{"id":79537,"date":"2014-09-20T14:00:13","date_gmt":"2014-09-20T18:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/?p=79537"},"modified":"2014-09-19T16:54:56","modified_gmt":"2014-09-19T20:54:56","slug":"leadership-in-tense-relationship-moments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/relationships-2\/leadership-in-tense-relationship-moments\/","title":{"rendered":"Leadership in Tense Relationship Moments"},"content":{"rendered":"

Editor’s Note:<\/strong> We’ve been occasionally featuring relationship coach Blair Glaser’s posts<\/a> about using leadership\/business skills in relationships. Here is another of Blair’s follow-up articles illustrating how that can work. — Amanda<\/em><\/p>\n

Katherine got into the car, and immediately felt Steve\u2019s lousy mood suck all the air out of it.<\/p>\n

\"Relationship
Relationship and organizational coach Blair Glaser.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cOh no,\u201d she thought.<\/p>\n

She knew Steve wasn\u2019t thrilled about going to visit her brother\u2019s family. It was a chilly winter Sunday. He wanted to lounge about, watch the games, and stay put. But she expressed it was important to her and he had agreed to go.<\/p>\n

Does he always have to punish me with his mood?<\/em> she wondered, agitatedly.<\/p>\n

She was about to get snarky in reaction to his silent hostility, but then she remembered a question she\u2019d adopted in the training we were doing:<\/p>\n

Do we dance the same dance, or can I try a new step?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

After all, this was their dance: Steve gets in a mood, Katherine reacts and they go spiraling down, down into a dark place that somehow lands them in a fight about what happened three Christmases ago.<\/p>\n

By asking the question internally, Katherine was\u00a0bringing a form of leadership to her relationship<\/a><\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Katherine wanted to have a decent\u00a0day with Steve and her family. How was Katherine going to change the steps?<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

She contemplated\u00a0what role she wanted <\/a>to play. Usually, she\u00a0felt victimized by Steve\u2019s moods, and this\u00a0would cause her to slip into\u00a0\u201cThe Bitch.\u201d<\/p>\n

Who do I want to be instead?<\/strong>\u00a0<\/em>she mused. \u00a0The answer: I want to be powerful, content woman, in this relationship and with my family today.<\/p>\n

In that moment, Katherine thought about powerful, seemingly content women she knew. The first woman that came up, which surprised her, was Oprah. She went with it. And\u00a0she realized, Oprah would not spend any time in the car with a sulking man if she didn\u2019t have to. And she certainly wouldn\u2019t babysit him.<\/p>\n

This thought \u2014 given the fact that Oprah seemed in many ways the opposite of who she felt to be \u2014 kind of tickled her. It leavened her mood, and put a twinkle in her eye. By trying on\u00a0this new role, she felt emboldened to take action.<\/p>\n

\u201cPull over,\u201d she to Steve, in a calm, authoritative voice.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy?\u201d he balked.<\/p>\n

\u201cPull over.\u201d She said again, remaining calm, the corners of her mouth slightly edging their way towards her cheekbones.<\/p>\n

Steve pulls over, reluctantly. And then he turns to look at Katherine\u00a0with a What the fuck???<\/em> expression.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no air in this car Steve. I can\u2019t breathe. I don\u2019t feel like suffocating all the way to my brothers . . . What do you think we should do?\u201d<\/p>\n

Steve squirms, but doesn\u2019t say anything.<\/p>\n

She waits.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know!\u201d<\/p>\n

Katherine wants to react explosively; but remembers Oprah. She can\u2019t find a thing to say. More silence.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m sorry,\u201d Steve\u00a0said, like he wasn\u2019t at all.<\/p>\n

\u201cOh that\u2019s convincing. Listen, I can drive myself to my brother\u2019s, you know. But there is no way I\u2019m going to sit in the car for the next hour in this tension. It\u2019s your call.\u201d<\/p>\n

There is a long pause. Steve weighs the options. The couch is calling him . . . but then. . . it would be cold without her around. There might\u00a0be a price to pay, he would be going against his word\u00a0. . . he steadies himself, looks her in the eye.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo. I want to go with you. I\u2019m totally being an asshole. It\u2019s been such a stressful week. I\u2019m sorry, babe.\u201d This time, like he meant it.<\/p>\n

She softens.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnything I can do?\u201d she asks, gently.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo . . . Yes! \u00a0You can find that app with our all our favorite podcasts and pick something to listen to on the ride.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOkay.\u201d Katherine smiles to herself, retrieves her phone from her bag and breathes a sigh of relief. Crisis averted. What a shift. She had taken a risk and come out\u00a0strong in her leadership. She liked her new \u201cOprah\u201d side.<\/p>\n

You can\u2019t always choose how life is going to go, but if you pay attention\u00a0to the roles that simply take over<\/a> and lead you nowhere, you can begin, as Katherine modeled, to select what roles you want to play. And that enables\u00a0you to steer the relationSHIP to safety in rough waters. (It can also help you steer in non-tense\u00a0moments, but that\u2019s another post).<\/p>\n

Do you want to learn about the roles you play and how to negotiate them within yourself and within your relationships? There are a few spots left for the Lovers and Leaders Course for singles and couples<\/a>, starting Sept. 16, that will\u00a0show you how to lead yourself into love in your relationships. Don\u2019t miss out!<\/em><\/p>\n

You can find out more information about Blair Glaser and her work at her website, www.blairglaser.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Editor’s Note: We’ve been occasionally featuring relationship coach Blair Glaser’s posts about using leadership\/business skills in relationships. Here is another of Blair’s follow-up articles illustrating how that can work. — Amanda Katherine got into the car, and immediately felt Steve\u2019s lousy mood suck all the air out of it. \u201cOh no,\u201d she thought. She knew … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7221,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"generate_page_header":""},"categories":[1769],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79537"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7221"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=79537"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79537\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79537"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79537"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79537"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}