Would you like to know how not to be passive-aggressive in a relationship?
Well, I'm Nicholeen and I teach all about relationships, self-government, and how to
communicate effectively and in this video, we're going to be talking about passive-aggressiveness
and what you can do to stop those passive aggressive tendencies from rearing their ugly head.
In this video, I'm going to share a true story from my life and about how I've overcome some of my
passive-aggressive tendencies and then I'm going to share with you three points that you can use to
conquer some of those passive-aggressive moments that you might fall victim to from time to time.
When I was a teenager I mastered the art of being passive-aggressive. I don't know if that's
something I should say is really an art or that anyone should want to master. I do know that online
and even in movies being passive-aggressive is portrayed as powerful, as somehow authentic to
who you are. But actually, I knew it was a weakness. Even as a teenage child I knew that every time I
was behaving that way I was disconnecting myself from people again and again. But I didn't know what
else to do and so when I would get frustrated with another person instead of getting angry. I would
bottle things up and I would let snide remarks out of my mouth and the result for my relationships
was actually not good. I wish there was a way to conquer this problem that I was experiencing.
But what were my other choices? When I did treatment foster care for youth ages 12 to 18 for
multiple years. I learned this names to these steps that I had created in my mind when I was a
young person. To try to conquer my tendency to say snide remarks, talk back to people, and not handle
my communications in healthy ways, and these skills with their names attached to them
not only helped the youth I was teaching. But helped me be able to recognize even more
how much control I actually had over myself. So, I taught myself and the youth that came to my home
certain skills. These skills had steps like look at the person, keep a calm face voice, and body,
say okay or ask to disagree appropriately, do tasks immediately, check back, drop the subject,
etc ... Anyway, there's so many different steps that are in these different skills that we were
teaching in our home and so I started mastering these skills. As you teach another person you
often really hone your own abilities. The things you've been working on somehow even get better
when you're trying to set the example for other people, which I was doing at the time. So, I raised
these foster children with these skills. They made huge differences in their lives. In fact, they were
able to graduate to lower levels of care because they learned these skills which I call the skills
of self-government. So, I raised my own children with these same skills as well. Well, one day,
I forgot to use the skills and engaged in a power struggle and I learned a very valuable lesson
about my own weaknesses to be passive-aggressive from my daughter. Probably my most fiery child
is Paige and she is my second oldest child my oldest daughter and she definitely is a chip off
the old block. Anyway, so she in her teen years started experimenting with passive-aggressive
tendencies. Definitely with some attitude problem which is usually one of the hallmark
of a passive-aggressive person but also talking back, things like that. I remember one day that
she was having an attitude problem with me and I was bugged by this attitude problem which means
I wasn't being calm at the time and so I said to her, "Paige, you are having an attitude problem",
and she said to me, "So, are you?", and I went, she's right I'm having an attitude problem. She knows
what it looks like because I've taught her about it. She was being passive-aggressive and I was
being passive-aggressive too and I realized how in the world am I gonna help her. Unless I find
that calmness within myself first that I knew was possible. So I said to her, "Okay Paige, you're right.
I appreciate you bringing that to my attention. Even though it was definitely not probably done
in a way that is disagreeing appropriately. Which is a skill that we use in our home.
I'm gonna take a minute. I'm going to get calm and then we're going to come back to this conversation."
So, I went and got calm and then we had a really productive conversation about communication
and about passive aggressiveness and about how each of us obviously have the tendency
to go to that and how we need to focus on some key things so that we don't. So what are those key things?
Let's talk about those. Before I share these three points that are going to help you overcome
your passive-aggressive tendencies. I would like to invite you to subscribe to the channel.
I have videos like this that come out every day and I'd hate for you to miss something that could
be important to you. So, you want to overcome some of your passive-aggressive tendencies.
Who doesn't? You know, even though we feel may be powerful in the minute that we do them. We know we
are disconnecting ourselves from other people that we love and that our communications could be more
productive and we can even be better understood if we communicated in more assertive ways instead
of passive-aggressive ways. So the first of the three points that I'd like to share with you is to
describe the situation that is happening. You need to be able to describe yourself your own behaviors.
A person cannot fully self-govern themselves or be in control of themselves unless they are willing
to do the hard job of analyzing themselves first. So, describe to yourself before a moment
ever occurs when you have a tendency or a time that you might choose to be passive-aggressive.
Describe to yourself on paper. This is what I do. This is what I feel like when it happens.
You need to find a cue for yourself so that you don't fall into that trap of being passive-aggressive again.
So, what happens to you? Is there a certain thought that comes to your mind? Is there something
that you do with your face or with your body or something that makes you feel like, I've got to say
something even though I'm going to try my hardest not to go out of control. What is it that happens
with inside you and then when you can narrow that down then you can start making a plan for
the future. We're going to talk about that plan in one of these other points that I'm going to share.
But once you've described upfront what you do in a situation where you don't handle things correctly
and you're being passive-aggressive. Then you can describe what you should do. Now, if you don't know
what you should do let me help you with that. So, the first thing you do is you recognize
that you're having that thought or that feeling and then you challenge it so you say, "Wait a minute,
I'm having this thought or this feeling like I'm not understood or however, you describe it within
yourself or that I need to tell somebody how I feel." You know, whatever it is that you feel when
you're going to be passive-aggressive and then you say to yourself, "Is this the best way?", "Is saying
it in a passive-aggressive way the best way?". The answer is "no", it's not the best way. So then what
you do is you describe which direction you need to go. So on that second sheet of paper you wrote down
what you should do. You should challenge it and then you should get calm and hopefully you've
got a calmness plan we're going to be talking about that and you get yourself to a place where
you're thinking clearly. Where you're in full front brain and then you start communicating maybe even
you have to tell yourself the words you will say before you even say them. You think about how much
you care about the other person and how even though you want to be understood. You know that
you want to understand them too. So the thoughts in your mind that you're describing and that you're
challenging. You're challenging the ones that lead towards selfishness, you're describing what you
need to do to value the other people around you. So that's described right in the moment in your head
you say, "Right now, I am getting passive-aggressive. Is this the right way to communicate?". "No, it's not.
I have another plan for myself. I know that I want to do things differently", and then you go to that
plan and you start communicating in the way that you've prepared. Point two is the calm plan.
You do need to make a plan ahead of time. You've gotta take that moment to say, what is it that I will say
to another person? What are the words gonna be? So, my calm plan is number one like I mentioned before
I recognize, "Oh, I'm not feeling very good about this right now. I'm feeling like I want to be
passive-aggressive." So I stop myself which is part of the plan. I challenge what happens that comes
next and then I tell myself what I should be doing and the words that I say in my calm plan to myself
first are, "Am i calm?", and if the answer is yes. If I can analyze my body language, my voice tone, and how
I'm feeling toward the other person. Then I'll proceed, part of it my calm is also, do I value
that person? Do I care about that person? Okay, then I'm going to move forward. Well, when I move forward
what am I going to say? I'm probably going to say something that shows that I value that
other person. But definitely explains that I have something to say about the matter. So this type of
skill is actually a skill we teach children, it's called disagreeing appropriately. So let's say,
someone just told me something that I feel like is offensive. I might say to them, "Just now you told me
this statement, which shows me that you want me to understand you in some way. I also would like
to share some things that I feel like could be useful for you to understand. So, let's make sure
that we are fully calm and let's have a really good discussion about this."
So, I just lay the foundation by saying, "I know you have something that you want to tell me
and I really want to know what that is. Also, I have something I'm going to tell you. So let's take our
next step which is to make sure we're calm. Because if we're not there first it's gonna fail", and so
that's my plan. My plan is seek to understand then to be understood and make sure that we get to
calmness before we do any of it. Point number three is to listen, really listen to what they are saying.
In fact, forget your own point for a minute. Lots of times a passive-aggressive person maintains
their thoughts in their head very loudly. In fact, every word that somebody else says they're picking
it apart in their brain. If you are not going to be passive-aggressive you have to let all
of that go and really listen to the other person. It's so important when you really listen to them
then you'll recognize. I don't need to be trying to dominate a conversation. I don't need to be annoyed
or frustrated or take this personally. I just need to value that person value where they're coming
from and then see if we can get on the same page. Now, I know sometimes it's not possible to
get on the same page with everybody. But there are steps that you can make in that direction
where even if you don't agree in the end you both highly respect each other. Because you took the
time to really listen, to really understand, to ask questions, see where the other person's coming from,
and not just think about your own points that you want to make all the time. I think if there's
one trap that a passive-aggressive person does to themself, it's that they don't take the time
usually to look at the entire situation. They get kind of trapped in their own head.
Because passive-aggressive people used to be aggressive before they decided that wasn't a
good idea. So then they adopted a pullback approach and then sometimes they just get in their own head.
So you don't want that to happen to you. So listen and then the bonding will come that will make it
so that you can solve your problems even if you don't always agree in the end. If you've enjoyed
this video I'm pretty sure you'll like the next one which is, how to discipline a strong-willed child.
Do you know any of those? I think our world is full of them right now. There are a lot of
amazing children out there. So if you maybe happen to know a strong-willed child or even a friend
of yours maybe has a strong-willed child. Click on that video now and I think you'll find it helpful.