5 Ways to Connect and Communicate in Your Relationships

Food. We can't live without love either. I'm Rebecca Silence, host of the Healing Is Possible Experience. Two years in to this show, which is unbelievable and so exciting. And I'm very proud of all of the different topics we've covered, all of the brave individuals that have allowed me to coach them on this platform for all of us to heal collectively. And today it's a very special topic. We are talking about the five things that you can do starting right now to improve your connection and communication and the overall wellbeing of every single one of your relationships. Particularly your most romantic relationships. But really all of them. I am a self proclaimed relationship expert at this point in my career. 15 years of private practice, 21 years working with human behavior and people ranging from age 4 to 104. I have a Master's degree in counseling and I'm a National Board certified music therapist. But those credentials. That's not why I'm saying I'm a relationship expert. I have had to learn how to be the Rebecca that I want to be. In the face of other people not being how I want them to be. In the face of me not showing up the way I want to, in the face of countless ups and downs and breakdowns with people ranging from family members to friends to past romantic partners to clients. Even relationships. Relationships are so worth it. But so many of us don't have a roadmap. And so it can feel like I am wanting love so much because like I said earlier, just like we can't live without food if we're honest with ourselves, we can't live without love either. So it can become a I write a lot about this in my book Coming Back to Life that's on pre sale now. But you can't think that love means suffering and sacrifice or anxiety or whatever it means to you and think that your relationships are going to go well. And in my experience, doing again countless today couples intensives, so many family intensives and so much work coaching couples and families and just people in general. Relationships are what take us out at the knees most of the time and think about even in the face of anxiety or depression or just stress and worry in general, how much of that is you also being focused on what doesn't seem to be working in your relationships? How much of your anxiety is relationship focused? How much of your depression is relationship focused? How much of your stress, your suffering, your worry? Now there's really good news. So I hope you'll watch this entire episode with me because it doesn't have to be so stressful, so painful or so difficult to be in love. And if you're here, if you're hanging out with me, chances are you're like me in that you love love a lot. You love hard. You want to love fiercely and fully and courageously. And you do. And likely you've been burned. So after all these years working with people and seeing people and being through my own hell when it comes to relationships, over and over and over and over again, I've got five things that I really believe can change the game fast that I wanted to share with you. I work with couples every week. If you're someone that wants private time with me, you're own personalized two day miracle experience of getting through whatever's in the way of you loving each other and yourself in the relationship as fully as you can reach out. But for now, I wanted to give this to all of you because just like no one is immune to trauma, no one is immune to relationship challenges. But it can be easier and it is meant to be fun, beautiful and glorious when it comes to your relationships. And not just some of them, all of them. Now I will say a disclaimer before I get into the meat here that for a long time I really did believe that healing is possible with any person. And I want to explain that that's not what this show is actually about today. Meaning that your healing inside of your capacity to get to a place of wholeness and really knowing your value and your worth in the relationships that have been a struggle, that's always possible. So you healing you in any relationship is possible. You healing through your own wounds and patterns and stories and beliefs and blocks with anyone is possible. You getting to a place where the relationship, you and that person are healed and reinvented, not always possible. And here's why. It is always possible for you to want that and for you to pursue that, but it isn't possible to get the other person to want to work with you. There have been so many times when people have been upset with me and didn't want to talk anymore. You can give an invitation for when and if they're available and ready and then that's it. We're not God. We can't get people to be who we need them to be. And that really is the biggest downfall when it comes to relationships. Think about it. Anytime there's an issue in a relationship, chances are the other person is feeling threatened. Like you need them to change or you need them to be different. And then all the insecurities come up and all of the fears and past patterns and ptsd, and I'm not being dramatic, it's real starts to rear up, and then there's no way to even be in relationship, right? Because the person isn't relating to you. They're fighting with the ghosts of their past. So I do want to say that the point here isn't for you to face every abuser or for you to try and get every person that you're still heartbroken with to work with you and heal with you. The goal is you. With you, the work of healing is possible. The work of emotional healing that I preach and I practice and I teach every single day of my life is about you getting to a place where you are literally free. Free in your worthiness, free in your gifts, free in your just deservingness of the most beautiful life experience possible to you. That's what this is about. And I want you to know that even in the face of heartbreak, even in the face of a very dear relationship ending or changing or evolving or maybe the person has passed on and you just miss them so much that you can't even sleep at night. Whatever it is, you can get to a place where you're healed. Meaning my definition of healing is it doesn't hurt anymore. When it's healed, if it hurts still, there's more work for you to do with you, on you and within you. That doesn't mean the other person needs to be different. So let's talk about five things you can try, and then one of the. One of the biggest, biggest takeaways that I hope that you walk away from this episode with is taking away that if you've tried these things and the person doesn't want to work with you, that's okay. Let them go. Let them go in peace and in love, making room for the next level of relationships in your life that are ready to support you as you are now from this place in time, as you move into the future that you're creating for yourself. We hear it all the time. As cliche as it sounds, not everyone is meant to be, meant to be in your life forever, right? And it is true. There are people here for seasons. There are people here for sometimes longer seasons and sometimes shorter seasons. But I want us going into learning together these five things that you can do to connect and communicate in your relationship, starting now, so that you can be someone who doesn't ever have another regret when it comes to relationships in your life. And I don't think I've ever met a person that didn't have some level of regret when it came to at least a relationship in their life. And we don't need to live with regret and we don't need to be trying to play God. I'm guilty. I tried to play God in relationships for decades before I figured out they are perfectly welcome to be who they are, to choose, and their choices might not align or vibe with mine anymore, even if they did once upon a time. And my gosh, that's okay. So while I can say I've had only about a million breakdowns with people and learned a lot about myself in the process and how to navigate and how to salvage relationships when possible along the way, what I can also say is I respect every person that's ever crossed my path and their journey gets to be different. And our journeys sometimes come together and then drift apart and then come together again. And sometimes they don't come together again. And what if that's okay? And what if, just for today, just for this episode with me, of the healing as possible experience, you consider that you'll never be alone and that you can have the relationships that honor and respect and serve you now and in any season of your life and you don't have to hold on to the people that you think need to be there for you to succeed. That has been a really big lesson for me, learning that the certain people I wanted close to me in certain seasons of my life, if they weren't available for that or if it wasn't right for them, what's more important than me getting what I think is the right thing? Is everybody winning. And everybody gets to win. And we're going to get there in step five. So let's dive in now to the deep end of the pool and just really take a magnifying glass out. There are no threats here. This is not meant to shame you or to ignite guilt in you or to have you doubt yourself at all. Ok, we're going to talk about what you can do moving forward. Knowing what you've already done was your best at the time. That's enough. There's no shame in you doing the best you could from where you were with the tools you had. And I'm going to give you some new things to try. Because again, in my experience, these are not strategies, these are not practices that I see certainly not all five at the same time. Maybe one or two sometimes, but I rarely see all five of these things happening at once. And I rarely see consistent practice even with the couples that I have worked with, that we've reinvented. And one more thing, when we're talking about reinvention always being possible in a way that is healing for you, because that's the focus. Not that you can heal with anybody, but you can have a reinvented experience for you of any relationship. So I hope, I hope you're all hearing that and I hope that it's all landing. And you know, of course, all of these five strategies are built on the premise that your relationship with yourself is always where to start, okay? You cannot be better for anyone than you are for you. You can't be more, and you know, better for them than you are for you. You just can't. It's impossible. So if you're ever worrying about self love, being selfish, if you're ever worried about prioritizing you, we did a post, my team and I, last week about you know what's true. Do you care for yourself and then for others or vice versa? And I'm just going to warn you, when you care for them first, you're not as good for them or for anyone, especially for yourself, because it drains you when you're there for them. And then you'll get to you later. Hear this. It is draining. It is exhausting, it is frustrating. And you likely will breed a bunch of resentment if you're prioritizing that person, trying to be who you think you need to be for them. And then you'll think about you and what takes care of you and what your needs are. It's not a strategy that will lead to any long term fulfillment or success in relationships. Putting you last. So everything I'm about to say assumes that you're already putting you first, meaning you know what your needs are, what your wants are, how you feel, what takes care of you, what honors you, what respects you. So that you're basically a fully charged battery when you enter into or engage with other people. Okay, so often we're literally walking around all clogged up with heartbreak, all clogged up with old wounds, all messed up in our heads. Funky. And all messed up in our hearts. Funky. Wondering why we're not more loved. Tip. The relationship will never make you whole. You, you have to practice that. Knowing you're unshakably whole, knowing who you are so much that your character can't be threatened because you know who you are and you know that other people are communicating with you through their filters of pain, of heartbreak and fear. It's never about you, what another person says out of their mouth, even if it's directed at you. Now, Byron Katie talks about, and I couldn't agree more, that we always have the opportunity to take what we hear about ourselves and try to find it. I practice that I look for. How can I apply what they're saying, even if it hurts, even if it feels false, even if it's their filter and not necessarily true. I try to find the truth because relationships to me are the best way for me to meet me, for me to see how I'm showing up in the world. How often have you felt misunderstood? How many times with how many relationships? For me, for most of my life, it was every day. It was every relationship. How come I'm being misunderstood again? My intentions are good, my heart is pure. I only want the best for this person that I care so much about. How could they be perceiving me as not that way, Right? But when I finally recognized that it is all an opportunity for my highest good and highest growth. Anything anybody says, anything anybody does, any circumstance that I find myself in. And if you know me, you already know I am a cancer survivor, got diagnosed while I was pregnant, went on the ride of my life to save my life so I could have my life. And I will tell you, I am better for my experience with cancer. That doesn't mean I welcome it. I am happy that it happened. That's not what I'm saying. You can't again, as Byron Katie says, argue with reality or you lose. So what I want us to understand is that relationships are an opportunity to see the good, the bad, the messy, the ugly, the places and the parts of you that you aren't proud of so that you can do something about it. It's not you in relationship trying to do something about the other person. Good luck with that strategy. Especially in leadership. You don't need to do anything about them, you don't need to change them, and you certainly don't need to get them to see anything that you think they should see. You get to do all that with you, which creates space for healing and growth and reinvention. So let's dive in. Okay, I've got my little cheat sheet here because I didn't want to miss a thing. I've thought so much about what I wanted to say today. All right, so number one, I want you to write down the word care and each one of these five steps to increase connection and communication in your relationships. We're going to start with one word for you to remember and then we're going to go from there. So I want you to imagine that, you know, with every relationship, you have an opportunity to create a future together that's better and different and more exciting than anything you've experienced before. So step one is care about creating a future together that's new in the best possible way. Care about creating a future together that's new in the best possible way. You may have heard before that we get what we expect, but it is especially true when it comes to relationships. We get what we expect, and often unconsciously. A lot of the work that I do is bringing what has been unconscious to the light, to your awareness so we can have a new experience. And the whole point is to have the experience of life that you want to have, not to get all of life set up the way you think it needs to be. And then you'll feel okay to learn how to feel more than okay in your own skin, in your own life, no matter what's happening. Okay, so number one, care about creating a future together that is new and exciting and healing for both of you. What most people do is they are expecting what they've experienced before to happen again, so they experience it again. And what I don't want, especially for relationships, is for there to be a wall between the two people because of how heartbroken and still in pain and trauma they are because of their previous relationship experiences. Okay, so are you starting your day, starting your relationship, or living in a way where you are expecting a better future together than you can even imagine? Or are you operating from expecting there's going to be good, there's going to be bad? I'll take what I can get. It's going to be more of the same, but hopefully with this person, it's better than what I'm used to. So many people, that's their expectation. It's still going to suck, but it'll be better than it was? Hopefully. I'm going to cross my fingers, pray, and we'll see. That is literally how most people are living their relationships. You can use every relationship as an opportunity to heal parts of you that are still guarded, that are still feeling protective of your heart and that are still hurting. But if you don't care about creating a new, healed, exciting future together, that's going to be really difficult and potentially even impossible. Okay, so number one is care about the kind of future you are creating together. Is it more of the same if you catch yourself in that energy or mentality? I want alarm bells to go off and I want you to check yourself and remind yourself Wait, wait. What if we can create something new? Because every day we're growing and evolving and getting better. So that's number one. Number two, all right, this one, I get all kinds of. Wait a minute. Why would I do that? Rebecca, what are you talking about? In my coaching sessions over the years, this one, this is a doozy. But it is so game changing and I can't wait for you to apply it and see how it works for you. So number two, all right. Is focusing. Ok? Focus. So first we started with Karen, now we're starting with focus. Focus on giving all your love and all of your heart to your relationship in all moments. Sometimes let's. Let's just be honest. Giving all of my love is me having a straight conversation. That's diffic. Sometimes me giving all of my love is me saying this is my hard boundary that has me feeling taken care of in the relationship. Are you willing to respect it or not? Right. So when I say give all your love and do everything you can to keep your heart open in all moments, what I'm talking about is don't shut your heart down ever. That is emotional cancer that is so toxic and it's not who you want to be. I don't think you'd be here hanging out with me right now if you aren't someone who cares about love, who focuses on love and who wants love. And you don't just want to get it. You know, I hear it all the time. People have love to give and their heartbreak is more about they didn't get to give it or they're afraid they won't get to give their love in this lifetime. And that is what is taking them out at the knees. But the truth is nobody, nobody can stop you from keeping your heart open. And then this is hard, but I'm going to say it anyway. Nobody can be safe enough space for you to finally decide to keep your heart open either. Okay? So you have to choose to focus on giving your heart and giving your love and keeping that heart open. And we have past episodes of this show where we only talk about keeping your heart open that I would suggest are worth watching. But for now, just know the second you start to close and guard your heart, the second you go into survival with your heart and protect your. Protecting your heart, you have blocked your ability to have the love inside of you shine out and radiate out into the world and into your relationships. So this is really important now. How on earth do you keep your heart open when someone is cruel or attacking or gaslighting or, you know, doing the cold shoulder shunning you game or whatever it is that has you just sitting with your arms crossed, jaw on the floor. This can't be happening right now, right? And we have all freaking been there and it can be with the people we expect and it can be a blind side and someone we didn't see it coming with all of a sudden. I can't believe this is happening right now in this relationship. So those are the moments where I'm going to suggest to you that it matters the most to keep that heart open and to give your love. And this is vulnerability, right? Focus on heart open, giving love, not. I'll wait until they show up, just right, jump through my hoops, meet my bar, and then I'll give my love. No, just do it so you know you did and it is simple. It's not easy. All right, so focus on giving your love and giving your heart in all moments. That's number two. And if this is really challenging, very simply start by saying, I am feeling. Fill in the blank. I want to be close to you even now and get through this together. Try that. Try that. I am feeling abandoned. I want in this moment to get closer to you and get through this together. Just start there. That would be enough for number two, focusing on giving your love and giving your heart. Ok. Number three, another very, I think, important piece. If you want more communication that is healthy and connecting and if you want more connection, which I think we all do. So this one, again, it starts with you. Our word is see. Okay? So care, focus, see, see yourself as innocent and see the other person is innocent. One of the biggest things that has changed my relationships is literally asking people to please see me as innocent. It wasn't easy to do to say, I need you to please see me as innocent. My intentions are always good. I might not always get it perfect. My actions might not quite line up to what I know and you know, my intentions are all the time. But I'm. I'm wanting that. I'm wanting to get there. I'm not wanting to be confusing. I'm not wanting to upset you. So please see me as innocent so that we can have a conversation where you know, I'm not trying to hurt you and I'm not trying to do anything to harm anyone ever. Okay? The reason I'm saying see people as innocent isn't because we want to give them a free pass for bad behavior. It isn't because we're going to forgive in a toxic positivity. Format where we pretend like what happened didn't happen. That is not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is we are literally all doing the best we can. We are literally all doing the best we can. And so many people don't really believe it's safe to take the walls around their heart down. So they're living with toxic, painful, stuck energy because they think it's protecting them and keeping them safe. So if we can see people as innocent, we can ask better questions. We can communicate more vulnerably and honestly about what's going on inside of us without needing them to do anything about it. All right? And this is really important. Your job is never to do anything about what another person is feeling or experiencing. Your job is to do so much about what you are feeling and experiencing. And again, all of these pieces do not just apply to love. They apply to your relationship with your teams, with your co workers, with your family members, with your friends, with your kids, with your neighbor's kids. Okay? These principles are gold for you to make your relationships as gorgeous as you've ever dreamed they could be. So just try it on. Seeing them as innocent. Once you've already seen yourself innocent as innocent, you got to see you as innocent first. Then you see them as innocent, then there's hope for the relationship. And again, I am not saying bad behavior gets a no problem free pass. I am saying you can do a reset energetically that creates space for healing, connection, and better communication. When you see you as innocent and when you see them as innocent, and from that place of seeing you and them as innocent, you can get more creative and you can get more committed to mutual understanding. All right? And that takes us in to number four. Okay? Remember. All right. Remember that you've both been through enough already, okay? So we're gonna care, we're gonna focus, we're gonna see, and we're gonna remember that both of you beautiful souls have been through so much and you've been through enough. You have been through enough. So let's not be a part of creating more pain and more suffering together that we're already used to, that we're already way too comfortable with, that we already expect. Let's have a new experience I literally think about. So, Mark, and I'm on my second marriage. I told you, I've learned a lot about relationships. It's been a shit show for, you know, many years in many relationships. And I've learned how to be who I want to be in relationships no matter what. And I am, I can promise you, I am so proud of who I have been in every relationship. Not in all moments, but in my willingness to grow, heal and reinvent with basically anybody that wants to reinvent with me. As long as they are not abusive or violent, we have a chance, right? If. And this has been true. So let's just Quick pause disclaimer here. Someone in your life is abusive, violent, even in an act of addiction that has them unsafe to be around. In those cases, you can communicate your heart, you can communicate your love, you can communicate how important they are to you. You can let them know that you are here when they are ready to work with you and grow with you and heal with you from a healed and safe and respectful place. And then the ball is in their court. But what I'm saying is I am proud that I have given every relationship a chance. That doesn't mean the other person is willing to give the relationship with me a chance. It's been devastating at times and many times to see that a person is just going on their way and I am not part of their journey, even if I still love and care for them. And in those cases, all you can do is keep your heart open, wish them well, and be available if it feels right to reinvent down the road. But meanwhile, consider you haven't lost anything because you're ready for a next level of relationship. This is hard, but listen to this while I'm saying, remember, you've both been through enough already. I don't care if it's your five year old neighbor's kid having a tantrum in your house. They've already been through a lot too. So most of our trauma is 4 to 7. So let's not forget that, okay? This applies across the board. I don't care who's in front of you or how old they are. But what you can know is that if a relationship is no longer part of your life or part of your inner circle, and it was, and that hurts, and I get it does, you weren't vibing with them anymore. You weren't vibing with them. It's not just they aren't vibing with you, you aren't vibing with them. So that's okay. And nobody did anything wrong. And everybody's path is their version of what's most perfect and most needed for them. And it's okay. It doesn't mean you're abandoned or rejected or that you did anything wrong. It means that your paths are no longer the same and that your lives are going in different directions and that other people are available and coming to vibe with you on your path now. Okay? So remember, remember you've been through enough already. So have they. Mark and I, our 10 year wedding anniversary, August 6th. It's coming up. Or 10 years of marriage together. We've been together 11, we've been married for 10 and oh my God, have we been through a lot. And quick teaser, next week's show is going to be Mark and I talking about 10 years married together because he's lost a business. We've been through financial ruin. I had cancer. Oh my gosh. After having a baby. We have been through so much and so many reinventions. So next week he is coming on, you can meet my hubby and we are just going to get real and talk about what we have been through and what we have learned and some ideas for all of you. But one of the things I wanted to say when we are talking about point four here, remember that you've both been through enough already is I think about what I know Mark's history is and how I don't want to be someone to rub more salt in the wounds that I don't need to be playing God and trying to get him to change or see or heal or whatever my ego thinks is necessary. I'm aware of what he's been through, I'm aware of his patterns, I'm aware of his healing. And I don't need to be contributing to more of the past pain that has already done enough damage. And he treats me the same way. And we are not always perfect at it. None of this is about perfection. It is just about awareness and conscious intention and consistency and a commitment back to number one to caring about creating a new and exciting and even more healed future together. Okay, last one, last one. All right. Say the solution so we have care, focus, see, remember, say, speak the solution. I cannot tell you how many times a day I am working with a couple and they are talking about the problem or I'm just working with an individual and they are talking about the problem and they are presenting the problem to their partner with no solution. So I like to say give people a chance to win with you. Not just work with you, but win with you. You watch some of these reality TV shows that have to do with relationships. I love them. I love Married at First Sight, the Bachelor. Sometimes love is blind ultimatum. All these shows, if you watch any of them, notice how focused and how much power people give the problem in their communication. And what do you think Happens to connection. When you focus on the problem and you say, here's my problem with you and I'm going to put it in your hands. What are you going to do with it? What happens to connection? It disintegrates. Okay? So you very likely are in a real experience. I want to validate that you're not making up that the problem exists. So the good news is, if we can be aware of the problem, otherwise known as what's not working in the relationship, we can get to the point where we say and communicate what would work instead. Now, here's where this gets very sticky and tricky for a lot of us. Us, we don't know. We just know what isn't feeling good or what isn't working or what is so painful. We don't know what the hell we need. We don't know what would make it better. We just know we don't want more of this shit to happen ever again. And why does it keep happening? And how come I'm so misunderstood and how come it's so hard to meet my basic requirements of not doing xyz? Well, again, that energy, that problem focus, it doesn't give your partner anything to work with or anywhere to go. Because if you don't know, they don't either. And you know, early on, one of the things that Mark said to me was if you don't tell me what you need, you are definitely not going to get it, so you might as well tell me what you need. And then you got a 5050 shot. I was confronted, I'll be honest, when he said that. But the good news here is he's not going to do anything that doesn't feel right to him so that I will be happy. And he's not going to try to waste his time or energy trying to read my mind, figure me out, or play games around what it is that I'm wanting or needing. He's asking me to communicate and then he'll decide what works for him. That is very, very, very healthy. So I want you to think about in your conflicts and just navigating your relationships in general today and this week. How are you communicating? Are you saying the problem or are you saying the solution? And if you are struggling with I don't know what I need, take my emotional survival kit course today. It's three hours. You will know yourself inside and out on a level that you can't even comprehend right now. All right. Or reach out and ask me about how we can work together privately. But you getting to the place where you do know what you want, you do know what you need, you do know how you feel, and you do know how to give the person in front of you a chance to win with you because you're unwilling to not communicate those things all that's possible and available to you. And it isn't as hard or as grueling or as far away as you think. I promise. Like, you can get there fast. Ok, so just to recap. Care, focus, see, remember, say, all right. And please let me know how it goes. Love matters. I don't care who you are. I don't care what you've done. You deserve to be loved and you deserve to give the world all of the love you have inside of you to give. And that doesn't mean you're gonna, you know, have no boundaries and be walking around all inappropriate with everybody you meet. It means that you no longer have to ever apologize for how much you care about love and your relationships. And the patterns can heal. And my final thought for you today is know and remember that relationships, again give you an opportunity to see where you have past unhealed trauma work to do. It is a gift. It is a gift. And do not wait for them to be better. And then you will try these five strategies. Try them, live them consistently. Practice them. And again, please let me know how it goes. Healing is possible for you, for me, for all of us. Thank you for watching today. This show is sponsored by my gorgeous team and rebeccasilence.com where you can visit to get free resources and all kinds of opportunities for us to continue our healing journey together. I see you. I love you. I want your relationships to feel good and like they're working for you. And I hope that you really will reach out and let me know how this lands and let me know how this changes things for you.