Is your spouse/mate or anybody close to you a strong (sorrowful) “relationship-maintaining” relator? Are you mindful of the true motivations behind what he or she says and does? Does it create discord when you misunderstand his or her true intentions? If so, maybe this pearl can help you to better understand his or her motivations so that you can live a less stressful coexistence.
Part-3 of this mindfulness pearl series will use the “Genetic Human Personality Tool” to focus on how we misinterpret the motivations of strong relators. You might find the attached PDF “Determining Your Genetic Personality Pattern” helpful. If sorrow is your major emotion than you are a strong relator.
Something to keep in mind: When I use the term "strong" I am referring to someone who is strongest in an emotion/rational style, because they inappropriately used it too much of the time. We all have strong moderate and weak emotions/rational styles, but even if we are very strong in one style it doesn’t mean that we react that way all of the time; just too much of the time. Unfortunately, when distressed we do overuse our strongest emotion/style and its way of thinking, which this pearl series can help you to better understand.
How we THINK when using our Relator Style:
Strong relators are misunderstood much of the time because they are too good to be true. The attitudes that best describe them are: amiable, compassionate, considerate, empathetic, patient, sympathetic and tolerant. The Relator Style's Genetic Attributes are:
People-Oriented: People are more important than tasks
Symbiotic emotion: Sorrow (whose survival purpose is: to alert us to a disconnection from our connections)
Style’s purpose: to maintain our connections
Motivations: 1) Only other’s opinions matter. 2) Only other’s concerns matter. 3) Only other’s decisions matter.
Emotionally Reinforced Relator Reactions
DISCONNECTION: Whether you are strong, moderate or weak in sorrow and the relator style, you will think and react the same as anybody who perceives sorrow and reacts with their relator style. You have no choice since it is wired into your left amygdala and into your left frontal cortex. When you sense a disconnection, those sensory memories trigger your sorrow and the amygdala wipes the prefrontal cortex (PFC) clean so that the relator memories, also triggered by those sensory memories, can decipher the source of that sorrow and try to reconnect. Unfortunately, negative rationalization of why you have the right to be sorrowful prolongs that sorrow and the continued use of your relator style. To deal with it, it helps to ask the sorrowful relator what’s bothering them, although, they might not respond because they don’t want to risk an argument and a real disconnection by facing the situation—when this happens try to use your caring relator style to reconnect. You might also refer to the pearl “Dealing with Extreme Emotions, Part-III, Sorrow and Despair” for a proven way to communicate with a relator controlled by their sorrow emotion. Strong sorrow is triggered by an actual disconnection while mild sorrow can be triggered by indifference. Strong relators react to indifference more than the react to disconnection, but aren’t aware of it.
INDIFFERENCE: A strong relator’s sorrow emotion has a “hair-trigger” and can misinterpret almost anything as a possible disconnection, even indifference. They sense disconnection from an indifferent person who may simply take a deep breath, change body positions, change facial expressions, change voice inflections, etc. Triggering sorrow is beneficial to a relationship when there is an actual disconnection that needs mending, but when indifference, not disconnection, triggers erroneous sorrow it is detrimental to the relationship and can cause a disconnection
So what! Who cares? if strong relators have difficulty drawing a line between disconnection and indifference it doesn’t affect anybody except the sorrowful relator—why not just ignore him/her? True, but it affects your relationship when that strong relator feels disconnected from you, is trying to reconnect and you are ignoring him/her. Also, your relationship becomes less loving since that sorrow blocks their joyful love for you—remember, you can only have one basic emotion at a time. Sorrowful relators can be a drag to be around—no fun. This is the “relator self-fulfilling prophesy”. They desperately want to avoid a disconnection from you, but react in a matter that actually causes disconnection. Simple solution: if you have a strong relator mate, turn their sorrow to joy with a positive comment about something that you know brings him/her joy.
"YOU'RE SO VAIN": Like the song suggests, everybody is vain and thinks that they are the center of the universe—it‘s a survival instinct. Unfortunately, a strong relator’s hyper sensitivity to indifference makes us think that they are self-centered or vain, thinking that everything is all about them—that is a false conclusion. Strong relators, especially those who have a poor self image and/or are guilt-ridden, erroneously think that someone’s innocent indifferent is a disconnection from them. But it’s not the strong relator’s vanity that is motivating them; it’s a need to NOT feel the sorrow of disconnection from you. So the next time you think that a strong relator is being vain or conceited, realize that he/she really has your best interests in mind and try to react accordingly—be positive.
Genetically Reinforced, Rational Relator Reactions
PEOPLE-PREOCCUPIED: Strong relators are more concerned with the people involved in a task than the task itself and can put off the strong task-oriented people involved. So if you are task-oriented, don’t assume that the strong relator doesn’t consider your task important—it’s just not as important as the people involved, especially when there is a disconnection. To avoid strife and disconnection from that strong relator, use your people-oriented styles to appreciate/love the people involved (find your joy) and assume that the task will eventually get done.
Like most people, relators want their important connections to be happy and secure, so they buy and do things for them. If you are a strong director you might resent this as them “telling you what to wear, eat, etc”. And if you are a strong analyzer you might think that they didn’t give you the “perfect” gift or the most appropriate statement. Forget that B.S., that’s your problem. Try to realize that they are motivated to show you how much they love you. So the next time they give you something or do something for you; instantly be happy and appreciate it and suppress your negative emotions about that situation. Eventually, you will become more positive and your relator mate less sorrowful.
FOREWARNNG: Another thing that strong relators do is “warn you”: i.e., they tell you what they are about to do. This may irk you into thinking: “does she/he think that I am an idiot and don’t know what's going on? You shouldn’t think that way because she/he is just trying to avoid a possible disconnection when doing something that might upset you—learn to live with it since it is automatic and they love you. Similarly, they will tell you to “be careful” when you are about to go anywhere, which can be very annoying, but they only say it because they would be devastated if something should happen to you and would probably think that they were to blame. Again, this is not vanity or control—it is caring.
INDECISIVENESS: Strong relators are indecisive. They don’t want to voice their opinion if it might cause strife or disconnection. They don’t want to make a choice about things that involve both of you because their choice might not be the same as yours and may upset you. So the next time you ask them to make a choice, first tell them what you think is the best choice and then ask them what they think. Important! be open to why your's isn’t the best choice and be prepared to positively deal with a different choice. Frankly, once you know the other person’s rational for their choice, it enhances your wisdom on the subject. Also, try to encourage him or her to be more decisive by asking them to make simple choices that are fairly automatic such as: what to eat, what show to watch, etc. The more they get use to making, instead of avoiding, decisions the more those experiential memories will be available to make them more decisive.
SOMEWHERE IN TIME: We all, no matter what our strongest style, dwell on the past, present and future, but each style is different. Being a detailed left-brain thinker, strong relators dwell on positive past memories, especially when presently in a similar situation. Dwelling on positive memories is one way that strong relators maintain relationships and “bringing up the past” is usually pleasant for all involved although, some may view that experience as negative. When negative for you, think about the positive aspects of that experience, which will become more positive each time you think about it. Either agree or make a positive comment about it.
PACE & THINKING MODE: Every rational style has its own “pace” and type of memories. Strong left-brain relators are moderate pace because their verbally triggered memories are not as fast as visually triggered memories. If you are a strong relator conversing with fast, right-brain directors and socializers try to speed up a little or else they might lose interest. If you are a strong director or socializer try to slow down a little allowing you to better listen to slower relators. Also, if you are a strong director or analyzer, ignore those hasty negative memories and replace them with positive memories about that situation.
Nurture-Reinforced, Rational Relator Reactions
Other than the relator style’s genetic attributes there are nurturing factors that might cause you to misinterpret their motivations.
SELF-IMAGE: If your relator mate has a poor self-image developed from an unaffectionate, cold, unloving family, they will doubt their abilities and avoid any situation that tests them. You may at times assume that they are ignoring you, when in reality they are trying to avoid an erroneous disconnection from you. It is best for you to simply realize that he/she has a poor self image and try to support them by appreciating their knowledge and wisdom, their needs and opinions and momentarily forgetting about your own—i.e., try using your relator style.
GUILT: If your relator mate is guilt-ridden because of their religious or belittling upbringing, they tend to blame themselves for negative situations. Again, it is not uncommon to misinterpret their guilt as being self-centered or vain, thinking that everything is about them. In actuality, their guilt makes them even more sensitive to any possible disconnection from the people they care about. The best way for you to deal with their guilt is to help them realizes that everything is all right—that there is no problem and no blame. It also helps if you immediately take responsibility for a situation for anything untoward or misunderstood by you.
POSITIVE & NEGATIVE MEMORIES: Strong relators have an abundance of positive memories and the more powerful positive memories you share with your relator mate the more you will correctly interpret each other’s motivations when you both revert to your positive relator memories. It will also give you a higher probability of sharing “bonding love” (an oxytocin surge in the brain). The more powerful negative memories you share with your relator mate the more you will misinterpret each other’s motivations, because the stress it causes will make you react with your strongest style’s emotion and motivations. When those negative situations arise, dispel them immediately (tell your brain to “shut up”) and then think about a positive memory that triggers joyful love for both of you—this almost always works if you are not distressed.
OPPOSITES ATTRACT: We are attracted to people opposite to us because we admire their strength in the things that we are weak in. This is why there are a high percentage of relationships between strong relators and strong directors (and between opposite strong analyzers and strong socializers). As you can see, a relator style’s genetic attributes above are totally opposite to the Director Style’s Genetic Attributes:
Task-Oriented: Tasks are more important than people
Symbiotic emotion: Anger (whose survival purpose is: to alert us to confrontation/hindrance)
Style’s purpose: to deal with that confrontation or to get past that hindrance
Motivations: 1) Only my opinions matter. 2) Only my concerns matter. 3) Only my decisions matter.
But that opposite attraction comes at a cost with the natural irritation of being with someone who doesn’t represent your way of thinking, especially when one or both of you are distressed. To deal with this, spend little or no time together when distressed and be mindful of each other’s true motivations. You are together because it brings you joyful love, so appreciate and rely on your differences, which makes you an effective team. Basically, don’t sweat the small stuff—and almost everything is the small stuff. And don’t forget; if you are a weak sorrowful relator you will react just like a strong relator when you sense disconnection.
This “opposites” natural irritation also applies to strong relators and strong socializer mates. Even though relators and socializers are both people-oriented, they conflict somewhat in their style’s purposes. Relators need to stay connected with all of their connections while strong socializers interact with positive connections and shun negative connections. So, if you are a strong socializer, try to be more tolerant of those shared negative connections and if you are a strong relator try to avoid bringing up your socializer mate’s negative connections.
Bottom Line for RELATOR Mindfulness:
If you coexist with a strong relator: Try to better understand why he/she reacts the way he/she does and try NOT to think the worse of him/her—always think the best.
If you ARE a strong Relator: To better coexist with others and yourself, try to understand why you react the way you do as noted above and make the necessary changes to improve your attitude; such as:
1) Ignoring your strong need to react to the nonexistent indifference of others.
2) Trying to realize that you trigger too much erroneous sorrow—think more joyously about a situation.
3) Stop thinking that everything is about you, when people are with you they think about other things that have nothing to do with you.
4) Try to be more decisive instead of putting the burden of decision-making on others.
I hope that this pearl helped you to better understand the motivations of strong relators and that it reduces the stress in your relationship with them. The next pearl in this series is: “Mindfulness, Part-3, Understanding Strong Analyzers”, will help you to gain a better understanding of their motivations, thus making your coexistence with them wiser and less stressful.
