Hey guys. Geoffrey here.
In this video I want to show you the seven key methods,
the seven key techniques that you can use to break through that resistance of
stonewalling.
And these are the same seven techniques that I teach all my students and it's
worked wonderfully for them when done right,
and these are also the same things that I do in my own relationship to
breakthrough stonewalling myself as well.
So if it works for myself and if it works for all my clients,
I'm sure that it will work for you as well. Now before I begin this video,
I want to let you know that I'll be hosting a free live master class on the five
proven steps to rebuilding your relationship from the ground up.
So if you want in on that masterclass,
stay till the end of this video for the announcement on how you can get in on
that. But in the meantime,
be sure to subscribe and click the bell button as well to be notified when I
post new videos three times every single week.
Now before I get to the seven techniques,
I want to level set us a bit and go back to what I said in the previous two
videos. So if you watch those two videos, you will understand the core reasons,
the three key reasons why people Stonewall, and that's the lack of safety,
the lack of ability to express something and the lack of desire to express. Now,
the lack of safety here, like we said,
is caused by you perhaps getting angry or you suggesting to her that Hey,
every time she expresses something with you,
something bad happens and that destroys safety over time and creates this fear
in here that if she expresses this thing to you, that you will respond badly.
The lack of ability here is all about when you have complex problems in a
relationship that's been piled up for many years.
Those problems are not just neatly piled up. It needs stacks.
They're just a complex web of very complex problems. And often you know,
you feel this yourself where if someone asks you what is wrong with your
relationship, you often say, I don't know.
I don't even know where to start because it's so complex.
And that's the lack of ability here. And the lack of desire here is all about,
you know,
your partner has tried to expressing herself and her thoughts to you multiple
times in the past,
but she's learned over time that every time she expresses something with you,
that you've proven to her that you either can't listen or you're not willing to
have the patience to understand the fully understand the root causes of what
she's actually going through. You also know that whenever they're stonewalling,
there's always going to be resistance.
And we also mentioned why it's important for you to fight through that
resistance because if you don't,
what you're doing is showing her that you don't have the patients which destroys
safety, that you don't have the patience to uncover the complex issues in a
relationship, which perpetuates this lack of ability.
And you're also showing her that expressing something to you is actually quite
useless and thereby perpetuating this lack of desire as well.
So you have to persist whenever you meet this resistance of stonewalling.
So now the question goes,
how do we actually persist in a correct way that seems non-pushy and doesn't
actually escalate or make the conversation worse for you guys?
So I have seven techniques here and the first one here is to fight fire with
water. What I mean by this is when there is stonewalling on your partner's side,
what often happens is we respond with impatience,
with frustration and ultimatums in a way.
Now what happens here is that you're fighting fire with fire and you're just
perpetuating the problem and destroying their safety like we talked about.
So what you want to do is fight fire with water. So what is water look like?
Well, first of all, water looks like you being calm.
Now I know that's easier said than done,
but if you watch my other video on understanding the three key reasons why
people Stonewall,
you'll realize that staying calm in the face of stonewalling actually is much
easier if you can diagnose and understand the reasons,
the core reasons behind stonewalling. And once you understand this core reason,
as you will have more compassion and more understanding towards stonewalling,
and once you have this compassionate understanding,
you can stay calm a lot easier. So if you haven't checked out the video,
I would start by checking out the video to make sure that you can frame
stonewalling properly in your mind so you can stay more calm in the process.
The other thing that helps both of you to stay calm during this process and
create more safety here is just gentle physical touch.
Now this physical touch can be in an embrace. It can be simply holding hands,
or it can be a poke on a finger. It doesn't matter.
But this physical touch helps to release a lot of hormones in both your bodies
that can actually calm you down really well. Now,
this doesn't work for everyone. You know,
physical touch doesn't work for everyone because a lot of people's relationships
may be in a point where it's so tense that physical touch may not be possible or
comfortable right now, in which case you can resort there. The last thing here,
which is silence. You know,
whenever I talk to my partner and it's a very difficult conversation,
what I do is I just stay silent. And in that silence,
not only am I inviting or giving the stage to my partner to talk and express
herself,
but I'm also slowing the pace down or the conversation and calming both of us
down as well.
And it's also a good time for me to gauge her breathing her tone and see what
she does to actually fill in that silence.
And that will tell me whether she's opening up or closing up even further.
So silence here is going to be a very powerful technique and it works whether
you're talking in person or talking on the phone.
So this is something all of us can do.
Now the second thing you want to do is to get inquisitive and get into discovery
mode. Now, a lot of people, when they ask questions,
what they're trying to do is to get an answer, which sounds obvious,
but if you're trying to ask questions to get a particular answer,
what happens is you end up being pushy with your questions.
You end up asking very leading questions and presumptive questions and then
actually it makes it difficult for her to answer because she's going to sense
that you want the conversation to actually be led somewhere,
somewhere you want to go instead of somewhere where she wants to go.
So the mindset I want you to get into is when you ask questions,
ask with the intent to simply discover and not to solve anything or to correct
anything or to judge anything or to say whether something is right or wrong or
whether she misinterpreted or interpreted something in the correct way.
Just listen with the intent to listen. And if you're struggling to do this,
if you're struggling to listen,
then I want you to watch the video above my head here.
And that video will tell you the right ways to listen and in a way that actually
creates more safety in your partner as well. And when you ask questions here,
you also want to ask questions that are open ended. So questions like,
tell me how you're feeling. Tell me how you are. Tell me what you're thinking.
Tell me more about that.
Those are all good open ended questions that you can ask.
And the reason why you wanted it to be open ended is to avoid, again, leading,
asking,
leading questions to your partner or questions that seem like you trying to
direct or guide the conversation in a particular way that you want it to go
instead of where she wants to go.
But if you ask these very open ended questions,
you're letting her decide where to go and letting her kind of uncover that
complex web of really messy stuff in her head herself.
Now when you ask these questions, often what you'll get are non-answers.
You might get more of, I don't know,
or I don't know where to start or I don't want to talk about it.
Perhaps you might get those answers and if you do get those answers,
a great response is simply nothing. So in my conversations,
whenever I have those responses, all I do is just stay silent
and silent for a very long time.
And what's interesting about this is it's giving your part of the subconscious
signal that you're still waiting.
You're still waiting for the answer that the answer she gave wasn't good enough.
And you have the patience to wait for the answer.
And this actually gives your partner the stage and the signal is going to be
very clear to her and she's going to want to say something more to fill that
silence.
And that's something more is often the very thing that you need to hear to break
through that stonewalling. So understand that.
And when it comes to stonewalling your silence as your most powerful weapon,
make sure you use that in your conversations.
The fourth technique here is about becoming vulnerable yourself. So again,
if we look back to the key reasons why people Stonewall is the lack of safety is
the lack of belief in you that you can understand and fully listen to what she
has to say without judging or fixing or something like that.
So what I often teach my clients is to be vulnerable yourself first.
Talk about your own inner demons.
Talk about your own inner discoveries of the ugly side of yourself,
the ugly side that you have discovered about yourself.
And what happens is when you express it like this, you are telling her that,
Hey,
you have your own ugly stuff that you understand that everyone has ugly stuff
and dark stuff, dark secrets to keep that.
If you're able to confront your own naturally,
look at it in the face and become and be understanding that you can do the same
for her. So just by being vulnerable yourself,
you're going to give her that safety to be vulnerable with you herself.
The next technique here is simply letting her know that your door is open. Now,
if you've been trying to battle through this resistance and get through that
stonewalling, but nothing you do is working.
Nothing I mentioned here is working. That is completely normal.
Even in my relationship right now,
there are moments when my partner simply does not want to talk about our
problems, but that doesn't mean she doesn't want to talk to me, period.
It means that she doesn't want to express it right this very second.
And if that's the case,
you can defer the conversation and let her know that the doors open and you can
simply something like, look, I understand you want to talk right now,
but just know that my door is open. Um,
and you can talk to me anytime and just leave the conversation and let her
decide when she's ready to talk to you about her problems and leave it at that.
Don't need to get mad, don't need to panic.
Just simply open your door and she will express her thoughts to you when she's
ready.
Now the next one you can try is to acknowledge the complexity of her situation.
So again,
one of the reasons why people Stonewall is that the problem has gotten really
complex and she doesn't know where to start. So when did you can say is,
you know, honey, I understand, you know,
we've been through a lot and the problems we have in our now are really complex
and you may not even know where to start. I get it, right?
You can just say that and just simply acknowledge the fact that you understand
that the problem is complex.
And that you understand why she's saying she doesn't know where to start or why
she's stonewalling.
And in this acknowledgement you're showing her that you have to compassion.
You have this advanced level of understanding that proves to her, Oh,
maybe this guy will understand after all and that might get her to open up to
you and stop stonewalling. Now the last one here is not really a technique,
but really a suggestion. The suggestion is this,
you have six different ways you can break through stonewalling here.
Don't feel the need to only pick one of these.
You can combine them all if you want. All these things can be used together.
So for example,
you can use the last two together here when you end the conversation.
So whenever you end the conversation,
you can always end it by simply being vulnerable yourself,
telling her some deep dark secrets that you have yourself.
And then just leaving the door open so you can say something like, look honey,
you know, I had to confront my own inner demons too.
And I have my own inner demons too. For example, XYZ.
I just want you to know that the door will be open. You can talk to me any time.
Um, so yeah, don't be afraid to talk to me. You can say that.
So you can combine any of these six together. You can combine two of them,
three of them, all of them,
but the fact that you want to try all these methods and see which one is it
working for your relationship and if you can execute on these six things
correctly and understand the right combinations of these six things,
you'll realize that breaking through stonewalling isn't as hard or difficult as
you think. That is always possible.
You just need some patients and the right knowhow to be able to do it.
Now if you want a free resource that can allow you to lead conversations in a
way that makes it easier for you to break through stonewalling,
then you want to download the free guide in the description box below this video
and if you want internet free master class that I mentioned in the beginning of
this video on the five proven steps to rebuilding your relationships from the
ground up,
then you also want to check out the link in the description box below this
video. Now of course, if you want to connect with me on a more personal level,
you can join my free Facebook group where you can post your questions or ask
your questions and actually get good advice on them and if you want to join that
Facebook group, the link is also below this video.
Now if you found this video valuable,
then I want you to go ahead and like it and subscribe to this channel for more
content like this one and let me know in the comments below.
What did you find most insightful or inspiring for you about this video?
Leave a comment below. I'd love to hear your thoughts. Now. In the meantime,
I want you to watch these other videos that I have on stonewalling and how to
break through them,
how to understand them better so you can equip yourself with the right knowledge
and skills when you're faced with stonewalling, but without LCU.
In the next video.