Couples whose communication has become ineffective and frustrating need to stop, take a deep breath and face the problem by using one or all of these trusted and powerful techniques to get things back on track.
Reflective Listening Clears up Misunderstandings and Distortions
The couple sits facing each other on the same level, with only a clear table or open space between them -- nothing distracting, turning off all electronics including cell phones. This time is for the two of them. A time limit, which can always be extended by renegotiation, is agreed upon and obeyed.
The partner experiencing the problem or the most upset begins as the talker; the other partner is the listener. While the talker speaks their truth in short segments of 3-4 sentences at a time, the listener listens carefully for meaning without judgment, guilt, or implied agreement and then repeats as closely as possible what they heard the talker say as if they were a tape recorder. The talker then reports whether they feel emotionally "heard" or not.
If the talker feels understood by the listener, the talker continues in short segments, reporting for each segment whether they feel heard. If the talker doesn't feel heard, he or she reviews their previous statement and the listener reflects it again, until the talker feels that there is understanding.
Partners then switch roles. The new talker who speaks their truth in short segments, and the new listener reflects what is heard until their partner also feels heard.
Insight, compassion and a great sense of release are often the effects of doing this exercise.
Renewing Goals Refocuses Energy
If the couple is intimate, remembering their first meeting or their first date can renew feelings of tenderness and love, and help them to remember why they are together, as well as open new avenues of communication.
A professional dyad can sit facing in the same direction, and take turns saying out loud the goals of their partnership, from the earliest to the most current. This can refocus their communication onto the goals in which they are both invested, and get themselves "looking in the same direction".
Looking at photos together, and writing down the areas of agreement, can also be a huge help towards getting back on the same page in a troubled relationship.
Speak only the Microscopic Truth
Gay and Kathlyn Hendricks describe the microscopic truth as "speak[ing] the truth about your internal experience as you are currently perceiving it." It is a truth about which there can be no argument, because it is the speaker's truth alone.
Rather than lashing out and blaming, the partner describes their emotional experience including their mindbody's response, as in "When you left the house angrily and were gone for four hours, I felt abandoned and scared in the pit of my stomach, and worried about how you were."
"I-statements" can be used, using this template: "When you" + [nonjudgmental description of the partner's behavior] + "I feel/felt" + [emotional words describing the feeling state].
With practice, it becomes easier to get underneath the anger and blaming, down to the hurt and fear that is often lurking there. These feelings exist because the couple care about each other, chose to be closer but cannot find the way due to earlier woundings that they're reenacting. Telling the microscopic truth helps to bring these woundings to light, and allows their healing - often through feeling closer to the partner who listens and accepts.
Dianne Lobes - Dianne is a creative and committed professional counselor (Oregon) and psychologist (Ohio), prolific writer, energizing educator and ...
