In the book, for each aspect of relationships I explore, I invite readers to consider the following questions:

• What are the rules about this thing which are often taken-for-granted (by our wider culture, our communities, the people in our lives, and ourselves)?
• Why might it be useful to question those rules?
• What might we replace them with if they weren’t working so well for us?
• What would it be like to embrace uncertainty and to approach this thing without any rules?

Given that the festive season is nearly upon us, and it’s a tough time of year for many people, let’s apply this approach to that. I’ll work through the questions with some of the common social rules that I’m aware of in relation to the festive season, but you might want to consider different rules that apply more to your situation.

It’s important to be mindful that we all have different experiences of this season based on, for example, our family situation, our faith (if we have one), our cultural background, our generation and age, our mobility and health, past experiences over this period and more. That’s why the intersectional approach (which I’ve tried to take in the new edition of Rewriting the Rules) is a vital starting point.

What are the rules?

The three common cultural rules that sprung to my mind when I thought about the festive season were:

1. You must see your family at this time of year, probably in a very specific way such as staying all together in one place for a period of time, or zooming around making sure you see everyone.
2. You have to show your love for each other through exchanging expensive gifts which prove how much you really know this person and their tastes.
3. The festive season is ‘the most wonderful time of the year’ so you must be happy and have a merry time (and definitely not be a Scrooge!).

Why question the rules?

So why might it be useful to question those rules?

1. In relation to family many, if not most, of us have complicated relationships with our families, perhaps being estranged or distant from some or all of them, or simply not having any remaining family. Some people find that they always conflict with their family in unhelpful ways when they spend an extended period together. Some enjoy spending time with family but just find the attempt to pack all of them in to the same short space of time very stressful, for example if they feel they have to see the families of themselves and their partner or partners, or all of their extended family who live in different places. This is compounded for people who have little vacation time and really need to spend what little they have relaxing.
2. Turning to expensive gifts, this recent article by George Monbiot is a good summary of the toll that – often unwanted novelty – presents can take on the planet and on the human lives of those involved in their production. Also many of us simply cannot afford expensive gifts due to the impact of the extended period of austerity we’ve been living through. And, even if we can, the pressure to find the ‘perfect’ gift to communicate our love can be intense and stressful.
3. Finally, on feeling happy, many of us actually have good reasons to find the festive period emotionally tough, due to the aforementioned stressors and more. The time away from work – and the turn of the year – can get us reflecting on our careers in ways that are challenging, and time with our nearest and dearest can similarly prompt us to look closely on our relationships. Many people have painful anniversaries at this time of year – of bereavements and break-ups for example – and find that the festive rituals, sights, sounds, etc. can trigger distressing or traumatic memories.

What alternative rules are possible?

Given all these reasons to question the cultural rules of the festive season, what might we put in their place if we want to make some changes?

1. We might get more intentional about who we see and how we see them over this period. For example, many people have found ways to shift family rules, such as deciding to see different family members on alternating years; having different days as their ‘Xmas day’, ‘New Year’s Eve’, etc. with different close people or groups; going away alone for the holidays – or doing charity work or a retreat at this time – in order to disrupt an ingrained family habit; or staying nearby but not actually with family so they can dip in and out of the festive fun depending on the parts which work for them.
2. We could agree some limits on gift-giving with the people in our life. For example some people decide to just exchange small tokens, or to do ‘Secret Santa’ where you only have to get something for one person in a group or family. You can share wishlists online so that people know what you actually want, or give money to a person’s favourite charity instead of a gift. You might also consider making handmade gifts instead of buying them, or giving people tokens for an experiences they can have with you in future (e.g. tokens for a day out together, cooking them a meal, or giving them a footrub). You could decide to only ever give ‘I saw this and thought of you’ type gifts, rather than exchanging gifts at a particular time of year.
3. In relation to feelings, all of that pressure to have a happy, merry, wonderful time paradoxically means that we’re less likely to experience the festive season in that way. You’ve probably experienced this yourself: when you put a lot of pressure on a specific day or period to be a positive experience it often feels less so because you can’t be present to what’s happening, and any minor mishap can feel like a crisis. Trying to make it a positive experience for absolutely everyone, and taking responsibility for other people having a ‘wonderful time’, turns up the pressure even more, perhaps meaning that you end up exhausted, or exploding, or missing out on the experience. One alternative to this is to think about all of the feelings that the festive period brings up for you, and to consider what your self-care needs are in relation to these. Do you need to factor in some time alone? What kinds of support might be helpful for you? What might you let other people know about things that you find challenging at this time of year?

Embracing uncertainty

Most of the examples I just gave were about shifting the existing rules, or replacing them with other rules, but still with a sense that we need some rules around the festive period, and perhaps it’s not really okay to step away from those taken-for-granted rules entirely. I want to say here that it absolutely is fine to decide not to see family at all, or not to exchange any gifts, or to refuse to put a happy face on it, if those things don’t work for you. What might embracing uncertainty around the festive period look like, if we stepped away from rules entirely?

1. In relation to family, you could reflect on Armistead Maupin’s concept of logical family. For many people – particularly those in LGBTQ+ communities – biological family are not our closest people. It really is okay to think about who – if anyone – we want to share this time with. Could you then open up an open, consensual conversation with your nearest and dearest about what is important for each of you around this period, and any limits around what you have the capacity for, or want to offer? Harriet Lerner writes very helpfully about how to do this kind of mutual, consensual communication if you find it hard.
2. In the book that Jacqui Gabb and I wrote together, The Secrets of Enduring Love, we drew on Gary Chapman’s concept of love languages. This is the idea that people like to express love, and have it expressed to them, in different ways. Giving and receiving gifts is only one of those ways. Again you could open up a conversation with nearest and dearest about how you each enjoy expressing love and having it expressed, and what your limits are around this. You could figure out between you what will work best for all concerned – whether or not it is linked to the festive period. For example, it might be be about writing a list of all the things you’re grateful to somebody for, or agreeing to share a certain period of time together, or doing something particular with them.
3. Finally, what about making the festive period a time during which all of your feelings are welcome, rather than only the ones our culture labels ‘positive’. Maybe you could share this idea with other people in your life too. You could even make time or rituals around allowing grief, regret, fear, and frustration, for example, alongside the more conventional festive feelings of peace, hope, love, merriment, etc. You could make the movie Inside Out one of your festive favourites because it’s such a great explanation of why this is important. My zine Staying with Feelings, might be helpful if this sounds like a useful approach to you. You’re absolutely allowed to embrace the ‘bah humbug’ as well as the ‘winter wonderland’.

The post Rewriting the Rules of the Festive Season appeared first on Rewriting The Rules.

why is deceit taken to be a good thing? The answer is to communicate

If we agree that communication is a good idea this begs the question of what is meant by communication. How do we actually go about communicating about our relationships with the people we are in relationships with? My book deals quite a lot with communication about points of conflict, and includes some suggestions regarding communication about sex, monogamy and commitment, but I thought that it was a topic worthy of further exploration here.

I’ve been at two workshops in the past month or so which have dealt with relationship communication in general, and with communication about sex in particular. At both of these I came across some useful ideas which I’ll share in the next couple of posts.

Meta-Communication

The first workshop I attended focused on the idea of communication about communicating. This might sound a bit meta, and indeed one word for it is meta-communication.

Basically what it means is that people have different ways of communicating which they prefer, or which come more easily to them. Instead of launching into conversations with people in our lives, and then becoming frustrated or angry if they communicate in ways we find difficult, it might be worth starting with a conversation about how we’re going to communicate.

Counsellors and therapists refer to this as a focus on ‘process’ rather than ‘content’. When we’re dealing with the process of communication we’re talking about how we communicate. That means we can then go into the content of communication with an awareness of this. If the discussion of content becomes difficult it can often be useful to return to talking about the process, before getting back into it.

Of course this is applicable to all kinds of communication. For example, it can be useful to start a workshop or group discussion with a consideration of the kind of communication people would like and what processes would be best to enable it. It might be worth putting some ground rules in place, or agreeing on some mechanism by which people will take turns in contributing like putting up hands, holding an object and passing it around, or nodding when they’ve finished talking. Agreement, disagreement, need for clarification and other things can also be expressed in various ways verbally or nonverbally.

The aim of communication

This brings us to consideration of the aim of the communication, which is vital. The style of communication that works best depends very much on what we are aiming for. For example, in a workshop or seminar, if we are aiming for as many diverse views as possible to be expressed, and for everyone to feel as safe as possible expressing them, then ground rules which cultivate a culture of openness and open up space for different contributions are a great idea. If we are aiming to reach a quick joint decision, or to have a feisty back-and-forth debate, then other modes of communication might work better.

So it can be useful to recognise that this is not about prioritising certain kinds of communication over others, but rather about a collaborative process of finding the best communication style for the people, and aims, which are present.

This is an important point because different ways of communicating are more or less comfortable or familiar depending on all kinds of aspects of people, such as their cultural or class background, age, generation, disability, sexuality, race, gender, and so on. For example, I’ve been in situations where people have felt excluded from conversation because norms against talking over each other, or against touching, gesticulating or raising voices, have been so different from the ones they are familiar with. There is also great diversity in things like how comfortable people are with silence or with expression of different emotions; how relevant they feel it is to tell personal stories or to use academic language; or what they understand by direct eye-contact or sitting close to somebody.

Those old ‘mars and venus’ style ideas about gender differences in preferred ways of talking (direct or indirect, listening or problem-solving, talking it out or retreating to think it through) are useful to consider in some ways. The problem with them is that we can’t generalise as simply as ‘men this and women that’ because gender doesn’t work in this way for many people, and because there are so many intersections between gender and other aspects of a person. Rather it is more useful for each person to consider all aspects of their identity and background, and how these have shaped their own preferred ways of communicating.

How we prefer to communicate

A great starting point for communicating about communicating is to consider how aspects of ourselves like culture, class, gender, age, generation, disability, sexuality, religion, experience, etc. impact on how we tend to communicate. You might consider questions like:

• How did the people around you communicate when you were growing up? Who was included or excluded from interactions? What styles of verbal and non-verbal communicating did people use? Which ones were more or less approved of or successful? What did you like or dislike about this? Which aspects impact on your communication styles today?
• Are there any aspects of how your particular body and/or mind works which mean that certain ways of communicating are easier, or more difficult, for you?
• What expectations do you think there are on how people of your gender, race, class, age, body type, religion, cultural background, or sexuality communicate? Do any of these fit your preferred way of communicating? Do any of them not fit?
• Remember an interaction which you really didn’t like and one you really did like, in recent weeks. What do the differences between these tell you about your preferred way of communicating?
• Do you have any hard limits (ways of communicating that you are absolutely not okay with somebody else using)? Do you have any strong preferences for ways in which you would like to communicate? Are there aspects you’d be willing to compromise on?

Suggestions that were put forward in the workshop I attended were also to consider whether we preferred to communicate:

• Straight away, or after having some time to think
• Verbally, in a written form (e.g. email, text, webchat) or some other way
• Face to face or not (e.g. internet, telephone, etc.)
• At particular times of day (e.g. not first thing in the morning, not last thing at night)

Relating to the last point a lot of people agreed that it was worth having your physical needs met (sleep, food, etc.) before embarking on an important conversation.

What are we aiming at?

During the workshop we came up with lots of different things which we might be aiming at when we communicate with another person. It can be very useful indeed to discuss what we are aiming at before getting into the conversation itself, given how many conflicts occur simply because people are looking for different things out of their interaction. Think, for example, about times when one person really wanted someone to listen and sympathise, whilst the other person assumed that they wanted advice. Or there are times when one person is just enjoying making a connection whilst the other person assumes that there needs to be some definite point or outcome to the conversation. Perhaps one person really wants to get some practical support whilst the other person thinks it would be useful to just keep listening.

You might find it useful to add to the list below (from the workshop) of things we might be aiming for in communication. You could then think about which ones you are looking for (in general, from different kinds of interactions, or with different people). When you’re about to communicate with somebody it could well be useful to compare notes on what you’re looking for from the conversation and consider whether they are compatible. If they can say what they are hoping from you, you can then say whether that’s something you have to offer or not (in general, or on this occasion).

• To make a connection
• To impart information
• To find out information
• To get support
• To problem solve
• To make a decision
• To persuade
• To discuss
• To get a response

Communicating love

One particularly loaded kind of communication is communicating our love for other people, and having that communicated to us. Something that I touch on in Rewriting the Rules is that people often have different ways in which they like to express their love, or to have it expressed to them. For example, if one person likes declarations of love and the other person thinks that it is best to show that they care by doing household tasks, then the first person might end up feeling very unloved despite all the others’ efforts. I’m reminded of the line in the Billy Bragg song ‘no amount of poetry could mend this broken heart, but you can put the hoover round if you want to make a start’.

Author Gary Chapman suggests that there are five ‘love languages‘ or ways in which people like to express love and to have it expressed to them. These are:

• Words of affirmation
• Quality time or undivided attention
• Gifts
• Acts of service
• Physical touch

In the workshop we agreed that these were not static things that we had the same across all relationships, but that it could be useful to think, in each relationship we have, about:

• Which of these ways of expressing love do we prefer to receive? (there may be more than one, there may be additional ones for you)
• Which do we prefer to give?
• Which do we not like to give?
• Which do we not like to receive?
• In what specific ways do these work for us? (e.g. if we like words of affirmation, which words do we prefer, how frequently and in what form?)

As with communication in general it can also be helpful to think about the expressions of love that were, or were not, familiar to us growing up; associations with age, gender, race, class, etc.; and any things that are vital to us (e.g. not liking public displays of affection, wanting one text message a day minimum from a loved one, needing people to turn their phones off on a date, etc.)

Hopefully these suggestions have shown how useful it might be to engage in meta-communication (or communication about communication), not just when we have problems or conflicts, but much more generally in our everyday interactions.

If we can accept that there are many different ways of communicating, and approach each other with curiosity to find out what our preferences are, then we are in a better place to understand how our communication works. Perhaps we can make a habit of starting conversations by articulating what it is that we’re looking for, and commit to shifting from content to process any time that things become tricky.

Find out more…

There’s more on meta-communication and love languages in my book The Secrets of Enduring Love.

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