Restoring Family Relationships While Caring for Aging Parents

Trancript of Interview: “Restoring Family Relationships While Caring for Aging Parents”

Mike Barnes:

I think that every single one of us could admit that at some point or another, there’s a little bit of a family problem because we all have discussions about things. We don’t always agree on things. And sometimes it can lead to major problems.

Kim Barnes:

And to some very difficult relationships that maybe need to be mended. Today, we’re bringing in Greg Stevens. He’s an author and he just wrote a book called Build New Bridges: The Art of Restoring Impossible Relationships. So thanks so much for being with us today.

Greg Stevens:

Mike, Kim, thank you both for having me on.

Kim Barnes:

We hear so many questions and issues that come up because of people who have really difficult relationships with their parents and/or their siblings. Maybe let’s start with what would you consider an impossible relationship?

Greg Stevens:

Well, I define it as having four different elements. The first one is that we have an experience that it can’t be done because it went poorly. And so it’s a limiting belief that we have because we have evidence for it. The reason we hold on to that is because we need to be right about how wrong it went.

Kim Barnes:

This is always what happens. Yeah. Yeah.

Mike Barnes:

When you’re in that type of situation, whether it’s with your parents or a sibling, what’s the first step you have to take?

Greg Stevens:

Well, I think the first step is you’ve got to talk about the relationship. We spend so much time working on the problem we’re trying to solve and we forget about the person. We have to talk about what trust looks like to each other, what respect looks like, what kind of love we want to show in that relationship. And typically, we’ve been trying to solve problems and we’ve never really talked about even what respect looks like to our parents. What does it look like to us? If we start to verbalize that, then we can actually see that respect is individually defined, and you probably want me treating you with respect from how you define it, not how I define it.

Kim Barnes:

Can you give us an example of what that might look like?

Greg Stevens:

Well, for instance, um, if I were to say, when you tell me I can’t drive, I feel disrespected. Okay, I know I’m getting older, but it feels like you’re controlling me. Well, great. What does it look like from your end? Well, it feels like I’m trying to help you, and I feel like I’m getting attacked at the same time. That feels disrespectful. So both parties are feeling disrespected and their brain shuts down and they get into fight or flight mode and they can’t understand the other person’s logic. Remember that emotion always trumps logic. So if you’ve got emotion, we tend to double down on logic at that point. Well, this is a logical conversation. It’s no longer logical; it’s an emotional conversation and the emotions come from those areas of disrespect, trust, and things like that. So we need to talk about our relationship, not the thing we’re trying to achieve at first.

Mike Barnes:

And those emotions can be so strong. But when you feel like you’re doing everything possible—I’m fighting if I need to, I’m being nice, I’m being considerate—but the other side, whether it’s Mom or Dad or brother or sister, they just won’t bend. They won’t do anything. What do we do to get through to them?

Greg Stevens:

Well, first, you can never change another person. You can only change yourself. Trying to change that person, what happens is when we try to control, we actually become less influential with other people. And so we have to let go of that. The thing I have to master is my own emotions. I have to manage my emotions in that moment. And the way I’ve learned to do it is to stop everything, take a breath, and get back to your best intent, your best motive. Why are we here? The reason I want to do this is I want a good relationship with you, Mom or Dad, and I want to make sure we’re doing things that are going to work for both of us. Let’s get back to that. When things get emotional, always go back to your best intent. It’s the foundation of why you’re having the conversation in the first place.

Kim Barnes:

So how do you—you’re giving some great nuggets about, you know, thinking about why you’re doing it and really understanding what it is that they’re hearing, because I think that’s part of the issue. We hear things through the lens of how we think. So how do we approach these really difficult conversations? Do you just say, “Hey, Mom or Dad or brother or sister, let’s sit down because I really want to have a heart-to-heart with you”? What do you do to help them not be defensive?

Greg Stevens:

Well, yeah, I think what you do is you lay out that best intent, but as you begin, you let them know. When I talk about our relationship, I’d like to talk about trust. I’d like to talk about respect. Go back to that first thing, then talk about the reason I’m doing this—because we’ve been running into some problems and I don’t think it’s working for either of us. And so my intent is to make that work for both of us. And to do that, I think we need to set some agreements in place about how we’re going forward. You don’t want to set agreements when it’s emotional. Take the time when it’s not emotional, when you’re in that logical space, to actually say, “Let’s start doing these things” and give yourself a fail-safe because you will revert back to what you know. And so when that happens, how do we want to get us back to talking about breaking our agreements? What’s the best way for me to approach you, Mom or Dad, if you tend to break the agreements you said? And how? Here’s what I’d like you to do for me—bring it up to me, talk to me about it, because it’s not my intent to do that. I might just be going on my old way of doing things and I’ve forgotten, because as human beings, we forget so much. It’s naive to think one conversation is going to handle everything. It’s typically a series of conversations because as human beings, we’re creatures of habit and we forget things. That’s what we do.

Mike Barnes:

I love the way you’re describing this because in so many ways, I think it’s a lot like a business merger. You have to have discussions and maybe multiple discussions to figure out who’s going to give up what and how we’re going to get together. And so many of us are used to that in the business world, and yet we forget about it when we’re dealing with family.

Greg Stevens:

Well, family is a more emotional conversation, typically. It’s interesting as I’m talking to people and I teach these skills. People say, “Well, I’ll try it at home. I don’t want to do it at work.” And I’m like, “Good. The hard ones are at home. You’re doing the heavy lifting.” But people don’t think about that. You’re most emotional about the people you know; your guard is down more.

Kim Barnes:

Well, and there’s just a lot of history and baggage, and this is maybe the way our family has always communicated or operated. That, I think, adds that extra layer of difficulty because we’ve just all done it this way. So, I guess as part of it, don’t be frustrated if it doesn’t go well, potentially, or perfectly the first time. This is an ongoing discussion, whether they get defensive the first time and shut you out, or you revert back to the things you’ve done before.

Greg Stevens:

Yeah. I think what you do is you take a pause wherever you are. When you feel that emotion coming on—some people feel it in their gut, others shake. There are a lot of different things that happen when that adrenaline hits. When we’re with family, we just know how it is. And like Kim was saying, I think the way we’ve done things in the past, if we keep doing that, we’re going to get the same thing. You’ve got to change. But I can tell you that when you take a different skill set and practice it differently, you’ll see something completely different. But here’s the other thing I want to say: Sometimes, you just can’t get through. You can’t. But what I ask people is, at the end of that conversation, would you rather walk away knowing you did your best, rather than having your buttons pushed? Because there’s a sense of peace in knowing you did everything you could. I might not get the result I want, because the other person gets to say as well. But there’s something powerful about walking away knowing I did my best, and because of that, I believe there’s hope later. I find that when we show up as our best, we call others to be their best.

Kim Barnes:

I was wondering, are there ever cases where it just doesn’t work? The other person isn’t willing, you know? It just doesn’t work, and you can’t restore that impossible relationship?

Greg Stevens:

Yeah, it’s free will—we all have it. But one of the things I found is when I change how I’m doing things, my parent may have to change how they’re doing things. And I come from personal experience. I’ve done the work myself, and I’ve seen it over and over. That’s where I call it “real miracles.” Things you never thought could happen before. It’s possible, but you have to have skills. You have to do something different, and you have to be in charge of your emotions, rather than allowing them to be in charge of you.

Mike Barnes:

Yeah, I think you also have to remember and think about the personalities involved, because you know the personalities of yourself and your family members more than anybody. So you know the buttons you can push and the buttons you can’t push.

Greg Stevens:

Exactly. That’s so true. And that’s what I tell people all the time: Don’t try to communicate like I communicate. Communicate like you do, your natural way of communicating. But learn a new skill. If anything, stop, take a breath, say, “This isn’t going where I wanted it to. Let’s get back to my original intent that I talked about.” It’s to make sure we solve a problem and our relationship is stronger. Would that be okay if we reset back to that? You might have to reset 10, 15, 20 times, but it’s worth it if you get to that end. So, because that’s what people doubt—they doubt your intent. And most of the time, when it’s a parent, they feel like there’s a pressure that they have to do something. I’m supposed to be the parent. It’s another thing. A lot of times, even getting to this stage, I’ve seen parents say, “Okay, my kid’s getting out of high school. Now I need to reset agreements in our relationship because they’re going to be different going to college, after college, as an adult—adult to parents, parents to where we are now.” Each time you get a different phase of your life, we need to set up new agreements because we’re not the same person at that point.

Kim Barnes:

So, from a practical standpoint, because I’m kind of like, you know, what’s the next step? Do you literally use that language to say, “Hey, Mom and Dad, I want to set up an agreement on how our relationship’s going to look or how we’re going to communicate?”

Greg Stevens:

I do. I use exactly the language I’m talking about here. Some people say that’s kind of weird. It is a little weird. It’s awkward because we don’t typically do this. We don’t talk about these things. But if you set the stage, you can talk about almost anything. It’s all how you set it up, but you set it up with your best intent. You set it up with, “I want this to work for you. I don’t want the later years of us battling each other. That’s not what I want. And I don’t want you to feel like you’re being controlled. Things have changed; you’re older and we have other responsibilities as well. We need to make sure it works for everyone, and we all know we have to sacrifice at some point.”

Mike Barnes:

Yeah. So many great tips. Amazing. Greg, we really appreciate this. I think you’re going to help a lot of people with all these tips.

Greg Stevens:

Well, thank you so much for having me on the show. I appreciate it.

Mike Barnes:

Thank you. Yeah, I think what we’re learning here is again, what we always say: You’ve got to communicate. You’ve got to talk. And sometimes you’ve got to watch your emotions because, like you said, the emotions are so strong. Sometimes that can be prevalent.

Kim Barnes:

Right. So it’s just really thinking through what are the ways I want to communicate, and what are the different approaches I might take if what I’ve been doing isn’t working?

Mike Barnes:

Hey, if you have any other topics you’d like us to discuss, please let us know. Parenting Aging Parents.

*This transcript is auto-generated. Please excuse any typos or mistakes.