Heal a relationship
The ideas on this page can help you heal any sort of relationship: romantic relationships, family relationships, friendships, professional relationships, etc.
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As you practice this, you and the other person will Create Solutions by Accepting Agency as you own how your choices got you to where you are now, Communicate Effectively with one another, and Process Emotions to let go of the hurt between you.
Let's Get to It! | Here's What to Do:
1 - Process Emotions
2 - Listen to Them
3 - Ask to Be Understood
Begin with a session of "Write & Destory": Write a letter to the other person. They will never read this so you are free to get out all your feelings. Be direct and write about all the ways their choices have affected you. Don't hold anything back. Then, destroy the letter, wash your hands, and drink some pure water. Maybe also get some fresh air and sun on your skin.
If you find that you're still really angry with the other person. Maybe repeat the Write & Destroy session as many times as you need to get to a place of peace within yourself.
Review principles of Communicating Effectively. Watch this Cinema Therapy video to learn about the principle of temporarily putting your concerns on the shelf.
Be ready to listen to the other person before you ask to be listened to. Making things better is going to require one of you to do this. You can wait around for the other person to be ready to do that or you can take initiative and be the one to do it first.
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Meet with the other person and ask them questions that'll help you understand their perspective. Listen to their answers without judgment. Your goal isn't to be right or to identify what really happened. Your goal is to empathize and take accountability for any way in which you've harmed them. Here are some questions you might ask:
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From your perspective, what happened between us?
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How did my actions affect you?
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What do you want me to better understand about what happened?
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What can I do to make things better?
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Repeat back to the other person in your own words what you understood from them. Take accountability for how you've harmed them. Apologize. State how you will change your behavior moving forward and keep those promises.
Once you feel that you've done your absolute best to empathize and take accountability for your behavior, ask permission to tell you side of the story. If they agree, metaphorically take your issues down from the shelf, and describe your perspective of what happened, how the other person's actions affected you, and what you would like them to do to make it better.
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Do all of this with the goal of restoring the relationship, not punishing the other person.
What if They Don't Want to Take Accountability?
Our experience has been that when we use the sort of approach described above, the other person usually decides to take accountability make things better. But part of Accepting Agency is recognizing that not everyone will choose to do so.
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If you do your best to empathize and be accountable but the other person isn't doing the same, we recommend that you put up appropriate boundaries in the relationship until they are ready to take accountability. You can patiently love them with these boundaries in place while you wait for them to be ready to do their part to heal the relationship.
In these situations, it might be helpful to review the principles on our page, "Heal from the Effects of Other People's Choices".
