1. How we communicate is about so much more than just our choice of words.
2. How to speak to someone sensitive to feeling criticised or micromanaged.
3. What feels natural and normal to us and how we communicate can feel jarring to someone else.
4. In all our communicating we are actually seeking to connect. 

What We Covered This Week:

Week 28 Round Up

My theme the last couple of weeks has been communication.

Codependency, attachment styles, our reactions – these are all ways of communicating.

In my emotionally unavailable post I gave suggestions about how to speak to someone sensitive to feeling criticised or micromanaged in a way that respects you both.

What feels natural and normal to us and how we communicate can feel jarring to someone else. Likewise, someone who is quieter or less communicative can evoke hurt feelings in their partner. We will interpret things from our own histories, beliefs and preferences. How you and your partner metabolise emotions is useful to know and makes clear the most effective ways of communicating together. We start our sentences with ‘you’: “You don't…”, “You never…”, when we would do well to start our sentences with ‘I’: “I would like...”, “ I feel…”.

In all our communicating we are actually seeking to connect. We can forget that connection can happen in many different ways. This I showed in my Love Languages Lesson and also in my Communication Skills posts on Instagram. We can try to create a bridge between our needs and wishes to our partner's needs and wishes so the two can meet.

My Codependency lesson speaks of taking responsibility for ourselves. Sometimes we can make us our partners responsibility. And we can unknowingly disconnect from our partners through self-defeating behaviour.

In my self-study book this month, How To Improve Your Marriage Without Talking About It, we explore how Fear and Shame is prevalent in relationships.

We are so vulnerable in relationships and when we’re struggling we can be in a state of fear a lot of the time. And when our relationships are struggling this can also evoke shame in us. When we received the message we are “not enough” this brings up – often unconsciously – deep shame about ourselves and fear within the relationship.

Being able to communicate and express ourselves clearly and with composure is key to having great relationships and self-confidence.