What To Do When Communication Breaks Down

All of us are in relationships whether they are romantic, friendship, social, work, virtual or family relationships. And family relationships are the best ones to practice what I am going to share with you as you have got so many patterns and triggers with family and when you start using what I am going to share with you so that you can navigate what to do when communication breaks down. 

When you think of communication you might think of speech or even written communication but communication is something that comes from who you are Being. You do it with your body (gestures and stance), with your energy, the tone of your voice, your interest and you do it through the words that you say. However the words that you say are not always heard and the reason for that is that whatever emotion and energy is going on behind your words you project onto the other person. And depending on what state you are in when you are communicating the person you are communicating with might respond to the energy rather than the words that you are saying. This is particularly noticeable when you're having an argument with somebody and you're trying to say something but you are over emotional. What the other person will most likely pick up on is the agitation in you rather than the words that you’re saying.

 So with this in mind the first step of conscious communication is 

1. Make sure you are in the right emotional space. Who you are being when you’re communicating. If you are feeling agitated, angry, sad or over-emotional in any way you will need to deal with that emotion before you communicate. I have found that just by acknowledging the emotion and doing some deep breathing right down into my stomach I can often bring myself back to centre. Try to make sure that you're in a neutral space and if you can come from a space of love, connection and compassion that would be even better. 
2. Own what you are experiencing. Quite often when you are upset you will want to blame somebody else for what you are experiencing. Most people want to blame someone else for their experience of the world or for the fact that they are angry, sad, disappointed or upset. A lot of people like to make it someone else’s fault that they are feeling the feelings they feeling, but that's not true. The feelings you feel are always your feelings and they are in response to your old thoughts, beliefs, pains, hurts and wounds that you're holding inside of yourself and all the other person did was trigger a memory of one of them. When you blame someone else you give away your power and make yourself powerless and a victim so step two is owning what you are experiencing. 
3. Communicate what you experienced to the other person in a way that is unemotional and also that owns your experience of the incident. Some things that you can say are below and feel free to adapt them so that you feel comfortable saying them but make sure you are not blaming anyone else for your experience. 

• Lets pretend someone said something to me and it's triggered me and I'm feeling hurt and angry. First of all I would pause and let go of my emotions and then what I might say is - “when you say x, y or z I feel hurt 
• Or you can say - “when you say x, y or z the story I tell myself is ….” and fill in what story you tell yourself to make sense of what has just happened. For instance if I had arranged with a colleague to have something done by a certain time and they didn’t complete their part of it I could say “When you do not stick to our agreement the story I tell myself is that what we are doing together is not as important to you as it is to me.” Or the story I tell myself is that you do not value me very highly”. These are only suggestions and I can not know what the story is that you tell yourself only you will know that. You must make sure that the story really is the truth for you as sometimes just expressing it is enough for you to find closure. You need to own your story, it's your story, you created the story the other person is not responsible for that story. 
• Stand you ground if you face resistance or defensiveness. You might find when you first start using this method that the other party might get resistant or defensive especially if you are practicing on family. They will have done this dance with you many times and will expect to do the same dance. I once said something very similar to my brother and he tried to tell me I was wrong. So I calmly said I am just telling you how I feel. I think I had to repeat myself a number of times before he really heard me and we were then able to move onto the next steps. 

1. Decide on a way forward together. If you're trying to create a working relationship, a romantic relationship or if you are trying to create a loving relationship with your family then the next part needs to be done together. Once you have shared your story or how what happened made you feel you can say - “but what I really want is for us to…. (have a respectful relationship, or what ever it is that you want) what needs to happen for that to be possible?” And then allow them to share. If they say they do not know you might have to ask them for what you need in the future but ask them if this would be ok and if they have any other suggestions. They more the other party can be part of the solution the more they will own if and be likely to do it. 

One final point is that if the incident was because the other person was highly emotional remember what I said above about how what you are experiencing is your stuff. That also goes for what someone else is experiencing. Realise that what they are experiencing is theirs. You do not need to buy into their anger, hurt, or frustration. They will want you to because there is a false sense of relief in blaming someone else. When this happens 

1. Pause and breath reminding yourself that this is their emotion and not yours. Create some distance in your mind from what is happening. 
2. Allow them to feel what they are feeling and don’t make it wrong. If you make them wrong it will likely amplify the situation. 
3. Just say what you are observing - “I can see that you're hurting, I can see that you’re angry what do you need from me right now?” 

The more you are able to hold a genuinely loving and understanding space when they are experiencing whatever they are experiencing the more likely you will be able to connect with them and have a conscious constructive conversation. Sometimes they don’t need anything from you just for you to understand how they feel and by sharing what you can see this can sometimes be enough. It is important to be in a space of deep listening, not listening to answer, combat or to put in a quick quip but listening from understanding. Understanding where their pain is coming from that can de-energise de-emotionalise what is going on

I hope you find some useful ideas in this weeks blog on what to do when communication breaks down and I would love to know how you get on with the tools. 

So much love from me to you. 

BrittTanya