Sliding Door Moments
The space between the perfect time to share and actually sharing our feelings, thoughts, and taking action.
Dr. Gottman describes the moments when we have an opportunity to build trust the “tiny slips of time.” He was reading a book and he thought I have ten pages left and I want to finish this. I am going to brush my teeth, get ready for bed, and settle down to read.
When he passed by his wife, who was brushing her hair, he saw that she looked really sad. He had the moment of clarity. I can build a moment of trust or I can destroy trust with a moment of betrayal.
How often we betray the ones we love because we have an agenda so powerful and so big we set aside the sliding door moments. We could open the door, allow healing, and create a trust building moment. Victory over the self challenges us with each demand outside of our ‘time.’
Reliability is the consistent repeated little behaviors, which all add up to trust.
The idea doesn’t mean you drop everything, every time you have a plan or a purpose on something essential. The concept means to look for the opportunities, which slip by us quickly, to build another connection to those we care about.
Opportune moments
We have the opportunity to build a reliable and trust-filled relationship with others when we listen and watch for the chance of sliding door moments. They are wisps of time passing us by and the chances of returning to the moment are slim.
The pirate, Captain Jack Sparrow, played by Johnny Depp, said to Will Turner, “If you were waiting for the opportune moment, that was just it.”
Sometimes, we need a pirate to remind us of the opportune moments we speed by in pursuit of personal wants and desires. Trust building is setting aside our own wants and desires and attending to the emotions of the ones we care about when the door slides open. Simple slips repeated over time destroy trust.
The moment someone brings your awareness to the problem is the moment of opportunity
Reliability
Reliability is the consistent repeated little behaviors, which all add up to trust. For instance, a weight scale is reliable if you step on it and get off of it repeatedly and it says the same number 100 times. If you stepped on the scale and it gave you a false number the fifth time you stood on it, the scale is not reliable. Relationships are built the same way.
If you say you’ll do one thing, and you keep doing the opposite, then the one thing you said you’d do is no longer valid. Aside from the simple mistakes because we are not infallible humans, we know when we do something askew. The memory knows what we say or do may or may not hurt the one we love.
If they keep reminding you of something you say or do, and you work it out, apologize, and then say you’ll never do that again, but two days later you are repeating the patterns they lose trust.
Simple slips repeated over time destroy trust.
Self-regulation
People lose self-regulated behaviors when they are exhausted in relationships, which do not grow. The 99 other times you neglected to do the one thing ruined your reliability.
Frustration mounts when we recognize we have slipped up. The backlash happens internally first before any change happens. To silent the voice reprimanding yourself is part of the change. You can’t grow if you are bashing your inner person worse than anyone else around you.
Steps to change
If one stops and thinks about how they are hurt by people outside of themselves, they may be able to stop the incessant negative feedback in their mind.
- First, you recognize the voice. You have hear it before you can stop the cycle.
- Second, you need to acknowledge when someone notices your slip up and no matter how badly you want to react to their observation, stop and think.
- Consider the moment someone brings your awareness to the problem as the moment of opportunity. Your response matters.
Stop, think, heal
How you take in the information and how you respond builds your relationship or it tears it down. What do you think would happen if you freaked out when confronted with a negative attitude you’d be demonstrating?
Victory over the self challenges us with each demand outside of our ‘time.’
Most likely your reaction is worse than if you had stopped, recognized the pattern, and made an action to stop the negative attitude from destroying an opportune moment to heal a relationship wound.
As you look for sliding door moments, you’ll begin to recognize them faster, realize the moments are fleeting, and the connection lasts a lifetime. The moments we capture and engage within build our relationships to self, to others, to community. Remember how valuable the simple connections mean as you go through your day.
~Just a thought by Pamela