Getting off the ‘Right’ couch

“Listen here Missy! I’m right, and you’re wrong, and I don’t have to listen to you!”

Picture it. A seven-year-old girl bouncing on a couch, screaming this at me at the top of her lungs. Yup. One of my most vivid memories from years ago when I was working in a group home for kids with severe behavioural challenges.

This memory often comes up for me when I see myself or others getting stuck in the position of needing to be right, in relationships, discussions, ways of being.  Times when we can’t a) listen another person’s point of view and b) un-dig our heels no matter what the consequence. Because in those moments, I know that we are trapped a dynamic that likely comes from a younger age and is driven by an underlying emotion. We are bouncing on the couch, and no one is going to stop us!

That particular girl (let’s call her Prickly) had experienced more chaos and uncertainty in her young life than most of us will ever know. For her, needing to be right no matter what was the only way that she could feel any control and safety– for her, it was ‘win’ or die.  

But when we are so inflexible in our opinions and beliefs, there really is no winning. This rigidness often comes at the cost of effective communication, healthy relationships, and being able to learn and experience new things.

Luckily, as adults we can step back and look at what might really be going on. Asking ourselves, “I wonder what is keeping me from listening to this other perspective?”, “Why is being right so important for me right now?” and “What would it take to move me from couch jumping to sitting instead in an armchair of curiousness?”

Today, I invite you to think about places where you get stuck in ‘rightness’, and how you can shift to curiosity.  I mean, couch jumping might seem fun, but as Prickly would tell you, after a while, it’s just exhausting.