Communicating With Women
There are 6 vital points for constructive, healthy communication:
- Deep, spacious listening
- How to say what you say
- What you heard, what they said
- Diffusing reactivity
- Take responsibility for your part
- Co-creating language and ground rules
These can be used with anyone, but my focus here is to have you experience great communication with women.
Before I explain the six points, though, let me introduce you to what characterizes healthy communication. I call it "Engaged Detachment."
Engaged because firstly, you recognize that you are speaking with someone you care about, and so you remain connected, your heart and mind participating, and you don't hide behind a façade of rationality or emotional distance.
Detached because you keep a little space between you and your possible combustible emotional flares. The bit of distance allows you to keep from getting reactive, hot under the collar, disengaged or defensive.
Engaged detachment allows you to focus on your "desired outcome."
A desired outcome in healthy, constructive communication is usually all or one of the following: to express your truth, really hear the truth of the other, get on and stay on the same team, learn from the conflict presenting itself, create new ways of relating or "ground rules" so you don't do the same pattern over again next time, and to have a better understanding of yourself and your partner at the end of the conversation.
Keep your eye on the goal - your desired outcome - rather than getting swept up into reactivity, anger, upset, shutting down, walking away, blame or lashing out. Hold your tongue back a bit in favor of your end game.
You have the ability - and responsibility - to steer any conversation toward your desired outcome, toward understanding, health and intimacy.
OK, then: 6 Vital Points for Constructive, Healthy Communication:
1. Deep, Spacious Listening
Humans have a deep need both to feel heard and to express what they are feeling and thinking. Your excellent listening provides the space not only for her self-expression but also for her to experience being heard in a profound way.
Listen.
Don't think about what you are going to say in response, or something unrelated like what you want for dinner. If your mind wanders, bring it back. Listen deeply and thoroughly.
2. How You Say What You Say
Communicating with a woman often requires you to access your emotions and your feelings and to speak from there, which might be really uncomfortable, new or strange for you.
The focus while you are speaking is to stay "in your body," rather than getting into your head, too detached, or too rational.
Here are some things that will help:
• Try using the words, "I feel." as opposed to, "I think."
• It is OK to go slowly and take pauses. In fact, it is better to go slowly than to go rushing through.
• Keep breathing, keep breathing, keep breathing.
• Stay in your body: If you are not in person when you speak, put one hand on your heart, one hand on your package. No, I am not kidding. It will help you remember where to speak FROM.
3. What You Heard, What She Said
What you hear is often a far cry from what she intended. Since language is an approximation, we all interpret the same words in often vastly different ways. And often women use words differently than men.
A good rule of thumb is to repeat back to her what you think she just said: "So, here's what I think I just heard you say. You are feeling/thinking."
Stopping to clarify in this way can save you so much of the pain that comes from the build-up of repeated misunderstanding.
4. Diffusing Reactivity
In a heated situation, a woman may feel like you have suddenly become her aggressor or her opponent.
But by diffusing reactivity, she will feel like you still have her back. When she feels you are both on the same team, she is open to hear you and move forward with you.
You want to cool it all down enough to restore some rationality and create some space for some real communication. There is no one right way to do this, but all ways require some patience, and the keeping of your end game - your desired outcome - in mind.
I hope it goes without saying that none of these will work unless they are 100% genuine and from your heart.
• Tell her that you love her. Often in an upset, a woman will feel that you no longer love her, or that because you are angry, she is losing your love.
• Tell her that you are not leaving her. In a highly emotional and heated situation, especially if you walk away or become emotionally distant, women can become triggered and feel like you are leaving for good.
• Say it differently . If she is responding as though she hasn't heard you, no matter how many times you have said it before, she is not stupid, You have not yet said it in a way she can hear. Try using different words, tone or intention.
• Make physical contact with her, like a touch or a hug. Physical contact is grounding and calming like nothing else, and reminds her of your presence. She will stop worrying that you are out of there, and will then be open to hear what you have to say.
• Acknowledge her. Tell her something genuine you love about her, why she has touched you or impressed you. Thank her. This opens her up to let down her guard and hear you.
5. Take Responsibility For Your Part
Check in: where's the truth in what she is saying? Whether or not you like it, there is always something to be learned, a way in which you can shift or grow. Don't miss it, or it will be back to bite you in the ass later.
Where might she be pointing out a real issue, some nasty thing you do but don't want to admit you do?
Take responsibility, own up to it, cop to the thing she is consciously or unconsciously pointing out to you. It might suck to do this. In fact, it usually really sucks, but it always brings you both to the next level in healthy communication.
My dad, a mathematician and computer programmer, has an acronym for this phenomenon: AFGO. Which stands for, Another Fucking Growth Opportunity.
6. Co-creating Language and Ground Rules
A nice by-product of effective communication is your own personalized, co-created unique language. Your customized collection of short-hand, definitions, colloquialisms, mannerisms, signals, jargon and inside jokes is a full-on dialect in which you can communicate brilliantly and subtly with each other.
One of the main points of communication, though, is to learn from your mistakes so you don't keep doing them again. Keep creating and updating your guidelines and ground rules.
To do this, try asking your partner, "How can I do things differently so that this doesn't come up again? How can I communicate in a way that doesn't trigger this for you again, make you defensive, reactive, etc?"
Healthy, constructive communication is a vital part of the foundation of any relationship. Done well, it keeps you both on track and on the same page, teaches you both a thing or two about a thing or two, and brings you both higher and closer.
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