Good communication is essential for relationships, but it’s challenging for nearly everyone. In my therapy practice, I have helped many people with communication issues, including couples, families, and individuals. Work in this area usually involves learning to engage in reflective listening and responsible, feelings-based communication, which means talking about one’s own emotions, rather than blaming others. These are essential concepts and skills, however, they depend on something more fundamental: self-awareness. Awareness of ourselves allows us to listen to others without reacting impulsively, to recognize what we are really feeling, and to express ourselves in an intentional way.
There are common reasons why our self-awareness tends to be limited. Because most of us grew up in a family and culture that was not accepting of our feelings, or in which emotional vulnerability was not safe, we developed patterns of avoiding and rejecting our emotions, and disconnecting from what is happening inside of us. Painful or overwhelming experiences, especially as children, caused us to shut down our sensitivity in order to protect ourselves. As a result, we have difficulty accepting our real feelings, or even recognizing them, let alone expressing them openly to others.
Instead of being present with ourselves and honest with others, we interact through patterns that we have developed to protect ourselves emotionally and to avoid vulnerability. Furthermore, the ways we relate to others, especially when it comes to conflict, are often shaped by old unprocessed feelings that we don’t understand and are afraid to address. Therefore, instead of communicating mindfully and authentically, we tend to react to things automatically, often through a distorted viewpoint that reflects experiences in our past.
The key to improving our communication, and our relationships generally, is actually 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 communicate about our personal experience, creating connection with others, rather than generating defensiveness and disconnection through our usual patterns. Our awareness gives us the capacity to listen non-defensively and stop engaging in cycles of blaming and arguing.
In summary, yes, we need to learn certain skills in order to improve our communication. But more fundamentally, we need to be in 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 well with others.
