Thrive Again - Your relationship podcast

5 Massive Reasons Your Communication Sucks

• Michael & Amy • Season 1 • Episode 40

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Ever wondered why effective communication in relationships seems so elusive? Join us as we uncover the five most substantial barriers to meaningful conversation with insights from personal experiences and the renowned Gottman Institute. We unravel the complexities of past conditioning that keep us from speaking up, leading to confusion and disconnection. Our journey delves into the necessity of having a partner who welcomes communication without defensiveness, while also challenging the myth that partners should automatically understand each other's needs. Emphasising the art of being impeccable with our words, inspired by Don Miguel’s “The Four Agreements,” we explore how attentive listening can transform the way we connect.

We’re thrilled to introduce our transformational 12-week Reconnected Union program, designed to elevate your communication skills and strengthen your relationships on a deeper level. Crafted from years of experience, this program is accessible to anyone worldwide and offers a profound opportunity to reconnect without breaking the bank. This groundbreaking program has the potential to change lives, and why our listeners' support and glowing reviews continue to be the cornerstone of our success. Connect with us on social media to learn more, and take the first step towards a more connected and fulfilling relationship.

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Speaker 1:

1, 2, 3, 4 couples and singles who want to unlock their relationship potential and reconnect on a deeper, more meaningful soul level. We share insights, client breakthroughs and personal stories to help move your relationship from surviving to thriving. Hello everyone, welcome to another episode of Thrive Again, your relationship podcast. We are in the office again today and pumping out another episode, and I've got Michael here beside me.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, welcome listeners. It's nice to have you back on, whether you're listening in your car or walking, going for a run, whatever you're doing, I know it's definitely a preference of mine to listen, to use my ears, and that's actually what we're going to go into a little bit today. But, yeah, I'm going well.

Speaker 1:

Come on over, move over.

Speaker 2:

She's asking me to come over.

Speaker 1:

Okay, there we go, all right, yeah, so this episode.

Speaker 2:

Well, we all know. We all know that communication can be our fall down in relationships. I think I'm just going to make a general judgmental statement that most of us suck at communicating. But I think that, just like with everything, if we don't know where our blind spots are, then we actually don't even know that they exist.

Speaker 2:

So, we can only operate based off what we've modeled, what we've been modeled. You know what we've seen, and also what we, what we know, but what we don't know. If that's not revealed to us, then we can only operate from that space, right, right, so today we really wanted to just uncover five massive reasons why your communication sucks, especially in romantic relationships.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I think I was listening to or reading something about the statistics on this and I think the Gottman Institute have done some research on this and they said I think it's around about 65 percent of couples who have communication problems end up leading to separation. So it's like, yeah, I remember the diving into that and it's such a big factor. Obviously every, almost I'm gonna say every couple, every couple we've worked with in the last few years have some type of communication issues, right including us in our relationship. We sucked at it too. So I think this is a big topic and it and it needs so much more time and space. But let's just maybe dive into some of the barriers of healthy communication relationships and and what stops us, I guess, or what inhibits us from the ability to communicate well.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I think, before we dive in, just think about you and your relationship and your partner and just think about each of these points that we're going to bring up, which will be five points, and just see if that's you or whether that's your partner. And it may be irrelevant for you certain points, but some of them might hold relevancy. All of these held relevancy for for us, um, so that's why we're speaking into them yeah, should I dive into the first one?

Speaker 1:

I?

Speaker 1:

think this is what I experienced in particular. But, um, yeah, I was afraid to speak up. You know, I was afraid to actually speak. What I had on my mind and my heart, um, and now obviously you were mentioning before you don't know what you don't know, um, before I realized that, or now I realized that, that was from my childhood. You know that I wasn't able to speak up as a kid.

Speaker 1:

I was, you know, one of those kids that was told to be quiet all the time and to be seen and not heard. So that also played out in this relationship with you and be so many dialogues in my head of what I wanted to say, how I wanted to say it, what I should say, and over and over and over. And then I'd come to speak it to you and I just shut down. I was terrified, I didn't know how to speak, I didn't know how to express myself or what I was wanting to get out. So, yeah, this led to obviously a lot of disconnect and confusion and I just kind of shut down a little bit. But, yeah, the ability to speak up and actually know what I wanted seemed really scary to me.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so what happened to you in your body when you wanted to say something, but then you shut yourself down, or you know? Can you explain what would happen?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I kind of felt like my thoughts would be like racing a million miles an hour and then I would just stumble all over my words when I tried to speak and it was like my throat almost constricted, like I just couldn't get it through. Yeah, it's a pretty gnarly experience and yeah.

Speaker 2:

But, it was normal for you back then, and so it's another thing that you didn't know, because that was your normal.

Speaker 1:

Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2:

But still there's something inside of you that was calling out for you to kind of speak up. So you were like torn in two. There was like this grapple going on.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, because I knew that things weren't great with us. So I was like how do I say that or how do I speak anything Apart from it being like just the general mundane tasks and roles and the everyday stuff? How do I ever share the deepest stuff with you? What's going on?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so just do a reflection on that for you and your relationship. Another barrier within that space of being scared to speak up is when we're in a union the two of us as a partnership we need to be able to speak up and for our partner to actually receive that, and I guess the trouble that we see a lot is that our partner's not equipped enough to be able to receive that, because maybe they feel threatened by it maybe they feel attacked by this.

Speaker 2:

um, you know, your your statement that you're not, you're feeling angry, or you're feeling confused, or you're feeling lost, and maybe the other person receives that and interprets it internally as a totally different thing.

Speaker 2:

And that are you saying that I'm not good enough, is this a reflection of me? And so then that person becomes defensive. When that person becomes defensive, when that person becomes defensive, then it becomes about then, and then the partner who had the issue that wants to bring it up now has to try to calm that person down. It becomes about them, so they can actually never reveal what's going on for them because it keeps turning into a defensiveness right, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1:

It's a. It's a cycle of you know this, round and round, that we go on that because there's no ability to be able to express yeah yeah, and it for it to land and to be received. Yeah, it's a big one, guys.

Speaker 2:

This is huge and it's like you're speaking to a brick wall. And the trouble with this is this progresses to you getting to the person who can't really speak up to trying just getting louder, but then that seems more abrasive for the other person, so they get even more defensive and then the final stage is they just don't even speak up anymore, because I know how this will turn out. Maybe I'll just preserve what we have. Yeah yeah, yeah, and become disconnected yeah, just shut down from each other.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yep, no trust, yeah of course, but that's that's the tricky one that we, you know, we see a lot in the couples that we work with is, um, is the person who is, you know, in that position of deflecting it back and turning it around, is they're not even aware that they're doing that either? Yeah because it's just so unconscious for them, because they've not able to they don't know how.

Speaker 1:

They don't know how to actually hear their partner or receive what they're saying, or take it on board or meet them emotionally with what they're, you know, listening to. So, yeah, they just instantly jump in their own reflection and their own story.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and for those of you who don't know, that's the unconscious mind at play. That's just looking to keep you alive, and so it perceives this as a threat. A partner says I'm upset with you. Well, that's a threat, and so, therefore, the unconscious is really primitive, it's fast acting and it's reactive. So the reactiveness just comes out before any logical thought.

Speaker 1:

An ability to listen.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so we're just operating out of the wrong part of our brain. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2:

Cool. And then the last part of that was, you know, like scared to speak up. Well, also part of that could be, you know, being scared to be vulnerable, to deepen, to open, to reveal yourself and your truth, and perhaps that even in your childhood, or maybe in high school or growing into adulthood, you've had trouble with that and it's been used against you. You know, maybe that seems like too much of a risk. So you know that can be a barrier as well yeah for sure, being vulnerable can be scary.

Speaker 1:

You know why would I want to share all my truth with you, um, but then the other part to that is they might not even be able to know what that feels like either, to be able to to feel that vulnerability you know to get to that point. So yeah, there's lots of layers to this. It's quite complicated, hence why it's the biggest problem in relationships, right. Hence why it causes so many issues, and we see it so that was the first problem being scared to speak up.

Speaker 1:

So the second one we've got down is assumptions and misinterpretations yeah, big one these are all big guys yeah, because I think, with assumptions and misinterpretations, we're just jumping to conclusions. We're jumping to, like, what we think your partner is saying, instead of listening. We're getting into our own story in our own way, that we see things, we interpret things so that it must mean this and we're reading the situations completely incorrectly all right, great.

Speaker 2:

and an example of that might be that I'm looking at you at 7 30 and you're scrolling on your phone, and that means that you prefer to engage with all these other people around the world before you even engage with me, right? So that can be my interpretation of what I'm seeing, and it might be true, but have you communicated that this is a time that you would love to connect with them, and would it be okay if we can have conversation around putting our phones down for half an hour, or are you just assuming that they should just know that this is an opportunity?

Speaker 2:

for us to connect, and they should want to connect with me too. So there's two parts to that.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, absolutely. That's all that unspoken thoughts and we don't talk about because we think you should just read our mind, right, or we should just read each other's minds. But that's a big mistake as well. It's a big kind of red flag of like no, actually it's important to communicate even the most basic things sometimes until we can get that map a little bit clearer for each other.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, it's the mind reading yeah we can't be mind readers, and I think also, just thinking about this I think I'm going to generalize here that that I've noticed that women do this is that they can be more likely to just like have this romantic idea that he should just know what I want.

Speaker 2:

You know that nothing wrong with that okay, maybe I need to speak to another bloke in a different podcast. Um, you know, like it's like this fantasy that he should just really be attuned to me and he should just like really understand what my needs are, my emotional needs and my physical needs and all these things, and you don't want to speak up about it because that would remove the romantic aspect of it exactly.

Speaker 1:

You just got to be romantic, and just know what I'm thinking right you know that I want to I don't know get a foot massage at seven o'clock.

Speaker 2:

You should know that well, men and women are radically different. I'm sorry, I can't I can't meet you in that, so could you be be clear with me.

Speaker 1:

Men love lists.

Speaker 2:

We love clarity. We love direction. Can you please help me with this direction?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, absolutely, and I think that's what I was talking about just before, about you will need to kind of be clear and direct. For the first while, and ideally over time, we start to get the map and we start to understand each other more and more, so then it leads, it leaves out the muddy water yeah, the uncertainty yeah, spot on yeah, but I think with just one more thing on that misinterpretation I think that they quickly leads to conflict and argument, right when we're um misinterpreting what they're saying, and then it becomes this tit for tat.

Speaker 1:

But that's not what I said, that's not what I meant. This is what I said and and and again. It's just that, um, I come back to um that book that don miguel, the four agreements. Be impeccable with your words, right? So it's important to also remember how, how direct the words can be, but also how to put them in a way that they're not getting misinterpreted. Don't speak around the bush, don't, like you know, try and that's what you know with with particularly with men as well, I think, some women's, like you said to speak around the topic and hoping that they catch on or they get the idea of what we're saying, both men and women. But it's really really helpful for us to be impeccable with our words, to speak with clarity and and understanding, because that helps this muddy water, it helps the misinterpretation issue and that we don't have to stress about saying something we don't mean or getting it wrong yeah, yeah, or just my actions are interpreted that you don't care you know, just like the phone scenario there.

Speaker 2:

So yeah, just getting clear on that absolutely perfect.

Speaker 2:

All right. So that's the second one assumptions and misinterpretations. The second barrier to communication that we see is in the listening right. We've got one mouth and most of us are good talkers Some aren't, you know, and but I reckon the majority of us think that communication is speaking and we've got two ears. So just think of that. And so we've got two ears.

Speaker 2:

You know, for a reason we actually need to really be better listeners in general, and I think that a lot of people listen to reply, but they don't listen to understand. So just let that sink in. So when you listen to reply, I guess I think back to you, know, know, running men's circles and we're moving around in a circle and each person is sharing their current struggle, challenge or win. And as the person before me is sharing, I'm already thinking about it. Does this happen to me? And what I would say to that person, what kind of advice I might give to them, and I'm thinking in my head sometimes, like you know, of of what they need. So, rather than sitting in presence with you know that person and really let that absorb, I'm already jumping ahead this is a skill right?

Speaker 1:

this is, I think, something that not many people are good at, because it takes practice. It take I don't know. I was just trying to think when you were speaking then. I don't know where this comes from, whether it's that fear from school that the teacher's going to ask you a question and you have to always be ready, or, um, you know, I'm just, you know, just throwing stuff out there at the moment, but you know, like why can't we listen? Well, where has that glitch in our conditioning and programming happened? Because I feel like it's a majority of us struggle to just be with that person in that moment, because we're always overthinking, always trying to analyze and reply.

Speaker 2:

I think it's also got to do with we're trying toinking, always trying to analyze and reply. I think it's also got to do with we're trying to move it into our experience and we're trying to interpret it through ourselves and our own lens and therefore we turn the attention back on us as well, so we don't remain with them. You know, I really want to hear your experience. I want to listen to that. I want to see the micro. You know really want to hear your experience. I want to listen to that. I want to see the micro. You know, facial expression changes, um, see the, the little emotional shifts that happen in you when you're trying to speak up right now and how that is more prominent when you sit upright and those little things that's listening like that's whole body.

Speaker 2:

That's whole body, it's whole body attunement to listen properly yeah, and this is something that takes practice.

Speaker 1:

so if in your relationship, you can start now, start practicing this, because I even I drop out of it very often in my own little world because I've got a million things to do, but yeah, it's, it's when I'm I'm with you and we know it's an important topic I'd do my best to bring that back and bring the attention to you and I think, like you said, it's so much stuff that happens to us in social media and the quickness of everything and boom, boom boom, move, move, move.

Speaker 1:

Our mind is busy, busy, busy, that's hard to focus.

Speaker 2:

What's next? I need to resolve this so I can move to the next thing.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah resolve this, I can move to the next thing. Yeah, yeah. So yeah, good one to uh highlight we do have a communication strategy, which we teach our couples to help with this. A lot, by the way. Yeah, yeah, this is something that it that we do share but yeah, all right, so that's the third one.

Speaker 2:

we've got the fourth one now, which is looking through a lens of hurt and resentment, and if you've experienced pain in your relationship, and it's chronic pain, so it just happens repeatedly and it's almost at that point where you don't see resolution actually happening.

Speaker 1:

We're not talking about physical pain, so much here.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah. So pretty much most of the time we're speaking about emotional pain and just hurt. You know, from our partner we can just drop into, not drop into. We hold resentment for them, so therefore we can actually hold hatred for them. At times, we can then change our view of how we perceive them before they've even spoken, and so we're already looking through these tinted glasses where we're expecting that they have an agenda or a plan to attack me or you know some way of manipulating. They're going to manipulate this, and so we almost speak in a defensive way. We almost like expect the manipulation to happen, and that energy ends up just obscuring the truth of what they're trying to convey to you.

Speaker 1:

A hundred percent, yeah, yeah, because there's some big stuff and it might not even be the relationship you're in. Maybe there's a prior relationship, or maybe it's your childhood where where you've experienced this and it and it keeps this um you're projecting this pain and this suffering from past experience onto this experience here that you're in now and there's no way to kind of um change that. Sometimes if you're so caught up in it. Yeah, so it's just being mindful of of what is it that's inside of you that you're projecting onto your partner in your current relationship. That is unhealthy, and how can you look at healing that and removing that? Because conversation and communication is always going to be tricky when we're stuck with that lens.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, for sure, all right. And the fifth and final one is the avoidant tendencies or strategies that someone might have, they might have in place based on their past, and how that can actually hinder connection, because that person just doesn't really have the skill set right now to understand, firstly, your emotions and, secondly, even have the capacity to deal with them, if he or she was to even understand them in the first place.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I think I'm going to share just a little story about a couple that we spoke to a few days ago. But this couple was this very, very, very familiar dynamic, what you're speaking into and it's it's common with a lot of couples. But they got to the point where she's like I just can't speak to him, I can't be emotional with him because he doesn't have the capacity to listen or hold me or you know, and I'm exhausted. It's kind of like I feel drained because I want to open up and and communicate but he doesn't have the skills to be able to hold that. So it was interesting because this has caused a lot of pain in their relationship. But he actually ended up being quite vulnerable and opening up and he says like I want to, I just don't know how, and that really broke us.

Speaker 1:

I think I got really like, oh, I was taken back by his emotion as well, like he's like I just don't know how to be there for her emotionally in that communication sort of dynamic. And how can I if I don't? I've never been taught, I've never known. So that was the first time I guess he acknowledged that, that I think that she. So that was the first time. I guess he acknowledged that, that I think that she said that she was a bit surprised about that. He's like, wow, that's not nice to see, but it's great that he's able to open up into that level, to see that it is something that he can learn and that's the good part about this. Right, we can all learn to be better communicators.

Speaker 2:

Like I said, it's a big skill to be better communicators. Like I said, it's a. It's a big skill, yeah, yeah, for sure. And you know, in his case and in in many people's cases, like it's, it's actually wiring, that's um. You know that's been programmed in there from your upbringing normally and how your emotions were kind of dealt with, um, or not dealt with so yeah, so yeah you can undo this stuff and that's really what we help couples with. Actually, we love doing that part.

Speaker 1:

I do.

Speaker 2:

I was very emotionally unavailable for a long time and yeah, it was a long road for me, but we help people shortcut that process now so that you can really see and understand what's going on and our partner, without jumping to our own story so quickly.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely, and that's, I guess, a big part of our new program that we're offering, right, the Reconnected Union, where we take you from like that reactive and triggered into like this deeply grounded and present ability to communicate and be with your partner in that space. So, yeah, I think that if you're interested in getting better at this and you'd like to find out the how how do you communicate then, uh, yeah, maybe send us a message or check out our socials and we can share more about our new offering, which is a 12-week reconnected union, which is online and accessible to anyone all around the world yeah, makes it way more affordable yeah, it's fun you know, it's probably, it is one of the most, it is the power, most powerful program that we've produced, like hands down.

Speaker 2:

We, you know, have been doing this for a few years and we've encompassed this all into these 12 weeks and man prepare to level up, if you're going to be part of that.

Speaker 1:

That's like serious transformation so reach out, love to hear from you and uh. Thank you so much for listening and I really appreciate all those reviews that are coming through as well. Oh yeah, they're wonderful, it's been so amazing, so I'm so glad to see that this has been useful and helpful for you. And, yeah, we wouldn't have this podcast if it wasn't for you guys.

Speaker 2:

So I appreciate you all. Thanks everyone.