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I see so many women struggle to communicate consciously and effectively with their loved ones…its been coming up a lot lately with my clients.

If you don’t know how to consciously communicate how can you expect to have deep, connected and vulnerable relationships.

Before I dive into this, I just want to share with you what I mean by conscious communication. For me, its about being able to to authentically express yourself. If you can’t express who you are, you won’t be able to create a safe space for vulnerability and without vulnerability there can’t be trust and a deep connection. You’re operating on the surface level, trying to please others, avoid conflict and avoid speaking up for fear of judgement or rejection.

Conscious communication is also about active listening…listening to understand, not respond so that the other person feels heard and understood, which leads to feeling more connected.

When we actively listen to our loved ones and children, we’re understanding their point of view, we’re able to empathise and really validate their experience and feelings. Too often we’re so caught up in getting our own point of view across, that as simple as active listening sounds, is a struggle for most people.

To communicate consciously you need to also have emotional awareness, both within yourself and towards others. Without this awareness you can’t be attuned to your children or your partners emotions, you won’t be able to respond with empathy and compassion.

It also requires mindful presence- being aware of the words you use, the tone in which you speak, your body language, your energy…all of these are communicating to your loved ones. Words only account for 7% of our communication.

Conscious communication is also about being able to resolve conflict effectively…where it becomes about win win, not win lose, not right vs wrong, but being able to use all of the above skills of active listening, empathy and compassion to truly understand and address the underlying issues.

And most importantly communicating consciously builds trust. When you can communicate openly, honestly and effectively, where you can really share your thoughts, emotions and concerns without the fear of judgement or rejection you can form deep, authentic connection.

If I was to ask you on a scale of 1-10 looking at what constitutes conscious communication where would you sit? With 1- I have no idea how to do and 10 being, yep, I have this down pat, what would your answer be?

I could absolutely teach you effective communication strategies, but if you don’t know whats really underneath your struggle to communicate consciously, you’ll keep coming up against the same patterns, the same conflicts and struggle to build true authentic, deeply connected relationships with your kids and your partner.

Think about a moment when you had a disagreement with your loved one or lost it at your child.

What are the reactive patterns of behaviour? Do you become defensive, or unintentionally shut down? Do you take things personally? Do you always blame the other person?

What are the underlying fears?

Often there are generational patterns that we’ve inherited and these play a huge part in how we communicate today. Some of you may have grown up with parents that modelled passive-aggressive or aggressive behaviour, or they may have avoided conflict, or lacked emotional expression and vulnerability. All of these can become deeply ingrained within us.

When these behaviours and ways of communicating are modelled to us, we unconsciously adopt and replicate them.

We abandon our true selves, and we build up an armour around our hearts as a way to protect ourselves from getting hurt.

And if growing up your core needs weren’t met of - unconditional love, acceptance, feeling heard, your feelings being validated, being able to express yourself, a sense of belonging and significance, you will really struggle to feel safe in your relationships, to express yourself, to be vulnerable, to trust, to feel worthy of love and you’ll be driven by the fear of rejection, loss of love and of judgement and criticism.

All of this is stored not just in our sub-conscious mind, but in our bodies too. We’re still holding onto the emotions of our past- its blocked energy in the body.

Until you heal these patterns, these emotional wounds and unmet needs, and transcend and transmute this blocked energy in your body you won’t be able to communicate consciously and have the deeply connected relationships you desire.

That why when I work with clients, I work on the underlying causes, not just giving you skills, because until you do the deep inner work required and master your internal world, your relationships will continue to feel like a struggle.

If the quality of your life, of our happiness is directly correlated to the quality of your relationships and the quality of your relationships is directly proportionate to the quality of the connection and relationship you have with yourself, this is where the work is.

This is the healing that needs to happen.