If you’re feeling energetically or emotionally angry, the emotions are going to speak louder than words. In this episode, Frederic Gobeil and Christy Whitman talk about the three important and effective steps in communicating. Going over these three steps, they also provide insights on dealing and handling your own emotions in order to have better conversations.
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Important Steps In Communicating
We are talking about one of the things that are our go-to staple checklist of when we are going to communicate with each other. Learning this has been absolutely relationship changing. I’ll say it’s not only our relationship, but it’s with our kids. I do it with people that I work with in my business, with clients. When you think about the way to communicate, there are three important and effective steps in communicating. When you have something to communicate, you want to make sure that whatever emotion has come up, if you’re angry, frustrated, sad or disappointed, whatever the emotion is, you want to make sure that you first process that emotion. If you’re feeling energetically or emotionally angry, the emotions are going to speak louder than words. You want to make sure that you’re processing your own anger, frustration or whatever the emotion is. I have courses on how to do this. You want to go in your own belly and emotional body and feel, pulsate and give yourself time.
For guys, if you’re more of a physical person, you may want to go work out. We like to say, “Go take some eggs.” If you’re in a forest or have a desert behind us, take the anger and put it in the egg. Feel the energy of that anger going into the egg and whipping the egg. You can also throw pencils across the room. Do something physical, not punching anybody or hurting anybody else, like pushups or whatever it is to get out that anger. Once you feel clear, then there are three direct things that you want to do when you’re communicating.
Coming back to handling that whoosh of emotion that we call, it’s saying it your partner, “I’m feeling this way and I need a little bit of time to go take a breath outside. I’ll go do a quick workout, run outside,” whatever the workout you want to do, if it’s punching on a punching bag. Sometimes we feel like, “I’ve got that anger emotion. I’ve got to show my partner how that feels and how I’m feeling.” We end up punching a wall and making a hole in the wall or slamming a door. We want to show that we are feeling that rage of emotion coming up and that’s not any better. Being able to process that emotion that comes up, that’s fine. It’s okay. Take care of yourself, go for a walk, be by yourself if you need to be by yourself. Call someone, whoever it is. Call a buddy and go to the gym if you need to work out. Do whatever makes you feel that you can release that emotion. Tell your partner instead of storming out, too. You don’t want to add fuel to the fire. Tell your partner, “I need a little bit of space to do this. I’ll be out for fifteen minutes. I’ll be back for half an hour.” That’s it.
You did that one time. He was frustrated with the kids. He was like, “I need some time.” I said, “Are you leaving for a while or are you going to take the dog for a walk?” He replied, “No, I need to get out.” “Great.”
I was ready to strangle my kids. I felt my whoosh of energy. I decided, “I need some time off so that I can go breathe, be by myself, and come back to Frederic.” Be an adult about it instead of making a rational decision and taking it out on something in the house, the dog, the kids.
He never does that, by the way. I am glad you took the time for yourself to come back to the center. After he did, he was in his heart again. He was Frederic again. I was like, “There’s that love bug, that love machine. There’s the heart that I love.” He wasn’t in his heart. He was in his emotions. What are the three effective and important steps? After you’ve processed your emotion away and you need to communicate something, this could be a business, you want to have three things. First of all, you want to be direct. You want to be specific and you want to be kind. Let’s look at all of those things. Direct is saying something like, “When we are late, I feel this. When the toilet seat is left up, I feel this. When you are yelling and screaming at the kids, when there is a lot of loud noise in the house because you’re upset, I feel this.” You did this in the car.
When you’re driving and there is a little bit of rage that comes up, I feel stressed in the car.
That was not rage. Sometimes, I talk to cars.
As if they can hear you.
It worked, I said, “Either go forward or push back.” The person did so they hear me.
Let’s see how effective the driving skills that gives you. Let’s talk to the other cars while you’re driving.
When that happens, he says, “I feel stressed.” I get it. It was direct. It was specific. He’s direct about how he feels. Instead of going round about things, “You know when you’re driving in the car and that happens. You know how there are cars.” Be direct. Get to the point. What is the thing that’s on your mind? How is it affecting you coming from the I, “When I experience this, I feel this?”
No need to beat around the bush. Say what you mean and mean what you say.
There’s no need to give excuses, justifications or rationalization. It’s like, “I’m feeling this when that happens.” You don’t have to create a big federal case about it. “I feel this when that happens.” When you’re doing that you then get specifics of what you do want. “I would prefer X instead.” I would prefer that you take a breath and calm yourself before yelling at a car. I prefer that I get some help with the laundry. I prefer that in the morning it’s a little bit quieter and we’re not yelling.
You’re asking for what you prefer. “When this happens I feel this.” “I would prefer X instead.” The third part is being kind. Remember the person you are in a relationship with, whether it is someone you work with, your mother-in-law or father-in-law, your parents, your kids. It’s like what Ellen DeGeneres says when she closes her show every single episode, “Be kind to one another.” When you’re coming from that place of, “Can I be loving? Can I be open-hearted?” you can be kind. You have to know the other people on your side and your team.
It also means that there’s no sarcasm inside. Sometimes, we tend to have a little bit of sarcastic remark and it’s a little point that we want to get out. It’s a clue. If we give clues, it doesn’t mean that our partner gets it. Let’s be specific, clear and kind so it can be exactly the type of conversation. It might lead to a beautiful conversation together that you both need to have.
Watch your tone with each other. Watch how you are speaking. Words have so much power. What you say and how you say something will affect. You have to first pay attention to your own energy. If you are feeling that emotion of hurt, disappointment, frustration and you don’t clear out that emotion, it’s going to come out in your communication. That’s always the first step. It’s so you can return back to that love that you have inside of you to the respect, to the feelings that you do want to be with this person, to the fact that you have positive aspects about your relationship. Coming from that place, then you can find kindness. Come back to your heart and talk to your partner. Be direct, be specific and be kind. When you keep those three things in mind coupled with processing your emotions first, you’ll find that the communication that you have with your partner is much more effective. Your partner will be able to receive you in a way that he or she had in the past because they are not listening or watching this overreaction of emotions. They hear you and they’re able to hear from you.
That will lead to better communication with yourself. We all have our self-talk. If we decide to be that way with others, then it will work the same way with ourselves. Being kind, being specific and being clear with ourselves. Our self-talk will be enhanced in that way.
We are grateful for you to be here with us. We hope that it’s making a difference in your life. If you want continued support, we do couples retreat and couples coaching. We have different products of meditations and a 30-day video series of both of us teaching how to get out of the drama and into love. It’s called From Drama to Love. You can go to ConnectedCoupling.com or ChristyWhitman.com to learn more about it. In the next episode, we are talking about How to Dissolve the Obstacles to Love. There are a lot of times people have walls in their hearts. They have things that are blocking the love that is our natural way of interacting with one another. We look forward to sharing that with you. Thank you for being part of our show and a part of us.
See you.
