Changing yourself might just be the most effective way to change others, according to Dr. Ray Guarendi and his new book, “How To Get Along with Almost Everybody.”
“This is a message I try to get across in therapy, in life and in the book: You have great power over how much someone is going to affect your emotions,” the clinical psychologist and bestselling author told Our Sunday Visitor. “Emotions are fueled by thoughts, and how I interpret somebody else’s motives greatly determines how I’m going to react to them.”
Guarendi, a Catholic father of 10 adopted children and a nationally syndicated radio and television host, talks about emotions and more in his new 150-page book from EWTN Publishing Inc. and Sophia Institute Press. The book, which bursts with practical tips and guidance for how to get along with everyone, is written for everyone, he said.
“It’s not a distinctly Christian book,” Guarendi said. “I say, look, here’s ideas that work and they just happen to parallel the way God says to do things.”
Inside the pages, Guarendi addresses discerning how to approach and respond to others. He dedicates chapters to the importance of being easy going, showing interest in others, offering compliments, apologizing, forgiving and keeping perspective. He delves into conversation killers, overcorrecting, criticizing and misreading motives.
At one point, he tells the story of a man who wears special sunglasses that reveal the inner struggles of the people around him.
“If I recognize that a lot of people are struggling with their own demons, and this comes out in the way they talk to others, particularly me, or the way they act or the remarks they make or the snottiness that they do — if you recognize there’s a pretty good chance that something is either tormenting or undercutting or sabotaging somebody else, you won’t be quite so hard on them,” he said.
Think like a psychologist
Guarendi also shared his advice for getting along with others during a time of political polarization.
“Get inside someone else’s head rather than immediately disputing their perspective or viewpoint,” he said. “Ask questions to get them to clarify how it is that they think the way they do.”
Psychologists do this constantly, he said.
“We have to negotiate our way inside someone’s head to find out why they think the way they think, why they act the way they act, what is motivating them,” he said. “I think that’s critical when you’re trying to get along with someone in your own family who wants to cancel you because you think differently than they do.”
“Rather than pushing how you think onto them, get them to explain out loud why they think the way they do,” he added. “Oftentimes, when people have to explain themselves in detail, they find out that some of what they’re saying doesn’t hang together.”
A search for peace
Guarendi said that he wrote his book to help others.
“As a psychologist, the most common question I now get … is, ‘Can you tell me how to make somebody else be different?'” he said. “I realized that if we’re going to get along better with people — or at least less bad with some folks, especially those in our close social circle — we’ve got to find some ways to change how we look at things, how we react to things, how we talk, how we listen. All the ways that can change us.”
He also wanted to help people find peace in difficult circumstances.
“As a psychologist, I’ve seen an awful lot of people spending huge amounts of time being miserable because someone in their life is very difficult to get along with,” he said. “They can’t do anything about that person, but yet that person has the power to make them feel sad or angry or frustrated or difficult.”
“I decided,” he said, “let’s see what we can do to bring peace to you when you have to deal with people like that.”
The best example
Guarendi pointed to God as the prime example of getting along with others. At the beginning of his book, he writes that the better someone gets along with God, the better he or she will get along with people.
“Since God designed us, he knows the best way to act,” Guarendi said. “To the degree that we can parallel the way he says to act, we will get along with other people better.”
In his book, Guarendi cites Jesus’ example on everything from forgiveness to turning the other cheek.
“If somebody smacked you on the cheek, that was a sign of total disdain,” Guarendi said. “So when our Lord said, ‘Well, just give him your other cheek,’ what he was saying was, ‘You cannot make me be worthless. You cannot make me feel put down. I have to allow you to do that. And to show you that I’m not allowing you to do that, here, here’s my other cheek.'”
“I think that is the most dramatic illustration of not allowing someone with their remarks or their actions or their talk or whatever it is they’re doing to you, to make you feel less than valuable,” he added.
This lesson ties in to what Guarendi calls “the key.”
“People don’t realize the ability that they have to not let others’ behavior cause them upset and misery,” he said. “If you can reduce the upset and misery, you’re automatically going to get along better with people.”
