Well hello there and welcome to this episode of The Terri Cole Show that I
want to start with the question: when you're in the heat of a fight do you
have a tendency to either explode and say things that you don't mean or withdraw in
anger and become silent? If you're nodding your head this is a very common common
experience where people will choose these sort of communication blocking techniques
not on purpose it's just more of a reaction. So in today's video I'm actually going to be breaking
down the top four communication blockers what you can do instead instead of withdrawing in anger or
whatever you're doing and I'm going to give you some scripts and sentence starters so that the
next time you're in conflict you can actually solve the conflict instead of having it sort of
devolve into a complete and total brawl so before we get into today's episode if you are new to this
channel please introduce yourself in the comments below because we are really a friendly group of
people and I want to make sure that you subscribe so hit that bell icon so you can get notified
every single time that we roll out a new video which is every Tuesday and Thursday to up level
the quality of all of the relationships in your life. If you are new here my name is Terri Cole,
I'm a licensed psychotherapist, a relationship expert, and the author of Boundary Boss which
you can get at boundarybossbook.com. I also want to say thank you so much for your questions and
your comments you leave so many I read them all I love it love it love it and completely appreciate
you and I love to highlight your comments so mahoria says under the episode how to overcome
adversity with Doug Bopst, "Thank you Terri great interview with Doug Bopst. Congratulations Doug
on your recovery thank you so much for sharing your story I am truly inspired and amazed by
your determination and drive I now have the Three A's in my pocket to utilize when needed
best wishes to con to your continued success." Well thank you so much for taking the time to
write a comment if you guys have not seen my interview with Doug Bopst go find it on my
YouTube channel right here because it is a good one. All right let's move into today's content
effective communication now this is something we hear a lot about a lot of times I don't even think
we know what it actually means this is difficult to do in regular times when life is normal
when we are in a conflict it is especially challenging to effectively communicate that is one
of the hardest parts of being in a relationship is either not blowing up the conflict or not sort
of walking away from the conflict because we don't know how to deal with it it is really crucial for
you to understand yourself how do you respond when you are feeling threatened when you are activated
or when you are in a disagreement or a conflict with someone else so I would say we're going to go
over right now the four top conflict communication blockers so I'm going to talk about the unhealthy
action that many of us take it's super duper common and then what you can do instead
so the difficulty or the issue the first one we're going to talk about is the inability to express
your own needs right if In the Heat of the Moment when you want to talk about what you want but
instead your mind let's say goes blank and it can really like render you speechless a lot of times
for many folks depending on your background being in conflict with someone can really be threatening
it can kick up your fight flight freeze or phone response sometimes you feel like you can't
talk right it's almost like you get Frozen so you've got to gain Clarity yourself on
why is it that however you're responding why is that right and we want to figure that out before
we find ourselves in these heated conflicts so it's sort of what is the unmet need when
you are feeling angry upset hurt in your relationship let's say or any relationship
I want you to write it all out in your Journal right it might feel awkward at first to write
it all down how you're feeling but it can be so effective so that once you approach the person
you've already written out what you're upset about you are super clear about what need in you
has gone unmet because again nobody has a crystal ball people can't know how we're feeling or how we
took something and it's also okay and this is I strongly suggest that you actually do this I do
this with my therapy clients at times if you're someone who gets flustered in the moment you can
write it all out and in the guide that goes along with this episode terricole.com/guide you will see
that I have written this all out for you so here is an example of how you can share what you're
feeling after you've written it down it's okay to say hey I've written down a few things that I
want to communicate to you so can you please wait until I'm done sharing them with you before you
respond you know that asking for what I want is challenging for me and I would really appreciate
your patience and compassion while I work to get better at it so what we're doing there is we are
inviting our person in to our process to be a part of our solution instead of a part of the
problem and in the beginning my therapy clients would be like that's so weird and then I'm going
to read something out of my journal I'm like yeah because once you get the words out you will feel
so much more confident once you share it in a way that really feels like it's what you
want to say half of your healing comes from that alone it's really not about
I mean yes within the relationship it's about how the other person responds right we hope if they're
our person they're going to care about the way we feel and what we want but your side of the street
is learning how to identify what it is that you want or why it is that your feelings are hurt or
what need is going unmet and then to write that down if you have difficulty in the moment talking
and creating space with that script that I gave you to be able to read it to your person
and that is a win however they respond right you just creating that boundary you just
sharing that truth is a win right there and that does wonders for your self-esteem right
you can start to count on yourself two tell the truth and really negotiate to get your
needs met all right the second issue or block to communication when we're in conflict is listening
to talk right listening to respond when you feel yourself the person's talking
but you're just waiting until you can jump in to go back to the point you're trying to get across
you know to prove your argument to win quote unquote at all costs this is something we have
to look at more closely in ourselves because it can be so tempting to want to poke holes
in the other person's Theory or what they're saying or saying that they got it wrong but we
need to create space what you can do instead is learn to listen with the intention of actually
understanding not Gathering evidence to make the other person wrong or to make that case
right another way that we do this in healthy relationships is that we create regular dates
to discuss openly whatever is going on right I suggest people do a weekly or bi-monthly right
twice a month State of the Union I call it you don't have to tell your person that's the name
of it just see if they'll have breakfast with you twice a month where you can check in what are the
things we're doing great what are the things we can work on how are you feeling is there anything
that's upsetting to either one of us the more we normalize problem solving the less we find
ourselves in this sort of reaching this stalemate because when we're in the conflict but what we
really want is to win we can't have both of those things we can't be loving and want to resolve it
but also want to like Crush our opponent right those things don't go together so moving into
what can we do instead right instead of trying to win you can ask open-ended questions is there more
that you want to say about that I'm interested to hear what you think you should do or I'm
interested to hear what you think about this how do you feel about that it's like any skill
that you build it's going to take a minute for you to build it but getting out of
that polarization right so we're going from debating where there's a winner and a loser
to actually discussing where both people hopefully the intention the desire is to understand to
come to a deeper understanding of what the other person is experiencing and of course we need that
to go both ways within the relationship but right now we're just focusing basically on what you can
do because it's also very easy for us to you know want to blame the other person you know they're
impossible or they're the one who wants to win and maybe that's accurate but we have to only really
look at our own side of the street because that's the only thing that we're responsible for keeping
clean is our own side of the street it's the only thing it's possible for us to keep clean all right
the third big block or issue with communication during conflict is using the silent treatment or
stonewalling to convey your displeasure but it's a really damaging form of passive aggressive anger
and it may not feel that way if you're the person who tends to do it and trust me I mastered the art
of stonewalling when I was in my 20s because I didn't have any skills you know it took years in
therapy to learn the skills to communicate what was really bothering me what was on my heart
so stonewalling if you don't know what it is is when one person shuts down completely and
is totally unresponsive during the conflict it's a way of punishing the other person they may act
like or you may act like the other person isn't even there you may physically turn away or leave
or you can do a version of this which is where you're giving minimal responses and reactions to
the other person like a one-word answer maybe just not in your head but not really engaging
in the conversation or if they're doing it to you they're not engaging in the conversation
I think what you can do here is you have to choose to use your words to name your feelings and again
we're giving scripts I've got other script starters in the guide so terricole.com/guide
I'm also giving you you know easy script starters but for this you can actually how I got out of
doing this in my relationships is the healthier I got in therapy I started sort of telling on
myself and saying hey I'm upset right now my first instinct is to ignore you and give you the silent
treatment I want to ignore the entire situation but I want us to effectively problem solve more
than I want to do that so can you please give me a few minutes or insert whatever your desired amount
of time is to cool off and think about how I feel then let's come back together and talk it out
because I love you and I don't want to fight or ignore you to make a point that was really hard to
say I never said it as smoothly as I just read it off of that script right now that I wrote for you
but I was able to say it and that broke my sort of compulsion to act it out I was able to also get my
need met in the moment which is that I needed time I needed a minute I needed 20 minutes I needed to
walk around the block whatever I needed I needed to step away from this situation because once I
would fall into that being withdrawn in anger as a technique it was really hard to get out of it
was like I couldn't even make myself get out of it even though I knew it was ineffective right I was
going to say stupid I don't want to judge it right I knew it was ineffective and it wasn't going to
get me what I wanted but once I sort of fell into that hole of Silence it was really hard to get
myself out when I started telling on myself with that script that I will share with you it made
it so much easier because it took me acting out the silent treatment off the table all together
because I just sort of blew up my own spot instead of acting this out I'm going to talk it out even
if I just say I can't talk it out right now but I can talk it out in half an hour from now
feel like doing this but I'm not going to do this and you know sometimes depending on who I
was talking to the other person would be like oh you're doing me a big favor you're not going to
give me the silent treatment right it doesn't mean they're always going to respond the way
that we want them to respond but I actually usually got a positive reaction at least the
other person would agree to give me whatever time frame I asked for and then we could come back and
by then I was sort of back to my more normal less activated or triggered self and I was able to then
really try to problem solve with the other person rather than blaming them speaking of which the
fourth biggest block to conflict communication is defensiveness and blame and it's probably the
most common which is why I saved it for last when we get defensive and conflict why is that we feel
threatened right so we're trying to justify our Behavior we're trying to blame our partner we
feel victimized defensive Behavior can be fueled by unresolved shame right or an excessive feeling
of being judged or criticized in a relationship a lot of times this is from unhealed childhood stuff
so this of course what we don't want to do is that and we don't want someone doing it to us
and so having a conversation about defensiveness is really helpful right this is where your
self-work comes in though because if you had a very critical adult in your life when you were
growing up you might be really sensitive to even a hint of the fact that someone might be saying
you're doing something wrong you might be very thin-skinned when it comes to criticism and it
might be Amplified because of unresolved childhood experiences so this is where your own work comes
in if you notice a pattern of defensiveness when you're in Conflict you've got to work to
understand your own reactions and not use blaming or shaming as a tool to win an argument especially
if you were blamed and shamed in childhood you've really got to get insight into your own behavior
and of course when you think about it you actually don't want to blame and shame your person to win
a fight because it's damaging to the relationship as a whole right so you doing your work is the way
to go if you find yourself being super defensive look become an expert on defensiveness Google it
learn I have other episodes that you can watch about this and other downloadable things it's
really important though because defensiveness as one of my heroes my psychological Heroes Dr
Harriet Lerner would say defensiveness is the arch enemy of listening and that is so true if we are
being defensive what we're not doing for sure is listening a couple of other tips for you to avoid
blame and shame when you're in conflict is you're not allowed to like Glam On right no kitchen
sinking so if you're talking about one issue you need to stick to that issue it's not fair or
effective to throw in something that happened in 1978 or the last 10 things that you're you've been
pissed off about aka the kitchen sinking it right at the other person it also really guarantees if
you are glomming on issues that you're not going to resolve any of them you're just going to hurt
more feelings and create more bitterness and more resentment in the relationship and then we also
have to look in and see do we have the capacity to choose to be loving over being right in the moment
because the reality is from a therapeutic standpoint let's say you can't prioritize both
of those things really being loving hopefully is a thing that you prioritize and don't misunderstand
that statement to mean that you should put up with a lot of [ __ ] because that's not what I'm saying
another idea to avoid blame and shame is be really clear that you are using I statements
to communicate your own experience as opposed to pointing fingers right avoid blaming and judging
pointing out how bad stupid insensitive they were or are in whatever given situation that
is so counterproductive and it's not effective conflict resolution in any way shape or form
take a break take a breath and I want you to think about your 50 percent of that interaction
right what is going on what what was your part of how you guys came to this because
that is very important you're 50 of everything that goes on in your relationship you're 50 of
every relationship because that's all you can ever be so you can learn to do this I promise you to
assert yourself in clear and healthy ways to ask for what it is that you want Even In conflict you
can absolutely learn because nobody wants to be stuck in that Purgatory of being misunderstood
and that's exactly what happens when we cannot communicate during conflict when we don't have
those conflict resolution skills in the guide which you can get at terricole.com/guide I'm
giving you just a bunch of sentence starters that can also be helpful when you're in conflict or
not I'd like to make a simple request you can use anytime right no matter what it is I want to bring
something to your attention you can use any time I want to revisit what happened yesterday you can
use those at any time but it's powerful to have them in one place where you kind of have them in
your back pocket and you feel like you can then approach the other person so I would love to know
what you think about this episode I hope so much that it added value to your life please go get the
Guide terricole.com/guide because I made it for you let me know what your thoughts are by dropping
comments by um tagging me on Instagram I hope you have an amazing weekend as always take care of you