8 Sentences for Better Understanding
Sometimes you just need to complain and get something off your chest. Here's a tip on how to do that in a way that might be easier for others to hear and help make things better.
Transcript
In my last episode, I talked about how important it is to be willing to rock the boat in your relationships and confront problems that might be showing up. And then I offered you a way to approach bringing something up that might work better for you than simply complaining. But sometimes you might find yourself in a situation where you need to complain. Sometimes something wasn't great and you don't need to fix it or have a big, long-drawn-out conversation about it. But you do have to say that it wasn't great and be heard and maybe be acknowledged or sympathized with, or just get a simple apology. I thought I'd pop on for this Thursday episode to offer you a simple tool that I find really helpful for better complaining. This tool was developed by Terry Real of the relational life Institute. And it's called the Feedback Wheel.
You may be wondering why do I want to learn some new fancy way of complaining? That is yet another practice that is so structured and art official. Can I just complain the normal way? And by all means, if the way you complain is working for you. Great. But I found that a few things can happen when I complain the normal way. First, the person I'm complaining to might take it as criticism, which can lead to defensiveness and then possibly a big argument. Often also complaints are phrased as objective truths rather than something specific to your experience wants and needs. And that can also start a fight. One sort of silly and ridiculous example that I can give you is one of my partners. And I have this disagreement about whether you boil water for tea or just let it get very hot. I like to let the water get very hot, have the little bubbles rising up in the water because I think tea steeps really nicely at that temperature.
And because then the water's not so, so, so, so hot and I'm able to start drinking it sooner. I've also heard things about how boiling water can scorch the tea or whatever. But my real reason is that I wanna drink my tea as soon as possible. My partner likes to boil the water. It's ridiculous the reason why he likes to do that so I'm not even gonna tell you, but he likes it. But when he makes a cup for me with boiled water and I'm not expecting it, well, I can burn my mouth. And also I just don't like having to wait for it to cool. This is a silly example, and I don't really make a big deal out of this with my partner. But my point is that if I wanted to complain and I stated objectively that my partner shouldn't have boiled the water, that was wrong.
That could also start an argument about what is and isn't correct, who is right, and who is wrong about how water should be prepared for tea. And if you want to just, you probably don't wanna have a fight. You just wanna say your thing and be done. Maybe you just wanna be heard, get some acknowledgment of your pain. And like I said, get a simple apology or just move on. And another thing that happens when you complain to your partner in a bad way, is that it can be just annoying or, it can feel like you're being overly negative and putting your partner down, maybe your partner, isn't gonna fight with you or get defensive, but they might feel hurt and decide to withdraw, or just tune you out. If your goal is to get hurt and connect, it can help to speak to your partner in a way that is easier to listen to the cool thing about the feedback wheel is that it's short and simple.
It is eight sentences long using it has greatly helped everyone that I've turned it on to. One of my partners even taught it in a staff meeting at their workplace to help their coworkers give better feedback to each other. So here you go. The first step is to state what happened. Use two sentences for this, just the facts, no interpretations. It's important here to stay in the particular, rather than in generalizations. If your sentences contain the words, "always", "never", or "you are a", that's not a thing that happened and that's not particular. That's really just criticism. And that's not what we're going for here. If you're not sure how to stay out of your own perception or interpretation and how to avoid generalizations, imagine reporting just what could be recorded on a video camera. So for the ridiculous example, I used earlier, if I was going to complain about my tea I might say, my tea is too hot, and I heard the water in the kettle boiling.
Second step, state what you made up about that again in just two sentences. This is where you get to put in your interpretations, your ungenerous thoughts, maybe even some of those generalizations. It's important though, to say and own that it's something you made up or something that you're telling yourself because it is. You have no idea what your partner intended by their actions, what they were thinking, what always happens, or anything like that. You just have some data, but that interpretation is yours. It's not objective truth. So you can say the story I'm telling myself about it is, or what I'm making up about it is. So in the ridiculous case of the tea, I could say, what I'm making up about this is that you don't really listen to me when I say it's better not to boil it. I'm telling myself right now that you don't care what I think. And you don't care if I burn my mouth. Now, generally, I don't blow something like this up to this level of importance, but I know that this exact kind of thing can happen some small little way in which our partner does something that we don't like or a way, and they don't listen to us or don't meet our needs, or requests can play into some grand narrative that we have in our heads about what it all means. But this is why using those words, the story I'm making up is, or what I'm telling myself here is, is so important. It's so important that Brene Brown writes about it extensively. She talked about using this phrase in her book, Rising Strong, owning that your interpretation of things is not necessarily the 100% accurate truth is an important check on yourself. It creates much-needed space for another possible interpretation, which helps prevent that fight about what is, or isn't objectively true.
So many arguments and hurt feelings happen not because of the objective data about what happened or even whether or not to make it better, but around the stories that we're telling ourselves about what it means. We experience something. And then we feel some pain or sadness or anger or frustration about that something that happens. And that causes our brains to make up a story about what the other person intended or what they really meant or what it means in the grand scheme of things, for our relationship or about what they, how they see me or whatever. And sometimes, you know, sometimes it is true. Your interpretation is correct, but most of the time, even if it's mostly true, there's still some part of it that isn't. We're incapable of seeing everything perfectly clearly because we're seeing it all through our own lens. And that part that we may be incorrect about may be a very important part to our partner and to us, being able to make things better.
The third step in the feedback wheel. After you say what you've made up about it, after you say what happened, then you get to say how you feel about it. Now, feelings here is one word don't go into saying, I feel like you were a real jerk here, cause that's not a feeling, that goes in the previous step. That's an interpretation. It's also kind of an insult. I'd stay away from those. You can go with some primary feelings like happy, hurt, sad, excited, angry, ashamed, scared, guilty, lonely. Or you can go with some shades of those like frustrated, elated, grouchy, embarrassed. Choose three feelings. No, put some feelings back. You can't have all the feelings here. I mean, except when you do right. But even then you can't say of them, cause that's just too much to take in. Maybe you can say something like if you actually did, you can say I had all the feelings, but here were the three big ones.
So to go back to the tea example, I might say, I felt dismissed, disregarded, and burned. Get it burned. Okay. So after you've gone over what happened, what you made up about it, and how it made you feel your last step is to state what you'd like. Yeah. Sorry. You don't get to just complain without offering some way to make it better. Now if it's a bigger ask, it might be worth going back to my podcast on rocking the boat because in case the feedback wheel might be too simple, a tool for you. Remember you get two sentences in the feedback wheel. I tend to use it when I just want someone to hear me and get some acknowledgment or maybe a simple apology, or if it's a minor thing that I want them to keep in mind, like remembering, I don't like boiling water for my tea.
I sound like such a jerk when I'm talking about this. I promise. But anyway, which you know, they may know already what you want, but you may need to just say it anyhow.
And the last step, the real last step. This one is really important. After you've said your eight sentences, what happened? What you made up about it, how you feel, what you'd like, then you have to let it go. I will own that letting things go is something that has always been hard for me, but in the past, that's because I didn't always have tools like this to express myself and my message would get lost in the way I was saying it. The feedback wheel has helped with that. It's not a cure-all, of course, it's something that you, first of all, have to practice. And second of all, you have to be speaking to a partner who is receptive to you.
Note that I stated earlier that if you dive into criticism in your complaining that your partner is likely to respond with defensiveness, but you can also get defensiveness even if you are working your ass off to stay out of criticism. Sometimes people will just hear it and get defensive and won't be able to listen. And that is a thing to work on, for sure if that's happening in your relationship. But also, you know what? Sometimes people are just having a bad day and everybody's doing the best they can. So to recap, if there's something that you just need to get off your chest, I encourage you to try out the feedback wheel. It can be a more useful and productive way to complain about something. Get a simple resolution or just be heard on something without getting stuck in a fight or in criticism and negativity. I hope you'll try it out. And I would love to hear how it goes for you.
