Read an Excerpt

Getting Real

The Ten Truth Skills You Need to Live an Authentic Life

H J Kramer and New World Library

HOW TO STOP BEING RIGHT AND START BEING REAL

Have you ever

• been bored listening to someone but acted interested?

• pretended to like someone more than you really did?

• pretended to like someone less than you really did?

• had trouble admitting you didn't know something you're supposed to know?

• had trouble admitting you were wrong?

• had difficulty asking for what you wanted?

• acted happy when you felt sad?

• had difficulty admitting you were attracted to someone until you found out how they felt about you?

• had a problem saying no or marking your boundaries?

• had trouble telling your sexual partner that you're not satisfied?

• reacted defensively when you thought you were being criticized?

• had difficulty expressing your anger, jealousy, or hurt?

• had trouble expressing your love, caring, or vulnerability?

• avoided telling someone something that you feared might be hurtful?

If you answered yes to many of these questions, rest assured that you're not alone: I ask hundreds of people these questions during speeches and seminars, and nearly everyone answers yes to most of them. Yes, we all lie, sugarcoat, pretend, or withhold. Why? The most common reasons people give are

• to avoid hurting people's feelings

• to avoid looking foolish

• to avoid conflict, disagreement, or feeling anger

• to ensure that things turn out right

• to avoid feeling out of control

We lie to avoid whatever we perceive as dangerous — to our ego, to our comfort, to our safety. Most of all we lie because our sense of safety and self-esteem depends on our feeling in control, in control of how other people react to us, of whether we appear smart or foolish, of whether we'll get what we want.

Getting Real at Work

I was giving my first coaching session to an executive from a Fortune 100 company. We were meeting to go over the results of a survey he had given his employees asking for their feedback about his effectiveness as a leader. As soon as we sat down, he disclosed, "I haven't looked at the results of the survey." I had an immediate reaction. I was not pleased! The previous week we had agreed that both of us would study the results of the survey in preparation for this meeting. My body felt flushed and hot. I felt a mixture of anger and disappointment. I was saying to myself, "I wasn't expecting this. I don't want to have this meeting if he's not prepared." Instead I mumbled, "How come? Weren't you interested in what your people had to say about you?" He smiled sheepishly, looked down at the floor, and said something about having too much on his plate. So I feigned sympathy.

Fortunately, at that point in the conversation, I felt the urge to use the restroom, so I excused myself. Standing at the sink in the women's room, I gave myself time to get present to what I was experiencing. I took a few deep breaths and went back to our conference room. I looked my client in the eye and told him, "Leo, I'm feeling angry and disappointed that you didn't read what your people wrote about you." As soon as I said those words, I knew I was going to be okay. I felt a big surge of relief in my body and renewed clarity in my thoughts. I waited for his response. He sat there for several seconds, just looking at me. Then he said something I didn't expect: "Thank you. I needed to hear that." We both heaved a big sigh of relief as I exclaimed, "Well, now that we have that out of the way, shall we get to work?"

My behavior during the first part of the meeting was typical of so many of us. We try to act in control instead of admitting that we're upset or befuddled. Instead of sharing our feelings and thoughts, we try to ensure a predictable outcome (I wanted him to like me, and I wanted the meeting to proceed smoothly). We communicate with the intent to control rather than with the intent to relate. But until we take a risk and share authentically, nothing real can happen. We're like actors reading from a script. When people throw away the script and show up in the moment, suddenly a lot of creative energy is released, and something can get accomplished.

As my meeting with Leo showed me, honest expression of feelings also helps to clear away the fog that clouds our perception of what is — especially when we express something we have been withholding or trying not to think about. Once I expressed my withheld anger, I was able to release those feelings and could then give Leo much more of my attention.

New Human Capacities

In the mid-1990s I conducted a three-year research study of the "new human capacities" that people need to develop to survive and thrive in a world of tumultuous change and information overload. Based on a survey of approximately five hundred people, the research demonstrated that about 80 percent of the average person's communications are geared toward controlling things that are actually beyond the person's control: a huge waste of human energy.

More often than not the truth of a situation doesn't conform to our ideas about how things should be. In the example above, I thought Leo should have read the survey results. Where did that get me? Well, it got me behaving in a way that was disconnected from both the truth of the situation and the truth of my own feelings. The truth is often more confusing, paradoxical, uncomfortable, or messy than we might wish it to be. It cannot be controlled. The people in my study who experienced the greatest number of painful unexpected surprises (such as job loss, divorce, and alienation from their grown children) were those who demonstrated the highest need for control. It seems that the more you try to get reality to fit within your comfort zone, the more unprepared you are to deal with a world full of surprise, complexity, and change. Likewise, if we persist in trying to get our relationships to conform to our expectations instead of letting them be how they actually are, we may miss important opportunities to know ourselves and others more deeply.

When I was in high school, my family's dinner conversations often centered on my dad's frustrations with upper management in the company where he worked. Dad was a mid-level manager in a company that manufactured and sold business calculating machines in an era when better-faster-cheaper computers were just about to arrive on the market. My dad was pretty certain that if his company didn't start listening to customers and giving them what they wanted, the company would fold. Every night I would listen to Dad ranting about his bosses — what they should do if they had any brains and what he would do if he were leading the company.

I would often ask him, "Instead of telling us, can't you tell them what you think? Wouldn't they want to hear what you have to say?"

"Oh no, they'd just say 'don't be so negative.' And then I'd feel even more frustrated."

Reflecting on these conversations, I now view my dad's behavior as a good example of withholding true feelings and thoughts to maintain a sense of control: he had it all figured out. He knew how his bosses should be and how they would react to his ideas. By staying silent, he stayed in control. He never had to risk being disagreed with, criticized, or ignored. He got to stay right where he felt comfortable — wronged, but righteous — to the very end when the company did go under and he could say, "I told you so."

Staying in control, or at least avoiding feeling not in control, is a powerful motivator, to be sure. Recently, however, controloriented communication (or lack of communication, as in Dad's case) has begun to fall out of favor. More and more people are waking up to the fact that trying to play it safe and to avoid unwanted outcomes has a way of sneaking up on you and biting you in the backside. Those very things you try to avoid get you in the end, so to speak. My dad was trying to avoid the unwanted outcome of being without a job. And where did that behavior get him? He wound up losing his job and his self-respect. He later disclosed, "At least if I had told them what I thought, I'd have my self-respect intact, whether they listened or not. I wish I'd known then what I know now."

In conducting my study, I talked to many people who have begun to recognize the price they have paid for trying to control things that really are not within their control. Because of the evolutionary forces of information overload and rapid, unpredictable change, we now need to become less attached to how things should turn out and communicate more about what is actually going on — even if doing so is uncomfortable or threatening. Doing so requires that we take our prejudices, preconceptions, and shoulds lightly so that we can accurately perceive the feedback we get rather than having our perceptions clouded by what we expect, what we fear, or what we think should be happening. I call this new orientation toward communication relating. Relating is how you get real.

Relating Versus Controlling

Control-oriented communication is geared toward ensuring a predictable result. It is the ego-mind's way of protecting us from feeling anxious or uncomfortable when facing an unexpected or unknown outcome. The ego-mind is that part of us that likes to feel in control. Many of us don't trust that, if we don't get the result we were hoping for, we'll be resourceful enough to come up with a "plan B."

When we relate we value what is over what should or could be. When you relate, as opposed to when you control, you speak the truth of what you think, feel, and notice as a way of sharing information and making emotional contact — and not as a way of getting a particular outcome. You speak your truth without knowing how this truth will be received. When I told Leo that I was angry and disappointed, I was taking a risk. He could have told me I was being disrespectful and walked out on me. I was willing to take that chance, because I trusted that whatever happened, I'd be okay. I also knew that if I wasn't truthful with myself and with Leo, all further communication between us would be compromised and that our meeting would not be very productive.

The Ten Truth Skills

This book is a kind of primer for the practice of conscious, deeply contacting communication — the type of communication that pushes you closer to that edge of aliveness where you trust yourself enough to speak your truth even without being sure of how you will be received, where you are

To really experience true contact with another person, you must enter a realm of uncertainty together. To help you gain the courage and confidence to live this way, in this book I describe ten essential life skills, which I call truth skills. In chapters 2 through 11, I discuss each of these ten truth skills in detail. I will outline them here for you briefly.

1. Experiencing what is. When I use the words what is, I am referring to whatever is actually going on in the present moment — in your body, in your mind, and in your environment. By noticing and feeling what is, you learn to distinguish between what you actually experience in your body and emotions from what your mind thinks, judges, expects, or believes should be happening. This practice will help you communicate about your current reality more accurately and honestly. It will keep you connected to the energy of being alive, thereby training you not to depend so much on external results, such as what others think of you, for your sense of well-being.

2. Being transparent. Self-disclosure, or what I am calling being transparent, is the ability to reveal to another person what you have done or what you are sensing, feeling, thinking, or saying to yourself at the moment. When you share your thoughts, sensations, feelings, even your judgments "in the interest of transparency," you are less apt to get caught up in the illusion of control. The motive behind your self-expression is just that — self-expression. It is not about trying to get people to change. As a result, your expression is less likely to trigger a defensive reaction in them. Letting yourself be seen by others is also an important aid to seeing yourself more honestly. It is harder to fool yourself when you are going public about who you are.

3. Noticing your intent. Communicating with the intent to control the outcome of a situation represents the ego-mind's efforts to protect you. The intent to control, or to self-protect, does have its place, especially if you are in physical danger. However, most people communicate with the intent to control rather than to relate far more than they need to. If you really want to see the reality of a situation or to connect with someone emotionally, you need to allow yourself to be open to the possibilities of each moment — spontaneous and unrehearsed. You need to relate more and control less.

4. Welcoming feedback. Welcoming feedback is another way to be present to what is. It means being attuned to what is happening around you each moment. When you welcome feedback, you are actively curious about how others are affected by your actions. You ask, "How are you with what I just did?" or "What is your response to what I'm saying?" Asking for feedback keeps the two-way flow of conversation going, an essential ingredient of relating. The ability to notice others' verbal and nonverbal feedback is how you learn from experience. You do or say something, then you notice what happens. In this way you can see whether your behavior serves your needs, aims, and values.

5. Asserting what you want and don't want. Asserting what you want affirms your right to want what you want — even if you imagine it's an unreasonable demand or that there's little chance of getting it. This skill also helps you become less attached to getting everything you ask for, since each request won't carry such a heavy load. When you are free and fluent with your requests, you don't expect to get everything you ask for. But when you save up your requests for "the really important things," each request carries more significance than is realistic. Asking freely, instead of inhibiting yourself, keeps your energy flowing. You are saying yes to yourself, no matter how another person responds to Asking freely instead of inhibiting your wants.

It is also very important to let people know about what you don't want. You need to be able to refuse to do, receive, tolerate, or speak about something, if that is your honest response. This kind of asserting may result in the other person being disappointed, frustrated, or angry; but if a relationship is to be authentic, there needs to be space for people to experience their full range of feelings and to have those feelings be okay.

6. Taking back projections. Often what you "see" in another person is actually a mirror of something in yourself that you're uncomfortable with. When a timid person is put off by someone aggressive, perhaps she is disowning her own "aggressiveness," that is, her ability to stand up for herself. When a dominating person is bothered by a timid, fearful person, perhaps he is not acknowledging his own fearfulness. The phenomenon of projection has been recognized since ancient times. In the Sermon on the Mount in the Bible, Christ urged his followers to be mindful of noticing the speck in their neighbor's eye while failing to notice the log in their own. Becoming aware of projections helps you to season your judgments with some humility. It can also help you to remember that other people's judgments about you are as much (or more) about them as they are about you. And perhaps most important, this kind of awareness can show you where your life energy is blocked or stuck in a pattern so that you can get it flowing again.

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Excerpted from Getting Real by Susan Campbell. Copyright © 2001 Susan M. Campbell. Excerpted by permission of H J Kramer and New World Library.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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