I have often found it hard to separate out the qualities of the specific interaction from what the truth is 'inside' it. If the metacommunication is harsh or judgemental I have often wanted to reject, out of hand, the content of the message, even stripped of intensifiers (like 'unbelievably') and the intent of the one sending the message or offering a reflection. It seemed like an inevitably baby and bathwater kind of thing. More recently I have found that I can find the nugget in there by acknowledging all of my reactions to the message.
This has come up at work recently where I have a person who is very judgemental and seems to be angry about something having nothing to do with me - could be men. I have been receiving training from this person and, of course, they have lots of useful information about the tasks and my limitations, poor approaches, etc.
I am not in any ideal state about this kind of thing, but I notice an improvement in myself. The fact is she is right, at least sometimes, about poor 'attitudes' or learning styles on my part in relation to a couple of very complicated tasks. She is not a good teacher and she is kind of mean. So I allow myself the emotional reaction - mostly on my own - to the form of her interaction with me. In other words I vent a lot of anger and also some fears since she (and I) seems to have some judgements about even my potential competence. After this I am more ready to look at the content of her messages. Selfishly and with great lust and enjoyment I have used quite a number of her suggestions. Whereas in the past I would have shut out the whole thing because of how harsh she is.
I also can see that her harshness matches my own internal harshness toward myself in this case. So I get to double learn. I learn the specifics that help me with the tasks AND I learn that I do not like this kind of harshness even when it is me aiming it at myself.
An example of the latter. I often want to explain my thinking to her. The thinking that led me to make a bad decision. She cuts this off, and rudely. I do this, not to justify myself - I have recognized the mistake - but so she can show me where in my thinking I made the error. This is how I often learn. Not always, but often. Like a whip she cuts that off and just tells me again what I am supposed to do. The thing is the tasks are so complicated that it would be useful for me to understand more about the thinking in general so that in other similar but not the same situations I do not make mistakes when the new rule she is giving me does not fit.
In other words I want to make a bridge from my old, less effective state, to the newer effective one, by including my past errors in processing in the discussion. She just wants to tell me the right answer.
I do this to myself.
Interestingly this relates to our discussion, I think, in another thread, where one needs to meet people where they are as part of a process of change - your Dad, homosexual marriage. If you just, basically, shut them up, you are less likely to get actual change. At best you will get a surface change which will break down under stress.
So right now in relation to this trainer I privately express my full range of emotional reactions to her manner and choices. Then I can rego through her suggestions and find what is useful. Often a lot.
So I can accept the content without accepting the form. The weight of the other person being 'right' is lighter or has no weight at all.
