Part two of our 5 part series on Love and what it looks like to really be lovable, loving, and to love one’s self. 

David schnarch talks about self confrontation and other confrontation

• Engage with our behavoirs in a meaningful way from an objective place. 

One of the keys to love is the capacity to confront who we are.  Now, this isn’t to say that you aren’t inherently loved or lovable.  But, there is an element of growth that seems to be required for each of us to love ourselves.  I think one of the keys to loving yourself is having a sense that you are growing and leaning in into the discomfort of becoming more than what you are now.  

It also requires that we hear the truthful parts of what others are able to observe and point out to us.  

This is a skill that requires a capacity to not just endure the discomfort of the process of confronting who you are, but even to lean into that discomfort.  

So, let’s just take a moment to define what it means to self confront and be confronted by others in ways that are growth and love promoting. 

The process of confronting your behavior is simple but can be difficult to face if you are unwilling to be objective about what is going on and your worth in relation to what is going on. 

In order to self confront, you’ll need to see your behavior clearly and objectively.  Meaning that you fully understand or are seeking to fully understand what you are doing.  This is as simple as acknowledging what the behavior is by describing it dispassionately, and without layering in judgments that you might be using to beat yourself up with.

Darcy and I were talking to a couple who we’ve been coaching and one of their experiences recently was a conversation in which the husband let his spouse know that he had viewed pornography.  As they discussed the situation, the husband became more and more distraught, in a sense, to convey how much he was not pleased with his own behavior.  He worked to manage his wife’s experience of his actions by being more upset about the situation than she was.  

This is an example of not being clear and objective about your behavior.  That’s not to say there is no room for passionate discourse or even deeply felt emotions.  It is to say, managing our partner is not part of clearly acknowledging where you are.  It is hard to be objective about what is going on when you are working to manage others’ feelings.  

So how do we engage with an internal process of evaluating our behaviors?  We go into this in the membership, which you can join anytime by going to zachspafford.com and there are workbooks that you can use in there to really get in deep on this   .  

But first you’ll want to start by recognizing that the high emotions are sometimes ways of . 

Often, we want to hold our ground and defend where we are because it feels safer than confronting our actions openly.  

Second, you’ll need to be objective about what that behavior’s outcomes are, how they are impacting you, and how they might be impacting those around you. You can do this by being willing to look downstream from where you are and acknowledging the results in the eyes of others and even acknowledging the effects you’ve been working to ignore or hide from.  

Many of us do this well in other parts of our lives.  For instance, at work you might be really good at looking downstream and seeing what the effects are.  But when it comes to your relationship with your partner or yourself, it is not uncommon to be unwilling to see what we’re doing based on the way it will end up later.  

I know, for me, darcy and I were having a discussion in the shower just a couple of nights ago and she was pointing something out to me, something that I didn’t want to see.  At that moment, I had a choice.  I could get defensive, push back and say that she was wrong or that I didn’t see it that way, which until she said something, was somewhat true.  Or I could listen for the truth that she was trying to convey to me. Even if I didn’t agree with every part of what she was saying. 

I was able to see the important parts of what she was saying. 

Sometimes we want to argue a point that may have been indicated by our partner but isn’t the actual issue at hand.  

One of the men I work with said this to me about the discussions he has with his wife.  “I rarely say the right thing.”  This was an indicator to me, based on that phrase and some other data that I have, that his partner is keen to pick up on anything that isn’t quite right in his phrasing and hold that up for examination, rather than get into the parts where she is being confronted.  

If this is how you are reacting to what your partner has to say, picking apart the little things to avoid the more important issue, then its time to step back and see what is being said from a kind and open place.  

In the example of Darcy and I chatting in the shower, I could have let my anxieties about how she might see me or how I don’t like being wrong put me into attack mode.  Picking apart her argument and digging in my heals. 

Rather than do that, I took a moment to look at her thoughts and seek  to find any truth in them.  And even work to make her argument for her.  

Why don’t we want to confront ourselves or have others confront us?  

Because we don’t like the invalidating feelings that brings into our lives.   Next week we are going to talk about self-validation and validation from others.  But for the purpose of this weeks engagement on love, just being aware that this confrontation of our realities, statements, and behaviors is not about designing ways to hurt or jar ourselves or others into changing.  This is about loving ourselves and others enough to see how what we might be doing is not living up to our highest potential.  

As you do the hard work of self confrontation and listing when another person, usually the person you trust the most, offers you ideas or their thoughts about what might be going on for you, be aware that you’ll probably want to deflect from what you see and hear. 

If you can, lean into it.  If you can, be clear that only by going through it, will you succeed at being the person you want to be.  

I think it is also really important to be kind to yourself and your partner when this is happening. 

It really isn’t as effective to come in from a hard place and go through the process of telling your partner off.  That is more likely to create conflict than the self confrontation that is results and growth oriented.  

I think it’s also really important to be willing to be patient with the things we offer.  I can think of a couple of examples in our lives where Darcy has offered me some feedback that I wasn’t willing to hear at the time.  And she would step back from it, let me be, and re-offer it at a later time that seemed appropriate.  I think I’ve done the same for her.  

Confrontation is not about conflict or being right, but being willing to find truth. 

Kindness is essential. 

Patience will be rewarded. 

Leaning in will help you succeed.