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They constantly make mistakes – as if they are collecting their reservations, over and over again stepping on the sore “corns” of their interlocutors. What makes them be tactless, involuntarily offend even the dearest people?
“When, in a conversation with my uncle, I said:“ Isn’t it time for you to open your eyes to what is happening in our family? ”, I knew very well that he was losing his sight!” 46-year-old Marina laments. Having made another faux pas, she is ready to fall through the ground. 34-year-old Natalya feels the same way: “I still don’t understand how I could ask my slightly plump friend:“ And what month are you on? ”After all, she told me that she was infertile!” Why do they utter these hurtful words, and then (sometimes for years) suffer from embarrassment and shame?
Doomed to make mistakes
The tendency to make mistakes is often associated with a deep rejection of oneself. “It arises in early childhood, when parents, overly criticizing or, conversely, touched by funny mistakes, form in the child the idea of u19buXNUMXbhimself as a“ malicious ”or“ naive ”coot,” says clinical psychologist Tatyana Shevelenkova. – And children grow up with the feeling that tactlessness is a special property of their nature. In fact, they only implement the parent program of behavior. For some, the fear of failing becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. “I know that I’m too often tactless,” says XNUMX-year-old Ivan, “and I’m so afraid to freeze another stupidity that offensive words fly out of me by themselves.”
Freudian slips
Our gaffes are also a kind of strategy used by the unconscious to express our hidden desires, unconscious impulses and feelings, usually restrained by the “Super-I”, Sigmund Freud argued in his famous work “The Psychopathology of Everyday Life” (ABC Classics, 2006). “The reason for constant tactlessness can also be the ambivalence of our experiences: love and hatred, friendship and competition, admiration and envy,” says Tatyana Shevelenkova. “So, a man, experiencing an unconscious attraction to a woman who has a weakness for overly revealing outfits, can make an obscene remark about women’s decolletes, embarrassing her with this.”
“I’m learning to connect emotions with words”
Maria, 35, brand manager
“I have always done everything wrong. At her grandfather’s funeral, she blurted out that I was “dying of fatigue,” and, catching her father’s reproachful look on herself, she muttered that now I would “die of shame.” Noticing some unusual feature in my interlocutor, I tell myself: “Be careful, be quiet!”, but it turns out exactly the opposite. I noticed that at work some projects were no longer trusted to me: colleagues are afraid that I will ruin everything with my tactlessness. I suffered so much from my awkwardness that I had to go to a psychotherapist for support. He helped me realize that I started to make mistakes during the period when my parents were getting divorced. Torn between them, I weighed my every word, but it was too hard; Since then, I have been left with a constant feeling of discomfort and powerlessness. Now I go to acting classes – I learn to combine emotions with words. And I try to fix my mistakes with the help of humor.
Excessive voltage
“Permanent missteps are often made by those whose emotions and intellect are at odds,” continues Tatiana Shevelenkova. “They speak faux pas at the moment when they are panicked or under great internal tension, and, of course, they do it without any malicious intent.” Fearing to make a mistake, they try so hard to restrain themselves and strain so much that offensive words seem to be born on their lips themselves – against their will.
What to do?
- Imagine the situation in advance Are you afraid that you will make some kind of mistake again? Do not try to forget about this “at least for a while”, on the contrary, imagine a positive scenario, scroll through the episodes of this “movie” several times in your mind. This will help you calm down and get in the right mood.
- Admit your mistake It’s too late, you already made a mistake… Don’t act like nothing happened! Show your interlocutor that you are aware of your faux pas and are worried that you offended him. Admit to him that you made a mistake precisely because you were very afraid to say something wrong. Perhaps your sincerity will help him cope with resentment.
- Learn to control yourself Learn to match the mind, feelings and words. Acting classes or psychodrama classes will help you with this. It is also helpful to keep a diary or write letters to yourself. In this way, you can become more aware of your feelings and the needs behind them, and therefore, more skillfully manage yourself. Yoga or breathing exercises (such as tai chi) can help relieve internal tension.
Advice to an outsider
You can no longer tolerate his constant faux pas and want only one thing: turn around and leave. Do not sarcastically ridicule the interlocutor, emphasizing his clumsiness. So you only exacerbate the tension and provoke a series of new misses. Let the person explain himself, and then tell him why his words hurt you, and accept his apology. And then try to defuse the tension by looking at the situation together with humor.