After a discussion with my SO and my roommate – or as Molly put it – “Lil’s lecturing again” (not in the sense of lecturing a specific person, mind you, but merely thinking out loud…and rather passionately), I’m definitely thinking it would be a good idea to take more responsibility for my actions & reactions, rather than trying to “manage” or prevent possible problems (some of which are, at the present time, pretty unlikely) by making contingency plans. Especially when those contingency plans involve other people whose behavior I cannot accurately predict, or when I make a contingency plan mostly for the reason of trying to allay my anxieties & fears about that situation occurring.

I’ve been reading books from Suzette Haden Elgin’s “Gentle Art of Verbal Self-Defense” series again – and not because I want a black-belt in verbal self-defense, either! – but to improve my communication skills and better understand how others communicate. One section on “Satir modes of communication” (so called due to the eminent therapist who came up with these categories) really caught my eye:

Blaming: WHY don’t you think about anybody ELSE’S feelings? DON’T you have ANY consideration for other people at ALL?

Placating: Oh, YOU know how I am! Whatever YOU want to do is okay with ME!

Computing: There is undoubtably a good reason for this delay. No sensible person would be upset.

Distracting: WHAT IS THE MATTER with you, ANYway? Not that I care! YOU know me – I can put up with ANYthing! However, common sense would indicate that the original agreement should be followed. And I am really FED UP with this garbage!

Leveling: I like you. But I don’t like your methods.

So I read these examples (straight from the book) to Geoffrey & Molly, and we talked about which modes we follow. They both agreed that I tend to do some Blaming, some Distracting, and some Leveling. Geoffrey is largely a Placater, but sometimes he goes into Distracting mode. And Molly tends to be a Leveler unless she’s emotional or distressed, in which case she wavers between Blaming & Placating. I personally have found myself uncharacteristically doing a lot of Placating lately, and it annoys me.

Yet another good reason to scale way back on the contingency plans, and address conflicts/issues as they arise, I’m thinking.