Acceptance, is it possible? You have the choice and the skills to navigate through acceptance. Listen to Leanne VanBeek, OCL Michigan Chapter Leader as she talks through what skills to use in the complex space of acceptance.
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Speaker 1:
Welcome to the OCL podcast. Our vision is to create people-centered leaders at home, at work, and in our communities, who lead through the powerful lens of empathetic listening. Our podcasts will help refresh your skills and sharpen your tools as we do the important work of truly human leadership together.
Adam:
Hello, and welcome to today’s podcast, where we’re going to take a deeper dive into acceptance, and how we can move towards healthier relationships when we practice it well. We’re also going to tackle when and how we have boundaries related to accepting. With me today to discuss everything is OCL Michigan Chapter Leader, Leanne VanBeek. Welcome back to the podcast, Leanne.
Leanne VanBeek:
Thank you.
Adam:
Are you ready to get into this today?
Leanne VanBeek:
I hope so. You’re right, this is a big topic. Just for our audience to understand, we’re taking this on in response to some recent comments from alumni who have been asking for a little more thought and some resource around what we can do in this space related to acceptance.
Adam:
All right. Well, they’re asking for it, let’s jump right into it then. Based on our alumni comments, it sounds like some people are finding themselves caught off guard in certain moments, and are trying to figure out how to use acceptance. Can you expand on what that looked like?
Leanne VanBeek:
Sure, yes, I’m happy to. What our alumni have been describing is one of those moments where you suddenly maybe hear something, or read something, or observe something that you just do not agree with and you’re caught off guard. What they’re seeking, I think, is some kind of quick framework that can help you in those moments.
Adam:
Does that framework actually exist? Because that sounds pretty amazing.
Leanne VanBeek:
Well, I think it does. When we tease out our content and think it through, my hope is that we’ll land there by the end of this podcast.
Adam:
That sounds like a shameless hook to try to get people to listen all the way through.
Leanne VanBeek:
Well, of course, was I that transparent though?
Adam:
Well, why don’t you go ahead and kick it off.
Leanne VanBeek:
I think that in some ways this is like an unexpected confrontation message that someone may be delivering to you. I’ve just been made aware of someone’s perspective, or their behavior, or their thoughts, and it’s caught me off my guard.
Step one, out of these three steps, is just to be thinking about my responsibility to recognize what I’ll call the box and the bubbles. This is just going to take us back into class when we talk about what a person needs when they process change. We go into the box. We also have the bubbles, where when emotion rises, our logic compresses. We know those two things are happening. They’ll very likely, at the same point in time, the reason that this other person is expressing themselves in this way is because maybe they’re in the box about something, or their emotion is up and their logic is compressed. This is where we have that burden, and benefit, of being the one with the skillset.
I think it’s fair to say sometimes it just kind of sucks. I have the responsibility in this moment to model and to be the message. My job is to do the most helpful thing possible. My job is to reflectively listen with empathy, and to try to figure out how to make a connection. I think step one, this concept of recognizing that there is pressure, that there is emotion, that there’s a lot of things happening for someone, I have to be prepared to effectively table my needs, at least for the moment, because I’m the one with the skills and knowledge to potentially navigate the situation more successfully. We have to be ready to listen. We have to be ready to try to understand. We have to try to connect to the feeling that they are having.
Adam:
Okay, so we reflectively listen, we try to understand, we try to connect to the feeling, but this is the “easier said than done” kind of dynamic, right? Because at times it makes sense from a logical, calm, analytical perspective, but what does it look like in the moment?
Leanne VanBeek:
No, you’re absolutely right, and this gets real, very fast. In our continuous learning session that we do that’s called, “I Have to Accept That,” we work through some scenarios that are really hard, real life scenarios. Like your adult child decides to just quit their job and wants to move back home, and you cannot understand, for the life of you, why that feels like a valid choice. Or you go out with friends and you discover that you have very, very opposite views on something related to politics or religion or education, or a really common thing, where you’re scrolling through Facebook and you see a post that you just think “I’m going to go through the roof,” and all you want to do in that moment is just rail back with a response.
Adam:
Yeah, absolutely. It’s almost like heat of the moment, you just need to get your thoughts out there and you just need to prove them wrong, as you go. In some of those cases, Leanne, we don’t have to do what you just said. Those seem like legitimate times where we could hold off.
Leanne VanBeek:
I’m sorry, but no, not if we’re going to be really serious about modeling this new way to be human with each other. It’s hard. I would be lying if I said I still am not tempted at times to want to skip the steps. One of our professors, Sharon Klement, uses a phrase that I just love, that, “This is now the space where I am getting past me, to get to you.”
Adam:
That’s a really good visual. It ties directly to what you’re going through.
Leanne VanBeek:
Yeah, I think it’s beautiful, and it’s a great reminder for me in the moment, because again, I effectively have to be willing to put my needs on hold, my need to argue, my need to be angry, my need to fight back, to walk away, whatever it is, in service to trying to understand where you are in that moment.
Adam:
How do we do that? Should people have a pen right now? Because I feel like there’s a lot of good content coming.
Leanne VanBeek:
Sure, grab a pen if you are not near one, a pen and some paper. Ultimately, long-term, we’re hoping we’ll have show notes for all of these podcasts, but if you’re listening to this and you don’t see those published yet, feel free to jot down whatever would be helpful for you. Here are some of the questions, I guess I would say I use to challenge myself with, and this is taking us into step two. Again, step one was just recognizing my responsibility in the moment, like there is the box, there are the bubbles. I have the skills. I might be able to change the course of how these interactions typically play out.
The step two is to really lean into curiosity. I find that this has helped me so much. How can I just respond with curiosity in that moment? Maybe I’m asking myself, how can I find value in a different perspective? How might they perceive my mindset or my perspective? What are they feeling right now? What’s driving this for them? What’s maybe happened in their life that has led them to a place where they feel this way, where they have that perspective? I guess the most important thing is, regardless of the ideology or the viewpoint or the issue, how do I still recognize that there’s a person on the other side of that? Empathy, I feel like, becomes very key here. I might physically feel, in every fiber of my being, how much I disagree with something that they have just said, but if I can step back and try to think about how I might feel passionate about something, I think it opens up a new opportunity for us in that moment.
Adam:
In that moment, if I’m trying to reflect and show empathy, but I still don’t agree, what does a genuine response sound like?
Leanne VanBeek:
I love that you used the word genuine, because I think, yeah, we’re not in the business of trying to be fake. People will pick up on that. I think for me, it’s maybe stopping to recognize like, “Okay, they’re feeling really passionate about this right now.” I might reflect back with something like, “I can really respect how passionate you are about this issue, and that it’s really important to you.” If it’s something where I think, man, to have to consider another viewpoint is really scary for them, I might reflect back with, “It sounds like, fill in the blank with whatever issue, would be really scary for you.” Or, I might just say, “I can hear that this is a really difficult phase in your life right now and you’re feeling stuck.” I guess those would be some of the different things that I might pull on in that situation.
Adam:
Leanna, it kind of sounds like we’re back to the three moves option, which, if you want a deeper breakdown of what those are, we did go into them with Misty Jenx in episode number 10. So, shameless plug, go check it out, give it a listen. Do you agree with that? Is it fair to apply the three moves content here with acceptance?
Leanne VanBeek:
I actually love that you’re making that connection. I think it’s a perfect connection. I think it segues us right into step three, which is about knowing your move in that moment. You can, absolutely, pull on that three moves content and assess, where am I going from here?
Adam:
I feel like we stepped into a math problem though. This is the third move, and now I’ve got three moves, so do I now have three times three, which is nine things to do? Where are we at? Your third move is, what is your action?
Leanne VanBeek:
Right. Step three, in this kind of framework, is what’s your move? Maybe that’ll simplify it for us. What’s our move? But we do have three options in this step three, just to keep it complicated.
Adam:
Just to keep it, yeah, but I think everybody’s following along.
Leanne VanBeek:
What we’re doing now in this space is, we’ve ideally already done the work of empathy, of reflecting, of trying to make a connection. When we’re watching and we see that maybe the emotion has vented, and this can happen over text too, realistically. I know we prefer the interpersonal interaction, but man, even just a reflective response over a text or a reflective response in a Facebook message, you can start to see the wording change. We’re looking for some cue that says the emotions vented, logic’s coming back into play. That’s a signal now that we’re into a new phase in the conversation, because if I’m the one in the audience right now listening, I’m thinking, “That’s all well and good that you want me to listen and reflect and empathize and connect, but I still have really strong views on this. Do I get a chance to share that?”
I think that, again, this goes back to where I first said about it can almost feel like confrontation. I know for me, I still feel like this is a part one, part two sometimes. The first conversation I have with that person might really just be me listening, and trying to establish trust with them, and letting them say everything they want to say about that issue. It might be a second conversation before I have an opportunity to say, “Hey, we talked about this the other day. I’d love to share some thoughts with you. They’re really different than yours, but if you’re willing to listen, I’d like to share that and have that opportunity.” There could be times though, where you do feel like I can jump into that within the same conversation.
Again, three moves, we’re trying to decide, are we moving forward? The first thing is just to say, do I genuinely accept that perspective or that behavior, and think that that’s where they are? I can genuinely accept that and I can move forward.
Super simple example. I have a good friend who just swears, a blue streak. It just happens, all the time. I love her. I love her to death. She means nothing offensive about it, it’s just the way she’s grown up. I grew up differently. I can genuinely accept that we have different ways communicating and use different language, and it doesn’t bother me. That’s a legitimate option for us. That would be if we decide to just accept and move on, but if I can’t, then we’re kind of asking, is it more realistic that I may have to adjust the circumstances? Sometimes this is as simple as saying, maybe we’re just not going to talk about whatever issue it is that seems to set us off sometimes in family situations. We kind of say, “We’re not going to talk about politics at Thanksgiving.”
Adam:
Yeah, that’s a pretty standard thing. Don’t bring up politics.
Leanne VanBeek:
There could be times where we’re just going to adjust and not have that conversation, but there are other times where we may say, I do really want to ask for change, which in this case would be just ask for the space to be heard, myself.
Adam:
Right. That’s extremely helpful. I think it would be empowering if we could recognize that we have areas where we disagree. It’s not a dead end. We still have moves that we can make, choices that we can choose. Would you say there are times where we need to draw boundaries though? Can you define what acceptance might look like in those situations?
Leanne VanBeek:
Absolutely. There are always really important distinctions that we have to make. You’re never going to accept certain behaviors. Violence, bullying, emotional abuse, those are times where we don’t accept the behavior. In some cases, that may mean a pretty dramatic adjustment in the circumstances, like ending a relationship, like stopping communication with a person, or sometimes even leaving a job environment, if you feel like the change that you need is not going to happen.
Our goal then, I think, becomes separating the person out still and trying to stay curious and empathetic. Maybe I’m thinking, “I wonder what’s happened in their life to make them think that that’s okay.” Or, “I hope that they’ll consider something else in the future.” But then I think we do have to be willing to say there are times where it’s healthier to just move on, and hope that the best happens for that person, but staying in the situation is not always the right choice. I think there will also be times where we can’t compromise our boundaries for personal reasons. Maybe we just don’t have the space or the bandwidth to do it, and other times we’re just trying to not poach someone’s monkey.
Adam:
I knew monkeys were going to come into this somewhere, they’re everywhere.
Leanne VanBeek:
I guess it goes back to that example we talked about earlier with an adult child potentially quitting their job and wanting to move home. This was a situation that actually happened for one of our alumni. They felt like their child got a very challenging piece of feedback in the work environment, and their reaction was to just say, “Well, then I’m leaving,” as opposed to maybe having to, in the parents’ view, stay, learn, grow, build some resilience. I think it’s okay if you’re a parent to have a boundary that says, “I love you. I accept this as a tough time. I want to be here. I want to listen. I want to support you through this hard space, but we’re not going to let you move back home.”
Please hear me, podcast audience, this all comes down to our beloved phrase of wisdom and discernment. Could you have a time where an adult child wants to move back home and you say yes? Absolutely. Our focus here is really less on the actual example I’m using, I hope you hear my intent with that, and more on just whether or not it’s okay for me to sometimes accept the person, but draw a line and a boundary on the behavior.
Adam:
Absolutely. In this example, I can see how certain children when they want to come back home, as a parent, if you’re staying in good contact with them, you may know exactly what’s going on as to why they want to come back home. It might have more to do with what they’re not telling you, as opposed to what you see in front of you. I suppose there are times where you could let them back in and just have to go with it. I know as an example, you’re just kind of throwing that out there. It seems like the more we get into this continuous learning with OCL, the more nuanced all of these situations are.
Leanne VanBeek:
I agree. I think it’s just the fact that we’re now back into life. I mean, when we have the three days in the classroom, it does so much to move us forward and equip us and give us new skills and things to start wrestling with. But I think the real work starts happening when we have to walk it out in real time with these sometimes very complicated situations, relationships that are challenging, and people who think very differently than we do.
Adam:
So for right now, if we set aside the situations that you’ve clearly labeled as “out of bounds,” like violence, emotional abuse, what would you say is our simple framework summary for the whole piece around acceptance? Audience, this is where you want to grab that pen and paper or your tablet or your phone, make whatever mental notes, maybe, if you can’t get to any of those. Leanne, what do you want someone to take away from today’s podcast?
Leanne VanBeek:
Adam, I think I’m going to just go back to those three steps again, and I’ll try to go a little slower through these for those who are following along. First, I really think step one is just to recognize our responsibility to the box and the bubbles. That is not an OCL framework, I probably have changed that up a little bit, but this is really going back to just understanding emotion is high, someone is processing something, they’re having anxiety, they’re just in a space where they’re feeling something. I am now feeling something too, as a result of what I’ve read or seen or observed, but I’m the one who has the responsibility in the moment to not escalate the situation.
Step two, I say, is the curiosity piece. Step two is rely on curiosity to really try to help you find a place that you can empathize with them and try to understand where they could be coming from. Then step is to choose your move. That’s the three moves as you pulled out. Once I have tried to make a connection to that person, what is my move in the space? What is healthiest for me? What is best for the relationship? Do I accept? Do I adjust, or do I ask for the space to be heard? And in effect, ask for change.
Adam:
Leanne, this has been a big episode for us. I think we could continue the conversation probably a lot longer than we have. If people want to talk more about the nuances and specific issues around acceptance, what would you suggest?
Leanne VanBeek:
I would definitely try to get to one of the continuous learning sessions on acceptance, if you can. The “I Have to Accept That,” is the title and the dates and times are listed on our OCL alumni, Facebook page. You can just search OCL Michigan on Facebook, it’s a public page. If you’re not on Facebook, feel free to just contact me directly. My email is leanne.vanbeek@ourcommunitylistens.org. You can also find me on our website and contact me that way, and I’ll get you connected. The other thing is that we also would love for you to just keep contacting us with questions or situations, things you’re dealing with. Our professors are just so ready to try to dive into this space and kind of customize these sessions to deal with the things alumni are dealing with.
Adam:
Maybe if we get some feedback from our OCL alumni, we could do a part two on acceptance. If you have more thoughts, stories, or questions about how this OCL practice of acceptance has shown up in your life, we’d love to hear from you. Please contact us in one of the ways Leanne suggested. Thanks for joining us today, and remember, you are the message.
Speaker 1:
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