Transcriber: Martyna Selke Reviewer: Eunice Tan
I am the 10th of 11 children.
I spent most of my growing years
sharing a bedroom
and nearly every childhood adventure
with my sister, Mary.
She was two years, four months, and one day older.
I adored her.
I thought she knew everything because she was so much older.
Now, we spent a lot of time talking, discussing,
and we did this as grown-ups too.
But when we were children, I liked asking a lot of questions.
I asked lots of questions,
and most of the time, Mary liked answering me.
She liked humoring me;
she liked "educating" me.
Now, in our family,
we were also not allowed to say very many things,
including "shut up."
(Laughter)
But by the time Mary was 10 or 11,
she found a way around this.
(Laughter)
"Barf," she'd say -
that was one of her nicknames for me -
"Barf, but sometimes conversation ruins a relationship."
(Laughter)
It took me years to understand exactly why she was right.
(Laughter)
Now, I did my first master's program in education
and my second one in clinical mental health counseling.
I was an educator before I became a psychotherapist,
but I have always been a researcher, an investigator,
an experimenter with my own life -
well, at work.
But in my own life,
that just means years of painful action-research,
trial and error,
and learning the hard way.
Good thing is, I do learn.
And when I do, I share.
You're welcome.
(Laughter)
My pain is, hopefully, your gain -
literally.
Nearly seven years ago,
I was getting divorced.
Again.
Out of this excruciating pain,
I conducted some powerful research.
I knew that my outcome was based on asking the right questions.
So I stopped asking things like
"What happened?"
"What's wrong with me?"
"What's wrong with him?"
And started asking things like
"How do I heal and recover from this?"
"What does healthy love actually look like?"
And when I learned some things about that,
I started asking,
"How do I experience more mutual empathy,
respect,
and connection?"
[Empathy, Respect, Connection]
Now, grieving the loss
of a seventeen-and-a-half-year relationship takes more than time -
it takes intention.
I worked really hard, I studied hard at answering those questions.
I went to my own therapy, of course.
I worked really hard on feeling my own feelings,
figuring out what I wanted exactly,
taking 100% responsibility for my own actions.
Just so you know, at this point,
(Laughter)
there's no way on the planet
I was going to be doing couple's counseling.
Ever.
We had done lots of that -
what a crock.
But -
(Laughter)
I did do yoga,
and I started to meditate -
(Inhales)
a little, not too much.
I did not want to turn into a crunchy-granola flake.
(Laughter)
(Exhales)
But I also started reading about shame
and the power of vulnerability
and the power of brief communication.
And that is when I started experimenting in all my relationships
with my communication.
Oh my gosh.
The results were so profound,
I started implementing and honing a framework
with clients in a clinical setting
and then later, with - yes -
(Laughs)
couples and individuals in my private practice,
where I specialize now in love and loss.
I'm going to show you that framework tonight.
It's really cool - I think you're going to like it.
But first, you have to see this.
This is a pattern of communication that I have seen without exception.
100% of the people that I have talked to -
whether in the clinical setting or private practice -
in relationship, this pattern is recurrent in their life.
I bet you recognize it.
We use it in lots of different places, lots of different relationships, right?
So let's take a look at it.
Someone wants to address an issue or something needs to be resolved, right?
And they usually broach the topic by saying something like -
or sending a text and saying,
"We need to talk,"
or making an appointment to talk
or, perhaps,
"Johnson, I'm going to need you to come into my office."
Or if we're talking to one of our kids,
it might be, "Son, have a seat,"
right?
The subtext for this is always -
you know this -
it's always "You're in trouble."
But the conversation is followed by
"Here's what's happening.
Bam, bam, bam, bam, bam. Yada, yada.
This is this. You know, this is happening.
I feel this way when you do this."
Or "Something's going on at work, and this is happening," etc.
Right?
Or we're telling our kids all the ways that they've done this thing -
incorrectly, of course, right?
And the subtext for this, honestly,
is "I know what's happening; I have this figured out."
It's "My perspective matters right now.
Shut up and listen."
And, hey, if we're going to complain about something,
we know if we are going to complain, we need to have the answer, the solution.
So we follow this up quickly by, like,
"Here's what you need to do."
"Do this, not that," right?
The subtext for this still remains, like,
"I have this figured out.
My perspective matters."
And, in fact,
"I'm smarter. I'm better.
Maybe I'm better at this."
And when this happens, there's always an ultimatum.
Always.
It can be inferred;
it can be unspoken;
it can be understood between people.
They know that there's a consequence.
Right?
In relationship, it can be something like
"I'll stay angry,"
"There will be no sex,"
or "This relationship could be over."
Right?
Now, here is an example.
"Um, honey, I worked all day too.
I mean, I had to stop at the daycare and get the kids.
And then I come home, have to make supper.
By the time you get home,
I've been alone with them for an hour and a half.
They're screaming; I'm making dinner.
You just waltz right in the house, okay, go to the living room, turn on the TV,
and you've got half an hour to relax.
It'll be kind of nice if you would actually, like, greet us
or maybe help me out a little bit.
I would love to have a half an hour to just decompress after work."
Right?
Now, here's the thing.
All of us get into what I like to call "complete empathy gridlock."
There are some relationships or people or situations in our life,
or relationships - our intimate relationships -
where we just care about our perspective so much,
we don't care how the other person's feeling.
(Laughs)
We don't have anything to give them.
We just want something from them, right?
Now, I know that you can get nicer about that speaking pattern.
You can do a softer entry,
you can be gentler,
you can be more polite,
you can, you know, put the -
the poop sandwich?
(Laughs)
(Laughter)
You can do all that stuff.
Believe me, I know.
And, in fact, couple's counseling
spends a lot of time and energy getting people to work on this, right?
In fact, it'll even give you permission
to take your turn and share your perspective
while your partner is supposed to sit there
and do their attentive listening and attending behaviors
and pretend that they are going to be ready to give you some empathy.
And if you're really good, maybe -
if you're really "good" -
maybe you will "behave" and issue an empathy statement.
Right?
It's like telling children to say they're sorry.
They're really not.
(Laughter)
So the text can shift, but the subtext never does.
And the subtext is -
it is disrespectful.
It's demanding.
You're requiring something from someone.
It invites defensiveness.
I don't know who of us like to be spoken to this way.
We pretty much all hate it, right?
But the thing that it really does -
and it does this over and over -
it asserts,
it establishes,
and it maintains a power differential in the relationship.
And the person who is doing that takes no risk in their communication.
Guess what?
This has absolutely no chance of getting us the good stuff.
Pretty much zero.
The empathy, respect, and connection?
Not going to happen.
So here it is - this has a better chance.
Clean, non-blaming communication starts with - it's four steps, with rules.
And, hey, if you don't like the rules, just think of these as guidelines,
and then follow them anyway.
(Laughter)
First one, three words:
"I feel" and an emotion.
The second is "I want" or "I don't want,"
and this is without the word "you,"
so it's not what I want you to do
or what I want from you or anything like that.
It's about what I want in my own life right now
or what I'm really longing for.
And then you decide - is it negotiable?
And if it's not, then you're setting the boundary between the first two.
But then decide if you're going to invite someone in at the level of action
or are you going to invite them in at the level of discussion and thinking.
And you say,
"Can you help with that?" or "What do you think?"
and then you observe.
And this is literally like
"Hmm, that's interesting."
Believe me, you can take what you get.
You can take a no -
you're already taking it.
Right?
[Human Parts Chart]
This is really good for the speaker -
very good for the speaker.
This is actually a picture of you.
I drew this before I met you; I didn't know.
But, look, there's your body -
you're very thin -
(Laughter)
and your feeling heart,
and believe that other little squiggle over there,
that's your brain, right?
So this is good for the speaker
because you actually have this other part of you which is -
I like to call it "the gentle, benevolent observer" -
this central part of you which can be metacognizant:
think about your thoughts, notice your feelings, right?
You actually sometimes override your impulses and your instincts.
When you do that - when you pause in the moment and you ask yourself,
"How am I feeling
and what am I really wanting in this moment?" -
if you also would try to apply language to it,
you are stimulating multiple areas in your brain at the same time.
You practice doing this,
and over time,
you're creating new neural pathways.
It's great.
You are actually strengthening your limbic system,
which is the place that houses your capacity for empathy and connection.
Believe me, you can handle it
if you don't get what you want in the moment,
because you're getting stronger anyway.
Now, this is good for the listener also.
You actually defuse that emotional flooding
that can happen from repetitive, high-conflict contact.
You also are giving them a neural punch -
it packs a neural punch.
In a given day,
we're bombarded, they say, with 34 gigabytes of information.
We can process about 60 bits per second,
and yet it's coming at us
40 million bits of information per second, right?
You've got to make this brief.
Stop talking;
say more.
Get more love.
See what I did there?
So that first scenario that I gave you the example of
can turn into
"I feel frustrated.
I don't want to do all of this myself.
Can you help with that?"
Now, I have used this communication with friends.
In fact, I've texted,
"I feel lonely.
I want some girl-time.
What do you think?"
I've even used it with store clerks.
I come in prepared, right?
"I feel frustrated.
I don't want to have to pay for materials that I think are subpar.
Can you help?"
This is not about getting what you want.
It is actually about making a connection
and respecting that other person as a valuable human being.
Now, if we got really good at this skill,
we could actually experience more respect,
more empathy,
more connection with people all the time.
You can take your relationships to deeper levels,
and you can leave behind all of the fear of vulnerability
and the power struggle that is inherent in that usual way of communicating.
I know
because I've done it.
And so have my clients.
So can you.
Now, in this moment,
from my heart to your ears:
I feel -
I feel excited.
I want to know that I've contributed something helpful.
What do you think?
(Applause)