Effective Communication Part 2
- Avoid Triangulation when it comes to communication with your spouse and/or your child. Triangulation takes place when someone tries to make you the “Monkey in the middle.” This type of communication is indirect, and it can be manipulative, passive-aggressive, and divisive. If a son is angry with his father, for example, but elects to share these feelings with his Mother, he may be hoping that she will relay his concerns onto his father. If the Mother does this, she has been triangulated into the father-son dyad.
While she may be hoping to be helpful to her son, she may actually be infantilizing him, and enabling him. Moreover, she has become the messenger between the father and son, and often times it is the messenger that bears the brunt of the person’s wrath who is receiving the message. In turn, relationship discord may result between the father and Mother. The Mother/father relationship is momentarily severed or estranged. All the while, the son and father have not learned to communicate openly and directly with each other. Their relationship will likely continue to suffer, and the angry feelings the son has for his father will be unattended to.
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Be mindful of the principles behind Transactional Analysis: When we communicate, we can inhabit one of three voices: The Parent, the Adult, and the Child. When you are talking with your son, daughter, husband, wife, or friend, make a conscious choice to be the Parent or the Adult respectively. If you embody the temperament of a child when you are speaking to your own child, for example, you will be giving up your role as parent and/or adult with him or her. In turn, you will likely lose his or her respect. Moreover, you will not be offering your child good role modeling. Your child will not consider your ways of communicating worth emulating.
* Note: When children, adolescents, and/or adults become angry and combative with you, and begin to verbally attack you, they may be trying to achieve one of the following goals:
- Deflect attention away from themselves and onto you instead
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Avoid taking responsibility for their actions
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Avoid being accountable for what they’ve done or haven’t done
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Engage in a preemptive strike (character assassination) to put you on your heels so that you’re too busy defending yourself to stay on point with them.
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Throw red herrings your way to distract you away from making your original point.
One way to deftly handle their verbal attacks is to sidestep them all together, like a matador does when he calmly steps aside from an on-rushing bull. You can side-step their verbal attacks and stay on point by sticking to one of the following 5 formulaic responses:
- Use the term, “Regardless.” If, for example, your angry co-worker becomes defensive and says, “Yeah, but you never show up to work on time either,” be mindful not to bite onto this bait. Remain calm and poised, and say, “regardless, I would like you to show up to work on time.”
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Use the expression, “I’m sorry you feel that way, and I would still like you to do x or y…”
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“I guess we can agree to disagree.”
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“Let’s say we both have our own opinions and leave it at that.”
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“I understand. You feel that…and I believe that…There are always at least two ways to look at something.”
Since anger is a secondary emotion, it can very helpful to memorize specific phrases that will draw people out and encourage them to reveal what is hurting them, making them fearful, or contributing to their feelings of frustration. The following phrases can be very effective in achieving these goals:
- “To me, it sounds like you may be feeling a little…..”
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“I’m hearing ….. Are you feeling…..because of….?”
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“I’m wondering if something I’ve said or done might have contributed to your feeling irritable, angry, anxious….”
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“I may be wrong about this, but I’m wondering if you’re feeling kind of lonely/let down/betrayed/discouraged…?”
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“If this had happened to me, I would be feeling……How about you?”
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“I feel ….. when you begin…..”
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Can we continue this discussion in about… (Minutes/hours)?”
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“I’m wondering if we can think of ways to prevent this kind of problem in the future: Do you have some ideas?”
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“If I’ve said or done anything to cause you distress, I hope you’ll tell me.”
You may also want to try repeating what someone has said. When doing so, be mindful not to sound condescending, angry, or patronizing. Try to create a tone that says, “I’m listening closely to what you’re saying.” Consider some of the following repeating phrases:
- “So what you’re saying is you believe that…?”
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“You seem to think that…Is this right?”
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“So, if I have this right, you want…?”
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“Let me make sure that I am hearing you. You want me to…?”
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“You say you believe that…Is that what you meant to say?”
When you are communicating with someone who is feeling angry, do your best to take on a collaborative approach with him or her rather, and refrain from being combative. You may be able to avert an argument or temper tantrum by doing so. Also, do your best to let him or her know that you are making every effort to hear them, understand them fully, and appreciate the depth of their feelings or concerns. Validating someone else’s emotions and empathizing with how they’re feeling and what they’re going really helps to diffuse their anger.
Consider using different responses for different moods. I will give you a few different scenarios right now, and I will then share with you weak responses you could use and compare and contrast them to wise responses.
Situation #1: Your son’s mood seems to be sinking, although he hasn’t said so.
Weak responses:
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Cheer up.
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Do you want to see a movie?
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What’s the problem?
Wise Responses:
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“I may be wrong, but you seem a little down. How are you feeling?”
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It might help to talk about how you’re feeling. When would you like to talk?
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“I’m wondering what would help you right now?”
Situation #2: Your wife tells you that she is feeling anxious, sad, irritable, or depressed.
Weak Responses:
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What is it now?
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Don’t be sad.
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Don’t take it out on me.
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Don’t worry.
Wise responses:
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Do you want to talk about it?
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Is there some way that I can help?
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What are you needing or wanting from me right now that I can offer you to be of some help?
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It’s great you’re telling me how you feel in words: this helps me to understand you better.
Situation #3: Your husband or wife is showing you their feelings by acting-in or acting-out; crying, screaming, slamming doors, throwing things, cursing, giving you the silent treatment.
Weak responses:
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Stop it, leave me alone.
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Control yourself, act like an adult.
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Are you mad at me?!!
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You’re acting spoiled.
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Please talk to me.
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I’m so worried about you.
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As long as you live in this house, you’ll do what I say!
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Get out of my face.
Wise responses:
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I can see how upset you are and I’d like to talk with you about the situation if you calm down a bit.
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I love you, and I want to hear what’s going on in your mind and heart. But I can’t help you until you can sit down and talk to me.
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What would help you calm down right now?
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I’m not able to hear your complaints against me until I feel safe. If you’re feeling extremely angry or out of control, let’s take a break and then meet to talk about it later. I promise to listen.
Two acronyms that I’ve created may also help you to communicate more effectively with someone when the two of you don’t agree on something or when that person has misconstrued what you’ve said or done and in turn gotten their feelings hurt.
The first acronym is as follows: I.H.U.S.A.I.D.A.C.
- The I stands for “I”
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The H stands for “Hear”
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The U stands for “You”
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The S stands for “Sorry.”
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The A stands for “And”
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The I stands for “I”
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The D stands for “Don’t”
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The A stands for “Agree”
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The C stands for “Contrary.”
Using this acronym, you can let that person know that you’re taken the time to hear them and understand their position, and still maintain your position as well.
If, for example, your son says, “It’s not fair that I can’t hang out with my friends at night during the school week”, you can say…
“I hear that you don’t think its fair that you can’t hang out with you friends on a school night, and I understand that not doing so upsets you. I’m sorry that you feel this way about the limit that I’m setting with you. And I don’t agree with your position at all. On the contrary, I think it makes perfect sense that you dedicate your evenings to your school work during the week. You have plenty of time to hang out with your friends on the weekend.”
The second acronym is as follows: S.H.U.I.C.R.
- The S stands for “Sorry.”
- The H stands for “Hear.”
- The U stands for “Understand.”
- The "I "stands for “Intention.”
- The C stands for “Contrary.
- The R stands for “Reassure.”
This acronym is particularly helpful when your son or daughter has been hurt by something that you’ve said or done. For example, if you tell your wife that you think she cab do better at work, she may feel as if you’re being overly critical. Your intention may have been to motivate her or encourage her, but she may have taken your constructive criticism as a personal attack on her work ethic, intelligence, etc.
In this instance, your wife might say, “You’re always so critical of me. Nothing I do pleases you. You just think I’m lazy and irresponsible, don’t you?”!!
Using the SHUICR, you can say: “I’m really sorry that you feel that I’m critical of you, that nothing you do pleases me, and that you think that I think that you’re lazy and irresponsible. I hear that what I said clearly hurt your feelings, and can certainly understand how you would feel hurt and angry if you thought that I felt those things about you. I want to assure you, though, that it was not my intention at all to imply any of those things when I told you that I think that you can do better at work. On the contrary, I was merely trying to be your cheerleader, and share with my faith in your abilities, intelligence, and capacity to succeed at work. I have all the faith in the world in you, and that’s how come I expect so much from you sometimes. In the future, I want to reassure you that when I encourage you to work even harder at something, it’s because I have such complete faith in your abilities. It has nothing to do with any feelings that I’m harboring inside of me about your work ethic, intelligence, etc. If I have those kinds of thoughts or feelings, I assure you that I will come right out and share them with you directly. I’m very proud of you, and all that you’ve accomplished. And it’s important to me that you know this....”
In your communications with others, remember the following tips:
(From my first communication article)
- Use “I” statements: It is important to take responsibility and ownership for your thoughts and feelings. Moreover, it is important not to presume that you know how someone else feels, or that you know what someone else is thinking.
- Avoid asking someone “Why?” Instead, ask “How come” or “What?” Why puts people in their heads, and makes them defensive. “How come” opens up their heart, and encourages them to explore their thoughts, feelings, intentions, etc.
- Avoid using the word, “Should.” The word, should, can sound shaming, self-righteous, and imposing. Instead, say, “I want to encourage you to…” or “I think it would serve you to…” Or I think it would be in your best interest to…”
- Avoid saying someone “Makes” you feel one way or another. This creates a victim mentality and lead to feelings of resentment and powerlessness. It’s important to remember that we can choose to respond to people any way we like. We need not react.
Develop your emotional vocabulary. Learn a more nuanced way to express your feelings. Feeling words include:
- Sad
- Hurt
- Ashamed
- Frustrated
- Afraid
- Invalidated
- Betrayed
- Discouraged
- Disheartened
- Invisible
- Unimportant
- Unsafe
- Unloved
- Unheard
- Unacknowledged
- Unappreciated
- Exasperated
- Unloved
*Learn ways to share your sense of how someone is feeling without sounding presumptuous, or as if your intuition is rooted in fact. For example, consider the following options:
- “My sense is…”
- “I’m wondering if….”
- “You seem…”
- “My experience of you is that….”
- Avoid labeling people. If you call someone a name, he or she may latch onto that name and incorporate it into his sense of self. He or she may then engage in behaviors that will support this piece of their identity. Instead of attacking their character, challenge their behaviors. For example, “I love you, and I don’t like how you’re behaving.”
- Avoid the word, “But.” This tends to negate whatever efforts you’ve made to validate your son or daughter’s thoughts, feelings, etc.
Focus on what behaviors you’d like to see improve. Focusing on the negative only leaves people feeling discouraged, embittered, or resentful. Rather than say, “Don’t be so disrespectful, say, “Be respectful.” Rather than say, “Don’t be so lazy when it comes to your schoolwork,” say, “I’d like you to be more tenacious and conscientious when it comes to your schoolwork.”
Be mindful of making a Content to Process shift. There’s usually more to the picture than meets the eye. Make an effort to see and hear what messages are being sent to you beneath the words that are being spoken. Getting lost in the content can lead to needless arguing. Paying attention to the process can lead you to a deeper understanding of the person that’s talking.
Active listening skills: Pay attention to your body language when listening to your son or daughter.
- Keep your tone of voice soft
- Keep your arms uncrossed
- Lean in
- Make eye contact
- Keep breathing
