Healthy Communication
As a mental health professional I see the hurt people experience – and have personal experienced – as a result of poor communication. We are made to be in relationships with others. Having the ability to identify and communicate your thoughts, feelings, and desires allows for healthier relationships. To improve your communication and conflict resolution the following tips can help.
1. Focus on the problem, not the person. When a disagreement turns to personal insults, raised voices, or mocking tones, the conversation is no longer productive. Be careful to focus on the problem without placing blame on the other person. If a disagreement becomes personal, you should pause the conversation. A pause is a break. Let the other person know that you need a break or a time out and that you would like to continue the conversation at a specific day and time.
2. Know when to take a time-out. When two people are becoming argumentative, insulting, or aggressive, it’s a good idea to take a time-out. Have a plan in place so you can call for a break when needed. Spend some time doing something alone that you find relaxing. When you’ve calmed down, you can return to your discussion and solving the problem with the other person. Be sure that you do return—it isn’t a good idea to leave these issues unaddressed. When you decide to take a time out try to set a day and or time when you will be able to return to the conversation.
3. Use active listening. Often times during arguments you focus on getting our own point across rather than listening to others. Before responding to the other person, restate what they have said to you in your own words. Continue this process until everyone agrees that you understand. Next, share your side. The person you are in a discussion with should reflect back your ideas in their own words until they too understand. Using this technique will help both individuals feel listened to and understood, even if you disagree.
4. Use “I” statements. When sharing a concern, begin your sentence with “I”. For example: “I feel hurt when you don’t tell me you’ll be late”. With this sentence format you show that you are taking responsibility for our own emotion rather than blaming others. The alternative sentence—“You never tell me when you’re going to be late” or “I know you never tell me anything”—will often cause a person to become defensive.
5. Identify and Share Unspoken Emotions. Unspoken emotions can work their way into a conversation in a number of ways – tone voice, body language, facial expressions, in the form of long pauses or muttering under your breath, or bursting into tears or a fit of anger. Unspoken feelings can have long lasting effects on a relationship as well – resentments set in and you distance ourselves from the other person. Unexpressed feelings can cause us to not listen. Part of a good communication is listening. Being a good listener requires each person too honestly and willingly keep the focus on the other person, but buried emotions always draws the focus back to ourselves. It’s hard to hear someone when you are feeling unheard, even if the reason you feel unheard is because you choose not to share our thoughts, feelings, or opinions.
6. Being honest with yourself. Before you share an “I” statement you must identify how you feel and why you feel that way. The majority of the time when you are having disagreements or feeling frustrated with another person it is because you do not feel heard. The Gottman Institute suggests that each person has additional emotions – such as feeling excluded, powerless, blamed, judged, unloved, forgotten, controlled or manipulated. Being honest with yourself about the core emotions can be challenging.
7. Know your needs and fears. You start conducting an internal debate over whether you are competent or incompetent; a good or bad person; worthy, loveable or unlovable. This identity conversation is often under the surface, a quiet conversation you have inside ourselves. It is about who you are and how you see ourselves. Well-being is replaced with depression, hope with hopelessness, courage with fear. This is the internal conversation that justifies us having a difficult conversation and the style of communication you will use. You can improve your ability to recognize and cope with identity issues when they hit. Thinking clearly and honestly about who you are can help you reduce your anxiety level during the conversation and significantly strengthen your foundation
8. Letting go of the All or Nothing Syndrome. This is thinking I’m competent or incompetent, good or evil, worthy of love or not. When faced with how you see yourself, all-or-nothing thinking gives us two choices on how to manage that information. Either you try to deny the information that is inconsistent with our self-image, or you do the opposite: you take in the information in a way that exaggerates its importance to a crippling degree. Denial requires a huge amount of psychic energy, and as you have conflict with others the story you’re telling yourselves is going to become shaky. And the bigger the gap between what we hope is true and what we fear is true, the easier it is for us to lose our balance.
9. Use open body language. When you decide to be open and vulnerable with another person your body language can be a source of strength. Make eye contact. Face the other person with the front of your body. Your hands should be open and palms should be facing the other person if possible. Open body language tells the other person that you want to hear them and you want to be heard.
10. Work toward a resolution. Disagreement is a normal part of every type of relationship. If it becomes clear that you and the other person will not agree, focus on a resolution instead. Try to find a compromise that benefits both individuals. Ask yourself if this disagreement really matters to your relationship, and let yourself move on if not.
11. Drop the Pride and Express Gratitude. In the conclusion of this series the subject of pride has to be approached. There are times when pride can be based on self-centeredness. This kind of pride is especially destructive to relationships. That’s because the opposite of loving others is not hating them but rather being self-centered. C.S. Lewis had this to say about pride: The point is that each person’s pride is in competition with everyone else’s pride. Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next man. Conflict will not be resolved when a person has selfish pride. To set aside this type of pride one must acknowledge that their selfish pride and show gratitude for the other person.
