Sugar and spice and everything nice?
Growing up as a “Baby-Boomer” in the United States, I often heard the saying:
Girls are sugar and spice and everything nice. Boys are snakes, and snails, and puppy-dog tails.
Obviously, there was a strong expectation in American culture that girls and women should always be nice. Today, the “be nice mantra” has morphed into “Be kind,” and everyone is expected to follow it. In my last post, I revealed my self-defeating mindsets in my associations and friendships with others—especially with women—as we were expected to be “everything nice.” Back then, there didn’t seem to be any options other than “Be nice.” As I have continued to work on my spiritual and emotional growth throughout the years, I’ve learned the importance of setting healthy boundaries. Consequently, I feel an unprecedented peace of mind and sense of personal empowerment in developing more healthy and productive ways to communicate.
For many years, accommodation, adaptability, conflict avoidance, and passive-aggression were my reflex responses in my relationships with others. Shifting those mindsets has taken herculean efforts on my part. Inevitably, friendships and relationships will change and may become the sad and disappointing casualties in our transformations. (Although it doesn’t have to be that way if friends and family are willing to negotiate and work through changes.) Thus, for others, who like me, struggle with what it means to be a “nice” person, family member, or friend, the following ideas might help in creating a new framework.These universal principles also apply to the expectations others place upon us at work, in community, and within our Latter-day Saint community.
Dr. Manuel J. Smith, author of the book, When I Say No, I Feel Guilty, composed a list of human rights that promote healthy relationships and inner peace. He says:
….herein is composed of statements about ourselves as humans, statement about our true responsibilities for ourselves and our own well-being, and statements about our acceptance of our humanness which set practical limits on what other people can expect of us. Let’s examine our prime right—from which all the other rights are derived: our right to be the ultimate judge of all we are and all we do. [I’m adding my own exception: Jesus Christ is our ultimate judge.] Let’s see how we let people manipulatively violate this right in different types of relationships:
(pp. 28-71).
Dr. Smith’s list of rights:
- You have the right to judge your own behavior, thoughts, and emotions, and to take the responsibility for their initiation and consequences upon yourself.
- You have the right to offer no reasons or excuses to justify your behavior.
- You have the right to judge whether you are responsible for finding solutions to other people’s problems.
- You have the right to change your mind.
- You have the right to make mistakes—and to be responsible for them.
- You have the right to say, “I don’t know.”
- You have the right to be independent of the goodwill of others before coping with them. (One cannot live in terror of hurting other people’s feelings. At some point we will do something that offends someone.)
- You have the right to be illogical in making decisions.
- You have the right to say, “I don’t understand.”
- You have the right to say, “I don’t care” (pp. 28-71).
Truthfully, I feel a bit anxious and almost guilty for including these “10 Rights” in this post. These basic human rights sound … well, not very nice—even mean (at least to me). But they’re not mean—or selfish. They’re healthy boundaries that we can learn but will probably cause us some discomfort at first.
Now, I’ll juxtapose a list of unhealthy mindsets in contrast to the above. My good friend, Toni, gave me a copy of this list from The California Therapist; a part of a state government program/website that promotes healthy families:
When you give up your boundaries in a relationship or friendship, you:
- Do not notice unhappiness since enduring is your concern
- Are unclear about your preferences
- Alter your behavior, plans, or opinions to fit the current mood or circumstances of another (you live reactively)
- Do more and more for less and less
- Take as truth the most recent opinion you have heard
- Live hopefully while wishing and waiting
- Are satisfied if you are coping and surviving
- Let the other’s minimal improvement maintain your stalemate
- Make exceptions for a person for things you find intolerable/accept alibis
- Are manipulated by flattery so that you lose objectivity
- Try to create intimacy with a narcissist
- Are so strongly affected by another that obsession results
- Feel hurt and victimized/ stifle anger or don’t feel angry
- Act out of compliance and compromise
- Do favors that you inwardly resist (cannot say no)
- Disregard intuition in favor of wishes
- Allow your partner/friend to abuse you, your children or friends
- Mostly feel afraid and confused
- Are enmeshed in drama that is beyond your control
- Are living a life that is not yours, and that seems unalterable
- Commit yourself for as long as the other needs you to be committed (no bottom line)
Obviously, not all of the above components may be embedded in our mindsets and thus behaviors. Furthermore, each component has its own spectrum of dysfunction depending on the individual. I didn’t realize I had lived by most of the above unwritten rules until I began the journey toward self-empowerment through genuine communication. Again, I won’t pretend it’s been an easy road. I’m still on the learning curve, and I still feel uncomfortable when I set a personal boundary. But I’d rather feel the discomfort of empowerment (hopefully, discomfort that will eventually fade away) than the perpetual anxiety and fear of living under false distortions of “niceness.”
As Latter-day Saints, we can become further unified as we more fully embrace healthy definitions of “niceness.” Imagine a community devoid of distractions due to unnecessary “drama” in our relationships. Instead, we can genuinely join together as a powerful united entity in preparing for Christ’s Second Coming.
Here’s to authentic niceness,
Julie