I stumbled into my own personal discovery of a tool called polarity mapping during the certified coach training program at Newfield Network. One of our assignments instructed us to reflect on the ways in which we personally get challenged when it comes to making and responding to requests.
A request is what we say when we are hoping to get others to commit. It could be anything from “will you pass the salt?” to “will you marry me?”. A healthy request is direct, specific, and fully respects the listener’s freedom to say no. A yes response to a request creates a promise, upon which we are able to coordinate action, make plans and accomplish more together than we could alone. For obvious reasons, the ability to make effective requests is an important life skill.
It was easy for me to name what was difficult for me with requests. I found it hard to say no to the requests of others and I also found it hard to be direct with my own requests. Rather than asking, I preferred dropping hints or being more passive, waiting for others to make an offer.
There are many books and articles written on the importance of saying no and of being direct with requests, but I couldn’t find much information out there on why it can be so difficult and how to work with the resistance. I wanted to know why. While reflecting on my own difficulties with saying no and making requests, I could sense an emotional undercurrent of fear inside of me that beckoned further exploration.
Also, why did there seem to be other people who had the opposite problem? I’m referring to those people who easily say no and ask for what they want, but tend to go in the other direction of becoming bossy, inflexible and controlling. There are books and articles written for these people on the importance of saying yes, accepting things as they are, being collaborative and inclusive instead of demanding. Again, I wondered what was going on that made some people behave in these ways. What was their resistance to saying yes?
These questions fascinated me and I had a hunch that there was something deeply meaningful about this structural symmetry: yes and no both seem to have their healthy and unhealthy expressions. How do you know whether no or yes is the healthy move in a given situation? I sensed that the difference must have something to do with a hidden X factor that I didn’t yet understand. For all the people talking about the wisdom of yes and the wisdom of no, I didn’t see anyone putting both together into one context that untangles this paradox.
To feed my curiosity, I thought it might be interesting to map out the healthy and unhealthy expressions of both yes and no into a four quadrant diagram. No on the left, yes on the right, healthy on the top and unhealthy on the bottom. I didn’t really know what would happen, but the result astounded me, yielding new insights and helping me to discover what keeps so many of us trapped in a vicious cycle of feeling disempowered in relationships.
When we focus only on the outer action (yes or no) without awareness of our inner motivation, we easily confuse the healthy expressions of yes or no with the unhealthy expressions. When we don’t question the fears that operate unconsciously, they hijack our thinking. We are led to believe that we’re protecting what we value when in fact, acting upon these fears is indirectly causing harm to what we value. We find ourselves trapped in vicious cycles of behaving like a tyrant (trapped in no) or a doormat (trapped in yes).
The tyrant and the doormat are what I call shadow personas. They are personas that take hold of us when we become polarized in our value system, either glorifying no while demonizing yes, or glorifying yes while demonizing no. We can observe how both the tyrant and the doormat tend to judge each other, yet strangely they complete each other. The doormat is the only one who devalues themselves enough to put up with being bossed around all the time by the tyrant, and the tyrant is the only one who devalues others enough to be willing to boss them around. In a sense, they actually make a good match. I call this a shadow dance. Two people may be drawn into a shadow dance with each other by their shadow personas. Sound familiar?
What the tyrant and the doormat have in common is that they both assume it’s an either-or choice: Either my truth is honored OR I make room for the truth of others. The tyrant assumes that if others have a voice, their own voice will be eliminated. Because they strongly value protecting their own voice, either-or thinking moves them to oppose the voice of others. While this might seem effective in the short term, the irony is that this behavior attracts exactly what the tyrant is afraid of over the long term. It causes others to rebel, retaliate, or at best comply without real commitment.
Likewise, the doormat assumes via either-or thinking that if they claim their voice, others may be squashed and may feel angry that their own voices have been eliminated. So the fear that the doormat will harm others and lose belonging moves them to minimize their own voice. Again, while this might seem effective in the short term, the irony is that this behavior creates exactly what the doormat is afraid of over the long term. By minimizing their own voice, they do not respect themselves which makes others less likely to respect them. Furthermore, their unique contribution is not seen by others, undermining their true source of belonging.
When we look at the healthy expressions of yes and no, we can see how they support and enhance each other. The more that the tyrant learns to be collaborative, the more others will feel respected by them and the more likely others will return the same respect, even if they don’t agree. Not to mention, the tyrant will get the benefit of what others can see that the tyrant is unaware of. The more that the doormat honors their own truth, the more likely others will be to see the value that they have to offer, providing a true source of belonging. This is what empowering relationships look like. You get to be true to yourself and feel a true sense of belonging with others.
One of my favorite analogies that illustrates the benefit of empowered relationships is the story of the Blind Men and the Elephant. When we are able to leverage the polarity of no and yes, respecting our own truth while holding that it may not be the only truth, we get the benefit of an integrated perspective and we are able to make better decisions than we could alone. We also gain a wonderful sense of belonging!
Change did not happen overnight for me when I became aware of this polarity, but it did help me begin to recognize the pattern that was keeping me trapped in my disempowered yes. It has taken ongoing discipline and practice for me to face these fears and gradually learn how to be more assertive. As with all polarities, it’s a never-ending work in progress!
