Communicating Through Tense Conversations, Part 1

“Rarely can a response make something better. What makes something better is connection.” -Brené Brown

Communication is the most essential way we navigate our lives. We rely on communication to build stronger bonds, convey our beliefs, and help us get our needs met. Yet we can probably all think of a time when communication did not go as planned and we were left feeling frustrated, misunderstood, confused, hurt, or even furious. But there is a secret to getting through tough conversations, and the secret is connection. If we can leverage the simple power of connection, we can honor the perspectives of others and get our own needs met and our points across.

Even though we communicate every day, the process can be elusive, complex, and difficult. We’ve identified four steps to leverage connection and better navigate tense conversations:

Step 1: Connecting to Ourselves

Step 2: Connecting to Others

Step 3: Asserting Ourselves in a Connected Way

Step 4: Maintaining Connection in the Aftermath

This month, we will cover Steps 1 and 2, and next month you will learn steps 3 and 4. Let’s get started!

Step 1: The Importance of Connecting to Ourselves First

Let’s say that you are in conflict with your teenage son who arrived home in the early morning hours, long after his curfew, without having called or texted. You spent hours worried about what was going on. Now that he’s arrived home and accused you of being “uptight,” you’re furious. As conflict builds in situations like these, connection may be the last thing on our minds: we don’t want to connect–we want to fight, flee, or freeze. This is because our brains are wired so that intense feelings (like anxiety, sadness, hurt, or anger) propel us into action. (This was useful in the past when we faced threats like a lion or a bear in the wild, but less useful when facing our teenage son.)

If you start blurting out accusations or getting defensive, you are at risk of escalating the conflict, failing to get your message across, and alienating yourself from your son.

It’s tough for any of us to make a connection to another person when we are in an elevated emotional state, and so our first step in navigating a tense conversation will be to connect to ourselves. This is a form of emotional regulation, one of the most important skills kids learn as they grow up.

Notice and be mindful of the intensity of your emotions.
- Are you starting to attack?
  - Blurting out accusations, hurling insults, saying something and then thinking to yourself, “Damn, why did I say that?!”
- Are you starting to retreat?
  - Stomping into another room, hanging up the phone, saying very little or saying nothing at all?
- Are you shutting down?
  - Do you feel fuzzy, blurry, confused, numb, exhausted, disconnected from the moment, or like your thoughts are hard to follow?

Learn To Calm Down First

When you notice yourself in any of the three states above, take a break for at least 20 minutes to an hour. The nervous system needs at least 20-30 minutes to calm down from the stress response. You may find you feel much differently even after this short amount of time, especially if you are able to engage in some coping. Soothe yourself with a distraction (a hobby or tv show, for example), grounding self care (take a shower, do gentle yoga, meditate, listen to music), or by practicing self compassion. According to Kristin Neff, self compassion may be practiced using some or all of the following:

Mindfulness – I am noticing a tightness in my chest and I feel annoyed, fearful, and devastated.
Self empathy – There are many good reasons I feel this way.
Normalizing your feelings – All my feelings are okay and a part of life.
Identifying your common humanity – Feelings are universal and everyone experiences them from time to time.
Attending to your needs – What do I most need right now and how can I provide it for myself?

Once we have gone through this process and we are calm and feeling better, we are ready to return to the conversation and try again.

Step 2: Connecting Following Conflict

Now that you have settled your nervous system, you are ready to return to the conversation with new perspective. You will need this calmness in order to meet your main goal in this step: connecting with the other person. Remember, this is crucial to getting your point across, and getting your needs met.

When we are engaged in conflict, we often have a strong need for our perspectives to be heard. The big challenge here is that the other person also has a strong need for their perspective to be heard. For that reason, in order to get what we want, we will have to practice the golden rule and do for others as we want done for ourselves. We will need to employ listening, empathy, and respect. This means approaching the other person’s perspective from a nonjudgmental stance.This is especially difficult with teenagers or partners, when we want to just tell them how it is!

If we are not able to avoid judgment and criticism, we probably need to go back to step one and connect with and nurture ourselves more first. Do this until you can offer that nonjudgemental stance.

CBT psychiatrist and author Dr. David Burns from Stanford has made these moments more helpful with his Five Secrets of Effective Communication:

Empathy: Paraphrase what the other person said without adding any of your own commentary AND name the feelings that might be behind their words.
Disarming Technique: Name something in the other person’s words that you can understand, agree with, or find truth in.
Stroking: Say something genuinely wonderful about the other person that you are noticing at this moment.
Inquiry: Gently ask questions with the goal of better understanding the other person’s perspective.
“I feel” statements: Name the emotions you feel.

Let’s try the Five Secrets with the teenage son. After taking a break (in this example, I recommend returning to the conversation the next morning!), return to the conversation. You’ve eaten breakfast and connected with yourself. Even though you are still upset about your son’s actions, you feel confident you can remain calm and you’re feeling open to his perspective. You sit down and ask him what happened last night. He says,

“My phone died and usually I would have tried to charge it and get home on time, but we were watching a horror movie I hadn’t seen before and I wanted to finish it. I figured it was just a couple more hours, and I thought you’d be asleep. I don’t understand why it’s such a big deal. Andrew and Maya’s parents let them stay out as late as they want to. I’m 17 now and my curfew is so early. You treat me like a baby.”

Now, there may be a lot of things about this statement that frustrate or upset you again. But your goal is to stay connected. In a time like this, many of us feel so upset that we are no longer able to connect and empathize and use the Five Secrets. In that case, we may need to take another break from the conversation, and that’s okay. Let him know that you appreciate hearing his perspective and will think on it. Take your time.

When you are up for continuing, take a deep breath and silently acknowledge your frustration and hurt internally. Reassure the hurt parts of you that you are going to get a chance to express your perspective, but first, you are going to try and acknowledge your son’s perspective. Imagine placing the hurt or angry parts of you in a waiting room in your body, getting them out of the way just for the time being, so you can focus on your goal of connection. Now, you’re ready to use the Five Secrets. See if you can identify all 5 of them in the example below.

“I hear you saying that your friends do not have the same curfew and I imagine that is frustrating for you. (Empathy.) I can understand why you’d want to stay out later if your friends were allowed to. (Disarming Technique.) I know you are usually considerate of us and respectful of the rules and it sounds like your intention was not to worry us. (Stroking.) That said, I feel sad when you say you don’t understand why this is a big deal because I want to be understood about why this matters to me. (“I feel” statement.) Can you say more about what you mean when you say we treat you like a baby? (Inquiry)

A Few Quick Tips on The Five Secrets:

Empathizing must include feelings. It is crucially important that you name emotions in your empathetic statements. This helps the other person to process their feelings, and it will make them feel more understood and more connected to you. Do not skip this crucial step!
Don’t be afraid of the Disarming Technique. Sometimes when we go into conversations, we feel the need to “win,” which means we feel we must be right and the other person must be wrong. It is rarely if ever the case that one person is all right and the other is all wrong–if you believe this, you are probably being unfair to the other person. Further, you are much more likely to be heard and understood if you can show that you are willing to hear and understand. In the example above, failure to acknowledge your son’s beliefs will not make him more likely to comply–it will simply make him more likely to resent you or distance himself from you.
Show the other person some love. Stroking conveys to the other person that we love them, accept them, and see the best in them even through the difficult moment. It is deeply important in parent-child relationships and in close relationships that we demonstrate that our love and approval are NOT fleeting and conditional. This step can soothe hurt feelings and build secure attachment, making way for calmer, more rational negotiations.
Seek to understand with inquiry. The defensive part of us may be scared to ask questions like the example above, but remember, our goal in inquiry is to identify blurry or confusing parts of the other person’s perspective and get clarification. In the case above, learning why your son thinks you’re treating him like a baby and considering his feedback can relieve some of his anger/resentment and make him more willing to follow the rules.
“I feel” statements are for feelings, not judgments. When making an “I feel statement,” make sure you name your emotion. If you need to elaborate, you can also name your desire or need. That said, be careful to keep the rest of the statement factual. Importantly, avoid making judgmental statements–for example, “I feel like you don’t care about my perspective,” is not an “I feel” statement!… It is your judgment of the facts.

Most people will find that this step is hard work, and it may take some time for the other person to feel heard. Or, we may find ourselves activated again, and needing some space to calm down. It is common to slip up, and it’s probably not a realistic expectation to follow all of the Five Secrets perfectly. That said, we will know that the other person feels heard and understood when their intense emotions soften, and they appear calmer or even relieved. If we aren’t sure, we can always ask, “Am I understanding you?” or “Did I get this right?”

Once the other person feels heard, it’s time for us to take our own feelings out of the waiting room, share our perspectives, and assert what we need. Stay tuned for next month’s newsletter to learn how!