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5 Ways to Validate Someone’s Pain

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People come to church in silent pain, isolated and hurting. “Look at all these happy people getting close to God. I’m the only one who’s faking it.” Nothing could be further from the truth. But we drive people to internalize and hide their pain because, by and large, the church doesn’t know how to help somebody who’s hurting.

Too many of our churches are not safe places for people to admit they’re in pain, whether it’s depression, being post-abortive, struggling with self-harm or suicide, or what have you. But we have to figure this out. If you can’t go to the people of God when you’re in crisis, where can you go?

I hope this post is a positive step toward remedying this situation. Helping someone who’s hurting starts by validating their pain. Here are 5 great ways to do that.

1) Get Comfortable with Silence.

Think about it. Everything in our modern Western world is designed to protect us from one thing. Silence.

“I really need to spend some quiet, reflective time. I think I’ll get on FaceBook,” said no one ever. If we’re not careful, our lives can get driven by notifications. Someone reacted to your post! Text message! Look who added to their Instagram story!

I’m not knocking social media. They are great communication tools, and they’re fun. They have their place. But we’ve inadvertently engineered ourselves into a world with no silence.

So when we’re talking to someone who’s hurting, we don’t like an “awkward silence.” So we break it too soon. But the other person needed that silence.

Silence is healing. They are processing in the silence, and if you break it too soon, you can rob them of what God is doing in that moment. Sometimes just waiting for them to form the words speaks volumes more than anything you could’ve said.

There’s a great model for this in the book of Job. Job’s friends often get a (well-deserved) bad rap. But they actually got it right for a whole week when they showed up and just sat with him in silence, in the ashes of his life.

They sat on the ground with him for seven days and seven nights. No one said a word to him because they saw how great his suffering was. – Job 2:13

Then Job’s friends opened their mouths, and it was all downhill from there.

The point is, when you’re trying to comfort someone who’s hurting or grieving, don’t be the one to break the silence. Let them break it when they’re ready.

2) Acknowledge their Pain with Reflective Listening.

When someone shares their pain with you, don’t judge it, dismiss it, or minimize it. Reflect it back to them in your own words. Some examples of good things to say are:

  • “So do you feel like …?”
  • “I’m so sorry you’re going through this. That must really hurt.”
  • “Tell me more about that.”

This is not a politician’s hollow “I feel your pain” so they can manipulate a vote out of you. No, they don’t feel your pain. For the most part, they have no idea. (Aside: Never vote for anyone who says “I feel your pain” because they’re lying already.)

This is an honest attempt to truly listen and hear, not only what the person said, but how they feel. By reflecting back what you thought you heard, you communicate that you’re trying to hear their heart.

3) Don’t Say “I Understand”

One of the worst things you can say is “I understand.” The truth is, you don’t understand. You’re not them, and you haven’t been through what they’re going through. No, you really haven’t.

Even if you’ve been through something similar, you’re not them. Your backgrounds and make-up are different. Your needs are different. Your support system is different.

When we say, “I understand,” we minimize their pain. We trivialize what they’re going through. Instead, a great thing to say is, “I have no grid for what you’re going through, but I’m here for you.”

4) Don’t Share Your Story. Shut Up and Listen.

This is not time to share your similar story. They don’t need to hear your story. They need you to hear theirs. In their pain, their heart needs to speak and be heard. They need you to listen and make sure they feel heard.

They need you to hear their heart. When the other person is talking, most people aren’t really listening. They’re politely waiting to talk.

When we share our story, we take the focus off of them and put it on us. We’re telling them, “Your experience is common. I went through it. I got through it. You will too.” While that sounds great on paper and may even be true, that’s not what they need to hear right now.

They need to hear that they were heard. They need to hear that their pain is legitimate, and you’re not shaming them for it. (So often we blame trauma survivors because we’re trying to make sense of an unsafe world.)

Don’t blame them. Validate their pain. “That must really hurt,” is a great thing to say.

After you validate their pain, after they feel heard, then you earn the right to ask them if you can share your story. At the right time, your story might truly be helpful to them. But keep it short. They don’t need all the gory details. Get the focus back onto them as soon as you can.

5) Be Their Friend, Not Their Counselor

You don’t have to fix them. And, frankly, they don’t want to be fixed. They want to be healed. And the first step toward healing is being heard. If you do nothing else, communicate to them that you’ve heard their pain. Not understood it or felt it, because you don’t. But you’ve heard it.

When they believe they’ve been heard, you’ve validated their pain. You’ve validated their story. You’ve validated their worth as a person and as a child of God.

Offer to help them find good help, whether it’s pastoral or professional counseling, or whatever resources their situation requires. Always ask first, don’t impose a solution, but give them options and the freedom to choose to take them or leave them without condemnation from you. They need to drive their healing, not you, although you can respectfully suggest possible routes.

There’s nothing more rewarding than being a friend to someone in their time of need. There’s nothing more rewarding than being there, not necessarily being the person with all the right answers, but being the person who was just there when they needed us.

This is how we, as Jesus’ hands and feet, can support those in crisis who need us. This is how we can make our churches safe places for people in crisis. And we’ll be grateful for that safe place in our time of need as well.

Your Turn

What do you think? What’s your story? Please tell us your story in the comments; it will help others. And please share this post if it would bless other people.

How to Help Someone without Rescuing Them

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One of the hardest things to navigate is helping someone in a healthy way, without rescuing them in an unhealthy way. We don’t want to interfere with God’s process of sowing and reaping in their lives. (Here’s my previous post with 3 reasons why.)

Sometimes it feels like watching a train wreck in slow motion.

Compound that with, so often, people don’t want to change the lifestyle that’s causing the pain in their lives. They just want to be free from the pain.

It’s like someone banging their head on a brick wall. They want the headache to stop. But rather than being willing to stop banging their head on the brick wall, they’re looking for a helmet with more padding.

Giving Them Their Power Back

People in crisis often feel powerless. Like someone trapped on the third floor of a burning building, they want someone to pull up in a magic firetruck and rescue them from their pain.

True healthy help restores them as a powerful person who can make choices over their own life. Rather than swooping in with the magic firetruck, healthy help leads them to the fire escape and helps them navigate it.

But it’s their journey. We never take ownership away from them. Even when it’s painful to watch them move forward so slowly, and we could do it for them so much faster.

How to Help: Asking Questions not Making Statements

This is a brilliant 20-minute video by Danny Silk on how to really help someone with a problem. I highly recommend watching it.

So often it is more helpful to ask questions, rather than stating the obvious or just telling someone what to do to solve the immediate problem.

  • What’s the problem? If they don’t acknowledge there’s a problem, you’re done. If this is a family relationship, this is often a strong indication that someone has interrupted God’s process of sowing and reaping.
  • What are you going to do? At this point, often people won’t know. They feel powerless, like they can’t do anything. Their emotions are supercharged, and their rational brain is offline. But it’s important for you to ask this question. It clearly defines who owns the problem, and whose it is to solve.
  • What have you tried before? This is a great first step to help them slow down. Have you had this problem before? What have you done before that’s worked? Can you do that again? This helps them start thinking through the problem, helping their rational brain come back online.
  • Would you like some suggestions? Advice requires permission. If they don’t want your advice, don’t give it. Jesus put it somewhat graphically, “Don’t throw your pearls before swine.” (Matthew 7:6)
  • Have you tried…? Don’t say, “You should read this book.” Instead ask, “Have you read this book?” You are restoring them as a powerful person who can choose what they want to do to solve this problem.
  • What are you going to do? The most empowering question in the universe. Keep coming back to this one.

The Mastermind Process

In writer’s groups I’ve been in, we have a process called “mastermind.” It’s an absolutely genius way to help someone get unstuck. I’ve seen people who were stuck on something for months (or years!) get unstuck in 10-15 minutes. It works like this.

The person with the problem states it, and we ask clarifying questions to make sure we understand. Then comes the fun part.

For the next five minutes, group members give recommendations. The person with the problem is not allowed to talk during this. They just write all the recommendations down in a list.

Then the person with the problem chooses three things off that list they are going to do in the next 30 days. No explaining why they chose certain suggestions and not others. No judgments, no apologies, no commentary. Just choices.

People come into this process scared because they don’t know what to do. But they come out of it energized and excited. What was an overwhelming and vexing problem just a few minutes ago is now solvable. They have a list. They have a plan. They have support.

And most importantly, they have ownership. The beauty of the mastermind process is that, while it never solves anyone’s problem for them, it empowers them to solve their problem.

There are two key factors that make this process work.

(1) The person owns the problem. No one tells them, “Hey, I noticed you have a problem on your blog. Let me tell you how to fix that.” They decided it was a problem. And they decided they needed help fixing it.

(2) The person owns the solution. While the group process helps them think through possible solutions, they choose what they’re going to do and not do. No pressure to pick certain options over others. And nobody in the group gets their nose bent out of joint if the person didn’t pick their recommendation.

Your Turn

Have you been on either end of this? Did someone help guide you through a problem? Or did someone “rescue” you, leaving you to solve a bigger problem with higher stakes later in life? Tell us your story in the comments and please share if this would bless others.

Use These 3 Guidelines to Speak Up for What’s Right

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Speaking up for what’s right is important. As God’s people, if we don’t speak up for what’s right, we leave the world in a moral vacuum that our enemy is all too happy to fill with deception. Much of the societal decay in the world around us has risen to unprecedented levels because God’s people have been asleep and silent for far too long.

“Silence does not interpret itself.” – Father Pavone, Priests for Life

But it’s not enough to speak up for what’s right. We have to do it the right way. We’ve all heard about “speaking the truth in love” (Ephesians 4:15), but how do we actually do that? Here are 3 guidelines for speaking up for what’s right so we make a difference.

1) Respect

Everyone has the right to choose what they believe, even if we disagree. Everyone owns the consequences of their beliefs, whether they acknowledge it or not. We can tell someone their choices are leading to bad consequences, but we still need to respect their right to choose what they believe. God does this. God respects our choice but expects us to own the consequences (Deuteronomy 30:15-20).

So respect people’s right to disagree. Respect people’s right to be wrong, no matter how much that frustrates us. When speaking to others, whether it’s in-person or on FaceBook, do so with respect:

  • Don’t call them names.
  • Don’t insult them.
  • Don’t respond in kind.
  • Don’t copy the other person’s bad behavior.
  • Check your own spirit for self-righteousness.

The opposite of respect is offense. There is a major spirit of offense over our country right now. Some call it a political spirit. It’s obviously spiritual warfare because when we get offended, we too often go out of our minds, acting and speaking like no loving Jesus-follower should. But, in our minds, offense justifies all of our bad behavior.

No, it really doesn’t. We need to remember to whom we belong, and act like Him and not the pagans.

But Jesus made a whip and called the Pharisees a brood of vipers! Yes, he did (John 2:13-17, Matthew 12:34, Matthew 23:33). But that was a last resort. He didn’t start there. Jesus did many other things as a testimony to the Pharisees first:

  • Sending the cleansed leper to the priests to make the sacrifices Moses commanded (Matthew 8:1-4).
  • Paying his and Peter’s temple tax (Matthew 17:24-27).
  • Healing the man born blind (John 9).
  • Raising Lazarus from the dead (John 11).

I love the story of Jesus’ paying the temple tax for himself and Peter in Matthew 17:24-27. While Jesus makes it clear he doesn’t have to pay the tax, he pays it for himself and for Peter, and says in verse 27, “… so that we may not offend them…” Jesus picked his battles. So should we.

So yes, Jesus called them a brood of vipers. But he also paid the temple tax to not offend them. There is a time for every activity under heaven (Ecclesiastes 3), to offend and not to offend, and the Holy Spirit knows the difference. My counsel is to let the content of our words be the offensive thing, not the way we say them.

2) Uncompromising Truth

We’re not speaking up for what’s right if we’re not speaking the truth. My heart breaks when I think about entire Christian denominations that have compromised with the world in condoning abortion, homosexuality, and transgenderism. Janet & I pray often for God to open their eyes and send them a spirit of repentance. While sincerely wanting to love people, they are doing so much damage.

People engage in these behaviors because of pain in their lives. God wants to heal that pain. But when we compromise with the world by not calling sinful behaviors the sin that they are, we slam the door of God’s healing in people’s faces. You don’t need healing if nothing’s wrong, do you?

3) Not Being Controlled by the Fear of the Other’s Reaction

When we know we’re saying something the other person doesn’t want to hear, it’s perfectly normal to fear their reaction. There’s nothing wrong with being afraid. The problem comes when we let that fear control us. It’s amazing how much of our actions, and reactions, are actually governed by fear, although we generally don’t realize it.

Many times I’ve been screamed at by dysfunctional family members, “You said that because you knew it would upset me!” Yes, I did know it would upset them, and believe me, I fear someone being upset with me. (I die a thousand deaths before a confrontation!) But that’s not why I said it. I said it because it needed to be said. It was an issue between us that needed to be addressed. And I won’t be bullied out of addressing it any longer.

Here are two litmus tests to discover that we are being controlled by fear.

(1) Silence. When something’s wrong and we don’t speak up, we’re being controlled by fear. We’re afraid of offending the other person. Or of their anger. Or of damaging the relationship. Frankly, if the relationship is in a state where telling the truth will damage it, it needs to be “damaged,” because it’s not healthy the way it is.

Remember Father Pavone’s quote at the top of this post: “Silence does not interpret itself.” Whatever issues we are silent about, we condone.

Confrontation is a godly skill that can be learned through practice. I highly recommend the book “Keep Your Love On” by Danny Silk (Amazon affiliate link) for more on this topic.

(2) Control. When we try to control the other person’s reaction, we’re being controlled by fear. Here are some common behaviors designed to control the other person’s reaction. Do you recognize any of these?

  • Shaming them for disagreeing.
  • Bullying them into agreement.
  • Waiting to talk rather than listening.
  • Monopolizing the conversation.
  • Trying to win the argument instead of connecting to their heart.

As Jesus-followers, fear has no place in our lives. Or shouldn’t. Our entire Christian walk boils down to replacing fear-based behaviors with faith-based behaviors. Faith trusts the other person to God and does not let fear of their reaction control us.

Your Turn

So how about you? Is this helpful? How have people spoken into your life that’s made a difference? Did they follow these guidelines? Tell us your story in the comments, and please share this post to bless others.

How to Fix Everything

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There is one particular quality that overrides all of our other faults combined. If we just cultivate this one quality in our lives, all our other faults will take care of themselves. Really? Instead of focusing on improving my weaknesses, I can learn this one thing instead, and that’ll take care of everything else? Yep. That’s exactly what I’m saying.

The reverse is also true, though. If we don’t get this one thing down, none of our other virtues matter. All of our other positive qualities will eventually flame-out if we don’t understand and figure out this one thing.

So what is it? Ok. Here it is.

Being Teachable.

God is constantly dorking with our environment. Adjusting things. He intentionally brings seemingly negative circumstances and people into our lives to work stuff out of us. Although I’m personally not fond of this process—it hurts—I must honestly say the seasons of pain in my life have been the seasons of greatest growth. Darn it.

The point is, God is taking us to school. He’s put us here to learn to love each other. Every choice we make is either a choice to love or a choice to fear. Now don’t worry, I’m not getting all drippy and gushy. Sometimes love means confronting someone with the truth they don’t want to hear but need to. And out of his great love for us, God does this for us all the time. In Christian-speak it’s called sanctification. It’s a pain in the neck, but it’s good.

He uses those people who push our buttons and those circumstances we suffer through to tell us what we don’t want to hear but need to. And if we’re teachable and learn the lesson, God deals with all of our faults and shortcomings, one by one.

If we choose to be teachable, God tells us the truth, often through our reactions to difficult people. The process works our stuff out of us. If we choose to not be teachable, we get stuck. We force God to bring harsher people and harsher circumstances to get our attention and learn the lesson. And around the track we go again.

So how do we cultivate being teachable? Here are 3 keys.

1) Talk less, listen more.

We’ve all heard the saying that God gave us 2 ears and 1 mouth because we’re supposed to listen twice as much as we talk. So often we get it the other way around. Start paying attention to how much, percentage-wise, you listen vs talk. In most of your conversations, do you talk more or listen more?

Even when we aren’t talking, we often aren’t really listening. We’re waiting to talk. We’re politely waiting for the other person to finish their unimportant thought so we can say something truly important. Instead of just blowing-off and reacting to what was just said, we have an opportunity to honor God and search for what he’s saying to us through that other person. He so often speaks through unrighteous vessels.

It doesn’t mean the other person is right or we have to agree with them. Often what God’s doing is showing us our own heart through our internal reaction to the other person. It’s got nothing to do with whether the other person is right or wrong. That’s between them and God.

If we really listen, both to the other person and to the Holy Spirit, we can often deescalate a volatile situation by responding to the other person with honor instead of reacting out of wounded pride.

That guy! He just pushes my buttons! Teachable people realize our “buttons” are sin in our own heart. God, out of his great love for us, is using that unrighteous person to highlight it. He’s raising a red flag in our consciousness about what he wants to deal with.

2) Pay attention to feedback from more than 1 person.

I grew up with the saying, “When the rest of the world’s wrong and you’re right, it’s probably the other way around.” When we hear things from more than one person, we need to pay attention.

Notice patterns. Never settle for, “That’s just the way I am.” Some people blow-off correction they’ve heard multiple times with this ungodly phrase. But there’s no greater proclamation that someone’s unteachable than those 6 words.

3) Find the kernel of truth in the ugly package.

Truth we get from God through other people is packaged in the other person’s stuff. Sometimes we need to wade through the offense and the other person’s negativity to get at what God’s trying to say to us. Sometimes what’s at the root is a lie from the enemy that we need to blow off. But sometimes there’s a nugget of truth down there that God wants us to mine for.

Teachable people scrape off the coal and find the gold. Or to put it another way, chew the meat, spit out the bones.

So how about you?

Are you teachable? Has it been hard? Are you teachable in some areas, but maybe stuck in others? Tell us your story in the comments. And please share if this would bless someone else.

How to Disarm Offense

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America is in the middle of a cold civil war. It’s not a hot civil war like the 1860s, where we were physically shooting at each other, thank God. But just like the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union, it’s equally real. And this cold civil war is fueled, on both sides, by this one thing. Offense.

The spirit of offense is ravaging America right now. It’s deeply infected both political parties and it’s playing us for fools against each other. It’s a demonic strategy. And it’s totally eating our lunch.

Offense is the opposite of love on so many levels. Let’s compare and contrast love and offense, using the definition of love from 1 Corinthians 13:4-7.

Love… Offense…
… is patient. … shoots first and asks questions later.
… is kind. … posts dishonoring memes on FaceBook.
… does not envy. … is never satisfied.
… does not boast. … is self-righteous. Especially if it’s actually right.
… is not proud. … justifies itself. Offense is its own justification.
… does not dishonor others. … dehumanizes others.
… is not self-seeking. … is blinded to the very existence of others, since it doesn’t see them as human anymore.
… keeps no record of wrongs. … keeps a list like Santa Claus, checking it twice, categorizing people into naughty or nice.
… does not delight in evil. … laughs at & “likes” dishonoring memes on FaceBook.
… rejoices with the truth. … looks for the catch. Always suspicious, offense would be rather be cynical than naïve.
… always protects. … always attacks.
… always trusts. … always controls.
… always hopes. … has turned cynicism into an art form.
… always perseveres. … wants its pound of flesh yesterday.

Love covers a multitude of sins (1 Peter 1:8). Offense justifies a multitude of sins. Offense justifies all our bad behavior. Just look on FaceBook. I can post a nasty meme about someone I don’t even know if I don’t like their politics. All my friends will think it’s funny. Anyone who’s politics I find offensive must be a bad person. Really?

We need to respect other peoples’ dignity, even if we disagree with their politics, and even if they don’t respect our dignity. Especially when they don’t respect our dignity. They know, deep inside, their behavior is wicked. But it’s justified in their heart, because they know we’ll be wicked right back at them. And unfortunately, many Christians are. But when we don’t return wickedness for wickedness, mocking for mocking, or offense for offense, it gives their heart pause. And that is what lifts up the name of Jesus, not being right or winning the argument.

Respecting someone doesn’t mean we have to agree with them. The media and the culture have normalized a lot of wickedness we should not practice or condone. Sex outside of marriage. Abortion. Same-sex marriage. Transgenderism. As Christians, we have a responsibility to lovingly speak out against these anti-Biblical and self-destructive practices. But because we have the Holy Spirit, we can respectfully disagree without getting ugly about it. We can love those we disagree with. The world can’t.

Honestly, seeing non-Christians being disrespectful, while it’s reaching shocking new lows, doesn’t really bother me. We shouldn’t be surprised when pagans act like pagans. But seeing Christians, however, being disrespectful is what bothers me. The other side’s sin against us does not justify our sinful response.

So what can we do? Whatever your political persuasion, we, the people of God, can all do these 3 simple things.

1) Stop posting (and sharing and “liking”) disrespectful memes. Whether it’s President Obama, President Trump, Speaker Pelosi, or former Secretary of State Clinton, we have a Biblical mandate to respect the government officials that God put in place. (Romans 13:1-7, 1 Timothy 2:1-2.) However funny they are, and I admit I find some hilarious, disrespectful memes are slander. We need to stop. (Titus 3:1-2.)

2) Remember who the real enemy is. It’s not the other political party. No human being is the devil incarnate. Satan and his demonic forces are our enemy, not our fellow humans, even if they are deceived and ugly toward us.

3) Love the people on the other side. Disagree, yes. For God’s sake, disagree. The church has been bullied into complicit silence for far too long. But disagree lovingly. Don’t attack the other person, but speak the truth in love (Ephesians 4:15). Have a conversation, not a food fight. They have a right to disagree with you and still be treated civilly, just like you do. Don’t respond with ugliness for ugliness, disrespect for disrespect, evil for evil, but instead let us repay evil with good (Romans 12:17-21).

No one ever argued anyone into the Kingdom. But people get loved into the Kingdom all the time. We can do this.

What about you? Has there been a time when returning good for evil has won you a friend? A time when responding in love won you more than winning the argument? Tell us your story in the comments. And please share this post if it would bless others.

The 3 Most Dangerous Communication Styles

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The concepts in this post come from Danny Silk’s book, Keep Your Love On: Connection, Communication, and Boundaries. This book has really rocked my world. I wish I’d read it 20 years ago. A short, easy read, it’s one of those books that you want to read every year. I cannot recommend it highly enough. You can get your own copy here. This is not an affiliate link, I get no commission or any other benefit if you click and buy. But you certainly will. It’ll transform your relationships!

What are the three most dangerous animals in the world? The ones we turn into when we communicate from a place of fear, because they damage or destroy our connection with other people. For many of us, we don’t even realize we’re doing it. Many of us grew up with families that communicated this way, and we think it’s normal. It’s all we know so it’s what we do.

But it’s not normal. It damages our connection with those we love. What if you knew there was another way to communicate? What if there was another option?

The premise of healthy communication is this:

“I cannot control another person. The only person I can control, on a good day, is myself.” – Danny Silk

The goals of healthy communication, then, are not to force or manipulate the other person into doing what we want. The goal of healthy communication is first and foremost to understand. Powerful people are not afraid of someone else’s point-of-view. They’re not afraid of someone’s disagreement. They are comfortable and bold being themselves, and they are not afraid to let others be themselves.

But when we get into fear, we start communicating from a motivation to get our needs met, instead of to understand. How many of these unhealthy communication styles have you used? I know I have used them all.

A disclaimer: The word-pictures describing these communication styles are simply to help us understand the intangible by making it a little more tangible. These caricatures describe how the person is behaving, not the person’s identity. We are not what we do.

Suppose the husband is driving too fast around a curvy, one-lane mountain road, too fast for the wife’s comfort at least. She has 4 choices of how to respond.

1) Unhealthy Aggressive Communication – The T-Rex

The T-Rex yells and screams. A big bully, the T-Rex uses intimidation to win the argument and get his or her way. Despite the volume and the bluster, the T-Rex really feels powerless and afraid. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t bully the other party. They don’t trust the other person to care about their need. Terrified their need won’t be met, they use intimidation to get their way. The message of a T-Rex communicator is, “I matter, you don’t matter.”

The wife in our example could choose to play the T-Rex and yell at her husband, using intimation and name-calling, “Slow down, you idiot! You’re going to get us killed! What kind of moron are you, driving like that!”

2) Unhealthy Passive Communication – The Goat

The goat is the opposite of the T-Rex. The goat is just as powerless and afraid of not getting his or her needs met, but instead of hiding that fear with bluster and blather like the T-Rex, the goat hides that fear with silence. Not saying anything at all. They would rather keep the peace then risk saying what they know needs to be said.

They misunderstand Bible verses about sacrifice and dying to self. They’re confused by Matthew 5:9, which reads, “Blessed are the peace makers,” not peace keepers.

The goat’s message through their communication is, “You matter, I don’t.” Counter-intuitively, goat’s and T-Rexes often end up in relationships together, because they both believe the T-Rex matters, and the goat does not. The goat sacrifices body parts (i.e., more and more of their identity) to the T-Rex to keep the peace.

“At the end of the day, the goat ceases to exist, and the T-Rex is still hungry.” – Danny Silk

A wife playing the goat in our example would just white-knuckle the drive, not saying anything. She’d swallow the fear, close her eyes, pray, whatever, anything but start the confrontation that needs to happen.

3) Unhealthy Passive-Aggressive Communication – The Chocolate-Covered Dragon (CCD)

This one is the most dangerous of all, because they look so good to everyone except the person in relationship with them. CCD’s look great on the outside. They’re chocolate after all. What’s not to like? But the other person is the only one who knows how they act in private, when the dragon comes out.

Chocolate Covered Dragons will have a great conversation with you. They’ll contribute, pretend to understand, and appear to agree whole-heartedly. But later, they won’t do anything they agreed to, denying ever making a commitment. They throw it all back on you for “misunderstanding” the conversation. You begin to wonder, “Did we really say that? Am I remembering right? Am I crazy?”

The truth is, no, you’re not crazy and, yes, you’re remembering correctly. The CCD is twisting the facts (and they know it) to manipulate getting their way.

The CCD feels powerless and terrified their needs won’t get met. But they don’t want to go all T-Rex because they know that makes them look bad. Keeping up appearances is very important to CCDs; they are terrified to let the real “me” show. So by lying and manipulation, they make you look bad to get their way and get their needs met.

The CCD’s message to the world through their communication style is, “I matter. You matter; no, not really.”

Back to our example. If the wife of our crazy driver chooses to communicate like a chocolate-covered dragon, she won’t say anything. The whole evening. There won’t be any harsh words, but they’ll be plenty of harsh non-verbal communication.

The husband picks up on it. “What’s wrong, honey?”

“Nothing.” But the atmosphere communicates daggers.

“Seriously, what’s the matter?”

“If you loved me, you would know.” And she makes him pay.

Or there’s another choice.

4) Healthy Assertive Communication – Royalty

The Bible says we are kings and queens (Proverbs 25:2, Romans 8: 17-37, Ephesians 1:18). So often we don’t act like who we really are. We need someone to teach us how to act like kings and queens. In Christian lingo, we call that “sanctification.”

Kings and queens are powerful. They know who they are, so they aren’t threatened by who someone else is. Being royalty, they have an abundance mindset, not a scarcity mindset. They aren’t threatened or jealous of someone else’s success or happiness. If I’m acting like royalty, then in our relationship, I get to be me and you get to be you.

Powerful people communicate assertively. They don’t either hide or bull-doze. They don’t say one thing while intending another. Their message to the world through their communication is, “I matter. You matter.” And they mean it. They live it. They can disagree with someone while still honoring them.

Instead of telling the other person what to do and feel, an assertive communicator talks about how they feel and what they need. They say things like, “I feel _____ when ____. I need to feel ____.” For example, our wife of the crazy driver, choosing to communicate assertively, might say something like this:

“When you drive like this, I feel scared, and my fear makes me angry. I need to feel safe. I need to feel like you’re protecting me, not threatening me.”

Then she trusts her husband to care about her needs more than his own adrenaline rush. Powerful people communicate how they feel and what they need by “asserting” it – stating it. They trust the other person to meet their needs, and allow them do to it on their own terms.

Regardless of how she communicates, our crazy-driver husband now has a choice. He can respond:

  • Like a powerless T-Rex bent on his own way, unable to meet the legitimate needs of another. “Hey, baby, don’t worry, I’ve never gotten into an accident and I know every inch of this road. When you get in the car with me, it’s all sit down, shut up, and hand on!”
  • Like a powerless goat, terrified of someone’s displeasure because they believe the lie they have to earn love. “I’m so sorry. I’ll never speed again. In fact, maybe you should drive. You’re a much better driver than I am.”
  • Like a powerless chocolate-covered dragon, unable to truly meet the needs of another, but coy enough to pretend to. “Oh, I’m sorry. Yeah, I was going too fast there, wasn’t I?” Then they slow down. But the speed creeps back up slowly. If the wife says something again, they act hurt and put-off, twisting it to make it the wife’s fault. “I am going slower! Why won’t you meet me half-way? There’s just no pleasing you!” Technically they didn’t lie, they are going slower. They’re going 59 instead of 60.
  • Like royalty, assertively. “Oh, does that bother you? I’m sorry. I want you to feel safe. Of course I’ll slow down.” And they slow down and keep it down.

But what do you do when you’re doing your best to be assertive, and are constantly met by a T-Rex, goat, or chocolate-covered dragon? How does a healthy assertive communicator respond to these unhealthy communication styles?

How to Assertively Respond to an Aggressive T-Rex

Royalty does not tolerate being bullied. They simply do not accept such treatment. They freely give respect to others, and they expect to receive it. Here are some practical ideas.

Meet them in a public place, like a coffee shop or fast-food, where you pay upfront. In public, there’s social pressure on them to not start yelling. And because you paid up front, you don’t have a check to pay holding you there. You can get up and leave if necessary.

After an unheeded warning (just one), say something like, “I want to talk with you about this, I want to spend time with you, but you cannot talk to me like that. We can try this again whenever you’re ready. Let me know.” Then get up and leave.

Here are some other examples.

  • “I want to talk about this with you, but when you yell and scream I feel disrespected, and I need to feel valued. We can continue this conversation when you’re ready to treat me respectfully.” Then walk out of the room and close (not slam) the door.
  • If you are physically abused, or your spouse is breaking things, call the police. Every time. Royalty does not tolerate disrespect.

How to Assertively Respond to a Passive Goat

Ask questions. Wait for their answer. Get comfortable with uncomfortable silence. Don’t break it, wait for them. Empower them with the question, “What are you going to do?” In extreme cases, you may have to say, “I really value your opinion. I want to understand how you feel about this. I need you to take responsibility for expressing how you feel. Will you share with me?”

You’re inviting them into a place of real intimacy, of being truly valued and loved.

How to Assertively Respond to a Passive-Aggressive Chocolate-Covered Dragon (CCD)

This one can be the hardest because no one else gets it. You’ll have to be prepared to accept only you and Jesus knowing you’re not crazy. Often, writing things down during a conversation with a CCD can help tremendously, because then they can’t twist it and cast doubt on your memory.

The big thing to communicate to a CCD is, “I really want to hear your heart. So let’s table this until you’re ready to tell me what’s really going on.”

How about you?

The reason understanding is the #1 goal in communication is because our ultimate goal is creating a healthy connection with the other person. This does not mean we never disagree or become the goat! On the contrary, it means we disagree whenever we need to. But we do it respectfully, whether the other person does or not.

Guarding our connection means confrontation, not appeasement. I talked about confrontation skills in this post based on a Danny Silk video. The link to that video is in the post (again, not an affiliate link).

Does this resonate with you? Tell us in the comments how you or someone else communicated assertively and it made all the difference. And please share if you think this would bless someone else.