Tongue Fu!

by Sam Horn

  What I want to say is, instead of accepting abuse, consider the pro’s, con’s and risks of speaking up. The 20 questions in the “Shall I Look Away, Walk Away, or Fire Away” quiz on page 144-145 of the Take The Bully by the Horns book can help you decide whether it’s rash or wise to take action.

  Until then, continue to act in integrity. Use the word “You” instead of “I” to keep the attention where it belongs – on the bully’s inappropriate behavior – instead of how you feel about what is happening. And remember the secretary and the young grad’s example of setting and enforcing boundaries so they were treated with the respect they deserve.

  Action Plan - Breaking Free From Bullies

  Your older brother used to taunt you when you were kids and has carried this bad habit into adulthood. He frequently belittles you in front of other people. You’ve never stood up to him before because you were intimidated and didn’t want to resort to his tactics, but you’ve had enough. What do you do?

  Words To Lose

  The next time he disparages you, you let him have it with both barrels.

  “I’m sick and tired of your picking on me all the time.”

  You use I to preface your statements and come across as weak and whiny.

  “Since the time I was five years old, I’ve had to listen to you say these terrible things about me.”

  Your brother laughs at you as you tell him what you don’t want and how his behavior makes you feel.

  “I hate it when you don’t take me seriously. I want you to realize how much it hurts me.”

  Words To Use

  You choose your battles before you confront him so you have evaluated the consequences.

  “This is not trivial, it is persistent, and it is intentional.”

  You use you to preface your statements to make him own his unacceptable behavior.

  “If keeping our relationship is important to you, treat me with respect, starting today.”

  You explain that his behavior will no longer be tolerated. You emphasize what you want and expect from now on.

  “You will keep your negative comments to yourself, or you are not welcome in this home. I wouldn’t let a stranger speak to me like this so it’s about time I stop taking it from family.”

  PART VI

  How Can I Continue To Be A Quality Person – Even When Other People Aren’t?

  “I take care of me. I’m the only one I’ve got.” – Groucho Marx

  This book has provided dozens of ways to think on your feet and respond instead of react so people are motivated to treat you with respect.

  You’ve learned how to turn conflicts into cooperation, speak up more confidently, ask for what you want and deal with challenging people – without becoming one yourself.

  You’ve even discovered how to deal with bullies whose only goal is to intimidate and manipulate.

  Now, the question is, how can you keep your peace of mind in the middle of all this?

  How can you take care of yourself so you don’t become discouraged and depressed?

  How can you not let difficult people get you down and keep you down?

  This section offers best practices on how to maintain a positive perspective – no matter what.

  CHAPTER 26: GIVE PEOPLE A FRESH START

  “Forgiveness is a gift you give yourself.” - Suzanne Somers, American Actress and Author

  Has someone said or done something that’s hurt you? Are you still emotionally wounded by it? Would you like to know how to let go of grudges?

  This idea came from my son Andrew, who, when he was 5, got into serious trouble on a rare rainy day in Maui by turning our hall wall into a mural with some crayons.

  When he emerged from his time-out, he came over to me and circled his toe on the carpet in front of him a few times. I could tell he wanted to make sure he was forgiven and that he was still loved by his mom. He finally looked up and asked sweetly, “Mom, can we have a ... fresh start?”

  Those simple, transformative words, “Fresh start?” have become a tradition in our home—and maybe they can in yours.

  When you live and work with people, things go wrong. People lose their temper, say things they wish they hadn’t, get irritated, and have bad days.

  Unless you have a verbal tool to close the books on those conflicts and put them behind you, you end up hauling that harmful history around. You end up dwelling on things that happened weeks, months, or years ago.

  As author David Viscott succinctly observes, “Hurt ages into anger.” These grievances accumulate, replace the affection or respect you would otherwise have for this person, and cause untold grief.

  Close The Book On Conflicts

  “How does one know if she has forgiven? You tend to feel sorrow over the circumstances instead of rage.” - Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Psychoanalyst, Author, Poet

  For your health and the health of your loved ones, get rid of those grievances before they bury you in sorrow. Wipe the slate clean and give people a fresh start.

  I once heard a medical statistic that six minutes of pure rage takes your heart six months to recover from. I resolved then to make sure I never hold on to anger, not just for the sake of my relationships with others, but for my own mental and physical well-being.

  A few weeks after Andrew’s artistic adventure, I needed to leave early in the morning to fly from Maui to Honolulu. I called to let the boys know it was time to go, and received no response. I went outside to collect them and found them playing in the yard with the neighbor’s pet. They couldn’t go to school covered with dog hair and grass stains, so I hustled them inside to change, all the while anxiously checking my watch.

  As I was backing the van out of the driveway, Tom yelped, “I forgot my backpack!” By the time he rushed into the house and retrieved it, we were seriously late. I drove like a madwoman because I couldn’t afford to miss my plane. I wheeled into the school driveway, braked, and threw open the van door. The boys piled out, we said hurried good-byes and I peeled out. I made my flight with only seconds to spare.

  On the way home that night, our small prop plane flew into a violent thunderstorm. We were bounced all over the sky. Up, down, all around. I didn’t know if we were going to survive. All I could think of was that my sons’ final memory of me might be of the tense, uptight individual I had been that morning.

  As often happens in such situations, I experienced an epiphany (“a sudden . . . perception of the essential nature or meaning of something”) and made a pact.

  I vowed if we got back on the ground alive, I would never again part so hurriedly with my sons. I would never take for granted a guaranteed next time. I would make each leave-taking one of love rather than mindless haste. Obviously, we landed safe and sound, and that brush with mortality has shaped our good-byes ever since.

  Is there someone you were once close to with whom you’ve parted on less-than-loving terms? Have you vowed not to apologize because it was “his” fault? Has foolish pride kept you from reapproaching that person? Have you tentatively picked up the phone to call her, and then set it back down because you can’t bring yourself to forgive her for her cruel words or deeds?

  Patch Things Up Now … Not Later

  “Keep your friendships in repair.” – Samuel Butler

  Be honest. Somewhere in your heart, do you assume that someday you’ll make up? What if you’re robbed of that opportunity? What if something happens to you or the other person in the interim and you never have a chance to patch things up?

  Part of the Tongue Fu!® philosophy is to value your relationships and to take steps to repair those that are broken now, not someday. Don’t wait or count on some future reunion that may never happen.

  Henry David Thoreau’s last words were “I leave this world without a regret.”

  Could you say the same? If some misunderstanding has resulted in a standoff, transcend your need to be right and let bygones be bygones.

  Be What You Want The World To Be

 
“If you see a problem, it’s yours. If you think somebody should do something about it, remember, you’re as much a somebody as anybody.” — Center For Zen Buddhism

  Are you thinking to yourself, “But they’re the ones who started it”? Ask yourself if you’d rather save face or save your friendship. Swallow your pride and be the one to extend the olive branch. Temper is what gets most people in trouble; pride is what keeps them there.

  “The final forming of a person’s character,” Anne Frank believed, “lies in their own hands.” Choose to form yourself into a spiritual rather than spiteful person. Say, “Let’s not even go into what happened and why. I just want us to be [sisters, brothers, buddies] again. Can we have a fresh start?”

  A participant in one of my sessions told me how this idea helped her reunite with her two sisters after ten years of not talking to each other.

  It’s a familiar story. “Our parents left no will. My two older sisters quarreled over who was supposed to be executor and who got what. I didn’t want to get drawn into it, but they announced they were going to sell Mom and Dad’s home. I couldn’t let them do that because our folks had lived in that house for forty years. We each ended up hiring a lawyer to protect our interests. It took two bitter years to resolve the distribution of the estate. By the end, we were communicating only through our attorneys.

  “Your story about wondering on that scary airplane ride if you were going to see your kids again made me realize what a risk we were running if something similar happened to one of us and this standoff was still unresolved.

  I realized how petty we’d been to let this drag on for so long. I called both sisters the night of our class and said 'Don’t hang up’ as soon as I identified myself. I said, ’Can we please put the past in the past and be a family again?’ Thanks to that story, we are reestablishing those bonds we abandoned and almost ruined so many years ago.”

  Maintain No-Regret Relationships

  “At the end of your life, you will never regret not having passed one more test, not winning one more verdict or not closing one more deal. You will regret time not spent with a husband, a friend, a child, or a parent.” - Barbara Bush, Former First Lady of the United States

  Have you recently had words with a relative or close friend? Or perhaps you’ve been so busy lately you haven’t had time to get together for that long-anticipated lunch or evening out. Don’t wait.

  My father died while I was writing this chapter for the original version of this book.

  A couple of weeks before, our family had reunited in California. For the first time in years, all of my dad’s children and grandchildren gathered together to celebrate Christmas.

  I have such a clear image of him sitting on the floor surrounded by his offspring, happily playing Santa and passing out presents. Those few days together were the real gift. We explored Morro Bay by canoe, went horseback riding to the sand dunes, and took our traditional walk/talk on the bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean. My dad reveled in this opportunity to be a proud patriarch encircled by loved ones in his own home.

  When we got back to Hawaii, I promised myself I’d write a note telling Dad what a special time we had. I wanted to make sure he knew how much we appreciated everything he did to make those few days so enjoyable and meaningful. I thought about doing this several times, but there were always other things to do. That thank-you note never got written.

  Then I received the phone call about Dad’s death. To honor him, I took a long, solitary walk along Keawekapu Beach. I thought back to my earliest memories of him and mentally progressed through his life, sending up mental thanks for all he had done for me and meant to me. And I sent that letter to him in my mind.

  Who in your life deserves a thank you? What relationship needs repairing? “Peacemaking ultimately begins at a grassroots level,” suggests M. Scott Peck. “It begins with you.” Quit procrastinating. Take five minutes now to pick up the phone and reconnect with a friend, or sit down and write that long-overdue appreciation card. You won’t regret doing it; you’ll only regret not doing it.

  Action Plan – Give People A Fresh Start

  Your best friend is moving into a new apartment and asks to use your brand-new van. You agree to let her use it for the weekend to transfer her belongings. She forgets to lock the van, and it is stolen. She has insurance and is apologetic, but it’s going to take several weeks of filing claims and police reports before the vehicle can be replaced. How do you handle this?

  Words To Lose

  You unleash your anger and let her know exactly how you feel.

  “I can’t believe you were so careless. How could you have been so stupid to leave the van unlocked’?"

  You focus on this “unforgivable” mistake and the trouble it’s going to cause you.

  “You‘d better call your insurance company, because you’re paying for this. My rates aren’t going up over your recklessness.”

  You refuse to accept her apology.

  “Apologizing doesn’t do me much good tomorrow morning when I need to drive to work, does it? I wish I’d never let you borrow that van."

  Words To Use

  You catch your angry words before they fly so you don’t say something you’ll regret.

  “How did this happen?"

  You realize she’s mortified by what happened and that she’d undo it if she could.

  “What can we do to rectify this? I'm concerned about the paperwork to fill out, and a rate increase."

  You understand that, as inconvenient as this is going to be, it was an honest mistake.

  “Let’s get this taken care of, we can put it behind us. Our friendship is more important to me than a car.”

  CHAPTER 27: TAKE CHARGE OF YOUR EMOTIONS

  “How many therapists does it take to change a light bulb? One, but the light bulb’s really got to want to change.” - Internet joke

  You may be thinking, “I want to change, I want to have better control over my emotions, but how can I get someone out of my mind who’s done something really terrible to me?”

  When discussing how to take charge of our emotions in my Tongue Fu! presentations, I always put up Eleanor Roosevelt’s quote, “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”

  I then modify her insight to say, “No one can make us feel angry without our consent.”

  In one of the first workshops I ever gave on this topic, a gruff construction boss violently objected to this. He said, “I don’t agree with this at all. You have no idea of the kind of people I work with. Do you mean if someone is yelling in my face, that’s not supposed to make me mad?”

  Who Makes You Mad?

  “Control your emotions, or they will control you.” - Chinese Adage

  A woman in the same session stood up and contributed her opinion: “I agree with Roosevelt’s quote because I’ve lived through it. I’m a surgical nurse. I work with a neurosurgeon who is the most abrasive man I’ve ever met. He’s a brilliant physician, but he has zip people skills.

  “Last year I was assisting him in surgery. He asked for a scalpel and I was a fraction of a second late handing it to him. He berated me in front of the rest of the medical staff. He ridiculed me in front of my peers. I was so humiliated, it was all I could do to maintain my professionalism and not walk out of the operating room.

  “I kept reliving what he had said to me on my drive home. By the time I arrived home, I was livid. I started fixing dinner and was slamming the refrigerator door and chopping vegetables with a vengeance. I sat down at the dinner table and started telling my husband, Larry, what had happened. Retelling what happened got me even more riled up, and I finally erupted with ‘That doctor makes me sooo mad!’

  “My husband had heard this before. He asked me ‘Judy, what time is it?’ I looked at him, not sure what he was getting at, and said, ‘It’s seven o’clock.’

  He asked, ‘What time did this happen?’ ‘Nine o’clock this morning,’ I told him, still puzzled.

 
“My husband said, ‘Judy, is it the doctor who’s making you mad?’ then, he got up from the table and walked out of the room.

  “I sat there and thought about it and realized it wasn’t the doctor who was making me mad. The doctor wasn’t even in the room! I was the one who had given that man a ride home in my car. I was the one who had invited him into my house and set a place for him at our dinner table. I was the one sitting there getting wrapped around the axle about something that had happened ten hours before.

  “I decided that evening to never again give that surgeon a ride home in my car. He was not welcome in my head or in my home. From that day forward, I was going to leave the doctor at the hospital. I was not going to allow him to poison my personal life.”

  Who Is The Enemy?

  “To affect the quality of the day; that is the art of life.” – Henry David Thoreau

  Who do you bring home with you? Who do you set a place for at your dinner table? Who do you give a ride to in your car? A hypercritical boss who notices only what you do wrong and never recognizes all you do that’s right? An uncooperative coworker with a sour attitude? A demanding client who orders you around? Are you letting that person affect and control the quality of your day?

  According to Sally Kempton, “It is hard to fight an enemy who has outposts in your head.” Vow not to let difficult people take up residence in your head and your home, where they have the power to ruin your peace of mind. From now on, take responsibility for your moods instead of turning your tranquility over to a would-be tormentor.