Welcome to Adulting: Navigating Faith, Friendship, Finances, and the Future by Jonathan Pokluda & Kevin McConaghy

Author:Jonathan Pokluda & Kevin McConaghy [Pokluda, Jonathan & McConaghy, Kevin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Religion, Christian Life, Personal Growth, Spiritual Growth, Young Adult Nonfiction, Religious, Christian, Inspirational, Christian Living/Young Adult;Young adults—Religious life;Christian life;REL012070;REL012120;YAN048040
ISBN: 9780801078101
Google: LwtYDwAAQBAJ
Amazon: 0801078105
Publisher: Baker Books
Published: 2018-06-17T16:00:00+00:00

How to Fight Fair

Handling conflict well is all about having good communication. Unfortunately, we all have some negative communication patterns that can lead to conflict or prevent us from resolving it.

There’s an acronym we’ve adapted to make it easy to remember the negative communication patterns so we can catch ourselves when we start to slip into them. The acronym is WENI, and it is based on the patterns described in the book A Lasting Promise.2 It’s both a terrible acronym and a great one. I say it’s terrible because it doesn’t really spell anything, and the one thing it comes closest to spelling is “weenie.” But it’s also a great acronym because it accomplishes what acronyms are supposed to do: make something easy to remember. When I talk with people in my community group about “not being a weenie,” we all know exactly what that means. It’s corny and weird, and it works.

The four parts of WENI, or the four negative communication patterns to avoid, are:

Withdrawal

Withdrawal is basically the conflict avoidance mentioned above. It means that when conflict arises, you withdraw. Somebody says something that hurts you, or that you strongly disagree with, and instead of dealing with that issue you back off. You may literally withdraw; you walk out of the room or end the conversation without addressing it. But the problem doesn’t go away; you just internalize it and avoid resolving it.

Escalation

Escalation is pretty much the opposite of withdrawal. It’s what I was known for among my short-lived friendships in high school. Instead of ignoring what the other person has said or done, you respond by saying or doing something in anger. You raise the stakes and escalate the situation. Someone says something unintentionally hurtful, and you respond with intentionally hurtful words. Someone starts a quiet argument, and you turn it into a shouting match. And then maybe the shouting match escalates into throwing punches. A person who escalates is like a firework stand, just waiting for someone to light a match.

Negative Interpretation

Have you ever said or done something with good (or neutral) intentions, only to have it backfire on you when the other person didn’t take it the way you intended? That’s what happens with negative interpretation. One person says something seemingly harmless, and the other person interprets it negatively. For example, “You look nice today,” which is a pretty straightforward compliment, could be negatively interpreted as meaning that you normally don’t look nice and today is just the exception. It might seem silly, but negative interpretation happens all the time.

Invalidation

Invalidation occurs whenever one person denies that the other person has a right to feel the way they feel. If someone gets upset by something you do, and your response is that it’s not a big deal and they shouldn’t feel upset about it, then you’ve just invalidated their feelings. You’ve made (or tried to make) conflict resolution impossible, by denying that there is any conflict to resolve.

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