Good communication is essential for relationships, but it’s challenging for nearly everyone. In my therapy practice, I work with couples, families, and individuals on communication issues. Improving communication often involves developing reflective listening skills and learning to talk about one’s own emotions, rather than blaming others. However, all of this depends on something more fundamental: self-awareness. Successful communication requires that we can recognize what we are feeling and that we have the awareness to express ourselves intentionally, rather than reacting impulsively.
Self-awareness is limited for most of us because we grew up in a family and culture that was not accepting of our feelings, in which emotional vulnerability was not safe. Furthermore, painful or overwhelming experiences caused us to shut down our sensitivity in order to protect ourselves. As a result, we developed patterns of avoiding and rejecting our emotions, and disconnecting from what is happening inside of us.
We therefore have difficulty being in contact with our real feelings, let alone expressing them openly to others. Instead of being present with ourselves and transparent with others, we interact through patterns that serve to protect ourselves emotionally and to avoid vulnerability. We have automatic reactions that reflect our past experiences and our unprocessed feelings.
The key to improving our communication with others, and our relationships generally, is deepening our relationship with ourselves. Our capacity to communicate about our authentic experience is made possible by connection to ourselves, which allows us to recognize what is going on inside of us. We must work to understand our feelings, instead of avoiding them. We need to recognize our defensive patterns, which keep us disconnected from ourselves and others, so that they don’t automatically control us. When we inevitably become reactive, overwhelmed, or shut down during a conflict, we need the capacity to mindfully observe what’s happening so that we can choose how to respond to the situation.
The more we cultivate our awareness, the more we can move beyond automatic fight or flight instincts and into conscious communication. Instead of reacting, we’re able to share our true feelings in an intentional way. We learn to vulnerably communicate about our personal experience, creating connection with others, rather than generating defensiveness and disconnection. We develop the capacity to listen non-defensively, and to stop engaging in cycles of blaming and arguing.
We do need to learn certain skills and concepts in order to improve our communication. However, more fundamentally, we need to be in greater contact with our authentic inner experience, as a basis for interacting with the world around us. We need to do our own work to understand our feelings and heal ourselves, in order to communicate better with others.
