Learn the crucial communication technique that will help you and your partner move improve the quality of your communication allowing both of you to feel safe in having difficult conversations. Remember the aim is not to not have disagreements, but rather to be able to do so in way that gets you both to repair quickly and back on solid ground of connection.
Step 1: Rules to Initiating a tough Conversation
It’s important to set yourself up for success when you know it is not going to be an easy conversation. Here are 4 tips to remember:-
- Ask for an appointment to ensure that you are both ready
- In one or two sentences describe the particular, specific, observable, behaviour that you found troubling. Provide your partner with clear, uninterpreted data that would be supported by a video recording of the incident. “What I saw was……”
- Share your interpretation of the event. The key is to describe it as the story that you created, not what your partner thought, intended, felt, or believed. With this frame you own the meaning that you created. “ The story I made up when I saw and or heard that was……”
- Get in touch with your emotional response to the event and share these feelings with your partner as calmly and simply as you can. Make sure that what you are expressing is an emotion – a feeling– and not a belief or theory about your partner. If you are using “you” instead of “I” in describing how you feel you’ve moved away from describing a feeling.
This step takes vulnerability, but is key to getting your partner to understand your full experience. Try to access the layers of the feelings you experience – if your initial response is usually anger, look if there is fear or pain under that feeling, and express those emotions first.
Step 2: Mirroring/Reflect
Listen to your partner without distorting your partners thoughts and feelings.
Why Mirror your Partner
- It allows your partner to feel heard without judgment.
- Mirroring slows down the conversation and helps create space between what you hear and how you respond, thus reducing the speed to an argument or misunderstanding
How to Mirroring (Follow this basic script until you can make it your won)
- Tell your partner the message you would like him/ her to hear. The message should start with “I” and describe your feelings. (Example: “I feel hurt when you talk down to me.”)
- Your partner then mirrors your message. Example: “If I got it or what I hear you saying is that, you feel hurt when I talk down to you. Did I get it?”
- If you feel your partner did not understand your message, explain again and have him/her mirror you until the message is received.
- The listening partner must remain curious until you complete the message.
- If you were heard accurately, your partner says, “Is there more about that or tell me more?” This helps you complete your feelings and prevents your partner from responding to incomplete messages.
- When the message is completed, your partner then summarizes all the message. (Example: “Let me see if I got that…”)
- He/she should check for accuracy with, “Did I get it all?”THE MAGIC SENTENCE IS “TELL ME MORE”allow your partner time to think and really get to the bottom of the barrel and empty everything they want to say on the issue – in small size bites not a monologue
Only when your message has been heard accurately, you can then move on to the next step.
Step 3: Validating
Why it is not enough just to listen to your partner.
Why Validate your Partner
- It is not enough just to listen; you must learn to pay close attention to understand your partner’s truth and affirm your partner’s reality.
- Your partner does not have to agree with your argument to validate it.
- Your partner must make certain that you feel validated before moving on.
How to Validate
To validate your message, he/she needs to use the right language. He/she should use sentences like this: “You make sense because...” or “I can see what you’re saying BECAUSE ” Using the phrase, “makes sense” may be helpful—it tells you that your partner does not think your feelings are crazy.
Next: Put yourself in his/her shoes
Step 4: Empathizing
Once the feeling is expressed, it is time to put yourself in your partner’s shoes.
Why Empathise your Partner
- Empathizing with your partner’s feelings is critical to him or her feeling heard.
- To create connection in this instance is the ability to step into that place with them where you are able to see what they feel other expressed or written on their face.
How to Empathise
- Your partner can start the empathy exercise with a statement such as, “I can imagine that you might be feeling…” or “I can see you are feeling. “
- Since it is impossible to know exactly what a person feels, your partner should check for accuracy. He/she should ask “Is that what you’re feeling?” If he/she did not understand the feeling, you should readdress the message.
- If you share new feelings with you partner upon reiteration, he/she must mirror those feelings. (For example, “Is there more about that feeling?”)
WHY TRANSLATE YOUR FRUSTRATION INTO A REQUEST?
Most of these difficult conversations need someone to change their behaviour. What is it that you want that you are not getting? The best way to transform something painful is by asking your partner for a behaviour change. If they agree this becomes a “gift.” Start by asking something as simple as, “Right now, can I make a request?” Building this reservoir of listening, hearing and being heard creates safety, which makes emotional gift giving easier.
DEEPENING STATEMENT IS – TELL ME MORE….
CONNECTING STATEMENTS TO REMEMBER
When you did that/said that, I interpreted it to mean…
And then I felt…
What I am afraid of…
What hurts…
When I get scared, how I try to protect myself is…
What I long for is…
How I imagine my behaviour affects you is…
Underneath my anger/crying/screaming, what I am experiencing is…
What I am experiencing in my body is…