Mar. 31st: Hashing It Out!

Confrontation sucks!  But sometimes it just has to happen.  I know I touched on this in my communication is key blog post, but I want to talk about it a bit more.

One of the most important rules of improv, is to stay out of your head.  Well - Saturday I spent almost the entire day in my head, which did not bode well for an improv performance in the evening.  For each of our shows we give ourselves goals to help us push ourselves a little pit out of our comfort zone.  But for me I just really had to make an effort to remember what my comfort zone was and stick to it!  So that became my goal.  And you know what?  I thought I did it.  Until I heard comments after the show which indicated that I might not have been as successful as I thought.

Here's where the awesome thing comes in.  I'm not afraid of a little confrontation.  If I have a problem with something, I can almost promise you that you will hear about it.  Not in an aggressive manor, but in a "hey, I didn't like that - let's talk about it" way.  I don't do it because I'm trying to change people, but I want them to have a better understanding of how I operate and so they can hopefully use the information to better respect me, and I them.

I don't know if this is actually an awesome thing, because it's quite possible that I have these conversations about petty things that don't need to be discussed.  But when it comes to big issues, I'm quite glad to have this skill.  And last night was no different.  When I could have walked away from an evening feeling even more down on myself than I already was, I talked it out, and both of us walked away feeling way better about the resolution we came to.

You know that classic piece of marital advice: "Never go to bed angry."  Well I think it's great advice and  should be applied to all relationships.  If you have a major issue with someone, hash it out!  I'm so grateful to have friends I can do that with, and who I can rely on to hash things out with me whenever they have issues.  Thanks guys - for making confrontation suck a little less.