Hey.
What's up.
It's Clayton Olson.
And in this video, we're going to talk about how to express your emotional experience and
be transparent with how you're feeling to your partner so that you can create a more
authentic connection and deeper levels of intimacy.
Now if this is your first time to my channel, I want to encourage you to subscribe by clicking
on the bell notification below.
This channel is dedicated to releasing communication techniques and relationship philosophy that
empowers you to get to the heart of the matter and create and power connections that last.
Now the question that was the catalyst for this video was one that I received from a
woman while on a live webinar with my teaching partner, Jack Butler.
And the woman, she asked this.
“In the last webinar, you were talking about women expressing and showing their vulnerability
to their partners.
I would like to know at what point exactly in the relationship can one do that without
being overwhelming to their partner?
And, how much vulnerability can one show?
We have been led by our instincts, and most our most of the times our instincts fail,
so women would just be better keeping their issues to themselves wouldn't they instead
of getting negative vibes?”
Now this I just want to underline the significance of this question.
I've been coaching for about 7 years now, and when we get into the dynamics of what's
happening that creates a relational dysfunction.
Many times, this is at the heart of the matter.
What is it that you have within you that you're trying to say in a way that it's clean?
How do you have these tough conversations?
How do you confront ruptures?
How do you express your truth?
How we do these things?
How we express our truth, the way, the timing in which we do it can make or break a relationship
especially if it's newly budding.
And the communication around sensitive issues is what determines what happens next, and
whether you build something that lasts or not, so I would love to create an exhaustive
video on this topic, but I simply can't for YouTube.
This would be the topic of an entire course but my aim here is to pull at the of this
conversation around vulnerability and how to do it.
So that we can get the gears moving in terms of how you're thinking about your situation
if you find yourself relating to this whether you're a man or a woman.
And I see this happen with both men and women, where one partner is has a concern around
creating negative emotions in the relationship.
And oftentimes, it's that concern around negative emotions that has us honoring harmony over
honoring our truth or the truth of what needs to be said in the relationship which actually
can cause more problems because if we are too over there trying to figure out how we
can say something so that they receive it and react the way that we want them to react,
we can oftentimes end up in a situation where we paralyze ourselves.
We discount ourselves.
We compromise how we're feeling.
We don't say anything and then things build underneath the surface until finally they
rupture like a volcano and they’re disproportionate to whatever the catalyst was that had had
us express it.
This can confuse our partners.
This can lead to breakups.
It's going to lead to a whole host of problems.
I just want to say that this is both on the men and the women side.
This is a people problem, it's not a woman or a man problem.
It's both.
The first thing I want to say is that we don't actually have control over whether our partner
gets overwhelmed by our truth.
We really don't have control over how they're going to react to us.
We could in theory express something in the cleanest most powerful nonviolent way that
takes responsibility and covers a number of these points or some in here in this video
and your partner still may react and that's just the nature of human beings.
The nature of being an authentic relationship.
It's messy.
The more that you can expand your capacity around realizing that negative emotions are
not something to be avoided in a relationship, there is something that just they're part
of being in a relationship, the more resilient your relationships will be in general.
Because both of you have the territory to be yourselves in your communication.
It's when we try to eliminate negative emotion from our relationships that our relationships
become really fragile because we're not bringing our full selves to the table.
We're only bringing a very curated version of ourselves and we're hiding something from
our partner which ends up creating insecurity and jealousy.
We don't want to do that, and we want to be able to communicate in a way where we can
get off our chest.
What it is that we need to say?
We can learn how to fight for the relationship rather than fight with each other.
And a couple of these tips I'm going to talk about are ones that I've personally learned.
I've struggled with them in my own life, in my own relationships.
This first one, I have had to learn it wasn't until I recently that I have been able to
bring this in as a ta core tenant in the way that I communicate.
I'm gonna go through these and feel free to comment below, if there's any situation that
you're in that you're needing some advice on and what you think about this video.
The first thing is when you are communicating to your partner.
Let's just say that there's something going on within you that you feel like your partner
needs to know, or there's something going on with them that you're observing that you're
curious about and you're afraid of rocking the boat and you generating some type of emotion
within you.
The first thing that pay attention to is timing.
What is it that you've got going on and within you?
And is it the right time to express this to them?
It doesn't need to happen right now.
Oftentimes, if we're not paying attention to timing, what might happen is and this has
happened to me personally is I start to feel like, “Well, I got this truth within me.
I've got this thing that I need to say and if I don't get it out right now, I'm compromising
myself.
I'm discounting myself.”
And that urgency to get something out there ends up being me dumping some very unprocessed,
unfiltered blame, or accusation onto them which actually shuts them, and they’re listening
and stops them from being able to really have a conversation about what we're talking about.
And rather, turns into an argument because they're getting defensive.
Feeling like I'm accusing them of something without actually listening to and I'm just
blurting out how I'm feeling, rather than taking a step back and being able to sit with
whatever emotional experience I am having.
Along with timing, one of the principles in this that's married closely to it is being
able to sit with the emotional experience.
You're having as an individual and not feeling the need to share it immediately because that
can come off like you're wanting your partner to fix you, or fix the experience, rather
than you being able to stand with it.
Rest with it.
Allow it to be polished, maybe process it with a coach, maybe process it with your friends.
People that are in your corner.
And then from that place, bring it to the table.
Now while you're processing it, while you're being able to get a better look a better perspective
as what's going on with you before you bring it to your partner, there's a couple other
things that I would encourage you to do.
In the meantime, while you take a step back, as you're processing an important maneuver
that one can make internally, is to begin to move into their adult ego state.
From the child ego state to the adult ego state about the emotion.
When we have an emotional experience and we feel triggered in the relationship and there's
something we need to blurt out.
If we blurt it out immediately were typically responding from a child ego state; where we
have not brought the adult part of us online to really check in around whether that is
actually true and there's no responsibility that we're typically taking which again then
shuts down their listening.
To make the maneuver into the adult ego state is to learn to sit with the emotion that's
coming up for a period of time.
Process through it and make this move where we start to objectively look at the emotion,
we look at the experience that's happening, and then we communicate from a rational standpoint
as best we can about the emotion to our partners.
Which if you're online then and you're not triggered in you're communicating about the
experience, it invites them to also be in their adult ego state and listen to you from
that place as well which makes the conversation more productive.
Another key piece about moving into the adult ego state is that we have time then to also
look at the emotional experience and we get to take ownership of it.
And an example of ownership in in this case would be let's just imagine that there is
a disconnection happening in the relationship or your experience of you with your partner
is that you feel disconnected from them.
Okay.
Now what often happens if we don't pay attention to timing, we don't a pay attention to adult
ego state or ownership, we might just say… it might come out as an accusation.
Like, “You are so disconnected from me, or you just keep pulling away, or you just
keep doing this,” and what I'm doing here with that language is I'm putting the blame
on them.
I'm accusing them of doing something without really knowing what their intention is, and
I'm speaking as if I know what reality is between both of us; rather than expressing
from a place of ownership which would for example it look like “I'm feeling disconnected.”
I'm feeling disconnected from you.”
And in therapy and coaching, we'll call this I statement.
I feel this.
I feel that way.
What that does is it has you route the experience within you.
It becomes in arguable.
Someone can't say “no you don't feel like that” because these are my feelings.
This is my experience, but someone can say “no that's not what I'm doing.
I'm not pulling away right.”
So being able to own the experience within yourself allows the other person to be in
a place of witnessing it.
Not feeling blamed and typically will keep them online to be able to have a productive
conversation.
So, that's the other key is ownership and that's one way of doing it.
And then the other piece that I would encourage you to look at too is whatever experience
you're having and whatever you think is going on over there inside of your partner's mind
don't assume you understand their intentions.
When we lose curiosity inside of this vulnerability or this emotional experience that's coming
up with us, if we lose curiosity for what's going on over there, it's no longer a conversation.
It's more of a “I already know what doing and now I'm either getting defensive, I'm
getting big, or I'm shrinking and hiding ,or maybe I'm getting overly angry,” so we want
to let go of assuming we know what's going on over there.
If we're kind of follow the thread of this.
“I'm feeling disconnected you might end up asking after that I'm curious what your
experience is.
Like are you feeling something similar as well, and that allows them to be drawn under
the conversation and allows it to be collaborative rather than you telling them who they are
or what they're doing.
And then finally in terms of communicating to the to the person to your partner about
how you're feeling.
I've learned this from a very good attachment couples’ therapist that I went to a while
back is to communicate from a place of speaking about parts.
Speaking about parts within yourself.
If I say “I'm feeling very disconnected” that's one thing but if I say, “Hey listen.
A part of me is feeling very disconnected,” then what that assumes is that there's another
part of me that perhaps still feels connected to you enough to actually have this conversation.
And when I silo out that part that, there's a part of me that feels insecure.
A part of me feels really angry at you right now.
Part of me feels this way or that way.
What it does is it communicates and makes the assumption to the other person that there's
still another part of you that is online.
That is open to dialogue.
That can have a conversation about this part so that both of you can end up aligning on
the same team and looking at the problem together, rather than it being a zero-sum game where
one person is right, and one person is wrong.
It's both of you can begin to position and align yourself perceptually to look at the
problem together, look at the part together and to have a conversation about it.
Hopefully those tips work timing, moving into your adult ego state by taking a step back,
looking at the situation, taking ownership, being curious not assuming their intentions,
and then communicating from a place of parts.
A part of me is feeling this way.
A part of me is feeling that way.
Again, if you found anything that I've said inspiring or educational, please like, comment
subscribe to the channel.
And if you are a woman watching this video, I've got a very special webinar that I'm putting
on with my teaching partner, Jack Butler, called The 3 Keys to Being Relationship Ready;
where we dive into all of the stuff in depth and we go into the identity level roles that
get in the way of intimacy that block us in our dating life and block us in relationship
and finding love.
You'll definitely want to check that out.
Click the link below.
It's in the description.
Thanks for watching.