Dr. Tracy Dalgleish and her partner Greg broke a recurring fight by switching from "you" statements to "I feel" language. When Greg said "I'm feeling confused, can you slow down?" instead of "you're going too fast," Tracy could hear him without defensiveness. Two rules that helped: skip "always" and "never," and speak from your own experience instead of blaming.
Greg and I recently had a communication unlock, and I thought this is something that I want to share here with the community. So here's what would continuously happen in our conversations, especially when it came to business. For those of you who don't know, we run multiple businesses together, and so boundaries and conversations can become a little bit difficult, whether we're trying to connect with just the two of us talking about kids, or then suddenly we are talking about business. Here's what would tend to happen is that I would be sharing something and then Greg would say, "You're going too fast," or he would say, "You are not making sense," or, "You're not clear." And instantly in that moment, I would just see red. Now seeing red would make sense on two reasons. So one, I am reacting to how he is communicating information, which is focused on you. Anytime you start a conversation with you, the other person, is going to feel like they are being attacked. Greg would say, if he were here, he would say, I am not attacking you when I say that. And I believe him, except conversations with you, that's externalization, that's blaming, that's putting it on the other person. And I'll talk about why that's important to know in a moment. But there's the other thing that would instantly happen for me, and this is really where the complexities in our relationships happen, because he would have his experience, and then what was happening for me is I would instantly be triggered into my old stuff. The red wasn't just because I felt blamed from him, but it would hit my deeper wounds, which sound like, you're too much, you're too sensitive. Something defective about me would immediately show up in that moment. So I would feel the heat literally from my toes to my fingertips, and then I would get mad and we would completely derail the conversation. That's one entry point into our negative cycle. Now, if you're new here, you're probably thinking, hang on, I just clicked on to this psychologist couples therapist video or audio and she's getting stuck in her negative cycle. Here's what I want you to know: all couples have a negative cycle and a negative communication pattern. If you don't know what yours is, check out the link in the show notes because I've got a free quiz to help you identify what your cycle is. Now the thing is, is that master couples— I'm using quotation marks— master couples, those who report long-term marital satisfaction, They're the ones who can actually recognize the cycle, stop the cycle, or come back and repair sooner. So it's not about never having a cycle, it's about knowing how to come back together earlier and not letting these moments fester. So here's this important piece, is that communication will always get derailed the moment you are focusing on somebody else. And I really want to return to this piece here, because if you are someone that tends to do the you, And the other piece here is if you say something like, "I feel like you," that's not a feeling. You're not going inside yourself, okay? So focusing on someone else, externalization, is actually a way that we keep ourselves safe in relationships. And when I say that, what I'm really meaning is we are decreasing our levels of vulnerability. If I'm saying to you, "You're speaking too quickly," I'm not talking about anything within myself. Or if I'm saying, you're not helping out, I am not saying anything of what my experience is. The moment we have to go inside ourselves and talk about the feeling inside. So if you're listening, I'm pointing to my gut because oftentimes our feelings are inside of our bodies. And that is the first signal for us to recognize what's the feeling that I'm having. If we're not going inside of ourselves, we are keeping the other person at a distance. Vul— distance. Vulnerability level is low. That breaks connection. True connection is being able to go inside of ourselves. This is emotional intimacy. Emotional intimacy is about identifying what is it that I'm thinking? What do I feel? What are my desires and things that are important to me and what are my needs? And then I have to be able to communicate that to the other person. And one of the ways we avoid being vulnerable with our partners is not sharing that stuff and focusing outward. Okay, so here's the unlock, because I want to make this really actionable for this short piece here. The unlock that Greg and I discovered is that when we were having these conversations, I had no idea what he needed, and instead we would just get stuck with me feeling blamed, him feeling not understood, etc., etc. And so then it started to shift, and now he says things like, I'm feeling uncertain about what you're sharing, can we start from the beginning? Or I'm feeling I'm feeling confused. Can you explain this in a different way? Or I'm not quite understanding what you're sharing. So that's all of his stuff. Can you try again? And he might even say, can you slow down? And I can absolutely slow down cuz then I can understand in that moment that he's feeling confused. He's not sure where we're going, or he didn't jump on the train of thought I was having. And that's okay. That has been a complete unlock in our communication and has really helped both of us now have conversations and communicate communicate about these important things without getting stuck in our negative cycle. All right, I thought I would share that with you. I'd love to hear— let me know in the comment section, does this land for you? Do you find yourself getting stuck in some repeating pattern in your relationship, not understanding how did we get here, what just happened? And when you go to communicate something with your partner, I want to hear from you. Do you tend to start with you? Do you start in the point of pointing your finger at them, not in a malicious or manipulative or gaslighting way, not in any of those harmful ways, but just as a, you know what? So many of us learn to communicate that way. Most people do not learn how to communicate. And this was actually a conversation we had at the dinner table with the kids recently, where we said we have two rules in communication. One is we don't use always or never. And two, we talk about inside stuff, I feel, rather than you do this. 2 major things that so many of us don't actually learn. All right. Thanks for clicking play. I'm so glad that you are here in this community. I've got resources for you in the show notes and hey, if you and your partner get stuck in a similar cycle, send this to them and maybe this is an unlock for you as well.
