IS IT REALLY POSSIBLE TO SLAY THE DEMONS THAT SABOTAGE COMMUNICATION?

Unless you live on a deserted island and have never interacted with another person, you’ve experienced what I call ‘Communication Demons’.  Every relationship has them.  They come in different forms and can be subtle or pronounced.  No matter what form they present, they share one common characteristic.  They destroy.

Before we discuss how to slay your Communication Demons, let’s identify and understand what the most common ones are.  In future articles, we will further investigate each demon individually.  For the purposes of this article, let’s just get a basic understanding of each one and how they play into the communication difficulties we experience in our interpersonal relationships.

Common Communication Demons

Passive/Aggressive –One of the greatest challenges in effective communication.  Passive-Aggressiveness involves acting out anger or resentments rather than dealing with the situation head on.  If you’re faced with a passive-aggressive partner, you don’t know where you stand; you may think the passive-aggressive is your friend, so you open up without realizing you risk being sabotaged or attacked. The passive-aggressive mode of operation is: “I will be agreeable to your face, but behind your back, I will do things to make you suffer.” Passive-Aggressive traits can also inter-mingle with Conflict Avoidance and vice versa.  Passive-Aggressive communication attempts to control, manipulate, and punish. 

Traits of the Passive Aggressive:

• Sarcasm
• Veiled jabs
• Eye rolling
• Sighing or ‘mocking’ tone
• Agreeing with no intent of following through or placating to end the conflict but ‘getting back’ with you to subtly teach you a lesson.
• Blaming others
• Sulks or Sullen
• Hidden resentments
• Gossip or tattling
• Double Messages
• Deceit
• Superior attitude

Conflict  Avoidance – When faced with conflict or the possibility of conflict, the conflict avoider believes that expressing anger or frustration is to risk losing control, hurting someone else’s feelings, damaging the relationship, or appearing to be rude or a ‘bad’ person.  This happens when there is a significant ingrained fear, resentment or conflict and an inability or unwillingness to navigate through it.  Unfortunately, this creates the very thing that is trying to be avoided – more conflict!  All great long-lasting relationships require productive conflict in order to grow.  Avoiding conflict prevents any healthy discussion and there is very little hope for negotiation or agreement.  Resentments grow with both partners – the avoider for not being able to express their true feelings, needs, and wants, and the partner for feeling shut out, diminished, unheard, and blamed.  The faulty belief in conflict avoidance is that conflict is bad and does not happen in ‘good’ relationships.  The truth is that conflict happens in all relationships.  It isn’t the conflict that is bad; it is how we navigate through it.  Properly navigating through conflict is how we gain greater understanding, resolve issues to prevent hidden resentments, and enable both partners to feel valued, heard, and respected.  Fear of conflict results in artificial harmony and erodes true intimacy.  Remember, conflict is a puzzle to solve not a battle to fight.

Traits of Conflict Avoidance:

• Emotional or Physical Withdrawal
• Changing the subject/creating distractions
• Inability or difficulty acknowledging or discussing negative feelings
• Avoidance through hopelessness – viewing the situation as hopeless and beyond repair so what’s the point of engaging?
• Passive Avoidance:
• Staying removed from a situation
• Withdrawing from a relationship/avoiding contact
• Remaining silent at crucial times
• Disappearing from the scene
• View their attempts at laudable

• Toxic Thoughts, Blaming, and Judging – These are the hidden negative, condescending, presumptuous distorted thoughts and beliefs that partners harbor towards the other.  They are caused by failure to resolve conflicts, deep-seated resentments, and unexpressed expectations.  Toxic thoughts, blaming and judging erode honest, productive communication, intimacy, trust, empathy, romance and ultimately the relationship itself.  Toxic thoughts, blaming, and judging are often so deeply ingrained that we are unaware that they are even at play.  These tendencies do not just create relationship problems; they also contribute to low self-esteem.  These tendencies also prevent you from truly hearing what your partner is telling you because as they are speaking, you have already determined what they are saying and prejudged the outcome.  You cannot ‘hear’ your partner because you have already built a case against them before they even begin speaking and you will not ‘hear’ anything from your partner that erodes the case you’ve built against them.  It becomes very difficult if not impossible to relate with your partner openly and reasonably although you believe at the time that you are.  The partner who is being judged or experiencing toxic thoughts being directed at them are left confused, feeling vulnerable and unheard, feeling devalued, frustrated and often times, emotionally abused. 

Traits of Toxic Thoughts, Blaming and Judging

• Quick to assign blame
• Criticizing
• Using terms like ‘always’ and ‘never’
• Defensiveness
• Verbally attacking
• Treating your partner as if they are inadequate or insignificant
• Loss of empathy
• Ridiculing
• Hidden resentments
• Minor disagreements quickly enflame to major breakdowns in communication
• Emotional/physical disconnect

Now that the most common Communication Demons have been identified, let’s discuss how to slay them to move towards a more healthy, fulfilling and rewarding relationship. 

How many times have you felt frustrated when trying to communicate with your partner?  Have you felt that you can ‘talk’ about day to day issues, but as soon as you attempt to discuss an emotional based issue you have stepped on a land mine?  Communication can be challenging, confusing and frustrating.  Ask any parent raising a teenager!  However, when communication does work and you really connect, when a new level of understanding and compassion is created, it can be a very rewarding experience and true intimacy is built. 

So how do you slay the Communication Demons?

Begin with yourself.  It is easy to point the finger to our partner first.  It is easy to automatically start pointing out the things your partner is or isn’t doing.  It is easy to accuse and blame your partner, but you need to begin with taking a good look at yourself.  It’s important that you look at yourself and how you are contributing to the communication difficulties that are present.  Take personal responsibility by reviewing your own actions and intent in communication.  Remember, it is easy to see mistakes in others but much more difficult to acknowledge them in ourselves.  Nobody wants to be wrong but you need to be able to take an honest look and admit when you are wrong. 

You can overcome and slay the Communication Demons as long as each person is willing to participate in conversation to extinguish these traits.  The key is to participate.  Be present and work together with your partner.  Your partner is not the opposition.  You are collaborators in the process.  Often times it is helpful to sit closely together, hold hands, and keep the physical connection in place.  Keeping that physical connection in place is very helpful in keeping the emotional connection in place. 

Keep it respectful.  Disrespectful conversations diminish both of you.  No name calling or threatening.  Keep your voice calm – there is no need to raise your voice.  Screaming or yelling will not get you heard but will cause your partner to not hear you. 

It is never too late for productive, open and compassionate dialogue with anyone, especially your loved ones and partner.  In many cases, couples will benefit from the help of a counselor or therapist to help them get their relationship back on track.  It is much easier and rewarding to repair what was once a loving relationship than to start over.  When you collaborate as a team to repair you grow in strength.  When you cut your losses, valuable opportunities for growth and learning are lost.  You take with you the issues – good or bad- from past relationships into new ones.  A loving relationship is a team effort between two individuals each doing his or her best.  It’s never too late. 

Communication is not about who is right or wrong.  It is about helping one another see things from each other’s perspective, so that you can be on the same page and avoid misunderstanding and resentments from building.  Being on the same page does not mean that you have to agree.  It is not about one person winning and the other losing.  It is about both partners feeling as if they have been heard and their feelings acknowledged.  If you and your partner have the habit of falling into the right and wrong or win/lose trap then set firm boundaries in place to break that habit.  That habit is not productive.  Stop the conversation, take a break and take an honest look at what you are really feeling inside, own how you are contributing to the break down in communication, open yourself to understanding what your partner is trying to convey to you, and try again.

When you recognize that you are dealing with a Communication Demon, slow down, take a few steps back, and calm down.  Take a close-ended break, meaning that you will take individual time apart and then come back together to complete the discussion.  During the break evaluate how YOU are communicating.  What is your intention?  Are you working towards understanding or being right?  Are you attached to controlling the outcome or are you wiling to gain understanding and reach resolution?  Are you really listening to what your partner is telling you?  Do you know what active listening is?

Listening is vitally important if you truly wish to accomplish good communication with your partner.  Do you really listen to what your partner is saying to you or are you reacting, forming your argument or rebuttals?  Don’t confuse listening with hearing.  Hearing happens involuntarily while listening intently is a conscious action. 

Listening involves giving your partner your full attention.  It means that you are interested in learning more about what your partner is trying to tell you, making the emotional connection needed in order to achieve understanding and common ground.  Keep your mind clear of judgments and rebuttals and keep yourself present in the conversation.  Clarify what you have been told and avoid ‘kitchen sinking’ the conversation.  Keep the topic to the situation at hand and avoid throwing every past mistake or frustration that comes to mind.  Communication between partners must always be open, honest, and patient if you are to find success in achieving a happy and healthy relationship. 

Communication is necessary to keep any relationship healthy, loving, strong and intimate.  It’s never too late to learn productive communication skills.  Communication isn’t so complicated when you recognize and acknowledge your own Communication Demons and work together as a team to slay them.  If both partners work together as a team to improve they way they communicate, both can enhance their relationship and individual feelings of overall satisfaction and acceptance.  It cannot happen on its own or with only one person putting in the effort.  There will be times when you are attempting to openly communicate but your partner is being difficult, when he is using one or all of the Communication Demons.  It is easy to give in to their jabs, button pushing, or judgments.  You won’t get anywhere and will only feel frustrated.  STOP the conversation and let your partner know that you are willing to resume it when they are willing to participate in a reasonable manner.  You don’t have to be rude when you do this.  Remember, they are feeling difficult emotions as well.  Stick to the boundaries you have put in place but do so gently, with a spirit of love rather than an attitude of superiority.       

Remember, the goal is an honest, fulfilling and respectful relationship where both of you have an understanding of who you are as individuals and what you both need and want. 

For more information or to schedule a complimentary session, please contact me at Deborah@LifehealingSolutions.com

or phone me at (970) 599-1109

Copyright 2009