What Keeps Us Together

This week of Place Corps has felt cloudy, but also filled with communal clarity. The weeks before, I struggled to see through people’s communication differences within the house. I assume all of us in the house experienced it. We had a class talking about the different mindsets when entering a discussion, and what other approaches may be more suitable to keep peace and equity within relationships. Many thoughts flooded my brain as I skimmed through all the memories of when I had discussions. I thought about what language I used to communicate or miscommunicate. I worked through old discussions which put me at ease. Asking yourself if you ‘need,’ or if you ‘want’ something from somebody is another communication skill we talked about deeply. That reminded me to assess situations in different perspectives. I was struggling through conversations with a loved one because I couldn’t find love to give until I thought of all the times it was probably hard for people to love me. Everyone has a moment when they are not fitting into what others expect from you. Those are always painful moments because how you’re feeling is not relevant to others who can’t or don’t want to relate to you. Thinking back on these times produced warmth in my heart for someone who was (in my opinion) “making it difficult”, but now I saw just needed affection when they knew that they weren’t their best self and that was pain enough. I don’t think people see enough of each other’s pain in waves of anger, and many people don’t want to be trained in non-violent communication. A lot of people struggle to be caring in any form when strikes of frustration hit. I want to be right and win, probably because of the competitive nature we might be accustomed to living in. Wether people like to speak up or not, nobody wants to be wrong. That’s a word I highly dislike, “wrong,” thinking that there is always a wrong and right split perfectly between two sides is like saying, “Let’s not fix anything. Let’s just squabble until one of us is happy and the other isn’t,” again, I highly dislike this word. It is a word planted deep and the only thing that is wrong, is telling someone they are wrong.