Welcome to Honeymoon Chat to the podcast all about a
communication in a relationship. My name is Blair.
This is my wife, Amy. Hello.
And we believe that when communication dies, bad things
happen. Yes, we do.
If you've been following along, you will have seen that we're
doing a series on mental load and we've done a couple episodes
that have kind of touched on different parts of the mental
load topic. And this week we're talking on
something that's not specifically to mental load, but
really just conversations across the board.
We're going to be exploring what happens when you have received
feedback, criticism, comments, engagement from your partner
that feels sarcastic, critical, negative, blunt, whatever it
might be, difficult conversations, not given in a
nice way. So we wanted to explore as the
receiver of those conversations, how you can navigate this to
keep moving the relationship forward and keep making it
constructive in terms of building and strengthening your
relationship because these things can really, really impact
how we continue to explore what's going on for each other.
So this episode, we're going to be exploring a little bit about
how the receiver of these kinds of conversations can navigate it
in a constructive way. We're going to look at why we
might be missing each other, why we might be so triggered by
these kinds of comments. We're also going to look at real
examples of bad delivery and how that might be playing out, tools
to help you understand what might be going on in that
moment, and a number of other things.
It's not just for the person that receives these kind of
comments. It's actually probably helpful
for people that struggle with expressing what they want to
express clearly too. So stick around.
We're going to dive into this a little bit more.
Minds are quite full today, so we're gonna break it up.
We're gonna do Would you rather question.
It's gonna help us and just it's gonna be fun for you.
So I've got a question for you. Would you would you rather
accidentally sending your partner a screenshot of their
worst output ever with the caption look what they thought
was OK or or accidentally reply? Haha Yep to their long heartfelt
message about their feelings. I would rather accidentally
reply. Haha Yep.
Oh really? Yeah.
Easily. No way.
Accidentally because then I'll be oh sorry, so sorry I said
that to the wrong person. Oh, OK.
What would you you would rather I?
Think I would rather do the other one you.
Could send a screenshot of me and say look what?
I would rather send a screenshot.
I would be so much more offended if you did that than if you said
haha Yep yeah, I'm used to your thumb maybe.
Maybe if I remove the accidentally, but they're both
accidentally. But one is an actual thing
you're. Saying that's true.
And I, I don't know if I should say this.
I've become such a boomer with the thumbs up button on
Messenger. Yeah, I do it all the time
accidentally now. And I used to get so frustrated
at my parents because they would accidentally send the thumbs up
to things. Yeah.
And I do it all the time. And I don't even notice until I
come back. And I'm like, so passive you
don't really care because you would just do it all.
The time rumour on social media anyway.
I just have no idea what I'm doing.
Anyway, because it looks really rude, in one of my chats, we
changed it to a less friendly icon and I accidentally had, I
was having a conversation with these people.
They were talking about how someone didn't get something
that they wanted, a position that they wanted.
I accidentally just sent it sort of yeah, yeah, I accidentally
just sent this icon, not noticing, didn't respond.
Like 20 minutes later I came back and I was like, oh Oh my
gosh, I did not. You could just send that in
response to you saying that you didn't get the thing you wanted.
Emojis. Emojis.
Fun. Yeah.
So I would much rather say ha ha ha.
I'm conflicted now. And then right back I'm gonna be
like, Oh my gosh, sorry. I meant to send that to my mom.
Anyway, so welcome. Welcome to Honey.
We need to chat. We're going to be talking about
this, and the reason we want to talk about this topic of
navigating conversations when you're not receiving it in a
great way is life isn't perfect. It's not perfectly sculptured.
And we talk on this podcast all the time about communication in
ideal ways. The stuff that we talk about is
like textbook looks ideal on paper, but we also recognise and
we try to bring this into the episodes that while it looks
ideal, we're all flawed humans that have emotions and reactions
and stresses and distractions and all these things that come
into when we communicate. And any of those things combined
can mean that how we say something will come across in a
way that we don't intend it to be.
And or we will, we will intend it to be that way, but we're
just not in a good headspace. And, and really, if we were in a
good headspace, we wouldn't choose to communicate it that
way. So this episode is to try and
help with that a little bit. I want to clarify before we dive
in that this is not excusing abusive behaviours at all.
This is not excusing a pattern of disrespect and abuse.
And if that is what you've experienced, then we really
recommend seeking professional help and from people that you
trust and love, because that's a totally different topic.
And today we're talking to people that are trying to
communicate well as a team, but they just keep missing the mark.
There's something that they just, they miss the mark and
then that that spirals them. So just to clarify that we are
not trying to downplay anyone's experience with actual abuse
and, and disrespectful treatment.
That's not OK and not excusable. And I also want to say we're
going to talk a lot about how you as the receiver of these
conversations can navigate it in a constructive way, but it's
also not your ownership of it. So your ownership is over your
reactions and how you interact with the people around you and,
and your actions in the world. But your ownership is not over
somebody else's actions to excuse their ownership of it.
It's not to try and make you carry that for them.
This is just because when you're in a relationship, our goal is
to work together as a team towards strengthening that
relationship. And some, and that is not 5050
or 100 percent, 100% all the time.
It's not equal and perfect, just like communication isn't.
So sometimes we need to have an extra level of grace for our
partners in order to keep the relationship moving forward so
that they can grow and so that we can grow.
And before we dive into this, I just want to say thank you so
much for joining us. This tells us a lot about you
joining us on this episode. It tells us that you are
intentional in your own growth and development and in your
relationship as well. And that's super encouraging
because that's what we want to do.
We want a journey with you as we grow.
We want to grow with you. So that's super exciting.
So thank you so much for joining us there.
If you do get something out of this episode, please like share,
subscribe. That goes a huge way for us that
if want to support us in any way, support us that way.
That'd be fantastic. Write a comment.
Any of those things would be absolutely appreciated.
So please get onto that. Just take two minutes now, won't
take long at all, but get onto that and help us out.
Thanks guys. Thank you.
So as I said, we we've been doing a series on mental load
and there's a few episodes there to reflect back to make sure
you've listened to in terms of helping you communicate about
mental load. This episode is about navigating
tough conversations regardless of the topic, whether it's
mental load or something else, but it's a helpful tool in terms
of helping you strengthen your relationship and push through
these things. So the reason we're talking
about this is these patterns can get us really stuck.
If you find yourself in a pattern where the way things are
communicated is not working or constructive, you can find
yourself really wedged into a stuck place in your relationship
because it and we, I'm kind of laughing because this happens
all the time and it's from me, but we are so focused on how
someone's saying something and how that then impacts us that it
becomes multi layered issues. It's not just just the thing
that has been raised. It then becomes about how they
said it then becomes about how you take things.
That then becomes about the patterns that happen in the
conversations or the avoidance of things because of you, how
you know how it pans out when you have these conversations.
And it just becomes this really layered issue.
And so that's why if you have a little circuit breaker in there
that helps you push past what the clumsiness might be at the
beginning, it might help you keep things moving.
And we had this conversation when we had Sam and Liv on the
on the podcast a few episodes back.
They were talking about how they've had to put a rule in
place that she will just let Sam get out what he's trying to get
out because he'll struggle to word it properly 1st.
And she has. She has accepted that she's
going to give him extra grace for those first little parts
where she where he's sharing until he can kind of get to the
point of what he's trying to share rather than holding that
against him. Yeah, and I could actually
really relate to that. So even with you and even with
my boss actually like I've I've there's that point where you you
identify that together, but there's a point where you don't
you can't expect the other person to just know that, if
that makes sense you. Know what?
You need that. Space to reflect.
And get to that point for you and my boss, you know, I'll like
I'll start talking. I'm like, all right, look, I'm
just trying to get this out. Like I, I know this is going to
be blunt and I was going to be. I'm just trying to process it
first so that we can get to what we need to discuss.
And that's really helped. So I take actual ownership of
that too. Like it's not always for you to
now be like, I need to give Blair this space.
It's like, I need to help you give me that space, if that
makes sense. Yeah.
So it's a two way thing there too.
Yeah. And it's not so that ongoing
you're able to just say whatever you want to say without thinking
about how it gets said. It's it's so that we can
continue to strengthen that muscle because you learn things
through exercise. Because that's the other thing
too, is I could, I could use that space and just unleash my
my processing in a very rude way.
And that's not constructive. It still needs to be
constructive. But yeah, again, just voicing it
in a constructive way is still better than trying to do it in
my head. Getting it out so that then you
can work through it helps the next time not be quite the same
way. And that's kind of the aim.
This is so that you can keep moving forward, not so you can
find a different loop to be stuck in, which is one person
just letting the other person say whatever they want and then
being like, Oh, I can't really bring it up because I'm letting
them say what they want. That's another loop.
That's the same issue in a different way.
This is to to get through that, to try and move to the next
part, to try and move to the next part.
And then that's how we strengthen his relation in a
relationship in every way. Like you just, you workshop
these things just back and forth, back and forth.
It's clumsy and it's awkward, but you do that so that you can
become stronger because nothing is strong just automatically off
the off the top and the people communicate differently.
So you might find you're in a relationship with someone who
really communicates similarly to you.
Great. So this might not be such an
issue if you're on the same page.
If you're like us and we have very different ways of
communicating and very different values around communication and
words and that sort of thing, then it might be a bit more
clumsy initially and you might need this exercise or lean into
this exercise a little bit more than you would otherwise.
So just because you're finding yourselves in these
communication loops does not mean that love is gone and it
doesn't mean that your relationship is doomed or
anything like that. It is a really claustrophobic
feeling to feel like you cannot bring things up with your
partner or to feel like you can't move through a
conversation. It's not even, you can't
navigate the problem, you can't move through the conversation to
navigate the problem or to express what's going on with
you. It's a really claustrophobic
feeling. And that's how we see healing
and that's how we see strengthening in relationships
is having those conversations. So if you've had this pattern
where you can't seem to like get past the conversation to get to
the point of it, it can feel like you're just floating on top
of this ocean, I guess, and not able to actually work on what's
going on, which ideally will bring you through to not having
these conversations. So it's almost like a roadblock
that comes up. So it doesn't mean that your
love is gone or your relationship is doomed.
It actually could just mean that your communication lines are
crossed and that it might just take an extra level of
understanding on one side or both sides to just push through
awkwardly until you can get through that communication
blunder. So there's a few reasons why we
might be missing each other in these conversations.
Why these? The way that things are
delivered could be really not hitting the mark.
So sometimes your partner might say something that comes across
a bit harsh, but what if that's not the full story?
What if how they've said it is not the full story?
A lot of the times we might react to the tone before we
really even understand what their intention was, or we take
the words that they're saying at Facebook face value instead of
understanding the meaning that's sitting behind them.
You can think about examples of this, like the words you use to
describe things can be just subtle little differences and
hold such different meanings. But when your brain is like,
stressed, it's really hard to think of the right words.
I find it hard when I'm sitting in this chair doing an episode.
So yeah, especially if you're stressed and you're in an
argument or a conversation. This episode is so relevant to
me. I mentioned this before, but
it's it's so critical. So I with my family growing up,
we in conflict. It was either like really,
really blunt or it was avoiding the conversation at all.
And you sort of run from it. And so I, I do the same thing.
Well, I naturally do the same thing.
So I've had to really work on this.
But mostly the tone, the mostly the words that I use, it's like,
I know we need to talk about it. And I put so much emphasis on
like, I don't want the avoidance side to come out in our
relationship. So I really push for, well,
we've got to talk about it. But then I would get into the
trap of not not being aware of how I'm talking about it, and
that would cause a whole other issue and then damage and so
forth. I've done that many, many times
unintentionally. And it's just like my Yeah,
again, it's just where that focus is.
My focus was more on the fact that we do talk rather than how
we talk. But it's gonna go in together.
Like we do need to talk about stuff.
Communication is really important, but the way that we
communicate is just as important.
Yeah, and I came from a family dynamic that was quite like
sarcastic and when when there was conflict, sarcastic and uses
language to mean to imply things like almost a passive aggressive
type thing and not so passive aggressive.
And so the meaning of the way you're saying things really
impacts me because that's like that just has a whole.
And I I also just pattern in my head.
My head obsesses about things and patterns things.
So if I hear you say it or I see your facial expression or
whatever, then it has a whole story behind it, regardless of
if that's accurate or not. Yeah.
And, and I, you know, I grew up in a situation where the words
meant stuff. And so it does.
It's really hard to wade through those things and sarcasm, which
we'll talk about as well. And here is another one of those
things. So like these, these ways of
clumsy communication play out in so many different ways for
people. So it's not just people that are
really blunt. It's not just people that are
downright rude. It's also sarcasm.
It's passive aggressive comments.
All of these things are clumsy ways of communicating things.
So it's not just people that are blunt, but.
Yeah. And I think, I think we all have
these things, we all have these defaults that's like it's a bit
awkward to like communicate what is really going on.
So it didn't. Then it just comes out in a way
we don't really intend to. So we had a, we had someone
write in and sharing with us about their experience was like,
they'll just shut down when conflict would happen.
They would kind of Stonewall or avoid or whatever you wanted to
call it and they would just avoid it, avoid it, avoid it to
a point where they wouldn't avoid anymore and it would
explode. So it's like they they, the
episode that we went through on the Four Horsemen, the different
approaches or of conflicts with conflict, I really stood out to
them because it gave them tools and language to understand their
situation, to then work through that to avoid that explosion
side of things. They didn't fight a lot, but
when they fought, it was huge. It was a huge deal.
Yeah. So you can find these things
happening, playing out. And then the issue is that you
actually miss the need that was being communicated underneath or
the frustration or the the story that was being communicated
underneath all of these things. So most of us were, a lot of us
were never taught how to ask for help or vulnerability or do
conflict in a healthy, constructive way.
We also often weren't taught how to express emotion without
blaming or defensiveness or deflection.
And we also weren't taught often to sit with discomfort without
turning it into some kind of something sarcasm or some kind
of reaction. And so these things play into
why we might find it hard to have these conversations in a
way that's gentle and constructive straight off the
bat. So an example might be if I say
you never help me with these things, it might actually be
more I'm overwhelmed and I don't know how to say it without being
a nag, or I'm overwhelmed and I don't know how to ask you for
help, but then I'm going to explode because I'm overwhelmed
and you're not helping me kind of thing.
So there's so much more than just what comes out that's
sitting behind it. So this is what usually happens
in these cycles. So one partner comes out and
says something in a clumsy way and then the other person reacts
defensively to that clumsy way and then the original point is
lost. So the actual things not
navigated properly. And then both people start
feeling misunderstood and frustrated.
And so then it just builds to the next, the next person or the
same person doing the same thing.
They say something clumsy and then the other person gets
defensive and then they they points missed.
So the actual issues not navigated and they both feel
misunderstood and then it just builds.
So it's a cycle and a loop that needs something to come in and
disrupt that loop so that the point can be dealt with and then
they can keep going. So each time that this happens,
the emotional gap between partners widens.
And it's not because either person is a horrible person.
It's because the message is important to navigate, that the
thing that was trying to be communicated is important to
navigate, but the delivery was poor and it's triggering each
other. And so you can find yourself
years down the track stuck in this place of lack of
communication. And it's, it could all be how
the conversation has been panning out rather than this
actual issue that you're trying to navigate.
And we've talked talks about on here for me, that one thing that
just sits in my head can make everything feel bad.
So you can imagine how Pat like years of this pattern can make
everything feel like it's in crisis where it might not be in
crisis. It might just be that you're
struggling to connect. You're so distanced out because
you can't even communicate properly.
And there's a few core things that you need to work out.
And that's what's got your gridlocked.
And so that's why it's important for us to figure out a way to
receive these conversations so that we can keep moving forward.
So some of the ways that these clumsy deliveries might look
could be like sarcastic jabs, which we mentioned earlier.
Oh look who finally decided to help instead of I feel like I'm
carrying this alone. Yeah, and just on that too.
It's really funny. I, I don't know where it's come
from, but I find myself in that space A lot too.
Again, this is something that I've really had to work on.
You're very intentional with words and tone and all that sort
of stuff, way more than I have. I remember when we were like
first married or early in our relationship I would always get
you to come in. This is before chat to be TI
would always. Get to become.
Yeah, you want my chat to be T in regards to wording and tone
of emails and text messages and stuff because I just could not
get it. Like I, I knew I struggled with
it, but I just could not see how the specific words, especially
in written words could come across in in a way.
But in this area here I would like some of these things.
I'll just make jokes for the sake of it, even if I didn't
actually mean it. But you couldn't tell the
difference between when I did mean it and when I didn't mean
it. So I will just be sarcastic in
general just to write a bunch of different stuff.
And you still sometimes struggle with it.
And I've I've really tried to work on it though, but this
comes out like I just make sarcastic comments and you like,
you know, every, you would say every joke is has some truth to
it. Like actually this one is 0
truth. I'm just being a tool bag.
Like I'm just, I'm not saying anything here at all.
But I would also make those sarcastic jobs in a serious way
to try and address the situation in a light hearted way.
So you wouldn't be able to tell the difference between when I
was, when I was trying to communicate something, and when
I was just being an idiot, right?
Yeah. But yeah, it's really hard to
navigate through. And then it's like, because
that's been a big part that I've had to and I'm still really
working on is how do I say it lightly?
How do I bring it across in a nice way?
How do I, you know, because I've tried, I've tried sarcastic and
making fun out of it, but it doesn't.
It just doesn't communicate. Yeah.
I've tried to be clear, but it comes across blunt.
And then it's trying to find that middle ground is really,
really hard to do when you don't naturally do do that like you've
had. I've got to learn this and I
still am continually learning this.
Yeah, yeah. Even with our kids, right.
I'm really continually trying to learn how to uplift them but
challenge them, but in a positive way.
They don't get put down. It's it's such a such a
difficult space. Maybe we need to do an episode
on that too. On the flip side of this,
instead of receiving, yeah, absolutely.
Communication, like how to develop that communication?
Yeah, it's. I find myself falling into those
sarcastic jabs too. And I think because of my
history, it means so much more like, as in like the weight of
them was more. But we've had times where we've
kind of had to be like, all right, we are getting way too
like jokey, sarcastic with each other that I don't even know
where the serious sentimentalness like, or serious
relationship part of it is. And we've had to kind of
intentionally pause in that space because it's just too
much. So yeah, it's, it's easy.
It, it's complex. It's complex because it can hide
truths or it can just be joking. But then it does become really
hard to navigate through. And another way similar to this
is half jokes, full truth. So it must be nice to relax
while I do everything. So it's a truth.
You're trying to say it, but you're saying it in a jokey way.
And this is something I struggle with a lot because there'll be
things that I think I'm communicating with you and then
I'll end up being frustrated or I'll like come out and say I've
said this to you and you're like, I thought you were joking
because I say it in a jokey way. And I'm the same this because I
don't want to be like, I don't want you doing this.
I don't want to be super heavy all of a sudden, but I also just
I don't know, I need just say it So it just comes out in like 1/2
joke, but also a truth thing. And that just again muddies the
water. It becomes weird and it's
passive aggressive and it and it also tells my brain, Oh I've
communicated this with him when from his perspective he hasn't.
I have no idea. Yeah.
Passive aggressive comments. A really common 1.
So an example is I'll just add it to my list of things no one
notices. But that could really just mean
I want appreciation but I'm too scared to ask for it or I'm
feeling like no one sees what I do.
That kind of meaning. But in the way you say it, it
puts it in a different tone. And I think this is probably one
of the reasons why the jokey stuff is confusing because
passive aggressivity comes across almost jokey or like
almost a little bit like, is it true?
Is it not true? And so then when you're also
joking a lot, it's like, I think people just think, are you being
passive aggressive or are you joking?
And they all kind of blend into one.
It's all different ways of being passive aggressive.
Sudden shutdowns like stonewalling or like cutting it
off and that kind of thing. Like forget it, I'll do it
myself. It can mean I'm trying to
express that I've, I tried to get you to do it and and then
I'm giving up on letting you do it.
So just forget it, I'll do it myself or no, I don't want to
talk about it or walk away. That kind of shut down sort of
reaction can also be another clumsy way of communicating
what's going on for you inside. And then light insults as
humour. And this is another one, they're
all very similar, but this is another one that we fall into
because we do joke around a lot with each other.
I don't know if it's especially Australians, but Aussies break
each other down as like a form of affection.
Culturally, that's just kind of how we just, it's quite.
Strange. It's quite strange.
And so it's hard to tell sometimes it's like interesting,
yes, cool. Like I get that that's a joke,
but also feels a little close to home.
But the flip side of that is we also receive these things.
So there's there's what they're saying or what they might be
struggling with when they're communicating.
There's also our philtre that we take stuff in that makes the
conversation clumsy. And so with the like light
insults as humour, if you're insecure about something or
you're insecure about how you like your stand in the
relationship or whatever, and someone's lightly insulting you
as a joke, but it's just purely a joke, you might read that
totally differently to how they intended because it's actually
triggering one of your wounds, your past wounds.
So there's a few reasons why someone might be using these
clumsy tactics when they're communicating.
And we've already spoken about some of them, but most of us
just weren't shown, A lot of us just weren't shown how to
communicate emotionally in a constructive and healthy and
calm way. So we might come from families
where emotions weren't safe, or we might believe that asking for
help or asking for validation or asking for whatever is, is
weakness. It's not just vulnerability.
We might feel that there's no graceful way to say what we need
to say, like we just can't figure out the words and so it
just comes right out. Or we might use humour or
silence as a protection method, which I think is definitely one
of mine. And we're also in a world at the
moment, I think this is important to say, where the
world is very ungracious. So we're in a time where, you
know, we talk about cancel culture all the time on here.
It's just very ungracious and if you make one mistake, you're
kind of cut off sort of thing. I think that's another reason
that I wanted to talk about this on the podcast because you can
hear other voices out in the world that will be like, if
someone's done you wrong, not get them out.
Like I see comment sections all the time on different posts and
different podcasts and platforms and that sort of thing where
they're just like, how dare he? How dare he?
Actually, an example is I saw a video yesterday of this girl had
the Ring camera from their door, doorbell or whatever had been
filming while her dad received a phone call.
He was outside and she, the girl herself had been attacked by
their dogs. And so it was her sister calling
the dad to say she's being attacked.
And the dad freaks out. He sticks his head in the house
and he tell yells to his son to come with him.
But all all he says is like come with me, come with me.
And then he like gets in his car and then drives off.
He leaves without the son because the teenage son comes
out. He's like no dad, stop, stop,
dad. And he doesn't like go to the
car and he's just like stop, you got to talk to me stop, stop.
And he doesn't walk up to the car.
Anyway, this is a random example, but in the comments
section, this teenage kid has been torn apart because
everyone's like back in the day, we would just like listen to
your dad or you can't. Like this generation's like
ridiculous. They're not listening to their
dads. And I was thinking this poor
kid. For one thing, he's a teenager.
And two, he was in a state of shock because his dad's just
screaming in the door that he needs to get in the car and he's
not giving any explanation at all.
So this kids brain is not processing badly.
This is not like a calm moment where he's been asked to do
something. He's not processing properly and
so all these random strangers are observing this situation and
they're just like not he's done he's done.
And now every post this girls posted, they're talking about
her brother and how he's stupid. Basically.
I felt really bad because it's such it's a momentary moment
that is so understandable. Yeah, because his brains in
shock and he's a teenager and yeah, maybe he didn't make the
right choice or he didn't react in the way you'd want someone to
in an emergency. But still, it's one instance and
he's like cancelled like this. Poor teenagers actually.
Millions of people commenting about.
This and it's crazy because we see this a lot in relationships
too. Like you'll put, you'll see a
post or something up about or a question on Reddit especially,
which is a crazy world about how you know someone might be
struggling with someone that might be doing one of these
things that we've mentioned today.
And the the responses are very much like, you don't deserve
that, you deserve better, all this sort of stuff.
But where's the actual conversation of like, well, how
can we actually grow in this together?
And that's what we want to do. That's what we want to encourage
you with. You know, we get this such AI
feel like in in today's day and age.
And you know, I feel like an old man saying that and I probably
don't have the wisdom to actually clearly like state
that, but well, accurately state this.
But I feel like there's such a victim mentality out there of
like, well, I'm this has been done to me.
I'm the one that's suffering here or nothing goes right, or
whatever else. We really want to bring that
hope into this conversation and this old confidence and these
tools is like there's actually something you can do.
You who are in control of your situation or elements of your
situation, there is something you can do in all those
situations. So come at it with that positive
attitude in regards to all right, you know, we're not stuck
here. This is something that's just a
product of something. I don't know what, but you know,
it's such an easy trap for us to fall into that victim mentality,
that cancel culture and all that stuff.
And we just want to bring confidence into this space.
We just want to just a different perspective and a different
approach because it's. So it's just like an echo
Chamber of the same thing out there.
And yeah, I think if you're looking for outrage and you're
looking for like people to just tell you, Oh yeah, you should be
mad, that's fine. Like that's a different thing.
If you're looking for help in how to become a stronger, like a
stronger couple and how to understand your partner better
and how to communicate better, then there's a different
approach together. And that's kind of our heart
behind this. It helps build resiliency and it
helps actually strengthen. If you're not able to withstand
these kinds of things and you're not able to navigate through
them, then you're not going to be a strong.
There's no way to be a strong a couple.
Like there's no way for your relationship to be strong if you
can't navigate these things. So that's why we want to bring
these perspectives to you. So yeah, it's a tough place.
It's a tough place to say something wrong or make
mistakes. It's not a world that's very
gracious to stumbling through things and growing without
immediate kind of judgement put on how you stumble through it.
And so we want to encourage that within your relationships to
allow space for you guys to grow because you are too flawed
humans with your own things that you're bringing into the
relationship. And you can grow really closely
together, You can become closer, but it takes this process.
So again, just to reiterate though, this is not to excuse
the behaviour of someone who refuses to learn or refuses to
be kind or in a pattern of this disrespect and hurt.
That's not to excuse that and abuse even more on top of that,
because that's a different issue.
And that's something that is needs help from professional
help, not from people that are trying to navigate
conversations. This is for people that you,
you're both trying and you just don't know how to go forward.
And just because someone might not have been taught how to
communicate well doesn't mean that they don't have to and
learn how to communicate well. And that's what we've expressed
when you've been sharing too, Like it's not your strong point
to communicate gently, but you're learning how to
communicate gently and you're putting effort into that, and
you're also aware of it. So you put things in place to
make sure that, like you said, the people around you are aware
that you're aware. Found that's a big thing too.
Like even with the kids, right? Like I'll have a moment of, of
struggling to communicate or out of frustration, whatever.
And you know, and not excusing it.
And again, we're never excusing bad behaviour, but I'm
continuing that journey. So like I'll share with them,
look, there's something I'm working on.
I'm really struggling with it and but I am working on it.
I might have a moment of frustration and react in a way
that I don't want to. I then go back to them and say,
like, look, I'm so sorry there's not OK.
You know, I'm going to keep working on this.
You know, you've seen that I'm, I'm doing XYZ to work on this.
And I promise you I'm still going to work on this.
And I, I'm committing to that. That's been a big help for my
kids. But I think a big thing that's
helped you and, and others as well as that, that clear
communication. This is what I'm doing right
now. I'm aware of what I'm doing.
I get it. I just need, I need this so I
can do this. So taking you on that journey is
much better than just doing it and expecting you to know where
I'm at. Or doing it and then doubling
down because you're or embarrassed and or whatever is
going on for you and not even addressing it at all.
Yeah. So there's also, like we said
before, reasons why you might be hearing these things, taking
them in, filtering them in and reacting the way that you're
reacting as the recipient of them too.
There's things that play into that that make that a
complicated, clumsy conversation too.
So things like your old wounds, your experiences from your past.
And we've talked about this already.
Our experiences from growing up have impacted how we navigate
conversations now. So instead of someone saying, if
you, if you were to say to me, you forgot to do this, it might
translate to me, you're telling me I don't care about that, but
that's not true. Or like I might add a whole
meaning to that, even though that's not what you're trying to
say at all. Perfectionism is huge for me.
So if I am given a piece of feedback that makes me think
they think I haven't put effort into it or I haven't like
thought about it, it really like irks me because I spend so much
time trying to make things work well.
And so it's not that like, that feedback's not important and
valid. And when I started doing graphic
design and social media, I really had to swallow this
because I'd have people come back and, like, correct it.
That's what they do in design all the time.
And I just had to be like, yeah, it's not about me.
It's not about the effort I put in.
It's not about my, like, lack of trying to perfect it.
It's just that it's not the vision that they had.
For me, yeah, exactly. And trying to get my hand around
that. Family dynamics, huge, huge
part. So raised voices might
automatically mean danger to you or might automatically mean
signal the end of a relationship or something like that.
And, and, or sarcasm for me, that had a different meaning
than it does for you. And so your family dynamics
growing up can impact how you're filtering what's coming in when
you're an adult and when you're in your own relationship.
And another thing is low bandwidth.
So even small comments just feel like too much.
So you've got low bandwidth in terms of being able to, to
manage. You're just in a probably in
like a burnout state, you're in an overwhelmed state and you
just have very little bandwidth in terms of managing feedback
that might feel a bit confronting.
So these philtres are things that happen to us and there's
probably a number of other things that are going on for
people as well. But there are reasons why we
might be reacting this way. And a lot of them aren't our
fault necessarily, but they are our responsibility in terms of
recognising them and working through them.
And if you don't notice them, you'll just react.
If you're not spending time to be intentional, you will just
react out of them without recognising what's going on.
And that just perpetuates the loop that we've talked about
because your reaction will then show a story to the person that
you're talking to, and that'll then trigger whatever philtres
they've got going on. And until you can break it down
into why these things affect the way that they affect you, then
you're going to just keep functioning out of that without
any kind of clarity. But the issue with this stuff is
that it's not just conversations either.
It's actually your nervous system reacting as well.
And this is the stuff that I love with coaching because we
talk about this stuff a lot. But conflict isn't just what
you're saying. It's all these things we've
already discussed. It's what sits behind it for
you, what need you're trying to express, what your experiences
were, and it's about how your nervous system hears it and then
reacts. What you're taking in effects
how your brain actually processes.
Because if your brain senses threat for whatever numerous
philtres it might have, if it's sensing threat, even emotional
threat, then it shifts into protection mode or a flight or
flight, flight or fight, and it turns off our logic centre.
So it means that we actually cannot bring the best of us to
the table because we're in this protection mode.
We can't think logically. Our memory glitches out.
You probably find that's when you can't think of the right
words. Like if you're in a
conversation, I'm sure everyone's experienced this,
when you're like, I should have said this.
And then afterwards, you reflect back and like, I should have
said this, this and this. I should have clarified this.
Or are you trying to think of an example?
And you're like, I can't think of a single example right now,
but I know it happens. Yeah.
And also your tone radar will
spike. So you'll be really aware of
their tone, but you also probably won't be super aware of
your own tone. So it can just make it very hard
to to manage and maintain your conversation in a way that's
going to be constructive. So that happens when you're
flooded and just think about what happens when both of you
are flooded. Your brains are flooded with
this fight or flight kind of reaction.
If both of you are coming to the table out of that, things are
not going to be smooth. That's not the kind of
conversation that's going to look great on paper.
If you reflect back on it later, it's going to be clunky and it's
going to be clumsy. And so that's why tone often
lands before the meeting. So if you've, you've filtered it
by how they're saying it or the, the specific words they're
saying rather than what they're trying to communicate and you're
reacting out of this and you're feeling a threat, you shut down
your logic brain and you can't actually communicate properly or
process properly what they're saying.
So the conversation is, is judged right off of tone or
judged right off the specific words they're using rather than
what are they trying to express to me.
So that's not a broken process, That's a normal, natural
process. That's what happens in our
bodies and recognising that is really helpful.
And it also, I think it's not just helpful for yourself and
how you're navigating things. I think it's really helpful for
having grace for your partner navigating things because if I
can recognise that they're stressed and overwhelmed and
that they're not going to be processing things logically or
acting logical, then that will for one thing, help calm me
down, but also help me have grace for what's coming out of
their mouth and the way it's coming out of their mouth.
So we've talked about all these things, what how, why it's
important, how it might be happening, what might be
happening for you. Let's talk about some of the
ways that you can actually help weed through this in a
constructive way and decode what's going on so that you can
understand what they're trying to communicate rather than what
they are saying and disarm the protection mode that we we are
falling into. So in the moment is important
because as we've spoken about with examples, often there have
times, there have been times where we just find ourselves in
a conversation loop and we need to stop.
We need a break so that we can come back and come at it from a
different like perspective. And so there needs to be in the
moment Breakers for you. If you recognise something's
going on, these are things that you can implement straight away,
but these are some things you can actually say you'd be like,
sorry, pause. I am feeling like I'm about to
react instead of respond properly.
So can we take a pause or can we do a soft reset?
Can we start this again gently or I know I'm taking this
personally, I just need a second to breathe or I really want to
hear you, but can we just take some breaths first?
So those are things you can, you can actually communicate those
out loud to your partner. Physical things that you can do
for yourself that are really helpful is take one full body
breath. So really deep breath in and
out, inhale through your nose and exhale with a sigh.
That helps just regulate your body, helps calm your nervous
system. Another is to say I just need to
step into a room for 30 seconds. Then you just step out of the
room, be by yourself for 30 seconds and then come back in.
You can put one hand on your chest and breathe and feeling
your breath. It helps you sort of like centre
down again, like so when we get overwhelmed or frustrated, we
don't really aware of things around us, right.
So putting your hand on your chest, it just helps you be
aware of your movements, sort of that mindfulness stuff.
Yeah. And it gets you back centred
into that moment. So it just rather than your mind
going everywhere, you just sort of focusing in on something.
Yeah, yeah, it centres you, it grounds you a little bit in that
moment. And then you can also sit down
if you're standing or stand up if you're slumping.
So that signals to your nervous system that you're safe.
So just change how your positioned because we can get
real like tense and stand like really intensely.
So those things hopefully in the moment can help circuit break
what's going on for you, help break that reactiveness to
what's been presented to you. But then there's some things to
help you navigate it either in once you've calmed down or later
down the track, because a lot of the time you do just need a
little break before you can have the conversation constructively.
So one thing that's really important is when you're having
this conversation with your partner and they've said
something in a really clumsy and hurtful way, again, easy to easy
to react. But if we go at it with the
desire to figure out what their need is rather than what they're
saying, it can be really helpful.
So you're trying to figure out what was the need that they're
expressing there, What's sitting under this for them?
So what need might they be trying to express, albeit badly?
Another thing is to do a trigger test.
So what did they say versus what did I hear?
And that can be, you can even do that together.
Be like, I heard this. What did you say?
Like, because sometimes the word someone says trigger something
and you actually end up hearing something completely different.
And I've had this happen for myself multiple times.
I've also had this, this come up in coaching where you know,
people will repeat this thing and they'll be like, they said,
they said that I, I'm too much. They said that I'm too much.
And then when, when we explore that more, the reality is no one
said you're too much. They the story you took in was
your too much for whatever reasons.
There's lots of reasons and they probably did a lot of things to
imply that to you. But the words you're too much
didn't come out of their mouths. Some people can actually
remember words that were not said.
Yeah. So if you can do this and be
like, what did they say? What were the words that came
out of the mouth and what did I hear can be really helpful for
wedding through some of that. And even together if if you're
in the place where you can have that conversation, reversing it
as well. So if I said this, what would I
be meaning? And just trying to put your
yourself in their space face of being like, if I was the one
communicating this, what would the meaning be?
That's sitting behind it gives it tends to give you a little
bit more grace when you can do that.
Looking one level deeper as well, I think is really
important too. So it's not just about the
dishes. It might be about something
else. So instead of being like they're
so mad about the dishes being like, is this really about the
dishes? Or is there something else going
on And just pressing one level deeper into this.
Your, your partner might be getting frustrated about this
thing. Unlikely that they're going to
get that frustrated about. Something like the dishes or
something surface level without it meaning something else is
sitting behind it. And, and again, tone is really
important in that too. You don't be like you're cranky.
What else is going on? Yeah.
Are you on your period? I hate it when Amy says that to
me. Yeah, yeah.
He's on his period all the time. I'm not.
Talking about whether like we do this joking thing and trying to
figure out if it was a joke. So you can actually, and I'm, we
do this sometimes, mostly mean that would be like, was that a
joke 'cause it kind of sounded a little bit real.
Yeah. And then if it was.
And then I, the issue is that even when you say it's a joke,
sometimes I'm like, it's not. So you also then have to trust
their words. One thing that I've been trying
to implement and I've actually found it really helpful is if we
play this out and you've, you've said a joke, that's like, OK and
then I'm, I say to you, was that a joke or were you trying to
actually be serious? You're like, no, I'm joking.
You've said I'm joking. And I might read tone or I might
see facial expressions or I might know from previous
conversations. Actually, I don't think he's
fully joking. I think he just doesn't, he's is
not trying to like have a conversation about it right now.
And so I could again, because my brain patterns and I obsess
everything I could like be like, no, he mustn't be like it's
actually this thing. But what I've been trying to do
across the board is you've told me you're joking.
So I'm going to release this right now.
I'm not going to hold it like it's my thing to figure out what
you're trying to say and then react from it.
I need to practise taking your word for it and your ownership
of it. And so if that's something
you've got a problem with, you can come back to me and talk to
me about it. Yeah, if it's my problem, it's
my problem. Yeah, If I haven't communicated
that problem, it's still my problem.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and so, and it's because I
have a tendency to just really sit on these things and then I
can find like little stupid things, like a joke.
It could really like throw me for a little while.
So I'm trying to practise this. Like you've said, you've
released me from this in your words.
And I think a lot of people do that when they don't really want
to release the person. But I'm going to take your word
for it because that's what we've expressed and you're an adult
and you can work on that yourself.
And so then I can just ease up on the holding of that
responsibility or the trying to figure it out.
There's a lot of little safe, safe starters that you can go
with as well that can help you when you come back or even in
the conversation, but when you come back as well.
So you could say that came out a bit sharp.
Can you try it a different way? Or I think what you're saying
really matters. Can you say it differently or
I'm listening, even if that was a little bit blunt.
So just like recognising to them what you're saying, that's like
stinging. But I'm really trying to hear
behind that. Well, it also communicates how
you're receiving it too. So again, like you know, I
mentioned before about how I need to process this, Amy, I'm
just processing. Just let me get through this so
and blah, blah, blah. But then she also needs to be
able to communicate to where you are in the receiving stuff.
So you could be like, again, you saying to me, that's a bit
blunt. It's like, all right, cool.
Now I can. It helps me help you help me
help you help me help. You help me help you?
Yeah, exactly. And I think it would calm you
down. Yeah, hearing me recognise that
unless I said it like that was a bit blunt.
Yeah, yeah. If you say blunt back, yeah,
it's like, well. Exactly.
And it helps position me mentally to be listening, even
if even if I'm not feeling it, if I have that as like a
practised thing to come out. And I can say that was a bit
sharp. Can you say it again or I'm I'm
really listening even though that was that stung then I think
it can help me. It's like so a phrase when
you're like fake it to you make it kind of thing.
Like it kind of does that a little bit gets you there before
you really are there. Pattern interrupts as well, like
the pausing, taking moment, stepping out of the room,
restarting the conversation or, or just recognising I'm feeling
myself getting defensive. Anything that can interrupt the
pattern that you've found yourself in over and over again.
And if this is, if these are not how you've navigated it, it
might feel really uncomfortable to just all of a sudden be super
serious in the face or super like, like, yeah, super like
constructive in the face of something that you find
yourselves in often. But I think there are gentle
ways to introduce this that will help you.
And it may take your partner a little bit of time because the,
the person that is in it and isn't like learning these new
tools might be a little bit thrown by that at 1st.
And so you you may find that their reactions not, oh, that's
a great idea. Like they might be like, what
are you talking about or like whatever and struggle with their
own processing. But you taking that moment to
implement some of these things for your own constructiveness
and for the idea that this conversation will be worked on
as a relationship and going forward can be helpful
regardless of where your partner is at with them.
And then also coming back to it later and just rebuilding and
repairing. So instead of you've had this
conversation, it was awkward and you just push it away and you
don't deal with it again, which I think is such a common thing.
And it's something we really try not to do.
Like we really try to always come back and rebuild after
we've had a tricky conversation, even when it's been really
clumsy and. Even if it's a day later, yeah,
you know, we we have that break and then that's the importance,
importance of ownership over our part to play.
And it's like, all right, well, if I feel like we haven't
resolved that, I need to go away.
Either we got too heated in the conversation or whatever.
I need to go away. I now need a processes.
I can't just shut down and put it out of my head, which I I can
do, I can tend to do, I can do that pretty easily, but I've had
to really work on that. I was like, no, no, no.
Where did I see it going wrong? It's usually that we end up in
some random cycle and we just go all over the place and we move
away from the topic that we're actually trying to talk about.
So then I come back to the topic that we're trying to talk about.
I am packed up for myself. And then we we revisit that
conversation when we both have now reflected more so and that
becomes so much more constructive.
Yeah, so that's almost always where we'll actually see good
movement. And the other thing I was just
thinking too is like you're so that's that's the tactic either
partner or both partners can try and implement.
But the, if your partner has tried to express something to
you in a clumsy way that hurt you, recognising and not
pretending like it didn't hurt you, I think that's really
valid. But also if you come back later
and you say so why? Like what was that that you're
trying to tell me about this thing and you bring up there the
thing they were trying to raise that for one thing, I feel like
that heals a lot of stuff because even though you were
hurt and maybe the conversation didn't go very well, it
recognises that you had heard them, like you recognise them
and you're going to take time to try and figure out what was
going on. Even though that conversation in
and of itself wasn't great. And it can, if you're willing to
raise it again, especially if it's not you, it's easy to raise
your thing. Maybe not easy, but it's it's
easier to raise your thing over and over and be like, I want to
talk about this again. I want to talk about this again.
But there's something beautiful about flipping it as the partner
who's received it, bringing that back up again and saying, let's
talk about that now. I think it it eases some of that
tension, make shifts things up a little bit.
And it also just shows that you actually care.
If your partner's raised something and it's had a bad
conversation, has been pushed away.
I can almost guarantee the thing's not gone.
It's not like resolved itself and it's not going to resolve
itself when it gets triggered up again later.
So just because they're not bringing it up again doesn't
mean it's not an issue. If you haven't kind of navigated
through that conversation, it can be really worth bringing it
back. Like I overreacted, but I want
to hear what you were saying or can we come back to that?
I think it was really important. And then the ownership philtre
of this, which is just recognising your reactions,
recognising what is the stuff we talked about earlier, what comes
into play when I'm confronted with this stuff and how might
that be impacting how we're having this conversation?
And if you can recognise what's happening on happening for you,
then it will ease some of the reactions that you're going to
have just naturally and it will make the conversation easier in
the future. So these are some of the ways
that we can navigate these clumsy conversations.
Again, it is not that when we talk about the ownership, you're
responsible for your reaction and you're responsible for your
actions. You're not responsible for
making sure that your partner can communicate well.
But we can help like we can help bring out constructiveness in
our relationships. And we do have ownership of our
part of our relationships. It's, it's a team effort.
And so when you are finding, if you're finding yourself in these
patterns, there are things that you can try and implement that
probably haven't felt, they probably won't feel natural
initially, but they probably haven't come up naturally on
their own either. And you can try them and see if
they're going to shake up this thing that you guys have stuck
in and see if it if it gives it a bit of a fresh approach and
maybe a fresh understanding. So a couple of little final
thoughts to think about your partner's clumsy little thing
that they said. It might not have been from
disrespect. It might not have been
intentionally trying to hurt you.
What if they were just trying to connect or trying to communicate
something that was important to them and they just did it in a
way that was clumsy? And if that's the case, then
there's more of a conversation to be had.
And what if there isn't a bad guy and a good guy, but it's
just more this, these triggers and these fears and these
philtres playing out that are impacting how we're hearing, how
we're hearing each other, how we're loving each other and how
we're communicating. So as always, curiosity coming
at it with curiosity coming at it in a gentle way, coming out
with communication. Intentionality.
Intentionality of all these things.
Really, really helpful. Yeah.
Cool. All right.
Well, that's clumsy conversations.
Right, we was. We clumsied through it.
We did you right. I might pull together one day
blooper reel of this episode and.
The joys. Then you will see all.
Right. Thanks guys, Guys.