How to Avoid Unhealthy Communication Patterns

Are you feeling disconnected from someone you care for? Do you avoid talking to them or have as little interaction as possible?  Do minor disagreements turn into major battles? Well, take heart, we all have times when we feel disconnected, and today's post is about addressing behaviors that may cause disconnect. One of my goals in writing this blog is to help us all stay more connected to ourselves, to each other and to God so this week's post is to help us learn to reconnect with loved ones despite our differences.  

What is an Emotional Connection?
First, let's talk about what exactly is an emotional connection and how you achieve it. An emotional connection means we are able to maintain a certain degree of closeness, sharing, and intimacy with another person. This is not, I repeat NOT, the intimacy of physical union. Sex has to do with the physical side of relationships. What we are talking about here is the type of closeness that comes from open, honest, respectful verbal communication, the sharing of deep feelings, coupled with a genuine care and concern for the other person's well-being. A great emotional connection makes for a great physical connection and vice versa. 

If you're not feeling as close as you'd like to your loved one, here are 4 possible reasons why and what to do about them.

1. Playing the blame game 
One clue that this is happening is if you hear yourself saying "You always ....".

or "You did such and such....". Sure your partner or loved one may have done something to irritate you, but accusing and blaming is not going to fix the problem. When something goes wrong in a relationship, both parties typically have some responsibility. Rarely is the problem one-sided.

Start by accepting your part of the problem. Blaming is a a result of refusing to take personal responsibility for one's part. We all make mistakes but they are not an indicator of our self-worth. There should be no shame associated with the  admission of mistakes. When we admit our mistakes, we pave the way for improvement and change. Here is a good article from Psychology Today on how to stop playing the blame game.

 A better way to phrase your displeasure is by using "I" statements instead of "You" statements.  Here are a few examples:

   "I feel so alone when you work late every night."
   "I feel disrespected when I am talking to you and you are reading the paper, playing video games, watching tv."
"When you threaten to leave it sounds like you are not commited to this relationship and it makes me feel sad/mad/hopeless."
"I feel devalued when you raise your voice to me." 

The key is to share what you are feeling from your heart and try to connect to the other person's heart and what they are feeling. If the other person truly cares about you and preserving the relationship, he or she will care about your feelings and want to put forth the energy to acknowledge you and change. 

2. Assigning negative labels or name-calling
When we label someone in a pejorative way, we cause emotional disconnection. No one likes to be called names or labeled. I remember my mother always used to tell me I was "too sensitive" and I grew up ignoring my feelings. Then my sister picked up the same behavior and added her label about my body. Years later, I finally put my foot down with both of them. The labeling stopped. 

Some examples of name-calling and labeling are:
    "You're so clumsy"
    "You're so stupid"
    "You'll never amount to anything"
    "You're lazy/fat/..."
    "You are unconscious"
    "You are greedy"

     "You are too ------"

     "You are just like your father" (guilty on this one)

     "You're toxic"

We All Have Insecurities 

Another way people try to label others in a less direct way is when they say things like "'Well, I live in reality" implying you don't. Be wary of such comments and call the person out. Often people of not aware of how they are coming across to others and we are all just as guilty at times. 

Most people have their own set of insecurities and when we lash out at others using unkind labels and name-calling, we enforce these insecurities and contribute to the other person's low self-esteem. When people label or name-call, it is really out of their OWN insecurities. For some reason, they feel threatened and lash out instead. 

A better approach is to hold our tongue or walk away from the situation if we feel we can't control ourselves. Hurtful words do much damage and the emotional scars take a long time to heal. The other person may never say anything to you but if you notice an emotional distancing you know they have been hurt.

3. Judging
Judging means forming an opinion about someone assigning "right" or "wrong" to their behavior. Most of the time, there is no right or wrong, it is simply a matter of a difference of opinion or perspective. Everyone sees situations through their own lens and worldview. Right or wrong implies a moral judgement and who are we to morally judge another? 

We never know what is going on with someone inside and we often do not know what they have been through in the past.  Only God knows a person's heart and what hurt they are carrying. Although it is hard not to judge when someone hurts us or acts badly, we are not to return evil for evil. God is the final judge. Click here to read "10 Reasons to Stop Judging People". 

4. Betraying Trust 
As we all know, Trust is HUGE in any relationship. Betraying a trust can cause immediate disconnect and possibly loss of the relationship for good if not addressed in a timely and correct manner. 

Personal Story

I had - notice the word "had" - a long time friend at work. We vacationed together. We celebrated each other's birthdays every year. We shared personal problems. 

Until one day, I found out she had shared something very personal with her entire family. I felt so hurt and betrayed. She had promised she would keep it to herself. When I confronted her about it, she got mad and defensive. This was right before Christmas and I had a gift for her and we had planned a luncheon, and she cancelled our get-together. I have long since forgiven her, and have made several attempts to reconnect suggesting there need to be some changes to our relationship. She is apparently not interested in changing her behavior or acknowledging the damage she caused. 

Bottom line, if someone asks you to keep a secret, please do so if you value the relationship. Also, do not share your conversations with others including family members. Consider each conversation private. And if perhaps you do leak a confidence, or in some other way, betray a trust, have the maturity to apologize sincerely and make amends. You will be glad you did. 

These are a few of the ways we can cause disconnection from friends and loved ones. We may not even realize what we are doing or we may not intend to hurt the other person but that is what happens. I hope this post has brought some awareness to the problems we may, in fact, be causing ourselves.

For Reflection:

Is there anyone in your life with whom you feel disconnected? Are you doing any of the above no-nos? Can you identify the cause of the disconnect? What steps can you take to improve the relationship? Remember, we can only change ourselves. 

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Stay tuned for more on how you can achieve healing, wholeness, and harmony and discover your destiny!

Until next time, keep looking up!

Ariel Paz
     
   

4 Practical Ways to Enjoy Better Relationships

Great relationships don't just happen. Like your golf game, they take a lot of time and effort to improve. Life seems to be rolling along just fine, and suddenly you hit a bump in the road. People mess up. We say hurtful things, betray a trust, overreact, and manipulate to get our needs met. We turn to passive-aggressive behaviors instead of dealing with issues up front. Often, we are clueless how deeply our words and actions affect others. So why do we act like this?

Our ego and insecurities get in the way of healthy and respectful communication which prevents us from enjoying the close relationships we so desire.  It is tough to be on the receiving end of mistreatment but we are called to love another while setting appropriate boundaries.

After enduring many painful experiences, I realized I can't just give up on people. We all have our flaws so I dug into the subject and today I am sharing 4 ways to help us enjoy better relationships.

1. Learn to confront
Confrontation has gotten a bad rap, but when we use the term in regards to relationships, to confront simply means to come face to face. According to psychologists and relationship experts, John Townsend and Henry Cloud, confrontation is a skill we can all learn to preserve relationships by addressing issues with one another. For more on this, check out their book "Boundaries: Face to Face".

Rather than dumping people because our anger or frustration has reached the max, a better way is to confront the issue at hand and give the other person a chance to change their ways.

I once had a very close friend who called me up one day in a tizzy of frustration over something in our friendship. We had hit a bump in the road. I was trying to understand her concerns but she would have none of it. Then she blurts out this hurtful statement: "From now on, we are just acquaintances." I was stunned, shocked, and very hurt. Where was my chance to change? Why hadn't she said anything to me before? People are not mind-readers: not husbands, not boyfriends, and certainly not girlfriends. Unless we take the time to confront the issue, the other person is probably going on about their business clueless. One thing to remember in confronting, is to do it before you blow your stack or sever the relationship. This takes courage, skill, and maturity but it is a skill worth learning.

2. Learn to apologize
When someone confronts us with a problem, we need to be able to offer a sincere apology and offer to make amends. Some people think if they utter a perfunctory "I'm sorry", everything is hunky dory and they are ready to move on. Not quite so fast! The offender must take the time to understand and take responsibility for the pain he or she has caused the other person. They also need to make amends in some way. An apology is only the first step in reconciling the relationship and people receive apologies in different ways. For more on how to apologize, check out this insightful book, "The 5 Languages of Apology" by Gary Chapman.

3. Be willing to change our behavior
When we are confronted with an issue, the ball is our court so to speak. It is up to us to decide:

a) do we want to maintain the relationship and if we do,
b) understand what we have done that has hurt the other person and
c) are we willing to change our behavior and attitudes

This takes putting ourselves in their shoes. It also takes swallowing our pride and admitting our behavior needs to change. Personal story.

I once dated this guy, who was a strong Christian, went to church, read the Bible, the whole nine yards. But he had a jealousy problem. We would argue until the wee hours of the night about situations.

During these heated discussions he would resort to unfair and hurtful tactics such as demanding gifts be returned, name-calling, etc. When I expressed how hurtful his actions were, he would invariably apologize, but it wouldn't be long before we'd be at it again. Finally I had had enough of this behavior and told him so. His response was "What ever happened to forgiveness?"

Talk about the guilt trip. I had forgiven him umpteen times so my response to him was "What ever happened to repentance?" Repentance is the biblical term for changing one's behavior. In order to achieve harmonious and enduring relationships, we need to be willing to deal with our fears and insecurities, so we can clearly see how our behavior is impacting the other party and make the necessary changes. When we truly care about the relationship, we will put loving the other person above our ego and pride.

4. Learn to forgive
Forgiveness is a process that seems to be misunderstood by many. True forgiveness is really a two part process: forgiveness and restoration or reconciliation. Forgiveness means letting go of the need to get back at the other person. It means surrendering our hurt and pain to God, and giving the relationship another chance. Forgiveness is for both our well-being and the well-being of the other person. It frees the offender from the toxicity of shame. The words "I forgive you" can do wonders for the healing.

Restoration or reconciliation cannot occur until the offender has demonstrated changes in his or her behavior. It is folly to continue to allow someone back into our lives, when they have given us no indication that they have changed. This process applies to people with addiction or anger issues as well. Repeated patterns indicate an unwillingness to change for whatever reason. Forgiveness gives the offender a chance to redeem himself and we demonstrate our faith in them to do so.

To summarize, harmonious relationships don't just happen. There will always be bumps in the relationship road, but I hope that these 4 tips have given you some tools to navigate the potholes we inevitably encounter. When we have the courage to confront and the willingness to change and to forgive, we can enjoy the relationships we all desire.

If this post has helped you, please leave a comment. If you'd like to join our community enter your email address in the box provided. In addition to my weekly emails, you'll also receive a copy of my free guide "7 Steps to Finding Your Spiritual Path",

Stay tuned for more on how to enjoy better relationships and until next time,

Keep looking up!

Ariel Paz