This is another way to say "making nervous people less nervous." It comes up for me when I'm running seminars, because I am both the accommodator and the accommodated. It's up to me to make the people in my group feel comfortable and cared for, and in turn, I am staying in hotels where people are trying to make me feel comfortable. What goes around comes around.
posted by the other Joan @ 8:45 AM
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I've lately been in a situation where I had to accommodate someone's extreme nervousness, and her acknowledgement of her condition didn't make it much less stressful. This person has the potential to make a personal relationship more difficult, and I hope that will not happen.
As I care for her, I don't feel like "bashing" her as much as advising her to lighten up and not take everything so deeply to heart, so that she can enjoy her life and live longer. Her problem manifests itself, in part, in giving equal weight to what other people say--even total strangers on a one-time basis. She's hyper-observant and doesn't let much slide off her back. She tends to take things personally without "considering the source" of any one comment.
I've spoken to her about this a bit (as have other of her friends), in terms of putting things in perspective. She says friends have told her to "toughen up" more, but I said that it's not a matter of "toughening up," it's a matter of perspective. Something that someone said a year ago, a person who she hasn't seen since and has no relationship with, still resounds with her to this day. This is not healthy. People of no import should not be renting space in her head for free (a wonderful concept that a wonderful friend--ahem--passed on to me in another context some years ago).
My main concern here is that it's someone I care about, and in a way have a vested interest in (obliquely, but it's there--trust me). She is a kind-hearted, smart, and sweet person with many insecurities, and my greatest fear is that they'll play too big a role (perspective!) in my important personal relationship.
I will try to maintain my own perspective and talk this out with trusted people to clear my own head about it. Perspective is all.
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