Does Your Relationship Need a Communication Coach?

It has been theorized that only a small fraction of communication is actually done through words. Your eyes, your facial expressions, the shape your mouth takes when you speak, the tone of your voice, body language – many things come together when you are speaking to another person. Likewise, these things are coming your way when another person is communicating with you.

This becomes even more complicated because your mind also has the responsibility of interpreting the form, the idea, and the language behind all of it.

All of this, in addition to the fact that we are always thinking of possible responses once the other person ends every sentence, makes it incredible that we are ever able to communicate anything.

If we have reached a roadblock and are having trouble communicating effectively, a communication coach can act as a referee and help us through our communication issues.

A Brief Example

Let’s pretend there is a couple made up of John and Maria. They married each other a few years ago, had two kids, and agreed that John will work during the day while Maria does a great job of running the household. Maria isn’t having a good day – the kids are fussy, the car needs maintenance, she stained the carpet with coffee, and her mother called and criticized her parenting style.

Maria is frustrated. She is cooking dinner while the kids run around yelling like animals, and John comes home after having a bad day himself. The first thing he says to Maria is, “You didn’t put the trash out this morning.” What response does he expect? Maria could be a little mad and say something like “Seriously?!,” or she may be really mad and throw Spaghetti-Os right in John’s face.

John should have taken the time to assess the situation once he got in the door to determine how his family was feeling. Instead, he chose to snap at his wife about the trash when he probably would have come up with a different greeting had he not perceived Maria’s failure to put the trash out as a shortcoming.

We should all know by now that the chances of having a meaningful conversation with someone who is distracted, mad, anxious, or stressed is extremely low. In these instances, having tools of communication can really help.

Tools a Communication Coach Can Teach You

Assess the Situation

Many, if not most, arguments could have been avoided had the individual who initiated the conversation taken a few moments for assessing the situation.

If someone comes into a conversation angry, chances that there will be any productive, adult-like communication are diminished. As they say, “check yourself.” What are you currently feeling? Where do you feel it? Do you have anxiety right now? Does your throat feel tight, or does your stomach have a knot in it?

Is whatever you’re about to say designed to be hurtful towards the other individual? Have you thought about and considered how what you are going to say will sound to the other individual? Is your opening piece going to contain trigger words that you know are going to upset the other individual? Are you mad and looking for an altercation? If you have a lot of arguments, check yourself prior to beginning a conversation.

Get Permission

It is amazing how a lot of arguments could be avoided if the initiating person began the conversation with, “Is right now a good time to discuss_____?” Getting permission to begin the conversation acknowledges there is another person in the conversation who has emotions, agency, and possible stress that the initiator may not know of. Doing this instills power in the other individual and provides an opportunity for deferring the conversation until a later time.

There are some conditions placed on this empowerment in committed relationships. If the conversation is deferred, you need to schedule another time to discuss the issue, and it is best if this is no more than 30 minutes later. You can bring up if you have concerns about getting attacked based off of previous conversations.

You must trust the other individual if he or she promises the purpose is not to attack you, but an agreement must be made that if an attack begins, you are allowed to stop the conversation and state that you’ll consider the conversation be started over only if you won’t be attacked.

Create Ground Rules

Oftentimes, people do not fight fair during an argument. When someone is mad or anxious, he or she loses the ability to reason and actually connect with someone else, so bad choices are made. This includes forgetting that he or she cares about the person being talked to or yelled at.

You can make up any ground rules you want in regards to adult conversation, but here are some suggestions:

Stay on the Topic

If one person’s failures or shortcomings have come up in the conversation, keep that the topic of conversation.

It’s never beneficial to mention the other person’s failures during a conversation of this sort even if the other person has committed the same shortcomings in the past. Many conversations end up just rehashing negative experiences from the past instead of addressing the issue and accomplishing something.

Framing

Framing can be used to prepare another individual for the conversation that you want to have. Saying something like, “We need to discuss something that may upset you. Can you handle it right now?” is a good starter. If the response is “no,” they need to reschedule within the next thirty minutes.

Nobody likes these conversations, but we must learn skills to contain our fears and hurt in order to have them. You can also express your own fears through framing by saying things like, “We need to discuss something but I’m scared you will be mad and scream at me.”

The other individual gets a chance to prepare himself or herself for the conversation that may be upsetting. By doing that, it can effectively help the individual prepare to act adultlike and not storm out of the room like a child.

Meta-conversations

Meta-conversations are conversations about conversations. These usually come in the form of, “When you mentioned_____, I thought it was_____, and it made me feel_____” An example would be, “When you didn’t take out the trash, I thought that you don’t care if the house smells terrible, and it made me feel angry.”

These are important and can be brought up by simply raising your hand to halt the conversation and asking, “Can I take a minute to tell you how I felt about that?” If the other individual says no, it means he or she is too disconnected or upset to be having the conversation in the first place and it might be best to pause it and come back to it later.

Watch Out for Over-Responsibility

We tend to blame other people for the emotional states we are in, such as, “You really angered me!” but we also tend to blame ourselves for the emotions of other people. If a loved one says that something we did upset them, it is normal and expected that negative emotions will arise. We usually feel remorse, sadness, and sometimes shameful.

Other times, however, we might experience fear, outrage, anger, and resentment. These emotions can arise from times in our younger years where we felt unsafe, unloved, or like we didn’t deserve kindness.

If loved ones tell us that we have hurt them, it is common for us to feel shame and sadness. After this, we might lash out because of our past hurts and shames.

An important thing to remember is that the feelings of other people are not your responsibility. Of course, when you care about someone, you have the right to try to improve the emotional state he or she is in, but his or her happiness is not your responsibility. You are free to try to create an environment that leads to happiness, but the ultimate outcome is not your responsibility. It will either happen or it won’t.

Pretend a child rejects a very nice toy that his parents give him. The parents will be disappointed, but they have to allow the child to respond in his own way. If his parents get mad and lash out saying that the child is spoiled and ungrateful, the parents were trying to be responsible for the child’s reaction.

It is normal to be disappointed. Lashing out because we are mad that we feel like we have been rejected is a different story. In the scenario above, the parents may feel rejected and their perceived sense of self as great parents was somehow related to that toy.

In this situation, the parents may be having the tendency to repeat emotional narratives that they experienced during their own childhoods. A professional who is licensed in mental health could help the parents process situations like this.

Body Awareness

When we are in a traumatic situation, we tend to disconnect our bodies first. Doing this is a defense mechanism and it will prevent us from shutting down entirely. However, our bodies aren’t wired to do that every single moment of every day.

Disconnecting ourselves from feelings may seem very natural, but just because it provides us with a feeling of safety, it also prevents us from having healthy, mutual, and strong relationships with our loved ones.

During a conversation, you should periodically take a moment to notice how your body feels. Ask things like, “How do I feel? Am I having chest or stomach tightness? Am I nauseated? Do I feel a tingling sensation in my toes or fingers?”

Along with other feelings, these are normal symptoms of heightening anxiety. If anxiety is kicking in, hold up one of your hands and pause the tense conversation. Explain to the other individual that you are having a spike in anxiety and need some time to calm yourself down before continuing the conversation.

The time should be spent employing deep breathing, meaning in through your nose and out through your mouth. This should be done until you are able to slow the breathing down to a three-count, which means 3-second inhale, 3-second hold, and 3-second exhale. During exhalation, make a shape with your lips as if you are blowing a candle out. This type of breathing instructs your parasympathetic nervous system that calming down is okay.

There aren’t many things that can cause a conversation to tank worse than anxiety. When you take time to recognize that your body is dissociated, take another second to place yourself in the area you are in, grab something and feel the texture, or toss something up and down. These activities may sound silly but they help to keep you in the moment.

Anyone is Allowed to Pause the Conversation

When we are talking to someone, it is perfectly okay to pause the conversation to go use the restroom, so it is certainly okay to pause the conversation because we are getting upset. The conversation should be paused if yelling starts, someone starts sobbing, someone starts using offensive language, someone stops listening, and so on.

Identify the issue in a simple manner through “I statements.” For example, “I feel as if you’re not listening to me,” “I feel as if you are saying things to hurt me,” or “I feel as if you have checked out of this conversation.” Just like you’re able to agree to not let the conversation escalate into a fight, you can also agree on pausing it if there is tension.

If we go through life without processing the hurt, frustration, or sadness caused by loved ones, they can be triggered during tense conversations. A good way to overcome this is by consulting a knowledgeable licensed therapist who can help you explore the elements of healthy communication until you gain enough skills to be able to use them in your own conversations.