He is skin and bones. He comes up to me meowing as only unhappy cats can do.
When I pet him, I can feel every rib. My heart breaks for his starvation and I feel almost nauseated with grief and upset.
When I look at the porch where I’ve seen him before, I see that the cat bed is gone. Two new cars are parked on the driveway.
I imagine that the people who took care of the kitty moved out and didn’t take the cat with them. The new owners don’t care or haven’t noticed the kitty yet.
I run home, jump on my bike, and buy cat food. In my head, I make a list of everyone who might want to adopt the kitty. My neighbors with their 4- and 2-year old girls. My best friend who already has two cats. Us as a block. The shelter. Post it on the neighborhood app.
When I come back, the kitty is gone. I do see a neighbor unpacking her car with groceries.
“Have you seen the red kitty?”
“Yes. He is ours.”
“Oh… I thought he was abandoned. He came up to me meowing and looked so thin.”
“He likes to wander around and loves being petted. He showed up at our doorstep eight years ago, when he was probably five years old. We feed him every day, but no matter how much we give him, he loses weight. We took him to the vet and had all kinds of tests run on him. We think he is moving to the end of his life.”
“Ah, I feel relieved he’s taken care of. I guess I can return the cat food then.”
“You’re so kind. Yes, you can. We’re watching him day and night.”
I feel relieved to see my understanding was incomplete. The meowing that I took as a request for help was just a bid for connection. A good old-fashioned cat strategy to be petted.
With people, we might miss bids for emotional connection. Especially if we are triggered by how they express their “tragic expression of unmet needs”. Rather than seeing the beautiful, precious, universal needs in those bids, we hear blaming, shaming, and complaining. We lose our excitement to connect to them and don’t want to do anything like the human equivalent of petting a kitty.
Instead, we turn away or turn against. We react with stonewalling, defensiveness, criticism, or contempt. What John Gottman calls the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. It is the fastest route to conflict crashing beyond repair.
Trust me, I’ve been there. I learned my lesson the hard way. After my share of failed attempts to repair challenging interactions, I got up to speed with books and videos of inspiring teachers. I experimented with new behavior and gained insights about conflict resolution.
So I developed an online mini-training, “The 5 Secrets to Resolving Conflict that Hardly Anyone Uses”, in which you can learn to respond more constructively to tragic expressions of unmet needs.
You will learn how to prevent turning away or against angry bids for connection. Without being overrun by those horsemen.
Is that something for you?
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Enjoy more purring kitties around you!
Helping Nonprofit Leaders Transform Conflict