Communication is essential for relationships; it allows us to resolve conflicts, set boundaries, express our feelings, and understand each other. Without it, we probably won’t get our needs met, and we may get stuck in patterns of conflict and disconnection, as many couples will readily attest. Nevertheless, communication is very challenging, and most people don’t do it well.
I often work with my therapy clients on this, whether they are couples, families, or individuals. I usually introduce them to concepts such as reflective listening and feelings-based communication. I help them connect to their emotions and learn how to express them in a productive way, by taking ownership of their own experience, instead of blaming others.
However, I also explain that the foundation for communicating well is something even more fundamental: self-awareness. Making conscious choices about how we communicate requires mindfulness; it involves the capacity to recognize what we are really feeling and to express ourselves in an intentional way.
At the root of our difficulty with communication is a lack of awareness. Most of us grew up in a family and culture that was not accepting of emotions, in which emotional vulnerability was not safe. We probably had interactions as children that were painful or overwhelming, which caused us to shut down our feelings in order to protect ourselves. These formative experiences created patterns of disconnecting from ourselves and avoiding our real emotions. As a result, we have difficulty recognizing and accepting our feelings, let alone expressing them openly.
This severely limits emotional intimacy in our personal relationships. Being able to vulnerably express our feelings is what creates connection and allows us to understand each other deeply. It involves revealing our own experience, as opposed to our interpretations, judgements, and detached observations. It also helps to reduce conflict, because when we are truly talking about our own feelings it doesn’t involve blaming others or arguing about who is right.
Our capacity to recognize and communicate about our authentic experience is made possible by self-awareness. If we can’t understand our emotional reactions or recognize our real needs, we simply default to whatever patterns we have developed to protect ourselves, and act out our feelings in automatic and unproductive ways. We tend to overreact during conflicts because we are carrying unprocessed emotions from our past that we don’t understand.
The key to improving our communication, and our relationships generally, is the development of our relationship with ourselves. We must work to understand our feelings, instead of avoiding them. We need to recognize our defensive patterns that limit our authentic communication. 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. This is how we move beyond automatic fight or flight instincts and into conscious communication. The more awareness we have, the more we are able to speak vulnerably about our true feelings and listen non-defensively to others.
