Shower your way to bettering relationships
I don’t know about you, but some of my best arguments have happened in the shower. Unfortunately, the other person was never present. And, rather inconveniently, I have never managed to deliver those brilliant responses when they were actually needed! I'm sure you know what I'm talking about. You are standing under the shower, minding your own business, when suddenly your brain decides to reopen an old conversation. This time, however, things go differently. You have the perfect comeback. You explain exactly why you were right. You remember the one important point you forgot to make. You even anticipate what the other person might say next. And you win. Every single time. But why does this happen? And could this rather amusing habit tell us something important about the way our minds work and the way we handle relationships? Some Psychologists call it mind-wandering. It happens when our attention moves away from what we are physically doing and starts exploring thoughts, memories, imagined situations and unfinished matters. And the shower is an interesting setting for this. It allows your mind to wander. Your brain becomes free to revisit unfinished conversations like, Your spouse made a remark at dinner that you didn't appreciate. A friend cancelled plans at the last minute, and you didn't tell them how disappointed you were. You may have moved on, but emotionally, the conversation hasn't necessarily ended. The shower provides an opportunity to revisit it. You replay what happened, reconstruct the conversation and experiment with different responses. You are both the speaker and the audience. In your imaginary argument, you control both sides of the conversation. Of course, winning an imaginary argument doesn't necessarily mean you would win the real one. Perhaps we could use this phenomenon to even better our relationships. What if we retained this little habit of talking to ourselves but changed the subject of the conversation? Instead of using those precious shower minutes to prepare our next argument, we could use them to understand a relationship a little better. Just as an opportunity to look at something from another angle. Consider these possibilities: When your spouse says something that annoys you, perhaps you could try to understand if something is bothering them that you haven't noticed? When you realize you may have been wrong. Would acknowledging it make this relationship a little easier? Notice the difference? The subject hasn't changed. You are still thinking about the same people and the same conversations. But the purpose has changed. You are moving from winning an argument to understanding a person. The next time you find yourself preparing an imaginary argument, don't stop yourself. Maybe introduce three new questions into the conversation: 1. What was I really feeling? Was it anger, embarrassment, disappointment, hurt or simply the feeling of not being understood? 2. What might the other person have been feeling? Is there another side to this conversation that I haven't considered? 3. What do I actually want from this relationship? Do I want to prove a point, receive an apology, clear a misunderstanding or simply feel close again? And perhaps, when you finally meet that person, you will find yourself having a slightly different conversation. A more understanding one. So, I ask you, which relationship are you going to think about bettering in your next shower? Have a happy week, Bob
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