My name's George and I edit The Imperfects.
We acknowledge the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation as the traditional owners of the land on which this podcast was recorded, and we extend our respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
The Imperfects is not a licensed mental health service and is not a substitute for professional mental health advice, treatment or assessment.
The advice given in this episode is general in nature, but if you're struggling, please see a healthcare professional or call Lifeline on 13 11, 14.
How did I learn this way of communicating?
How did it serve me then?
Who did I see doing this communication style?
And who saw me doing this and didn't stop me?
Every time we enter into a relationship, we bring with us our learning history and our early childhood experiences that may have been very adaptive in childhood but are now no longer working for us.
I feel like whenever my freedom gets challenged, I get really defensive.
Does that in any way feel familiar to you from a younger time?
That's exactly what my psychologist asked me.
Effective communication skills are skills.
We can learn them.
The challenge is not the actual language itself.
Really what we're talking about is emotion regulation.
The changing of the communication style to me Seems easier when I don't care about the situation or the person.
Yeah.
Often the hardest place of communication is in our closest romantic relationships.
In that moment, I realised that I hadn't been hearing him and he hadn't been hearing me.
When we're looking at communication, what we're looking at is how we go about attaining our goals and how we care for our relationships and how we hold a sense of self-respect.
Quick, is anyone here a doctor?
Yes, her name is Dr Emily and she's a psychologist.
Please welcome to The Imperfects, our very own psychologist.
Everyone relax, it's that time of the month again.
Dr. M is here.
She's back.
We all love it when Dr. M's here.
So that's very exciting.
Thank you.
And M, we're going to talk more very shortly.
Before that, slightly different lineup today, Josh.
It is a really exciting Dr M because Hugh has been going through a bit recently and is feeling a bit burnt out.
So he's giving this episode a miss.
Mm-hmm. which is great.
Which we support.
Which we support, which is a really important thing to do, I think.
We secretly resent, but we support publicly.
Absolutely.
I'm joking.
But the exciting part of that is that in Hugh's normal seat is the incredible Bridget North East executive producer of The Imperfects.
Ow!
Extraordinaire person.
Yep.
And so, hey, Bridget.
It's so exciting to be here on this side of the curtain.
Yes, it's great.
It's huge.
Very exciting.
Ready to bring my Hughisms to the show.
Just be careful.
It's wild out there.
Don't let your brain go there.
But this is a Dr. Emisode.
So for people who are new to the podcast don't know Em, for years now you've been coming on the podcast quite regularly.
And you will pick an episode, an old episode of The Imperfects, and you'll find a moment or something that you'd like to expand on from a clinical point of view as a psychologist, that we can all like take away and learn from.
Yeah.
So what episode?
Well, first of all, how are you?
I'm good.
Yeah.
Let's get some small talk going.
Well, how's the weather in Perth?
All good?
It's been terrible.
Has it really?
Yeah.
Yeah, as you know, it should be a sunny state, but it has not been.
I'm really sorry to hear that.
Melbourne's been awesome.
Yeah, I bet.
As always.
So, cool, small talk over.
We, obviously we will provide that as an instagram clip so you can just, if you don't want to hear the whole episode and you just want to hear the weather chat, that will be um, that'll be a special and for our patreon subscribers, we'll talk weather for another 16 minutes.
No, uh m.
Yes, i'm here.
Down to business.
Yes exactly um, i wanted to go back to hannah ferguson's episode.
Oh, the great hannah ferguson who, if you're not on the internet, Hannah Ferguson, is a political commentator engaging young people in politics.
She's amazing.
Yes.
Yes.
Everyone's best friend.
Yes.
I would love to be.
Yeah.
Be careful.
Careful because she will take you up on that.
Yeah.
No, I thought her, you know, what she shared was so important and vulnerable and impressive.
And there are a few kind of key themes that came out of that and I
For me, one of them really was around kind of a broader discussion around communication and communication styles and also then like developing more of a, I guess, a nuanced discussion around how we approach conflict.
Oh, I frigging hate conflict.
So this is something I really need to hear.
So maybe I will cut to her.
Yeah, this is a clip from the episode.
We will link to this in the show notes if you want to hear the whole thing.
But yeah, Anna Ferguson.
So I think what I struggle with was less in an explicit mental health way.
I've always struggled with anxiety.
I think I am a high pressure, highly strung person that does have that tendency to allow pressure to take over.
But other than that, I feel like the driver is not a mental health issue, but instead the way this and come back to the card I think the way that that experience in my childhood has shaped the way I give and receive love as an adult, in that, you know, I think about the fact that, as an 18 year old, this is what was happening at the time.
And even reflecting now from my late twenties.
Officially I didn't have sex until I was like almost 21.
I was really scared of affection and that's throughout my childhood.
Like I didn't like to be kissed or touched or I really struggled with letting people in in that way.
And I think it's less in a friendship sense.
It's more in a romantic sense.
I was very stressed out by the idea of what a romantic relationship would look like, based on the one I'd witnessed in my childhood.
Wow.
I mean, there's so many things in that episode, but that was such a memorable and so vulnerable from Hannah as well to say that.
Yeah.
Yeah, it really was.
And I think you know on the surface that little clip there doesn't necessarily explicitly reflect communication styles.
But I think, at the heart of it, what it pointed to me to was how we develop our mode of communication based upon our early childhood experiences.
Yeah.
And that, particularly the messages that we witness to and that we receive from our primary caregivers innately inform how we communicate in the world.
Yeah.
Or how do we even like?
Assuming that you have a default communication style based on your childhood, there could be a chance that you want to change that style.
If it's not working for you, then how do you do that?
Yeah.
Yes.
I think this is the kind of crux of the of the issue, and the struggle that we can often have is that we may reach a point in life where the way that i have been working is not working anymore, or that this way of communicating, this way of navigated conflict, of asking for what i need, of saying no, is actually not working for me anymore because the consequences are really too big.
I feel like i'm just got like people pleaser people pleaser people pleaser, ringing in my head.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
And I think like that.
It's interesting that you said that, because I think that there, of course, will be so many people out there that really resonate with the people pleaser mode or we might call that like a self-sacrificer or someone who tends to subjugate their needs that approaching conflict, asking for what you need, saying no to requests, will feel immensely difficult.
And But then on the other end of the spectrum, we also have other modes of communication that will also cause us harm.
So communication modes that are angry and aggressive, for example, or avoidant and withdrawing.
So there are so many different ways in which we really, in some ways, are trying to get our needs met that may have been very adaptive in childhood but are now no longer working for us.
So I think what is implied there is that your communication style isn't set in stone for your life, because I kind of feel like I am trapped by it and there's no other option but to be.
Like it's kind of who I am and I'm never going to be good at conflict and I'm never going to be good at advocating for myself.
I can be quite nice to people and gentle and empathetic, but that's it.
So yeah, I can't.
It still feels like, unless I guess communication styles could change depending on scenario as well and who it is within my family and within my extended family.
As I was safe from like mid teenage years to about 25.
I reckon the person who I was that they saw and the kind of ways I'd communicate was so different to how I was communicating outside of my family.
And I found that very frustrating that no matter what had gone on, I'd come back to like a big family function and I'd be really quiet and withdrawn and not be able to tell.
I just felt real, I don't know, overcome by nervousness about being this person I was becoming in the outside world.
Yeah.
You may feel confident in one area of your life, but it may be very different in other relationships, because And so I think what is important in recognising here, and also being able to offer ourselves some compassion too is that it's not a blanket all or nothing.
It's not that I'm a great communicator or I'm not.
It might be that you're able to communicate really effectively in some places but less so in others.
But that often the hardest place of communication is is in our closest romantic relationships.
The hardest place.
The hardest place.
Really?
Yeah, often.
Wow.
Yeah.
So really kind of probably, what we're looking at here really is our comfort and discomfort with conflict and the differences between our respective wants.
So that's when there will be some kind of disharmony, is when there's a there's a incongruence between what you want and what I want.
But we can also apply this to so many other contexts as well.
So in the workplace, it could be in your friendships, it could be a customer service role.
So I guess this kind of invitation here is to first of all think about what is my predominant style?
So you might.
As a starting point in understanding communication and effective communication is to first of all get a real sense of how I mostly communicate.
So what do you mean by that?
Like it feels like such a broad, like what's an example?
Yeah.
As a really kind of basic way of starting this, even if you just Google communication styles, there are some great, very evidence-based questionnaires that can help you identify what you're kind of maybe mode of communication tends to be.
And that this when we're looking at communication.
What we're looking at is how we go about attaining our goals, how we care for our relationships and how we hold a sense of self-respect.
So, as an example, there's a particular model that has been used for a very long time and it's called the Thomas-Kellman model.
And it identifies five different types of communication.
And it categorized it according to your level of assertiveness and your level of cooperation.
And so if you wanted to, you could go and Google this.
You can easily do the questionnaire yourself.
And what it does is works out where your kind of primary motive of operating tends to be.
And so, as an example, let's just say that you're really good at being assertive at asking for what you want, but you might be low on cooperation.
So that would be low on caring about the needs of others, for example.
And so we would put you then, or this model would explain that you're a competitive communicator.
In contrast, if we have someone that is really low on assertiveness and low on cooperation, we would categorize that as avoiding communication, like an avoidance style communication.
So basically kind of really withdrawing.
Withdrawing from everything.
So no assertiveness and no cooperation, real avoidance.
Am I right in saying that like?
Because some of this is reminding me of what is now become an infamous not even infamous, just famous episode I think that we did a long time ago with you, which was Truth Versus Harmony.
Because that was an episode that really resonated with me and a lot of people.
And this feels like there's a Venn diagram where they overlap in some way.
Yeah.
And so if we were to look at that, we'd probably say that someone that has a tendency to choose harmony over honesty, for example, or maintaining having a sense of truthfulness in your relationships, we'd probably say that that person would be categorized in this model as having an accommodating communication style.
And that means low on assertiveness, high on cooperation.
Which which in my experience is like seems like a good idea at the time, but then five years later in therapy, you realize it's not.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I think that this is what this is, why kind of coming back to that notion that what was adaptive then, now in adulthood is, is not working for me anymore.
Yeah.
Because and this is the next part in this is once we get a sense as to Like.
How is it that I tend to communicate?
Like what is my general style?
We can even kind of bring in personality and temperament in here too.
Just really basic questions like when I'm faced with a difficulty or a struggle, do I like launch into venting, into anger, into telling you how it is of doing what I want?
Do I withdraw?
Am I able to stand and hold my ground?
Am I able to assert what I need?
Once you have that general sense with that information, we now want to kind of even go back and say okay, where did I learn this from?
How did I learn this way of communicating?
How did it serve me then?
Who did I see doing this communication style?
And who saw me doing this and didn't stop me?
So these are questions that are based on the work of Terry Real, who is a therapist and author and does work primarily around couples therapy and, in particular, conflict.
I feel like all parents in the world are not going to come off well from those questions.
And this is, of course, not meant to be like any kind of judgment or criticism of our parents.
We're trying to get Sigmund Freud on the podcast, so hopefully we can talk to him about this.
But it's an important step of understanding why I communicate this way.
So why this might be my default mode.
My partner and I have done some couples cancelling work and we both went in thinking We're like we're pretty good communicators.
And you know, we've got this one thing we want to work on with the therapist, but otherwise we're pretty solid.
And the entire, I think we did six sessions, every session was about communication.
And we realised that like...
I think we went in there feeling like we were great and then realised that we were kind of stuck on one point.
And the psychologist worked with us on different communication styles and eventually we came out and we were able to talk about stuff on another level that we'd never done before.
Yeah, yeah.
And what's so interesting about that is that it's one of the most common experiences if you look at long-term relationships is that at the points of difficulty, the conflicts that you have tend to be exactly the same.
It's the same issue repeated over and over again.
It's never been resolved and it's never been communicated in a way that allows us to move forward.
So in order to resolve something like that, I guess it's I'm assuming it's different for everyone, but it feels like there's the communication problem between the two people, but then those two people things that they have to individually resolve separately, that's from their childhood or yeah, this is the thing that i often will say in therapy is that we each bring into a relationship whether that's a friendship or a romantic relationship or a workplace relationship every time we enter into a relationship, we bring with us our learning history and our early childhood experiences, and these are always going to be different, and so how i communicate my needs will be different from someone else's.
How I meet the needs of other people will be different, and how they meet my needs will be different.
It's really complex but yes, we're all walking around individually carrying these bags that are sometimes very, very heavy.
To give an example of that, the reason that we did the couples counselling in the first place was because I couldn't figure out how to communicate with my partner on a certain issue.
I thought I was doing a good job.
But I was really just focusing on my side of it.
And it got to the point where I was getting so stuck.
I was like, this thing, this big thing in our lives needs to change.
Otherwise, we have to break up.
And it was like an ultimatum.
And then I'd said that a few times over a couple of years.
And looking back now, I know from my childhood I'd witnessed a breakup being a solution to conflict.
So maybe subconsciously, I thought that that was a necessary step.
But it was quite intense and quite full on.
And then I realised after we sort of had one bigger fight that I didn't want to break up.
And like threatening that ultimatum meant nothing because that's not what I wanted.
So it kind of was a reset moment to go all right.
Well, that's just a roadblock in terms of the communication.
If we take a step back and figure out what to do, which was going to see someone and getting some help afterwards, maybe there's another way around this.
Were you thinking that like the ultimatum would be like the thing that would sort of scare him into changing?
I think so.
I think so.
I think it was like I didn't have the communication skills at the time to look for another avenue.
So it was like, well, the most valuable thing I can think for both of us is our relationship.
So if that goes, surely that's enough to make you change.
Mm-hmm.
And it seems so silly saying it now because I can see all the areas that I was going wrong.
And this is over quite a long period of time.
We've been together for about 13 years.
And this all happened maybe three or four years ago.
Yeah, but it was, It was realising and stepping back and then having a psychologist come in and go there's you and your partner and then there's the thing that you're dealing with and they're separate.
Your partner is not the issue, it's a separate thing and we need to treat it like a separate thing.
And then that invited like so much more love and compassion for my partner because i could be like okay, we're gonna, we're gonna deal with the issue together as a team and it just opened the door for much better conversation.
Yeah yeah, like we got the opportunity in couples counseling to say how i got the opportunity to say how i was feeling And he got the opportunity to say how he was feeling, and we were kind of like doing this weird role play where we had to really listen to each other.
And I think in that moment I realised that I hadn't been hearing him because we'd been in this defensive kind of place and he hadn't been hearing me.
And it was like hearing the person that you love so much say how they're feeling.
It just like opened the floodgates for how much – because you love them so much.
Empathy that rolls on in.
And I noticed that I'd been –
Using probably a lot of you statements in my life.
Well, you're always doing this and you do this and this is the problem.
Rather than saying when you do that, it really makes me feel like this.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And the challenge then, of course, is to once again, like let go of being right or wrong.
And actually what we're trying to do there is really reflect and validate.
So when you say that we don't have to buy into whether I did it or not, whether I did the dishes or not, whether I did this or not, what we're listening for is your feeling.
And then we say, Ridge, I'm so sorry.
That feels like that's really hard.
That's what he did.
And then I cried.
Yeah.
And it was so lovely.
And so this is the thing is like when we think about all this, what's it in service of?
You know, that they know you better and you have an enhanced relationship.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I really think we do.
Like because of that experience.
It's like there's always this analogy that we're caught up in a dance and we keep doing the same with our partners.
We keep doing the same dance around and around.
And so the challenge is to stop and do a different dance.
Just take yourself out of this dance.
What's the best dance?
Is there one that you recommend?
Salsa or whatever.
It doesn't really matter.
Yeah.
So I guess, you know, there's so much that we could discuss around.
This is such a broad topic.
But I guess I wanted to you know, ultimately to bring in a way of a particular mode of therapy that is used for what's called interpersonal effectiveness.
Okay.
So, before we get there, what I do want to really emphasize here is that it is so important that we have a real understanding of why it is that I communicate this way, how it really served my needs in the past and okay, do I have to keep doing it this way?
And so there are a few examples that I just want to throw out as to how something might have been helpful when we were young.
So the first example might be that In your family, in order to be heard, you had to yell.
So people would only listen to you if you had to, like you were shouting.
And that might be because lots of people were shouting.
Or that people that maybe, for example, your parents were so busy and stressed that they wouldn't hear the little voice that was saying mum, can you help me out on this?
So it would have to be yelling.
So in order for that little child to get their needs met, they needed to yell.
They needed to shout or to get really upset.
So we can see how that style really helped that child get their needs met.
But if we fast forward now and we find that this person is now in a relationship or in a workplace and that when something doesn't go right, their reaction is anger and And shouting,
So we can see we've got this, basically this blueprint here that in situations now as an adult that in some ways mimic my early childhood experience, we get an activation of that same coping style.
And then to state the obvious, which maybe you're going on to next.
I don't know if this is obvious, but if you're then in a relationship with someone who came from a household where no one ever yelled, then that is like terrifying.
Absolutely.
And that's not uncommon.
And I say this quite frequently is that I may have a client who that conflict was avoided at all costs in their childhood and that the goal and intention was always to keep things smooth.
So there were never raised voices.
And that's not to say that that was better. but it was just different.
That was my experience for sure.
Yeah.
And so that this is the template for understanding how we communicate.
And so now this person enters into a relationship with someone whose history is, I have to yell to get my needs met.
So this person yells, and this person over here feels deeply afraid or wounded, or scared, or Or may also have a very strong belief that this means the end of my relationship.
Right?
So we've got this dynamic here and it's, gosh, even as I'm talking, it's really painful.
This kind of dance here.
Because also what happens is for the person that's yelling or getting angry their message gets lost.
So what we get is the difference between tone and content, right?
So the person over here who has the conflict avoidance style and grew up with very quiet noise, that person will only hear the tone and the body language rather than the content.
Yeah.
And what happens then is that the avoidant person actually has a very strong grounding place to say I can't hear you.
Because now your mode of communication is more harmful and hurtful to me than your actual original need.
Yeah.
So part of the work there's so much work around this but part of the work is how do we come up from being in a place of wanting to withdraw and how do we come down from a power over situation.
To meet in the middle.
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
One of the things I think and maybe I'm interpreting things wrong, but one of the things that seems paradoxical or at least challenging is that the changing of the communication style to me seems easier when I don't care about the situation or the person and hence when it is most important like we often are the worst at the people we care about the most.
It feels like it would be so much harder to change because if I'm changing there, that feels really, really risky.
Yes, spot on.
Whereas if it's – I'm trying to think of something that's extremely flippant.
Like sending a meal back at a restaurant.
Yeah, which is still quite challenging.
But the cost of getting that wrong is so much lower that it's easier to experiment with the changing your communication styles as opposed to me –
Changing a communication style in the most important relationship in the world to me, getting it wrong and then that relationship ending.
Yes.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That is a very accurate experience for many people.
It also points for me to the fact that effective communication skills are skills and that we can learn them, but that we don't.
We also do want to be able to practice them in low risk situations.
So it's that we start to get exposed to more experiences of this assertive communication, for example, going well.
And so that practicing these skills is absolutely paramount to being able to implement them in our relationships that we care about the most.
It's just sort of occurring to me that, like you know, you always hear uh, that you know good communicators listen really well and like, and i guess i kind of, i mean, i understand that, i think, but then the way what you're saying, now i'm sort of thinking about it in a slightly different way, because it's one thing to learn communication skills, but the skills have to be quite adaptable depending on the person you're talking to, or the, the tone or what you're.
How you're delivering information or communicating will be really different for one person than it might be for another.
So it's almost like you have to to be a good communicator.
You first have to establish how are they, what sort of communicator are they?
Yep yep, yes.
And you also need to establish your goals within the communication.
Yes, like what you want from this?
Um, it's really complex and very nuanced and it's so funny because You know you can go and Google a set of communication skills, right.
You can go and get all the skills you want anywhere, chat, TPT, they'll do it for you.
However, what is the most challenging part of all of this is not the actual words that you use.
It's regulating the emotion and staying connected to what we might call is the healthy adult mode that can speak for and advocate for the part of us that's feeling really scared right about speaking up or the part that wants to get really angry.
Right?
So the challenge is not the actual language itself, but our capacity to be able to stay like firmly rooted to the ground, to hold this, the big feelings that will be showing up because it takes, like it's an emotional risk, right.
Expressing how I feel, being able to hold that and then to use the language.
So that's why this is really hard because really what we're talking about is emotion regulation.
We're not actually talking about a specific technique to use.
Does that make sense?
Absolutely.
I feel like I see, I don't know if this is bringing in a strange thing, but I feel like I see this in 95 of comments online, in that it's like emotion led comments.
And it's like how do you ever expect anyone to take what you're saying?
Well, because it doesn't feel like the healthy adult mode.
Except for people who grew up in a comment section.
Yes, true.
Yeah, exactly.
People who were raised inside a comment section, that'll really resonate with them.
But for anyone else, it's sort of hard.
That's actually an interesting point.
I know it's a joke, but I feel like I don't know if this is true.
But But I wonder if people who have grown up like for me as a nearly 40-year-old who comment sections have only come in to my life when I was like, I guess, mid to late mid-20s.
I would guess that people who grow up only knowing the internet with comment sections attached, if they have a different response to emotion and anger in the comment section,
Yeah, because there's no... practicing there in those comments.
Well, this is a big generalization and I apologize in advance.
There sometimes isn't a practice of emotion regulation in those comments.
Yeah.
And what that means is being able to hold and stay grounded in your feelings and to be able to clearly express something that might feel uncomfortable or something that you disagree with.
So yeah, I absolutely agree.
We're not getting very, We're not going to get exposed to opportunities to actually practice really effective, respectful communication.
Yeah.
The respect part requires us to be regulated.
Yes.
Yeah.
Do you think it's easier to have relationships with people that have similar communication styles to you?
Because I feel like the whole opposites attract thing and I think about myself and my partner differently.
I think I'm down the assertive end and he's down the other end.
The bad end.
More conflict avoidant.
But, I mean, I think about that with us and making this show.
I wouldn't say I love conflict or anything like that, but I'm probably a little bit more assertive than the three of you guys.
I can think of many examples.
But I think we have to – we work very hard in trying to create a very safe space where we can all be heard.
And sometimes I can feel myself wanting to like jump in and share my point and get it across the line, when I need to hold myself back and go.
Let's just have space for everybody to have a say on this thing.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's a great question though.
Like the, I think that all the time in terms of like, Oh, what they say opposites attract.
And of course that is very true for me in a lot of my relationships because.
But then sometimes that means that relationships are hard.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Look, I think, I mean, I'm sure there's research around this.
My general sense of this is that, oh my gosh, of course it's easier.
Like.
If both of you have learnt over time and through experiences how to communicate assertively, which means being respectful to both my needs and yours, then yes gosh, that's easier.
Definitely.
Yeah.
And this is again the thing I do want to emphasize is that it is a practice and it's one that we can learn.
How?
Yes.
I will give you some ideas.
Just before you do.
Am I thinking this, and everyone else is or not, that the gold standard is assertiveness and care for other people, or is there no gold standard?
I think what we're looking at is obviously like a healthy adaptive communication way of communicating.
Yeah.
It will vary based upon the needs of the situation.
So, for example, if you're under threat, it would be perhaps adaptive to become either very passive or become very angry.
That may actually be the most appropriate response in that context.
But if we're not under threat and our environment is safe enough then yes, we kind of want to look at this idea of assertive communication, and So assertiveness means being respectful both to myself and to the other person, the other people.
Yeah.
So there isn't a blanket.
We're always aiming for assertiveness.
It's very it is context dependent and that it may very much be that you are safest to withdraw or to stand up and become aggressive.
Yeah.
So, in like in all the therapy programs, most of the therapy approaches that I'm aware of that look at communication, for example how we manage in life in general is that we'll often have there are differing terms but they're essentially meaning the same thing.
So in schema therapy, we might talk about the healthy adult mode.
So that's the healthy adaptive, regulated mode that can best advocate for our needs and to maintain our healthy relationships.
In dialectical behavior therapy, which is I'll talk about this in a minute we might talk about what's called wise mind.
So wise mind is again the healthy regulated, balanced place where we're taking input from lots of different places and we're able to respond rather than react.
In mindfulness, we would talk about having a nonjudgmental awareness and being able to respond rather than react.
And in... Respond rather than react.
What do you mean by that?
So respond is basically being able to pause and to then give a response.
And then reactivity is very automatic.
Gotcha.
Yeah.
So there are all these different frames that we can use to understand really, in some ways, the same thing.
But when we're going into difficult conversations, in being able to say no to a request, to ask what we need to bring up a discomfort is that we want, as best we can, to bring our healthy adult, our wise mind, on board to take care and advocate for the parts of us that want to do different things.
There's a beautiful expression and I cannot remember who said it.
I'm fairly certain it's in DBT work but, for example, that anger, your anger, is not the best advocate for your needs.
As an example,
And similarly we could say that the frightened part of you also is not the best advocate for your needs either.
So we need to find ways in which we can regulate ourselves enough to stand firm, to be able to slow down, to notice what's here and to bring on board this healthy adult that can actually take good care of us.
Because it sort of feels like sometimes, you know, I've been in like in times of my life where I'm with someone who is like they're very comfortable saying what they think, but there's sort of like a fine line between like expressing what they think and winning.
Yes.
And so I can't tell whether it's like, hang on, are you just trying to win?
Or it's like it doesn't feel like there's space for any pushback, or something like that.
Yeah.
So how does that feel for you as a participant in that conversation?
How do you tend to feel when that's happening?
Terrifying.
I mean for me, for someone who doesn't like conflict, it's like if I garner up any sort of courage to actually kind of say what I think or speak truthfully.
If it's not and this isn't necessarily right, but if it's not immediately welcomed, then I like, almost like retreat back into my shell because it's like oh, I tried something.
It didn't work.
So this is too scary.
And so I sort of just then go back to harmony.
Yes.
And that's particularly going to be more likely when you're in conversation with someone who has a lot more emphasis on truthfulness, for example.
Yeah.
And that's a dynamic that we might call like power over and power under.
Yeah.
So power over is when someone is asserting their needs, opinions, wants over you.
I mean how it sort of sometimes shows up for Jam and I So recently an example, and hopefully she'll be okay with this.
I mean, she'll be editing it so she can take it out if she wants.
She said to me, it was a Saturday morning, I got up really early, like I often do, to exercise.
But she want Saturday mornings or weekends to be like a time where we wake up together and we have like nice quality time together.
So I did my workout and stuff and then we jumped in the car and we were going somewhere.
And she just said hey, do you think on weekends because we've spoken about this before, so it wasn't the first time she said do you think we can?
You can maybe not do your morning routine on some weekends so we can have some time in the morning.
And I immediately just was like annoyed.
Like I felt like almost attacked.
And then in the light of day, like later in the day or the next day, and now I go like that was an unreasonable reaction that I gave, as opposed to like, I guess, an open-minded response or whatever.
I guess the point of me bringing it up is that I reacted in a way which is really –
And so because of that, I just couldn't get rid of this like almost anger in my body.
I couldn't shake it.
What do you think it was defending against?
I think I mean I don't know if this is right, but this is because I just spoke to my psychologist about this but I think freedom, I think like it's sort of I feel like whenever my freedom gets challenged, I get really defensive.
And does that in any way feel familiar to you from a younger time?
That's exactly what my psychologist asked me.
And you know them.
I do.
I couldn't think of a time to be honest, because I don't feel like I was restricted much at all as a kid.
I felt very free, I guess, but it's a work in progress, this stuff.
But that also might be an answer, right?
Is that I actually always felt free.
The reason that I am asking those questions is that I think it is really important that we can like curiously investigate.
Why was that my response, both in receiving feedback and then also in wanting to give it.
We're kind of really bringing this curiosity, like there is this template here and something in there got activated.
And so defensiveness, for example, is very, very common.
If we feel like there's some kind of criticism here, I want to give you an example.
This is such a simple example and it's from Terry Real again, but he talks about the notion of like communication in relationships, kind of being like customer service, and that he says, for example, that let's just say you're in customer service and someone comes up to the window and says my microwave is broken.
And you as the customer service says, well, my fridge is broken.
Does that make sense?
That's such a good example.
I feel bad for the person whose fridge is broken.
And so what we want to look at there and I will go into more detail around this is like again like, how do you hold steady, hear it and attend to that need that's being expressed there?
And then later down on the track you can go.
Actually, did you also know that my fridge is broken as well?
Unfortunately, Sarah, I'm going to have to place you on hold.
So that I mean that has to do with how we are attending to like so, how we're actively listening and not getting activated ourselves.
So that's something just to pay attention to.
And I will come back to that in a minute.
But there is.
So if we kind of have this knowledge that we need to bring a curiosity to our histories,
So what is this mode of communication?
How has it worked for me?
How is it not working for me now?
That's really important.
Bringing a lens of curiosity to how I give and receive feedback.
And then we can look at, okay, so how can I hold steady?
How can I pause?
Whether it's the taking of a breath or whether it's reminding myself that, like I have this healthy adult here.
Like how is she advocating now for little me?
So we're really trying as best we can.
And I'm saying this quickly.
In practice, it takes a bit of practice.
How do I like literally plant the roots into the ground and hold steady here?
And then it would be now we practice the communication skills.
And that's the response as opposed to the reaction.
Yes.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Dialectical behaviour therapy was developed by Marsha Lunahan, I think in the 80s, and it was originally designed for the treatment of borderline personality disorder.
It's an evidence-based treatment, has produced profound results and effects.
The core skills in DBT have applicability to everybody.
What is DBT, sorry?
Dialectical behaviour therapy.
Dialectical behaviour therapy, sorry, you did say that, yep.
And this is where she would talk, for example, about the notion of having what's called the emotional mind.
That's the reactive one that's driven by emotion.
We have rational mind, which is all cognitive.
This is like the one that ignores emotion and just focuses on facts.
And then we have the meeting in the middle, which is the wise mind.
And the wise mind is the part that practices these assertive communication skills.
And that, in fact, when we practice rational interpersonal effectiveness, it is in and of itself a skill of emotion regulation.
So for example, when I'm able to tell you how I feel, that practice helps us regulate the emotion.
Also so fundamental in this is that, when I am able to communicate effectively, I let you know more about me.
I also let you know how you can help me meet my needs and then how I can help you meet your needs.
So it's such an important practice.
This is really reminding me of a moment that I had with you last week.
And the problem was I think I judged myself really harshly on the way I reacted.
That made it took me longer to kind of just move past it.
But I was trying to share an idea with you about something we could do on YouTube and I started the sentence with like oh, and on Mondays we could do this, and then we could have a meeting and then this
And I think the way I pitched it, you didn't really hear the idea.
You heard the on Mondays we're doing this and you were like, well, I need to keep Mondays free.
And I didn't know what to say because I was like oh, he's not excited about the idea is how I internalised it.
And then I just...
I got annoyed at myself for being grumpy that you weren't excited about the idea.
And it took me, like I don't know, maybe the cab ride till we got to the airport to feel like, oh no, it's okay.
Yeah.
Do you remember that?
Yeah.
My fridge was broken.
Yeah.
Yeah.
No that's, I mean that's, that's.
That's classic me in terms of like, if I feel and that's probably the same sort of area where it's like in that moment it's like cause, like a sort of vague schedule that we have on at the podcast, is that like I work Tuesday Wednesday, Thursdays and then I have Monday, Fridays to do other things that I do.
And and I'm like and I think cause at the moment, at the in the last couple of weeks I've been like I really want to try and This is not your fault Bridge, but it's like I'd recently been thinking I really want to try and keep Mondays and Fridays free.
So as soon as you said that, I just like alarm goes off.
It's like, here we fucking go.
You defend that piece of land, Shelton.
Don't you let it go.
But I mean, I shouldn't have even... It didn't matter.
I started with Mondays, but it wasn't really about the day of the week.
It was just an idea that I had.
But then, yeah, I got...
I was annoyed that you didn't like the idea or that's how I interpreted it.
Even though it took me a minute to realize like oh no, he's just heard Mondays and he's trying to keep his calendar clear.
It's exactly what it was.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And that's such a great example there of then, like this internal story, that we tell ourselves about that communication.
And also even how, like talking about it now, then like then, almost like allows for more compassion for both.
And that now, Like this is such a micro example, but now that you know each other better.
Yeah.
There's a bit of a moment.
Yeah, exactly.
That's so true, because as soon as you said it's about freedom, I was like I know what I've done wrong.
Oh, really?
Yeah.
Yeah.
So... So the learning is never, never compromise my freedom.
That's good.
We should put that on the wall.
Yes.
And maybe like as...
William Wallace, I should say.
Well, Mel Gibson brings in too many bad ideas.
And please don't compare me to Mel Gibson ever again.
So I guess at this point I wanted to bring in like a framework for understanding, or giving us like a platform for how to practice this.
Once we know how to take care of that, like the scared, angry, vulnerable part of ourselves.
Okay.
So let's assume that We have practiced all of that pun.
Okay.
There is a particular acronym which is used in DBT which is specifically for communicating where we're trying to get our needs met in some way.
And so this particular acronym is for, in some ways, getting what you want whilst also respecting the other person.
And the acronym is DEAR MAN.
And I'm going to go through each of them.
Mm-hmm.
And then if you guys are willing, I thought we could do a practice.
Yeah.
With a few scenarios.
Okay.
Awesome.
So the D in dear man is describe.
So let's say that I'm just going to use an example and then we'll get to do some other ones.
God, I'm so hoping this is D-E-E-R man.
Like there's like a man that's half dear, but I'm sure that's not what it is.
So let's just say that you've been working late at work for the past five days. nights.
Okay.
And so the describe, the D is describe the facts.
So it would be, John, for the last four nights, I've worked until 10 o'clock.
Okay.
The E is express.
This is where we express our feelings.
So it's here that we might use an I statement.
So an I statement is owning the feeling that I have and And not using you accusatory language.
So, John, I've worked five nights overtime until 10 o'clock this week.
I'm feeling really exhausted.
That's the feeling.
I'm feeling really exhausted.
Yeah.
The A is assert.
So that's where we assert our wishes or express our wishes.
So assert.
John, I've worked the five past nights till 10 o'clock.
I'm feeling really exhausted.
I would really like it if I could finish on time next week.
So very simple, very clear.
We assert the wish, the interest.
Sorry to break the flow, but you did say it was also express your wishes.
So technically it could be dear man with double A, but it's not a big deal.
It's not an important part of this.
That's true.
Yeah, good, good.
I'll tell Marsha.
Please.
Yeah.
And then we have the R, which is reinforce.
So it's at this point that we really want to basically reinforce the reason why my request is really important.
So you're reinforcing the facts or how you feel?
Reinforcing the need for change, basically.
So it would be something like, so you've just said, I would really like to finish on time next week.
And then the R would be.
That would allow me to be more productive and to be more engaged in the work.
So it's kind of like the buy-in for the person.
So basically we're offering that this is going to increase the likelihood of this person saying yes.
Yeah, giving them no way out.
Yeah.
So basically the reinforcer is that there's going to be a positive outcome for you as well.
Yeah, gotcha, gotcha.
That's important.
Yes.
Yeah, so this is going to reinforce.
And we can apply this obviously to any person. any situation where we're asking for something.
That's such an important distinction because it's like, cause it could be taken as to reinforce.
It's like it could be taken as, like a negotiation strategy, where you're trying to like get something from the other person, but it's more like trying to come to an outcome that works for everyone.
Yes.
Is that right?
Yeah, it can be.
Absolutely.
And it's really emphasizing why this is important.
Like the end goal is that it's going to make me stay longer at this job.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Basically.
Um, That's an example.
So that's the deer.
That's kind of like the what, what to do.
And then the man is kind of the how, how to do it.
So the M refers to be mindful or mindfully approaching this situation.
So obviously in many ways, this is this bringing on board of the grounded, connected, present you.
But that could be like someone you're being mindful that maybe that they're in a good place or that they haven't just had like a really serious thing happen the day before when you have this difficult conversation.
Yeah.
So you can be really considered around how and when you're going to bring this up.
It also really means being, staying really present and true to the current issue.
So, so often what happens in conflict is that we will, what's called kitchen sink it.
So you bring in everything.
All the past hurts, all the previous issues.
And now we've gone from the fact that I'm staying late at work five nights in a row into and then there was this time that this happened, and this time.
And then John also then brings in all these other scenarios where you didn't do this.
And so now all of a sudden we've completely lost track.
So the idea is stay mindful, stay mindful of what the objective is.
So it's almost focused.
Exactly.
Dear fan is not the same, but yeah.
Yeah.
So we stay focused on the issue that is here.
We are trying to meet an objective.
The objective is to not work late.
Yeah.
Okay.
So then part of that most often is that we might get pushback, right?
So when we think about assertive communication or effective communication, it doesn't mean that that it will be smooth sailing.
It just means that we're trying to stay on track.
And so in many circumstances, we will get pushback from the person that we're communicating with.
And it might be like okay.
So John says look, I hear what you're saying, but you know we've got this massive deadline and I just can't commit to that.
I don't see that changing anytime soon.
So what do you do then?
So then this is this idea here that we've got ways of staying on track.
And it might be something like, okay, so John, look, I really hear that.
I understand that we've got this big deadline, but I'm also concerned that if I keep staying late, this will impact upon my performance.
And then John says, but we've got this big deal.
And you're like, then you start coming up with all these other reasons.
And before you know it, you've gone back to, okay, I'll just have to work late then.
What we want.
There's a particular strategy that comes with the mindful part, and it's called the broken record.
It's exactly what it sounds like.
And that is when someone challenges your request, you keep saying the same thing.
So often what would happen is let's just say someone says, Emily, can you do this today?
And your first response is, I'm really sorry, I don't have time to do it.
And then they say, please, I don't have much time today.
And you're like, oh, look, I would, but I, you know, I'm just really under the pump.
And they said, come on, it'd be doing me such a favour.
And you're like, oh, I guess I could do it.
So you can see there that with three requests, we've lost ground.
We've given in to that.
And that's going to be a real detriment to my wellbeing.
The idea with the broken record, you don't have to come up with a new reason and a new excuse.
You say the same thing every time.
So she says, Emily, can you do this for me today?
I say, I can't.
I don't have any capacity.
Are you sure, Emily?
I can't.
I don't have the capacity.
I don't know.
Like you've got so much, you know, blah, blah, blah.
I'm like, I can't.
I don't have capacity.
Sounded like a broken record, eh?
Yes.
So you do not need to change it.
It's holding on to this reason is my reason.
It kind of feels like a life hack or a trick to know that you're allowed to just say the same thing again.
It kind of feels like it's socially, for whatever reason, I've been socially conditioned to be, like well, I've got to come up with another one.
Your reason is enough.
Yeah.
Is it okay not to give a reason?
Because I sometimes feel like we get this a lot with people writing in pictures to come on the show, and I feel like I've always got to give a reason of like like, write this long response of it's not right right now, or we're fully booked, or this and that.
And sometimes I think I've heard it said somewhere it's like maybe people aren't necessarily entitled to your reasons all the time.
Yes.
Is that okay?
Yes, absolutely.
And also that and this is another part of the communication which I'll come to is that we do not need to apologise.
That's a whole other thing.
That is a whole other thing.
So that is...
Or just in this situation.
Just in this situation.
That's an interesting outcome from this.
I never, ever apologize.
The other part in here is that the dear man strategy is really based on the assumption also that we're, this is going to sound silly, that we're speaking to reasonable people.
Yeah.
Okay.
So this is maybe sometimes not going to be as relevant when we're dealing with what we might term high conflict people.
So I'm going to come back to that in a minute.
So just going to put a pit in that for now.
But when we come to the A part in the man, there's one other part here that feels.
Important is that we also need to appear confident.
Even if you're not feeling confident, you could be shaking in your boots is that?
How do you really hold this in your body and how do you demonstrate to the other person that this is a valid thing, an understandable request that I have here, rather than like oh, I don't know.
It's okay if you'd like, it's really okay if you'd like, and you keep apologizing.
We stand confidently like the roots of a tree, even if we may not feel this way.
Yep.
Okay.
That's really hard.
All right.
And then the N is negotiate.
So this is going to be relevant if we've got, if we get more pushback.
Mm-hmm.
And this may be that we can do something like turn the tables.
So we could say, John, you know, I've heard you just say that you can't give me that assurance.
Tell me how else we can do this.
So we ask for their feedback on helping us solve this problem.
What do you think you could do to help me out here?
So we're asking for input when negotiating to get to a place where at least part of my needs can be met, if there is this really big pushback to them.
There needs to be like communication PTs.
Yes.
Like personal trainers who come over and you train in an intense way with a trained person who can help you practice these sorts of things.
Because it's like I just know that it's.
I mean, of course you have to practice it a lot, course you'd have to practice it a lot, but I just this already like makes me nervous trying this.
Yeah.
And so this tells us too about like, you know, what, what your little part maybe is fearing.
It tells us about your learning history, for example.
So the fact that you notice this anxiety that's here, that's going to be the part to work with, rather than the actual practicing of the skills.
What do you mean?
So it's managing the anxiety that will be the barrier to Oh, right.
To the implementation of something like this.
Yeah.
Okay.
Can the negotiation be like in that example?
Could it be like okay, I hear you that we've got a big deadline on right now and we need to work really hard, but what's the timeline of when I can go knock off at the right time?
Yes.
Yes, exactly.
So it is very much a First of all.
You've allowed the person to know that you're unhappy about something or that you want something to change.
That's a wonderful first step.
And the second is also that you do expect something has to change.
There's an expectation here because otherwise it's ultimately probably I might leave.
We want to be careful we don't put in threats though.
This is really important is that we don't use this as a way to threaten people.
Threats can look like something like, if you don't do this, I will leave.
In more extreme cases, it might look like if you leave me, I will hurt myself or attempt suicide.
We want to be really careful of not bringing in threats in this kind of communication.
Well, that's, I mean, not to that extreme example, but the ultimatum example I gave before, that was exactly where we got stuck.
And I wasn't doing it to hurt somebody, but just not knowing the way forward.
Yeah, exactly.
And it makes sense that that's what we would do, because it feels so important to you that something would change, because you might value that relationship so much, but that there was a part of you that was really hurting as well.
So being really wary to not bring in the threats, it does not result in a long-term healthy outcome.
So that is dear man.
So we've got describe, express how we feel, assert what we need, Reinforce.
We do so mindfully by staying present and using the broken record.
There's also one other part I didn't add in there, and that is that, as best you can, ignore insults and attacks.
So if someone is bringing in name-calling you accusatory language, it's almost like can we put that aside?
The distractions.
Yeah, they're getting you off track.
Yeah.
So again, like this mindful stay on track here.
So they might say something like you know, you're a really lazy worker and the buy-in will be like that there's this going to be this big pull run to respond to that.
And the challenge is, can I let that go and keep on track with my goal here?
And my goal is to change my work hours.
So that's the deer, the man, mindful.
We want to appear confident and we can use negotiation if we need to.
That goal becomes so important, doesn't it?
It is almost the most important thing.
Yes, exactly.
Now, this, like I said before, assumes that the people we're talking with are relatively reasonable.
Okay.
But, as we know that there may be many circumstances where we're not interacting with someone who is has our best interests at heart, has capacity for empathy or is actively listening,
And these might be people that potentially may have, for example, more narcissistic traits, maybe more emotionally reactive, that have a history of lots of conflict in their lives.
And so their modes of communication are deeply affected difficult to deal with.
Right.
Dear Man won't be as effective.
And one of the reasons why is because the E in Dear is about expressing my feelings.
But for some people who are high conflict, that they will not care for or want to relate to your feelings.
So in those circumstances, we actually want to keep the emotion out of it completely.
Darman.
Darman.
Or Darman.
Yeah.
Darman.
So I actually have another acronym for you, which I think is really lovely.
Okay.
And it's by a completely different person.
His name is Bill Eddy and he is a therapist, therapist, a lawyer and a mediator.
And he's done some great work, really interesting.
He does specifically work in kind of family law and mediation between co-parents, has some great podcasts.
And he has an acronym, which is called BIF.
And I really think it's great.
Sounds very non-confrontational.
Exactly.
So this is a framework to keep in mind when we're dealing with someone who's highly conflictual.
Could be very aggressive, could be hostile, brings in name calling, judgments, the whole lot.
And so the B is brief.
Keep it as short as possible.
So often when we're communicating something, we may become very talkative.
Yeah.
Overexplaining, like going through the whole story.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Even asking for something in an email and you've written an essay.
Yes, exactly.
Yes.
Yeah.
So in interactions with these sorts of people we need to be as brief as possible, like one or two sentences.
Okay.
We focus on the facts.
So the I is informative.
B is brief.
I is informative.
Only factual information.
Okay, and I'll give you an example in a minute.
The F is friendly, and this is a challenge.
We're going to have a friendly tone, a friendly tone to their interaction and the reason why is we're trying not to escalate the conflict.
Yeah.
So the purpose and function of this is to de-escalate conflict and, in the best way possible, get what we need from this interaction.
Can I try it out friendly for passive aggressive?
And then the last F is firm.
We need to be really firm about what it is that we need.
So when we're interacting with people, for example, that are more narcissistic, there will be most likely many kind of almost like invitations to into emotional responding.
This also feels like it would be very relevant for parents and children.
Yes.
Kids are pretty.
They're not.
What was the term?
Yeah, rational adults.
Yes.
No, they're not.
Yeah.
I mean yes, but probably more so.
This has real significance for, like dealing particularly around separated couples, dealing with, like maybe bosses that are really on the more narcissistic end of the scale, people that you have to have some kind of engagement with but you find it really hard to deal with.
So it might be something like let's just say it's an ex-partner and they send you through an email saying I can't believe you didn't pick up.
Jimmy, you always do this.
What's wrong with you?
You said you were going to do this.
I'm going to take Jimmy out and do blah, blah, blah.
Now, when you hear that as a person, what happens?
What's the first thing that happens?
Defensive.
Go small.
Yep.
Go small.
You might want to be defensive and say, I didn't do that.
That's not true.
That's not what happened.
Okay.
So with an interaction like this, we want to take a step back, And if it's in an email, we go really brief.
Thank you for your email.
That's the friendly tone.
First of all, thank you for your email.
I understand Jimmy is going to be picked up at 8.30.
I will be there.
Thanks again, Emily.
Okay.
So we've not bought into any of the accusations.
We haven't bought into the demands.
We've focused on the facts.
We need to be as brief as possible and assert what is going to happen.
Does that make sense?
I feel like I've seen this in the past.
I've had a lawyer working through things with lawyers and disagreements between two lawyers.
I've been really interested to see email from our lawyer, or at least like when I've suggested I could do it and they're like no no no, I'll do it.
And then they send the email and I'm like, whoa, that is brief.
There's nothing in there.
And it feels brutal.
It feels brutal but it's not like aggressive.
There is a like, thank you for this, this, this and done.
And they're out and you're like, God, there's not much faff.
Yeah, as minimal as possible.
Yeah.
There's nothing also there for the person to grab a hold of.
Yeah.
So it actually, they may have things to say back to that.
But you've essentially kind of worked to diffuse that situation but also stayed on track.
Yeah, that's the thing that I find.
It really recenters the focus of the disagreement, I think.
It keeps the focus on what is important.
Yes, exactly.
Is it possible, after trying to do the right thing and trying to communicate effectively, that continually trying might end up actually not being successful?
Worth it for you or the situation?
Yes, absolutely.
You know, if there is something that you've asked for repeatedly and you've been curious and compassionate about their experience, you've done that kind of work and this same behaviour keeps happening, and that this behaviour is detrimental to you, then yeah, you've got some difficult decisions to make.
I feel like at least the difficult decision...
Not that it's difficult by nature, so it's not going to be easy, but at least you feel like you've kind of left it all on the field, to use this analogy.
Like you haven't just walked away because you avoided it.
You've tried and you can walk away or end a relationship or something knowing that there was a very considered effort.
Exactly.
And I think because there are many circumstances where you know a partner, for example, may feel really unheard of or really misunderstood and they naturally then feel resentful and angry and they leave.
And the other partner may be completely blindsided because they had no idea that you felt all these things.
And so, yes, the step before the leaving is like leaving it on the table.
So we have done this work.
I have, you know, I've asked, I've expressed, I've been compassionate and And it's not working.
And that's the point you go like, yep, okay, it is not working and it's not serving either of us.
And I think within that, like the value of maybe going to seek help with doing this work, like doing it through couples counselling.
Yes.
Like I was a little bit sceptical doing couples counselling and how much it would help.
And it got us out of a loop like that we were stuck in.
And it's so valuable for working through a problem.
Mm-hmm.
But if you never have the conversation and never try and get stuck in the conversation, then you might not think to go.
Yes, absolutely.
And I think also as an adjunct to this, something that I haven't mentioned that is actually extremely common and a big barrier to effective communication is holding on to our beliefs about what is right.
So it's like in order to effectively communicate or to have healthy relationships, we have to trade in accuracy.
So we trade in our belief about what happened.
We let that part go.
So in essence, we're letting go of being right.
Yeah.
In order to be happy.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Replace it with curiosity.
Yeah.
So you give up your monopoly on your truth.
Yeah.
And you make the person there.
Yeah.
This question is, is not being right worth it?
We'll never know.
Exactly.
I'm thinking about like the group of people that might be going out on dates and meeting people for the first time.
And are there any communication styles that they should maybe we should be wondering about as red flags?
Yeah.
Yes, there should be.
There are.
It's a really good question and I think, particularly in the world of online dating too, this is like a real relevance right now.
But when we think about red flags in terms of communication, like obviously we want to bring a curiosity as to how this other person is treating other people in front of us.
So like how respectful are they about the wait staff?
Really importantly, a big red flag is how do they talk about their ex-partners.
So if you hear, like labelling, judgmental language about an ex, like she was crazy, she's nuts, he was, I don't know.
It's like really accusatory.
Yeah.
So any time that this person is bringing in very strong emotive language about other people in their life, I would just be wary of it.
Mm.
That's a good tip.
So I would just bring a curiosity and an observation to how they treat others around you, how they speak about their friends, how they speak about their family, how they speak about ex-partners and also how respectful they are of your interests.
Are they asking about your interests?
Are they respectful?
If you've said no to something you know.
Obviously there's kind of like really basic communication and respect here.
So I'd just be kind of keeping your ear and your eye out for any communication.
That is what's called a power over situation.
Yeah.
And whether they're listening to you.
It's a good one.
I could do a whole episode on that.
On listening?
On dating.
On dating.
Yeah.
Yeah.
We should do that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So, without going into a rabbit hole of AI, but like, obviously what a lot of people are doing now, particularly when, like email correspondence or text, is they'll write their angry letter and then they'll ask ChatJPT to rewrite it in a friendly tone or whatever.
Yeah.
I can imagine that would be helpful in some ways.
But I also imagine then you're not really... Practicing.
Practicing it.
Yes.
And so we're not actually, we would never be improving in that way.
We're just relying on.
Yeah.
I think that's such a good point.
And I think, you know, just being truthful, we're all using that in some way or another.
And I don't think it has to be unhelpful.
Obviously it's helpful, right?
But I think the real question here is like when you come out with a response that ChatGPT has given you, really look at it.
Yeah.
And like, how do you feel when you read it? do you feel better that this is going out in this way?
Do you feel worse?
What happens to your needs there?
I just bring curiosity.
How do I feel when I read this version and what messages do I take from that in terms of how I could practice it in real time, for example?
I mean, obviously we can use ChatGPT with emails.
It's so easy we get time to do it.
We don't get time to do it.
When we're face-to-face with someone.
Exactly.
Yeah.
I think that was sort of my point.
It's that in face-to-face, where we can't do that.
It's like we haven't necessarily built the skills if we've relied on that for too long.
And we won't if we keep doing that without thinking about it.
Yeah.
It seems like, hey, I don't think people – I think the usage of AI is going to be going down soon.
So I think we'll be all right.
Yeah.
Nothing to worry about.
Yeah.
Really reminding me of – the four of us Josh Ryan, me and Hugh wrote an email to this group of people that we were looking at doing some work with, and we decided that we weren't going to, but we had spoken with them for quite a while.
And so we were really considered of their feelings in the email and we we were really sorry and we were really gushing and we really propped it up to trying to make them feel as good as possible about the fact that we weren't going to work with them.
And then we sent it to Bec Hugh and Ryan's manager and she was just like, oh God, it sounds like someone's died.
Yeah.
We rewrote that one.
I think also that's such a good point in there around the tone of apologising.
It's as though...
You know, when we are overly sorry for not being able to address someone else's need.
What does that tell you then around how our needs might be respected or the value of our no, for example?
Yeah, it devalues it.
Yeah.
So what about when it's not an email and you don't have the time to step back?
Yeah.
Well, I think it is important. actually about how you do take a step back in those moments.
There is an acronym that's... This one's a really easy one.
And I would also use this when I talk about distress tolerance, which I'll talk about at another time.
It's a really great strategy to stop us from engaging in reactivity patterns.
It's actually called STOP.
So you can even imagine in your mind like a stop sign and you might even, depending upon the nature of the interaction, you might even want to put your hand up and say stop.
And so the stop is stop for the S, literally stop in your tracks.
Okay.
The T is take a breath.
So we've got this, and I don't mean for it to sound woo-woo.
There is a very regulatory power that the breath has, that to move us from reactivity into more responsiveness.
So we take one long, slow breath, particularly long out breath if we can.
Okay.
The O is observe.
So here it would be, what am I thinking?
What am I feeling?
What are my urges here?
Like an urge might be like, I really want to yell at this person.
Or my urge might be to shrink down.
Okay.
This is all really swiftly done, I recognize.
Mm-hmm.
The P in the stop is proceed in align with our values.
Okay.
So the O part, well, all of those letters are actually really, really important.
The first is actually knowing that we need to stop.
So in an interaction, it might be something like just stop there for a second.
And in that second, you've just taken a breath.
You've planted your feet on the ground.
You've noticed that this feels really uncomfortable. but I'm still here.
Okay.
It may be also that you need to ask for a second to think about something.
So if someone is saying like, Emily, I can't believe you did this.
It might be that you stop and you say I'm really invested in understanding you here, but I cannot hear you when you talk to me this way.
Can you help me understand you in another way?
So here what we're doing in these moments is separating tone from content.
And that may then become the broken record that maybe let's just say they keep shouting at you.
I cannot hear you when you speak to me in this way.
I cannot hear you when you speak to me in this way.
And then we can ask, is there another way in which I can help you right now?
Or Help me find a way to understand you.
So we're really coming in with this lens of curiosity.
We're trying to slow down and staying in this healthy adult mode.
Every part of you may be screaming, I want to get out of here.
I hate this.
Don't like it.
I want to yell at you.
I want to bring in all the history where this has happened and you've done worse things.
It's like, how do you hold this here?
Yeah.
Whoa.
Yeah.
Yeah.
This is all challenging.
It's really challenging.
It's changing the default mode.
It's changing the blueprint.
It's asking us to do something differently.
There is an example that I just want to give that again Terry Real uses, which I think is a beautiful example.
And he references a couple that he'd been working with and that the male partner had had a pattern of lying to his partner and if he thought he was going to be in trouble or if it was going to have a negative outcome.
And they'd been working on this as a pattern of communication.
And his wife asks him to go to the supermarket to get 12 things.
And he comes home with 11.
And the wife says, this is in Terry's words, where's the pumpernickel?
And he says every part of his body was screaming at him to say They didn't have any.
But he paused and he said I forgot it.
And the wife burst into tears saying, I've waited 25 years for you to do this.
And that was the changing of this pattern.
And that's really what we're looking here is like, how do we slow down enough?
...to step out of those automatic patterns and actually meet people where they are.
What a mic drop.
That's so powerful, that story.
Yeah, yeah.
It's a beautiful story.
But this is really challenging.
Really challenging and difficult work.
Yeah.
I feel like this would be so important in intimacy and relationship, like when you're first being intimate with someone maybe, or in relationships when you don't know how to express what you want or that you don't like something.
Yeah um, it feels like the very basis of like consent work.
It is absolutely yeah, and what sits at the heart of that, I think, is that we all have a yearning and a desire to be seen.
Um, The paradox of that is the fear that if I am seen that, I will in some ways be abandoned or left.
And so here's this risk that we take is that if I, if I value this relationship so deeply and I also yearn for them to really know me, how can I take this risk and hold gently, like the little part of you that's worried or angry, and kind of go forth with them?
Wow.
That was amazing.
Thank you.
That was amazing.
Yeah, like Josh said, it feels really challenging.
And I'm nervous that I'll try this once and it won't work and I'll run away from it and just go back to it.
Yeah.
Obviously, the point is that you won't necessarily get it right the first time, especially for someone like me who is conflict avoidant.
So yeah, it is nice to know that there's a bit of a framework and there's something to work towards, even if I get it half right.
Yeah, absolutely.
And really to emphasise is that practice it.
You know how you were talking.
This is in another episode.
You were talking about that show, The Rehearsal.
Yes, yeah, I was, yeah.
That we're rehearsing for things.
Rehearse this.
Stand in front of the mirror.
Write it down.
Practice it with friends.
Get as much practice as you can.
Practice it with like returning coffees at coffee shops or like, you know, returning things.
So there's low risk.
Practice it as much as you can so that you get used to knowing that I can and I haven't mentioned this, but this is really important is that I can withstand a negative outcome.
If you do get a negative outcome,
If people are upset, let them, let them be angry.
You can be okay with them being upset.
And this is this really integral part is that them being upset does not have to mean that this relationship has ended.
Okay.
That's really, really vital that I can be okay with their disappointment.
I can be okay with their anger, provided it's not violence.
I can be okay with their sadness because this communication is on track to the relationship I want to have.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I feel like whenever I feel like someone might be annoyed at me being able to withstand that feels like an adult place that I want to be.
I'm not there yet, but I feel like that's a direction I want to be and where I can handle that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Em, that was just so good.
Always good to see you, but today was particularly good to see you.
And Bridge, great to have you at the table.
So great.
That was fun.
I loved being here with Em.
Hugh should be shaking in his boots.
I know, off the interchange.
Thank you, Em, so much.
Thanks for having me.
See you next time.
So good.
See you.
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The Imperfects is hosted and produced by Hugh van Kylenburg, Ryan Shelton and Josh van Kylenburg.
Our executive producer is Bridget North East, assistant producer, Bella North East.
This episode is edited by Jamison Moore with sound design from Nick van Kylenburg.
