A Book that Will Help You Love Radically
Strengthen your marriage, become a new person at work, and stop worrying about yourself so much.
I recently had to read Jim Petersen’s Why Don’t We Listen Better?: communicating and connecting in relationships in a graduate-level pastoral counseling class. It’s the kind of book I would never pick up on my own, but I feel so incredibly blessed that I was made to read it! Through this book, Dr. Petersen communicates the truths he has gleaned throughout forty years in ministry and counseling practice. I firmly believe these truths will transform your relationships and your life — that has been my experience in any case.
On a practical level the book is all about listening. But at its core the book is all about loving your neighbor as yourself. It’s about walking the path of emotional sanctification Christians are supposed to walk, but rarely do. It’s about transforming selfish, angry, and harsh people like me into empathetic Christ followers who will overlook offense and rush into difficult situations to show radical love.
Petersen aids this transformation with two key insights. The first is the Flat-Brain Theory of Emotions. The Flat-Brain Theory of Emotions describes, in a “serious, tongue-in-cheek” manner, “how we operate when an overload of emotions ‘flattens our brains.’”[1] Petersen introduces this theory by describing “stomach functions.”[2] The stomach represents our feelings and emotions, which could include excitement, frustration, anger, irritation, resentment, and a host of others. The next part of the model is the heart. Our heart function is responsible for giving and receiving suggestions, concerns, and support, without claiming to know “the whole truth.”[3] Moving upward, head functions include “thinking, planning, remembering, reviewing, deciding, [and] rationalizing.”[4] The head represents our logical and problem-solving functions.
The next part of Petersen’s theory is quite simple; while many feel like they have bad emotions that need to be eradicated, Petersen argues that emotions are neutral energy that can be channeled towards good or bad ends. “While many of us,” Petersen writes, “might prefer to choose which emotions to have, it doesn’t work that way. When we try to push our emotions in a particular direction, it usually has the opposite effect.”[5] Put another way, we can’t simply decide to not be attracted to someone, or to not be angry; this simply does not work and it results in frustration.
Ultimately, Petersen’s theory is about recognizing our emotions, accepting them, and then figuring out how to direct them in a positive manner. This, he argues, is what we should do instead of attempting to ignore them, withhold them, or let them rule us. He postulates that when our emotions get out of control (swell within us), they figuratively push upward on our heads and hearts. The pressure on our hearts causes us to lose our ability to relate to others, and the pressure on our brains impairs our ability to see clearly, causing us to engage in faulty and unproductive thinking that exacerbates conflict. What results when two people with flat brains engage each other is called the Flat-Brain Tango, which is best thought of as a stereotypical argument between a husband and wife in which both sides are 1) convinced they are right, 2) hurt, and 3) on the attack. The way to avoid this scenario is to recognize the “thuds” (triggers) that offend us and make our brains go flat.[6]
Here is the insight that was especially life-changing for me: Petersen counsels us to recognize “thuds,” and immediately “reframe” them; “instead of going into auto-defense mode and making the situation worse, we see it as our bodies telling us that a new response is needed to help a hurting…person.”[7] Peterson calls this “radical” behavior.[8] It involves shifting our entire communication goal from victory to understanding, or from an adversarial to a collaborative one. It also forces us to recognize a great truth; those that “thud” us are hurting themselves and are actually in need of our love and support.
The next section of Petersen’s book is devoted to a tool he has invented to help people avoid the Flat-Brain Tango and negative responses to the “thuds” that produce this dance. His grand tool for this is called the Talker-Listener Card (TLC). The TLC is an a-frame card that reads “Talker” on one side and “Listener” on the other. Each side of the card lists the responsibilities of each participant in the conversation. For example, the Talker’s responsibility is to own the issue and share feelings and thoughts without making accusations, judgments, or attacks. The Listener’s job is to remain calm, provide a sense of safety, and clarify, without giving advice, defending, or disagreeing. But the main focus is to get both parties focused on understanding instead of winning. I started using this card as soon as I read about it — and it totally works! This is a tool that will completely transform how you have difficult conversations.
There is so much more in the book that I won’t include here. Please go pick up your copy today (I get nothing from making this recommendation)!
[1]Jim Petersen, Why Don’t We Listen Better?: communicating and connecting in relationships (Portland: Petersen Publications, 2015), 766–776. All page numbers are from the Kindle Edition.
[2] Ibid., 776.
[3] Ibid., 787.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Ibid., 809.
[6] Ibid., 1378.
[7] Ibid., 1378.
[8] Ibid., 1390.
