

• What are the issues or topics that matter the most to me to enter into a disagreement over?
• What am I required to enter into, due to the nature of my beliefs, my values, or my job?

Start by checking in with yourself:

• Do I really care? (If you don’t care enough about the topic or about them enough to talk this through, then admit that and just don’t, or get to a place where you do care enough.)
• Am I too tired for this right now? (Get some rest or take a break first!)
• Is there at least one other significant stressor in my life that keeps me from being able to be/stay really present in this conversation? (Go deal with the other stressor first!)
• Can I focus on one problem at a time? (Sometimes we pull other problems into conversations they have no business in, and we compound the problem instead of being able to focus on the problem at hand.)
• Can I control my speech to hold back accusations and instead green-line with questions? (If you are too heated, stay back until you can have a good conversation.)
• Am I entering into this conversation to be right? (If it’s not motivated by love and a desire to understand, don’t do it!)
  • If you’re feeling defensive, you’re leaning in the direction of needing to be right.

If you’re doing well, but you’re still hitting a wall, then you can check in with them:

• Are they unwilling to even talk with you?
• Are they unwilling to listen to you when you make them aware that they aren’t listening to you?
• Are they being abusive?
  • They are attacking you as a person without realizing their mistake and apologizing.
  • They are physically harming you.
  • They are psychologically abusing you such that you are now convinced you are always the problem, or that you are worthless.
  • You cannot tell anymore whether what they’re saying are lies or truth.
  • They invalidate your experiences and your feelings from those experiences (called gaslighting).
  • They try to make you their savior or their one go-to in order to be better (co-dependency).
  • [IF they are being abusive, you do not engage them until you can engage without being affected nor harmed by them. It is ok to never be able to engage them without being affected nor harmed by them. It is not your fault when they are being abusive. It is always theirs.]

If you’re finding you aren’t in a good place to engage, resist shaming yourself for this or, swinging to the other side, condemning them and resolving to never deal with the problem. I have been surprised many times over how people can heal and how, years later through much prayer and much help from the Lord and from professionals, I have been able to reconcile with many people, even abusive individuals. That said, I’m still ‘in process’ with still others, and I don’t know if I’ll get the chance to reconcile on this side of eternity; I don’t want you to think it’s always perfect over here.

Put your effort towards being healthy enough to engage.

Getting Healthy Enough to Engage

There are many ways to practice health. I have certainly not cornered the market here and I have therefore no doubt not covered every little facet. This is however the things I process and work through to be healthy enough to engage.

Take care of yourself. No, really. It makes a huge difference!

• Get sleep.
• Drink water.
• Eat food.
• Find community with people you can be yourself around.
• Practice grounding (unplug; get outside; do something physical and tangible; try something creative; practice creativity; engage your senses).
• Take breaks.
• Capture your thoughts: listen to your inner dialogue/your motivations, assess them for strains of worry, negativity, or a lingering on stressors. Actively choose to turn those thoughts into positive things that you can control, and let go of what you cannot control. 
• Pray. Connect with the God who is your everything.
• Forgive yourself. Seek forgiveness from others. Forgive others. Move on.
• Know who you are and remind yourself of your great worth in Christ.
• Get help with any addictive behavior, controlling behavior, or habits you find shameful.
• Get mentorship, training, counselling, therapy, and so on for ways you want to grow into a more whole person.

When you are more well, you are more able to see others more clearly.

You are also more able to empathize with others and their needs and fears when you are not strangled by your own needs and fears.

Practice love.

• To the degree you see your own worth, see others with that same worth or more.
• If you’re struggling to believe it, remind yourself of this truth until you do.

Practice humility.

• Consider your own growth journey. Consider how much you have grown.
• Recognize others are also on their own growth journey, even if they have currently stalled out.
• Choose to look at others as people in progress, just like how you are in progress.

Prioritize.

• If you had to pick the most important things to you, and the most important things to enter into disagreements on with others, what would you pick?
• Start with the top things, and if you notice you can do more and still be healthy, then you can add more from there!

And as you practice these, there will come a day when, considering how to engage that person, whomever they may be, doesn’t seem so bad anymore. That’s when you are in a healthy place!

I personally was in a place during the COVID pandemic where I had to stop engaging anything challenging for about a year, and I only focused on navigating my work relationships and the relationships closest to me. I got to a place where I wondered if I would ever be able to get back into important, hard conversations again. The good news is, about a month ago, I noticed my capacity opening back up again – just in time to navigate a couple challenging conversations with loved ones. If you’re worried you will never have the capacity or the will, it will come back; don’t despair! Keep running to the Lord and trusting in Him to heal you in His timing.

This is the last in a 5-part series on relational communication. May the Lord bless you with wisdom, grace, and humility as you navigate your relationships with other image-bearers of God!