What Is Assertive Awareness? BY NOEL NEU on February 11th, 2014
He Said, She Said “He made me do that to him,” “She makes me feel bad,” “I can’t stand people who…” Sound familiar? This may be what you hear in your classroom, work area, or in your home from students, co-workers, family members, or even from you. These types of attitudes are responses to conditions that are not suitable to our own comfort or well-being, and therefore, create a behavior pattern that we learn to protect ourselves with. Unfortunately, the behaviors we learn (and then subsequently choose) as a response to an uncomfortable condition can lead to difficulty communicating with others and cause problems at school, work, and at home. The Four Styles There are four styles of attitudes that result in how we communicate with other people. These are Aggressive, Passive, Passive-Aggressive, and Assertive. All four of these mind-sets are developed by the way in which we view or accept our own feelings in combination with how we view or accept other people’s feelings and behaviors towards us. In other words, how we deal with anger. A way to identify your own response style or the way in which others respond is by using one of these four simple formulas: Agressive = “I accept that I am angry,” but “I do not accept that you did something to anger me” Passive = “I do not accept that I am angry,” but “I accept that you did something to anger me” Passive-Aggressive = “I do not accept that I am angry,” and “I do not accept that you did something to anger me” ASSERTIVE = “I accept that I am angry,” and “I accept that you did something to anger me” What Does It Mean? What does it mean to accept that I am angry or that someone has done something to anger me? Here is how I define this “acceptance” or “non-acceptance:” “I accept that I am angry,” says that I understand that anger is an emotion that is just one part of a wide range of emotions that I experience as a human being. It is natural, instinctive, and can be useful. “I do not accept that I am angry,” suggests that I am not satisfied with my own basic feelings and instincts of protection, and therefore reject the natural flow of my emotions to gain control or possibly manipulate others. “I accept that you did something to anger me,” implies that I feel confident in setting safe boundaries and protecting myself from feeling hurt. I accept that I cannot control other people, and I realize that I
am not responsible for their thoughts, feelings, and actions. “I do not accept that you did something to anger me,� suggests that I do not feel safe with my capacity to set safe, firm, emotional boundaries with people, and therefore feel the instinctive need to overprotect myself. How your child, student, co-worker, family member, or significant other acts and reacts in the world depends on which combination of two of the four definitions they choose in their lives. Over the next few posts, I will give examples and break down each of the four styles of reaction to help you identify and communicate more effectively using assertive awareness techniques as the model.