Good communication is essential for many kinds of relationships and situations, but it can be a challenge for nearly everyone. I know this because I frequently work with couples, families, and individuals on communication issues in my therapy practice. This usually involves helping my clients develop communication skills that promote empathy and reduce conflict. I teach them how to engage in reflective listening and how to express themselves using non-blaming language that focuses on their feelings, rather than their judgements. I encourage them to be authentic and direct, while also being sensitive to others.
However, the skills I’m describing rest upon something more fundamental than learning what to say: self-awareness. Communication breaks down because we don’t understand our feelings and how to handle them. Successful communication requires us to be able to recognize what we are feeling and to choose how we respond, rather than reacting automatically. So improving communication is innately connected to developing self-awareness.
Let’s consider why our self awareness tends to be so limited. Most of us grew up in a family and culture in which emotional vulnerability was not nurtured, or not even safe. We probably learned to minimize or hide certain feelings. Furthermore, painful or overwhelming experiences likely caused us to shut down our sensitivity in order to protect ourselves. It was impossible for us to remain authentic and in touch with our feelings. Instead, we developed patterns of disconnecting from what is happening inside of us. We therefore have difficulty understanding our real feelings, let alone expressing them openly to others.
The key to improving our communication, and the quality of our relationships, lies in developing our relationship with ourselves. We must work to understand our feelings, instead of avoiding them. We need to recognize our protective patterns so that they don’t automatically control us. When we inevitably become reactive, overwhelmed, or shut down during an interaction, 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 impulsively reacting out of fear, shame, or anger, we learn to recognize deeper truths about what we are feeling. We learn to communicate vulnerably about our personal experience, instead of blaming others. We develop the capacity to listen non-defensively, and to stop engaging in cycles of attacking and defending.
We do need to learn certain skills and concepts in order to communicate. However, more fundamentally, we need to develop 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.
