Elephants Don't Make Good House Guests

I am bad at communicating. 

My whole family is bad at communication.

The whole world needs to work on communicating better.

That being said one of the worst parts of bad communication is when no one wants to talk about the "elephant" in the room.  We all see it.  The elephant sees us.  Just no one talks about it.

We have all walked into a room and seen an 8,000 pound "elephant" just hanging out holding a vase with flowers and perhaps even decked out in some animal print sheet thrown over him so it drapes casually to the floor.  The entire time you stand there staring with your mouth wide open at the elephant all the ladies in the room are talking about how lovely the flowers are and how animal print never seems to go out of style.  Meanwhile the men remark how sturdy the floor must be.   However no one even mentions the fact that a giant "elephant" is standing right next to them making the whole room look and smell like a circus just passed through and forgot something! 

At first all you can think is...Do you not SEE that???  Do you not SMELL that???  Is it just ME???

But before you can get on the phone to call your eye doctor and your shrink you start to get interested in the conversations all dancing around the "elephant".  Next thing you know you too are amazed at how sturdy the floor actually is and that animal print really never does go out of style!

I am a firm believer that not talking about the "elephant" in the room is the cause for many business failures, divorces, and broken relationships of all kinds.  None of us want to have those difficult adult conversations to address the "elephants" who hang out with us daily making both our boardrooms and our bedrooms overcrowded and quite frankly pretty stinky.

From personal experience, I know some of the reasons why I am divorced were due to the fact my ex-husband and I could not and/or would not talk about our "elephants".  We just let more and more elephants walk into our living room and our lives until there was no room left for each of us.  Our marriage became a circus and not the fun kind you want to buy a ticket to watch.  We tried to dress our elephants up so no one saw how messy and stinky they were but when the lights went out in our "big top" only the elephants remained.  My ex-husband and I fought about several things.  We argued over where the elephant was standing...what the elephant was holding...what color grey the elephant was...if it was Asian or African...but we never addressed why we had a freaking elephant hanging out with us in the first place.  We fought about the superficial things and not the big one causing all the mess. 

Same is true in my family business.  When we talk with each other there is always an elephant...or a whole herd of them...sitting in the office with us.  Because we have the family dynamic as well as the boss/employee/coworker element we simply won't say or discuss certain things.  We don't want to hurt the other person's feelings...yet in the end we end up doing just that most of the time. 

Things left unsaid are not unknown, unfelt, or even unheard.  Some of my "loudest" arguments were fought in silence.  Some of the most hurtful things ever done by me or to me were issues that never got addressed...feelings that never got expressed...and words that were never spoken. 

Just like an elephant, the things we try to avoid don't just disappear.  They sit there...staring at us...making a mess of our lives...until we finally get up the courage to face the elephant nose to trunk.  We must deal with the elephant...get it out of our home, head, heart, workplace, and world!  Then and only then can we start dealing with cleaning up the mess it left behind.  We must grab our biggest pooper scooper and get to shoveling and sanitizing until things are as they should be again.

It is hard to deal with elephants.  By nature they are big and not easily moved.  I am still working on dealing with all the elephants in my life.  It is a constant struggle to stop avoiding things and just deal with them...but it is a struggle worth fighting through.  I have found luring them with yummy treats helps most of all...in that I have found that by approaching my elephants with kindness, warmth, and showing them an out that is mutually beneficial to both of us the elephants are easier to move. 

My life is still a circus sometimes.  There are days I feel like I have a huge herd of elephants and I am trying to balance on a tightrope with them all and no safety is below to catch us if we make a mistake.  It is one scary act let me tell you!  But deep down I know that I always have a safety net in my faith and ultimately in my family and close friends.  We might have to scoop some poop but at least we don't have to keep walking in it anymore!