Learning Interpersonal Skills

[barefoot]

Holy shit @barefoot thats a lot lol.

Sorry - hadn't meant to write a long, potentially overwhelming list of stuff! ;-) I guess the key thing was - picking up on social cues. The other things were mostly just examples of that.

I think a lot of it is i dont look in people's eyes

Yes, this makes sense - others' eyes provide a lot of info so if you don't have that, it does make things trickier. But not impossible!

I'm wondering - how intuitive are you? Some people are more intuitive than others. Some trust it more than others too. And it's a skill most of us can develop.

Have you ever walked into a room and you can cut the atmosphere with a knife. Or had a situation where a couple of visitors have come to your house and they've clearly just had a row - they're smiling and looking happy and no one's saying anything, but something feels off...?

Using your intuition to pick up on cues - to sense/feel the atmosphere - can help you read a situation and people, even when everything looks ok (or when you can't see).

Everything starts with awareness - so you're already on your way :-)

 

[sun seeker]

Off the top of my head, if you are looking for resources to learn interpersonal skills, how about looking for books that lay out social skills step by step for kids with Asperger's syndrome? I don't have any in mind, though the idea came to me because I know I've seen at least one such book, somewhere, sometime. (Sorry I'm not able to remember better than that!) Their need to learn the nuts and bolts of how to socialize is for a different reason, but the skills are still the same, right?

 

[lostforgottensoul]

Sorry - hadn't meant to write a long, potentially overwhelming list of stuff! ;-) I guess the key thing was - picking up on social cues. The other things were mostly just examples of that.

No no, that was totally ok, the more info the better. I guess i just didnt realize there were so many lol.

Have you ever walked into a room and you can cut the atmosphere with a knife.

Yes yes yes, totally! Actually, when you walked towards my house when i was a teenager and you got about 2 feet from the door I could feel this wall, like before it i felt ok and i could feel as i 'passed through it' that it took my breath away and then it felt like what you see in yhe movies almost, cold feeling (not tempature...like you tell someone their remark was cold), or cruel feeling, evil feeling, heavy cant breath feelings, want to run feeling, always looking behind your back feeling and id think i saw things out of the corner of my eye.

Some of my friends would say that my house felt "weird" but none of them felt it like i did.

I was seeking refuage in a christian youth center at the time and brought it up to one of the people that ran it and he said demonic and that i had some special gift to feel them much more than others. I wouldnt call that a gift.

Today, i have no idea what i believe "god wise", its all mixed up but i can say that was weird and i didnt like it at all.

I rely on my dog to sense possible danger but i sometimes will sense someone watching me. But again, thats likely just my fears. I would no idea how to figure out whats intuition and whats fear.

 

[lostforgottensoul]

Their need to learn the nuts and bolts of how to socialize is for a different reason, but the skills are still the same, right?

Thats a great idea! And its like learning how to identify feelings, like a young child so this sounds like a great idea.

 

[joeylittle]

One of the four pillars of DBT is called Interpersonal Effectiveness. @lostforgottensoul, the DBT workbook you have breaks it into extremely doable steps.

There's no mystery to it, but it takes practice. Listening is critical. Listening isn't just about the words a person says. How they choose to express themselves is every bit as relevant.

@barefoot - your post is amazing.

 

[lostforgottensoul]

Im having some sort of brain freeze with the DBT workbook, I skipped over the imagined safe place since i lost it and was stuck but now im reading but not comprehending what im reading. Its frustrating. Its like my brain has waged a war against healing or something. Im struggling to figure out how to get back into it.

Listening is one of the most important skills one can have. Becoming good at listening to whats not said is also a wonderful skill.

All of it takes practice but to practice interpersonal skills dont you have to have someone(s) to practice with? Maybe this will challege me to some exposure therapy too?

I agree, @barefoot's post is amazing and one I will re-read often!

 

[joeylittle]

but to practice interpersonal skills dont you have to have someone(s) to practice with?

Ultimately, but you can do a great deal of practice on your own. Workbooks generally have exercises - and exercises ultimately make up the skill set that you'll employ.

 

[lostforgottensoul]

I can do that @joeylittle ;)

 

[barefoot]

For me, intuition is really about tuning in to the energy/atmosphere - what can you sense or what feeling do you get?

I would no idea how to figure out whats intuition and whats fear.

Sometimes, you might sense danger/something edgy, which may make you feel afraid. If you got that feeling purely from sensing something (eg you didn't hear shouting, you couldn't see anyone looking menacing, you didn't have prior knowledge that the people living there had been aggressive before) the chances are it's your gut, your instinct, which is picking up this information. Your intuition. So, in these kinds of situations, your intuition is giving you a heads up, which leads to a feeling of fear. That's certainly one take on it anyway. When you've then got that fear, you can choose what to do....you get a "bad" sense about a house, let's say, seemingly based on nothing concrete, just that you get an ominous feeling as you approach...you can then decide what to do with that info...you may choose to keep walking but not go in, or to go in but be extra cautious, or to call someone to come and meet you there. Or you might just discount it and shrug it off and go right on in.

So, intuition and feelings are very closely linked.

And it doesn't have to be around negative feelings....you can intuit good things too.

And intuition can be wrong sometimes - it's not an accurate science. But it can be quite spooky how spot on it can be.

Anyway, I think I'm now taking your thread a bit off topic! I really just brought it up as another "in" to reading people/situations. Because we can get a lot more information that's really rich and valuable beyond simply relying on what we can see and hear.

 

[Changing4Best]

Sometimes two people will give one another a sideways glance for a second and then it's gone, but their facial expressions will have told you something was "up" (or down as the case may have been). It's just kind of this "knowing" look, like they know something that you don't know and they most likely don't want you to know it, or they would tell it to you! Have you ever seen something like this? I have. It is an exclusion from their world, while you are sitting there right in their world! You will have no idea what it was about, but nine times out of ten, it had something to do with you!

 

[Changing4Best]

I was visiting my neighbor yesterday and she said to me, "I don't mean to cut our conversation short, but I have to cook myself something to eat and then take a nap." This was said very politely. I got the message loud and clear, it was time for me to say my goodbyes and go back home. I was happy that we had the visit we did. I would have liked for it to last longer, but I totally understood. I got up and left cordially. I thought I might share this, as it seems like a nice way to end a visit, when one needs to!

 

[lostforgottensoul]

@barefoot, you werent taking the thread off topic and even if you were, I dont care, I enjoy natural conversation that comes from a thread. Im the OP and I say go off topic if you want ! ;)

Intution is a very intresting topic. I do get feelings when I didnt hear or see anything but I honestly dont think its because a bad man is everywhere I go to hurt me but its my fear that says someone is always there to hurt me but I have had these feelings in other situations, such as my house. That house I had no choice, I had to go in but others had told me my house felt weird so it wasnt just me.

But in other times, Ive had feelings about going a certian place, about a person (good or bad), about a lot of thinga but ive always chalked it up to fear but then ive had good feelings about something before.

Thats inresting. I think ladee, of someone was talking about intution in the "Trust" thread. Right now i dont know how to listen to it and it alone. Something to work on for sure.

Have you ever seen something like this?

Totally!

"I don't mean to cut our conversation short, but I have to cook myself something to eat and then take a nap."

Ive said that before but mostly ive had people have said it to me. Its def a polite way to end a convo, even if you are lying to what you need to do, its still a polite way to end a convo, and they dont know you dont need to do XYZ right now.