Chapter 10 Chapter 6 Preparing Your Self-Knowledge: Ask Yourself What Is Threatened

From an outside perspective, Ben doesn't seem to have much to worry about; after all, he's got a head start on the matter.Still, Ben couldn't sleep at night. To that end, he explained that my father had spent his entire life in a company, and I admired his loyalty to the company.I also really want to be like him and be loyal to only one company in my life. For me, this is largely because I want to be loyal to everyone around me-my parents, wife, children and my colleagues.To submit my resignation to my boss, the first thing I need to face is the issue of loyalty.All along, as my career 'mentor', my boss has given me great support for my work.Because of all this, I wondered: Am I really as loyal a soldier as I think I am?Or just a greedy bastard who would sell anyone out for a good price? "

Why do some conversations become so difficult?Ben's dilemma seems to reveal the mystery for us.What causes us to be so anxious is not because we have to deal with other people, but because we have to deal with ourselves.The conversation that is about to take place is likely to upend our previous understanding of who we are, or illuminate our expectations of who we are, but it also makes us worry: what if we fail to live up to our expectations?Conversation is like talking, and the object of the threat is our self-knowledge - the stories we hear about ourselves from ourselves - and self-knowledge is threatened, which is a very annoying thing.

It is no exaggeration to say that there are as many self-perceptions as there are people on this earth.However, three cognitions seem to be the most common and relate to the vast majority of difficult conversations: Am I competent?Am I a nice person?Am I worthy of love from others? "I've been struggling with whether I should ask my boss for a promotion. Finally, at the instigation of my colleagues, I said so. Before I even started to make my case, my boss said, 'You would Asked for a promotion, which really surprised me. In fact, I am very disappointed in your performance this year.' Such a result makes me feel very disappointed. Maybe, I am not the smart and capable pharmacist I imagined .”

"That night, I was going to break up with Sandra. At first, I expressed my thoughts very softly, but even so, when she understood, she immediately started crying. It hurts to see her so sad. For me, the most difficult thing is to hurt the people I care about. Whether it is mentally or emotionally, everything in front of me has changed my previous understanding of myself. I just can't bear to hurt others And all the pain it caused. So, after a while, I gave up my original plan. I told her that I love her very much, and all the problems between us can be resolved." "I had a conversation with my brother about the way he treated his wife. My sister-in-law was very annoyed by the way he always acted aggressive when talking to her. I was so nervous during the conversation that I couldn't even speak I couldn't say it well. As a result, he yelled at me immediately after hearing what I said, 'Who do you think you are, how dare you come and teach me what to do? Until now, you haven't talked about a real In love!' Hearing this, I felt suffocated and couldn't say a word. At that time, I only had one thought, and that was to get out of here immediately."

Suddenly, in the middle of a conversation, our previous knowledge of ourselves is called into question. In our inner world, the self-awareness dialogue has never stopped-"Maybe I am too ordinary." "How could I be the one who hurt others?" or "Brother is right. No woman has ever fallen in love with me." Every time we talk, our inner world seems to encounter a big earthquake, and the ground under our feet instantly crumbles, and it is these conversations that seem to be related to us that trigger the earthquake. The earthquake made you lose your balance; in the face of the imbalance, your body will inevitably make a series of chain reactions. However, what you never imagined is that these instinctive reactions of yours will make the already difficult conversation completely collapse.Self-image and future are like two Optimus Primes in your inner world. Shaking them will deal a fatal blow to your inner cognition, which will inevitably make you angry, anxious, or Driven by the mentality of fleeing, he panicked and did not choose his way.The peace of mind is shattered and replaced by chaos; hope fades and despair takes hold; your power dries up and fear grows.At the same time as your inner world is changing dramatically, you are trying to complete an extremely difficult task-communicating clearly and effectively with each other-from beginning to end, without giving up.Your boss tells you why you didn't get a promotion; you don't have time to pay attention because you're dealing with an inner earthquake that's threatening your sense of self.

Your self-knowledge is helpless in the face of an inner earthquake, because you have not equipped it with any shockproof equipment.Once the cognition is shaken, our life and growth experience will inevitably be fatally implicated.In the face of this challenge, any love, achievement, and skill can only be admired.Therefore, when you tell your husband that you don’t want to have a second child, you can only silently watch him cry; when you talk to your coach about the problem of different treatment of students in the training team, you can only silently accept the coach’s lesson: "Mature!" At these times, you face a serious test of who you are and who you are—in these relationships, and in the world.

Not all cognitive challenges will tear your inner world apart, but some are powerful.After a difficult conversation, you may be forced to give up the most precious part of your self-knowledge, and this loss will make you feel a real pain, just like losing a loved one.In this regard, you may comfort yourself: everything will get better soon; or cheer yourself up: after this battle, your mentality will never be out of balance again; as long as you master some key skills, no matter how difficult the challenges you face , you can beat them too!However, contrary to expectations, this approach is nothing more than self-deception and a waste of effort.

However, there are no absolutes in the world, and there is always good news.When self-awareness encounters an attack, you can save the day by improving your cognitive ability.You should make a clear and honest assessment of yourself. During the conversation, this knowledge will help you reduce your anxiety level and lay a solid foundation for your later "Jedi Comeback". To improve our ability to manage self-awareness conversations, we first need to understand our own vulnerabilities—why, or rather, how our minds are out of balance.A major contributor to self-perceived vulnerability is extreme thinking: I am either very competent or not at all; I am either good or bad;

The main danger of extreme thinking is that it keeps our cognition in an extremely unstable state, and we are extremely sensitive to any feedback. In the face of negative information about ourselves, extreme thinking The method will only provide us with two ways to process information: either completely deny the information that is contrary to self-knowledge, or accept it as a whole, and put them in a supreme position and worship them as gods.Anyone can see that using either of these two methods is tantamount to asking for trouble.Extreme cognition is like a stool with two legs, which seems extremely stable, but if it only has one leg, it will collapse in an instant.

In extreme cognitive concepts, positive cognition and negative cognition are like a pair of enemies, and they cannot coexist at all.If I think I'm too capable to make mistakes, then as soon as I get feedback that I make mistakes, problems will follow.The only way to preserve my self-knowledge was to negate the feedback—to mine all the information and evidence to show why it was wrong, why it didn't matter, why my behavior wasn't wrong. Take the pharmacist who asked for a promotion.Her boss responded that I was amazed that you would ask for a raise.And the truth is, I'm disappointed with your performance this year. In this regard, the pharmacist must immediately determine what this means for her self-perception, and decide how to digest and absorb this information. If she chooses to deny, her response may be: "The boss is really good at doing business. OK, but he doesn't know chemistry.He didn't know how important my work was.I really hope to find a Bole boss who appreciates a good employee like me. "In a difficult conversation, it is unrealistic to try to eliminate negative or negative information. It is like wanting to swim without getting wet. When we are planning to have a difficult conversation, or face a challenge in life , we have to be ready for information about us that makes us uncomfortable. It takes a lot of energy to deny this information, but sooner or later, we who are struggling with negative information will find that we Our stories are already in jeopardy. In the face of all this, we hope our stories are true, but at the same time we are terrified that those messages are true. As the gap between hope and worry deepens, our inner The balance began to fall.

In the face of unfavorable information, if you feel that denying them is too tiring and ineffective, you might as well consider its opposite—looking at the information with a magnifying glass.In extreme cognitive thinking, accepting negative information means that you not only need to constantly adjust your self-image, but also need to skillfully transcend it.I have to choose between super ability and total incompetence. Maybe I'm not as creative and special as I think I am.Chances are, I won't get anywhere.I'm even very likely to be fired. " When we choose to amplify information, we treat other people's feedback as the only information we have about ourselves.We keep things simple and let the opinions of others shape our perception of ourselves.For the first 100 times, you may have completed the memo on time, but on the 101st time, you failed to complete it in time. In the face of criticism from others, you will say to yourself "I always mess things up", so this One piece of information dominates your self-perception. This example may seem absurd, but sometimes, even when we are faced with some trivial life, or we are not hurt, we still think so.When a waitress puts on a weird look while collecting a tip, you wonder, have you been being too stingy?You think you're so selfish when you don't help your friends paint their houses.When your brother says you don't visit his kids often, you feel like an aunt who doesn't care about her nephew.It's not hard to see that choosing to accept and amplify negative information about yourself will only further weaken your psychological resistance. There are two steps you can take to improve your ability to manage self-awareness conversations.First, you need to be familiar with the cognitive issues that are important to you so that you can quickly spot them in the conversation.Second, you need to learn to absorb new information in a healthy way and integrate them into your self-knowledge-in this step, you must give up the previous extreme way of thinking. Many times, during difficult conversations, we don't even realize that the conversation has touched on our cognitive problems.We can clearly feel various emotions—anxiety, fear, or testing others; we can also perceive that our communication skills need to be improved. However, what surprises us is that our originally articulate self suddenly becomes stuttering; When we should have changed the topic in time, we suddenly lost control. Not only did we always interrupt each other, but we also argued and were aggressive; we knew we should keep calm, but we just couldn't restrain the raging anger in our hearts.Faced with all this, we all wonder to ourselves, why is this happening?The connection between topic and self-perception is often subtle and subtle.So we tend to think that my brother and I were talking about how he should treat his wife.What does this have to do with me? " The same event that to you may shake up your self-knowledge completely may be trivial to someone else.Each of us has different sensitivities, and the objects of our sensitivities are also different.In order to become more familiar with self-awareness, you might as well observe carefully whether there is some way or something that makes you cognitively unbalanced in difficult conversations, and then ask yourself why this is.What behaviors make you feel cognitively threatened?What does this mean to you?How would you feel if your fears became reality? This does require a certain "study" spirit.Take Jimmy for example.In the process of growing up, Jimmy gradually formed a cold personality.With the help of this personality, Jimmy can always get out of the many emotional bombs in family life.Any problem that makes everyone else "frightened" is just a piece of cake in Jimmy's view.In the face of problems, he can always maintain rational thinking. However, as the years went by, Jimmy changed.He began to notice the importance of acknowledging and sharing emotions, and realized that knowing how friends and colleagues felt and sharing them would enrich his life.He really wanted to tell his family about this change, but he dared not say so.For a long time, he and them have formed a fixed way of getting along with each other. Although this way is not perfect, it allows everyone to get along harmoniously.Although his indifference to everything would cause losses to both parties, both parties had already accepted and got used to his indifference. So he told a friend about these concerns, and as a result, the friend asked him several questions that he found difficult to answer. What are you really afraid of?What are its downsides? "Jimmy's first reaction to this was that he worried that he would no longer be able to fulfill his obligations in the family. We need a reasonable person in our family. Otherwise, everything will be in chaos. This is how our family gets along, at least , which allows everything to work properly." Jimmy was right, but instead of stopping, he decided to go a step further and continue to think deeply about the questions raised by his friends.In the end, he discovered what was really scaring him, and in a way he'd been aware of it from the start: "What if they reject me? What if they laugh it off? What if they think, 'He What's going on?' What should I do?" Jimmy knew that if his parents responded badly to this, his self-perception would be severely tested, and he wasn't sure he wanted to. Take the risk. Jimmy's self-awareness deepens, but the story doesn't end there.He was determined to express strong emotions in front of his family.Initially, things didn't go very well.Sometimes, his behavior embarrasses himself and his family members, and some of his family members are also puzzled by his "weird" performance.Jimmy persevered, though, and eventually replaced his old pattern with his family with a more genuine relationship. Once you know which part of your self-perception is more important, or which part is more vulnerable, you can begin to modify your self-image.This time, you no longer need to choose between "I'm perfect" and "I'm worthless", all you need to do is to draw a self-portrait, of course, the more detailed the portrait, the more realistic it will be.For everyone, the real self is a complex mixture: good behavior and bad behavior, high and low, sometimes wise, sometimes stupid. Even if it is aimed at a heinous bad person, or a saint with a heart like a bodhisattva, extreme cognitive views cannot help us know him/her accurately and truly. "I'm always there for my kids." "Whenever I go on a date, my judgment goes down." "I've always been a good listener." Nobody stays in one state consistently.Each of us is a composite of various qualities and personalities - both positive and negative. We are constantly responding to the complexities that life presents, and no one can guarantee that we will be able to. As envisaged, "always" appear competent and competent, or "always" compassionate and passionate. Ben's fear of finding another job and not being able to tell his current boss about it is exemplified.Is Ben a loyal minister or a traitor?In fact, there are inextricable connections and interactions between Ben and all kinds of people in his life. It is undoubtedly too simple to summarize his life with these two conclusions, and it does not grasp the complex characteristics of these interactions.He made sacrifices for both his family and his boss.He worked weekends, turned down many other job offers, and worked hard to help the company attract more elites.Indeed, there are really many performances that can reflect Ben's loyalty. Now, Ben is about to leave for a better paying job.For his boss, the feeling of being abandoned is inevitable.However, this does not mean that Ben is a bad person; nor does it mean that Ben made this decision out of greed.After all, he wants his kids to go to college too; and over the years, his hard work has not been rewarded accordingly, but he has never complained. So where is Ben's bottom line?For Ben, the bottom line is that he has no bottom line.On the one hand, Ben feels good about many of his decisions and behaviors; on the other hand, he also feels conflicted and annoyed by some of his choices and behaviors.Other than that, life is just too complicated for any sane person.Indeed, in the face of such a complex life, only a healthy and energetic self can handle it well, because only such a self-image is the best place for cognition. Undoubtedly, everyone is dissatisfied with themselves, and throughout their lives many people struggle with that part of themselves that they are dissatisfied with.When we look inside ourselves, we don't always see the "self" that we like to see, and we soon find that accepting that part of me is definitely a "hard work" project.However, as our self-perceptions shift from extremes to a more complex one, we gradually find that accepting the parts of ourselves that have given us so much trouble before doesn't seem as difficult as we thought. In difficult conversations, there are three particularly important perspectives that, when accepted, allow you to accept who you are.In fact, the more readily you admit that you were wrong, the more determined you are to express your complex intentions, and the more willing you are to acknowledge your own responsibility, the better your sense of inner balance will be during a conversation, and the conversation will lead to a breakthrough The greater the chance of sexual progress. In a conversation, if you can't accept the fact that you are sometimes wrong, it will be difficult to understand and accept the reasonable parts of the other person's point of view. Let's take a look at the story that happened between Rita and Isaiah. "For me, it's a big thing that I'm trustworthy — that I'm someone that a friend wants to talk to —," Neta explained, "and that's one of the things that makes a good friend. 1. Isaiah, my colleague, confided in me his drinking secret and told me that he was trying to stop drinking. I promised him that I would never tell anyone. However, I have a A friend had the same experience as Isaiah, so I told her about Isaiah, hoping to get some advice from her to help Isaiah." "As a result, Isaiah found out about this, and he was very angry. At first, I kept explaining to him, hoping that he would understand that I was doing this to help him, and that my friend would provide him with many valuable things. experience, but my explanations were useless. In the end, I finally realized that the reason why I tried so hard to justify it was because of a simple and straightforward reason: I could not admit that I was wrong. I did not keep my word. When I After accepting the fact that I was wrong, my conversation with Isaiah immediately became more substantial." When you use extreme cognition as a yardstick, even a small mistake can look catastrophic to you, making it almost impossible for you to admit it.If you're focused on proving your "no-fault, no-flaw" view of cognition to be correct, you'll never really engage in meaningful learning conversations.And there is only one consequence of doing this, and you are likely to make the same mistake again. The reason people don't want to admit they're wrong is because they fear being branded "weak-willed" or "incompetent."However, the fact is just the opposite. People often give those "capable people" who take the responsibility for their mistakes a self-confident and reliable reputation, and call it: "No one is perfect"; People, in people's eyes, they are not reliable at all and lack confidence.As the saying goes, the eyes of the masses are discerning. Sometimes we get nervous about an upcoming conversation simply because we "know it": Some of our past actions were not always well-intentioned. That's what happened to Sally and her boyfriend, Evan.Sally wanted to break up with Evan, but she worried that Evan would accuse her of using her to get through her psychological loneliness.Before that, Sally had always said that she was with Evan purely out of feelings, and she should honestly consider the current state and future of the two of them.Although Sally never wanted to hurt Evan, and never had any behavior in this regard, Sally knew very well that there was at least a little selfishness in her motives. Sally's determination to be honest about the complexities of her motives put her in a stronger position in the conversation, and she was able to handle accusations of bad intentions.She can face the accusation from the other party in a sincere way: "When I think about this problem, I find that some of what you said is really reasonable. I do feel lonely, but under your guidance, I found that that was not the only reason why I chose to be with you. I really hope to be with you and end the loneliness. I will make such a choice, it is really the result of many reasons.” The third critical step you need to complete in order to defend your beliefs is to assess and accept your own responsibilities in this matter. This is not an easy job.Recently, Walker learned that his daughter, Anne May, had an eating disorder.The teacher at the college called Walker and told him that Anne May had been admitted to the school hospital.So, Walker called his daughter, wanted to know about her illness, and showed concern. However, the final result of the conversation did not break through the boundaries of daily greetings. The two sides said something like "How are you doing?" Okay, Dad." After saying something like that, the conversation ended hastily. What Walker wanted was a deeper, more heartfelt conversation, but at the same time he felt a little guilty.He suspected that at least some of what Anne May was dealing with had to do with their relationship.He guessed that Annie might think he wasn't a good father, and he worried that if the conversation got any better, she might bring it out to him for the first time.At the thought of this, he flinched apprehensively. Until now, Walker has not been able to figure out exactly what his daughter is thinking, and he continues to live in his own hope that he is a good father.At this moment, what he wants to hear most is that his daughter thinks the same.However, reason also told him that the truth might be more complicated.After all, he didn't spend much time with his daughter, and he didn't always support her like a good father. Although he had made promises to his daughter, he never kept them. There are two options before Walker.He can talk to his daughter carefully and pin his hopes on her: hope she will not mention his negligence in handling the relationship between father and daughter, let alone tell him that her illness is actually related to his negligence.Or, he can think carefully about his own cognitive view in advance, and then accept from the bottom of his heart the responsibility he should bear in the conflicting relationship between the two parties. This is actually very difficult.In fact, it's quite possibly the hardest thing Walker has ever done.However, if he can finally accept himself and his actions as they are, and take corresponding responsibility with sincerity, as time goes by, when he talks to Anne again, he will find that everything is easier and more important. Surprisingly, Walker found that he no longer had to hide his thoughts.When he talks to Annie, he no longer struggles with whether he is or isn't a good dad.He can say to his daughter, "I wish I had been with you more in the past. I'm sorry I didn't make it, and I'm so sad about it," and approach her openly to show her his love Feelings, no need to feel guilty, no more worries. Morihei Ueshiba, founder of Aikido, wrestles with a skilled boxer.After observing for a while, a young student asks the master that you never seem to lose your balance.What's your secret to eternal balance? " "You're wrong!" Morihei Ueshiba replied, "I keep losing my balance, and my skill is that I can keep regaining my balance." This principle of the master also applies to difficult conversations.Thinking about self-knowledge will benefit you a lot.But conversations are always full of surprises, and at the same time, they test what you know about yourself in ways you didn't expect.So the question is not whether you will be knocked down by these trials, but whether you can quickly regain your balance like a tumbler and steer the conversation in a productive direction. Before and during difficult conversations, there are four things you can do to maintain or regain balance: give up trying to control the other person's responses; prepare for their responses; imagine the future to gain critical perspective; and if You're off balance, so take a moment to pause. In conversations, especially those involving important cognitive issues, you are likely to feel caught between a rock and a hard place or ashamed, and you will naturally develop a desire to escape from the other person's bad behavior. The additional stress caused by the reaction. "No matter what happens," you think, "I don't want them to be bothered by it, and I don't want them to be bothered by me." If you don't have a good reaction, it will undoubtedly add fuel to the fire and will only make you completely broken.Therefore, preventing the other party from making any unfavorable reactions during the conversation becomes one of your main talking goals. There's nothing inherently wrong (and quite right) about not wanting to hurt someone, or wanting them to keep liking you after delivering bad news.But in conversation, if you make that idea your own goal, it will only get you in trouble.Just as you can’t control other people, you can’t control their reactions—it’s just wrong to think that. When you tell your kids that you and their mom are going through a divorce, they're likely to be upset and agonized over it.How could they not be sad and troubled?You care about them, so naturally you want to minimize the damage that the divorce will cause them.However, even so, your wish will inevitably be affected by self-protection: "I just hope that after hearing the news, they won't cry, get angry, avoid or quarrel." Think of it this way, partly because their reactions affect how you feel about yourself Maybe, I'm a worthless dad and an incompetent husband. In a way, people seem to think that once they have control over the reactions of others, they can avoid facing and accepting their own responsibility for the problem—and the resulting impact on self-perception and the pain it causes. However, trying to mask or suppress the other person's reaction will only make things worse.You want to create a feeling in the children that divorce is not all bad; you want to convince the employee that firing is also an opportunity for her to find a job that is more suitable for her. Work.Frankly speaking, these ideas of yours have some truth and can be accepted by others.However, even if these hopes of yours do become reality in the near future, at this moment, you must take into account the feelings of the other party, otherwise, the consequences will be disastrous.Maybe your intention is to let the other person know that "everything will be fine", but when the message reaches the other person, it may become "I don't understand how you feel like this", or worse, " You must not be discouraged by this." When you deliver bad news to someone—indeed, in any difficult conversation—you should give up trying to control the other person's reaction and adopt an "and" posture instead.You can talk to your children about the divorce and let them know how much you love and care about them; use your sincerity to let them understand why you believe everything will be okay; and at the same time, give them enough space to let They feel the whole thing for themselves and know there's nothing wrong with feeling that way than they do, and you value their feelings.This way, you can control what you can control (yourself), while still giving the other person enough space to be honest. The same goes for breaking bad news at work.When you fire someone, there's a good chance that the other person will act frustrated and likely take their anger out on you.Don't use the other person's frustration as a measure of the success of the conversation.They have every right to be upset, annoyed, it's their normal reaction.At this time, a better way to talk is to change the purpose of the conversation, from initially telling the bad news to taking the initiative to take your responsibility in this matter (that’s all, nothing more), expressing your feelings to the other party concern and willingness to help them out of their predicament. You will feel a sense of relief when you understand that you cannot control the reactions of others, and the dire consequences of doing so.Not only does this give the other person the space they need to react, but it also takes a lot less stress out of you.From the other person's reaction, you will get a lot of information about yourself. However, if you are really ready to "learn", you will no longer be too eager to suppress the reaction of others, and you don't need to take pains to learn. It's a dead end. Instead of trying to control the reaction of others, we should prepare for their response. Before the conversation begins, you might as well take a moment to imagine the situation of the conversation.However, the focus of the imagination should be on what information you can get from the other person's reaction, not on how bad the other person will react-when you think about this problem late at night, consider whether you should bring it up Sometimes, this is likely to become your "nightmare".will they cryOr get angry, or withdraw?Should I just pretend everything is normal?Will they fight back, or will they reject me? Afterwards, you should think about whether the impact of these reactions will affect your self-perception?If the answer is yes, you can imagine the most extreme expression for them, and then ask yourself How would I take their words? ’ That way, you can put a body armor on your self-awareness in advance: ‘If I make someone cry, am I okay with that?How would I react?如果他们就此攻击我的性格或动机，我又该如何应对?”在面对他人可能做出的种种反应时，你的准备越充分，你就会越镇定。如果在对方的反应波及到你的自我认知之前，你早已经考虑到并做好了准备，届时，你就不会因为自我认知而失去平衡了。 当世界变得阴暗，而你又被困惑、沮丧、失恋，或失业所包围时，审视自我也会随之而变得困难起来。这时候，你不妨畅想未来，想象一下那时的你，当你发觉对于未来而言，今天所发生的一切不过是过眼云烟，一切都会好起来的时候，原本灰暗的心情马上就会被未来照亮，而你的自我感觉也将慢慢恢复。 此外，畅想未来——以一种未来的眼光回顾现在——还有指点迷津的作用。如果现在的你正身陷困境，痛不欲生，那么，你不妨想象一下：30年后，当你回想现在的“惨景”时，你会作何感想呢？你能从这次经历中汲取怎样的教训呢？你认为自己的处理方式合适，或者说正确吗？如果可以的话，30年后的你能够给现在正沉浸在痛苦中的你哪些建议和意见呢？ 有时候，你可能会发现，当自己与问题的接触过于频繁，距离内心认知“麻中”太近时，强烈的震撼将会使你根本无法集中精力，继续谈话。由于所处位置的不利，你已经很难再收集信息，或表达思想。于是，你与对方的交流陷入停滞，而这样的情景对任何一方而言都是有百害而无一利的。 这时，你可以向对方要求，暂时停止交流，思考一下你刚刚听到的话语：“你的反应着实让我感到吃惊，我想我会花时间思考一下你的话。”哪怕只有十分钟，短暂的停顿也会对你有莫大的帮助你可以站起来，四处走走，呼吸一下新鲜空气，借此机会，你可以反思自己刚才是否曲解了对方的意思，与此同时，你也可以充分利用这段安静的时间，仔细权衡他们对你的观点所进行的攻击，以及在面对有关你的信息时所采取的傲慢而专横的态度。回顾他们说过的每一句话，然后思考：换一个角度，也许他们的话也是正确的呢？此外，你不妨将事实放大，如果那样，最坏的情况又会怎样呢？你现在又可以做些什么扭转这一不利局面呢？ 也许，有些人会觉得这种“中场暂停”的谈话方式会让双方都感到尴尬。可是，如果不暂停谈话，失去平衡的你很可能会需要面对更加糟糕的局面，假如此时的尴尬可以化解之后的困境，那我们又何乐而不为呢？ 当我们一心一意地为自己的自我认知对话穿上防弹衣的时候，很难会想到与此同时，对方其实也正在因为自我认知问题而纠结不已。当沃克一心只想和女儿谈话，了解她的病况时，安妮也正在全神贯注地思考她的认知。住院接受治疗本来只是因为身体有恙，可是，对安妮而言，她心中最大的恐惧却因此而得到了证实——她总是不够好，或者说，总是无法达到父亲的要求。 对此，沃克能够为女儿做的就是帮助她摒弃这种极端的思维方式。他可以让女儿知道：其实每个人都会有需要帮助的时候，并以此帮助她重新找回自我平衡。同时，他还可以通过提醒的方式，帮助安妮意识到她的闪光点以及其对自己的重要意义：他完全可以对安妮说“你会向我求助，这让我感到很自豪”。除此以外，他还可以告诉女儿，他之所以爱她，并不是因为她总是能在考试中拿“A”，而是因为她是他的女儿，而这是一个恒久不变的事实。 有时候，你认为很重要的认知问题其实与对方——或你们之间的关系——并无太大关联。新来的一名同事让你想起了你的前男友，以及你和他之间那段糟糕的性经历，可是，你却无需将这一切告之这位新同事。意识到认知问题的存在的确能够助你一臂之力，可是，开诚布公地将它说出来却不一定会让你们的谈话走得更远。从意识到认知问题的存在，到最后找到解决方法，你完全可以静静地在心里完成这一思索过程。 有时候，揭开自我认知对话的面纱却能够帮助你们直接切入谈话的核心问题：“在这件事情上，我觉得问题的核心就在于我到底是不是一位合格的丈夫。你是不是也这样认为？就是因为没有在父亲的葬礼上说点什么，一直以来，我都很懊恼。这也是为何我坚持要在母亲的葬礼上发言的原因，因为这对我真的很重要。”“对于批评我写作风格的评论，我向来都很敏感。我知道我需要反馈，可是，在完成这些备忘录的同时，我们双方都必须意识到，这是我们共同的工作。” 巧谈话涉及到自己时，人们往往会不遗余力地反复地对谈话内容进行包装，尽可能不让对方触及到自己的软肋。 有时候，生活也会给我们出难题，要想解决难题，仅仅依靠自己的力量是远远不够的。与此同时，每个人所面对的难题又都是不同的。也许，它是一件可怕的事情，如同战争；又或是一件破坏力极大的事情，比如强奸案；也许，它是一场生理或心理疾病，譬如染上毒瘾，或遭受巨大损失；也许，它只是一件小事，小到不会烦扰任何人，除了你。 我们常常会将勇士的称号授予那些默默承受伤痛的人。但是，当伤痛延续，或阻碍了我们的生活目标时，面对这样的伤痛，也许就连勇气也只能望洋兴叹。无论是什么伤痛，当你发觉自己费尽心力却仍然无法战胜时，我们的建议是：求助。求助对象可以是你的朋友，同事，家人，甚至于专业的咨询人员总而言之，你可以向任何能够帮助你的人求助。 对许多人而言，这并不是一件容易的事。在自我认知对话中，“我”会大声并清楚地告诫我们：不能求助——那只会使我们蒙羞，只有弱者才会选择求助，成为他人的负担。这种想法无疑具备很强大的震慑力，可是扪心自问：如果某个你爱的人——你的叔叔或女儿，你最要好的同事——身陷困境，你难道觉得他们不应该求助吗？为什么你一定要选择一套完全不同的标准来要求自己呢？ 如果你的部分认知告诉你，你不需要帮助，对你而言，向他人求助就会变得无比困难。而当你真的向他人寻求帮助时，并不是所有人都会向你伸出援手，于是，你便不得不面对这一痛苦的事实。可是，你也应当看到，仍然有很多人向你伸出了援手。基于信任，你向他人求助，与此同时，对方也得到了一个特别的机会，一个能为他们所关爱的人付出的机会。总有一天，你也会得到一个这样的机会，一个去回报那份关爱的机会。