Fraces importantes

When it comes to relationships, change can feel pretty lopsided.  Meaning by the time one person brings up their feelings/concerns/feedback and what they’d like to see change, they’re unknowingly expect partner to make these adjustments pretty quickly.  The patience required while change is taking place tends to be less than necessary due to our simple desire for things to be different now.  Which is quite unrealistic, I know, but it’s usually the way it plays out.

So what do you do to increase your patience when you and partner are working to make change happen?

Well,  you need some important phrases…..go with me for a second here.

My daughter’s Spanish 1 teacher requires full Spanish to be spoken in the classroom effective day 3 of school start.  I sat in her class during Back to School Night hearing her teacher talk about this (Day 5 of instruction) and being quite shocked by the expectation.   Until he pulled out the list of every important phrase his 15+ years of experience teaching has shown a student needs to navigate day to day in his class…while speaking only Spanish.

There were about 40 phrases from ‘Can I borrow a pen?’ to ‘Can I use the restroom’ to ‘May I please speak in English’ and then it really clicked for me. His students could carry this form around, keep it on their desk all period and turn the phrases into flash cards.  They had full access to (mostly) everything they need to say in Spanish in order to speak only Spanish in the classroom as they simultaneously learned the language all the way from the alphabet to conjugating verbs and beyond.  

They were given the important phrases to bridge the gap between being expected to speak only in Spanish to actually learning the language.

And the same is true for us.  The gap between wanting/needing change to take place and it actually occurring gets shrunk when you have important phrases between each other.

For example:

I know we’re working on being more patient in our communication, and I’m too frustrated right now.  I’m going to take a beat before we talk more.

I know we’re working on spending more quality time together and I’m really overwhelmed with work.  I need to plug into work tonight to finish this project and don’t want you to think I’m ignoring my commitment to more time together.

These important phrases help the two of you maintain your patience and compassion as real change takes root.  Just like I hope the fraces importantes my daughter has at her fingertips helps her to get by until she learns a deeper understanding of the Spanish language; I want the same for  you.

You got this!

~ A