The Power of Your Words (what you say (or don't say) can change everything)
I think we’ve all had moments where our responses have been reactive; rather then intentional. This often leads down a rabbit hole of feeling guilt, shame and regret of what was said and so the cycle goes.
I know I can relate to this dance. can you?
This post is my attempt to provide a reflective read in order for you to take a step back, pause, recenter and (re) remind yourself of some essential truths around healthy & effective communication.
I found these communication tips below inspired by Jefferson Fisher to be incredibly powerful and helpful, so I wanted to share the valuable insights with you.
You meaning; my people, my community. Let’s get into this topic.
Those who know do not speak. Those who speak do not know. - lao TZU
These quick and actionable communication tips have the capacity to improve your relationships (including the one with yourself) because speaking in a self respecting and intentional way positively impacts everyone.
A lot of these suggestions are about saying less or nothing at all, as silence is powerful. Speaking with discernment is powerful. Less is often more when it comes to the power of communication.
If all you take from this read is to become more intentional and discerning around when you speak; than I’ve done my work here. Speak when you have something relevant to say and, on the contrary, know when to leave room for silence, for empty space (which can be difficult for many of us to do.)
Some of us find silence uncomfortable. Gaps in conversations awkward, so in order to prevent discomfort we talk. We talk when we have nothing to say because we’ve convinced ourselves that mindless chatter is better than dealing with silence.
This is such a false truth; and potentially repels those in the room that are seeking more depth and connection.
When I was becoming a therapist, one of the first things I was taught, was how to “sit with the silence in the room.” To be with the space. To be mindful not to fill the gaps in communication that happen in a client session. This is an important space for a therapist to hold for their clients. Those gaps that you leave space for are sometimes when really important moments or insights happen, as growth needs space.
3 basic communication tips for more clear + direct communication
tip #1
eliminate adjectives: be mindful not to abuse “filler words” such as: just, like, really, actually. This is especially true when we’re publicly speaking or looking to convey an important point. (I need to work on this)
tip #2
be cognizant of your tone and pace of words; remember that clarity exudes confidence. Confidence speaks slowly and clearly; This can be a great tip to remember when you find yourself in a situation where someone is trying to talk over you. You can convey your self respect and hold the attention by slowing your speech, keeping a clear tone and continuing on with your point.
tip #3
how to spot false truths: liars tend to speak fast and answer questions quickly.
When you have nothing to hide it’s more common to take your time while articulating your thoughts. When you’re looking to spot someone’s ability for honesty, note cadence of speech, fast, wordy and fragmented answers, space filling and intentional redirection of the conversation and the topic. This often can be a redirection back toward you.
ex: “where was I today? where were YOU today?”
confidence is quiet ; ego is loud
3 tips for difficult communication:
1. breathe
Especially when you’re feeling defensiveness surfacing: breathe. Before responding, practice calming your nervous system with a deep breath so you are less likely to be reactive and give yourself a moment of recollection to respond with well intention.
here’s how:
pause
leave 5-7 seconds of space
talk with intent by talking slowly and calmly
2. don’t be afraid to ask
When in the mist of a heated conversation, don’t be afraid to ask:
“did you really mean that?” (did you really mean what you said, did, etc?)
What this does is it gives the other person the chance to think about the hurtful, hateful, potentially offensive thing that they said and gives them the opportunity to respond in a healthier, more conflict resolved way.
This is especially beneficial in relationships where we feel or know that the other person has our best interest at heart. This question has the capacity to clear conflict in a more productive way by providing an “olive branch” for the other to course correct with in the mist of a heated conflict.
3. be truthful & direct with your responses
A sign of emotional maturity is being able to speak the truth clearly and with respect. This does a couple of things:
when you say the truth; you see the truth.
This is so because when you know how to speak honestly and with well intention, it reveals who can and (can’t) match you. People who are uncomfortable with the truth will not be able to sustain a truthful homeostasis, which you eventually will uncover by being and remaining honest on your end. It’s too uncomfortable for them; so saying the truth will help you identify where people stand. Then you get to decide what action you want or need to take in order for you to carry on with your self respect, way of being, etc.
you eliminate a lot of assumptions and false stories when you center on the truth.
Loads of confusion results when someone is “beating around the bush” and not being direct in their communication. This is so because the truth is usually more simple; it’s not noisy. The truth can be hard; but it won’t be chaotic. The truth can cause chaos depending on the reaction of the receiver, however that is not the fault of saying the truth; that’s more indicative of where the other person’s comfort zone lies with the truth.
When in doubt remember: The truth is fact. Fact is stable and steady.
key communication tip
what to say when you really don’t want to go: (meaning “go” to the event, the party, the dinner, the whatever it is that everything in your body is saying a big, fat inward “NO” toward.)
Here’s an example of a simple dialogue to build around:
I can’t make it. (clear, not wordy, truth, being direct)
Thank you for the invite (expressing gratitude)
Have a good time at (fill in the activity or event.) (expressing kindness)
Declining an invite doesn’t need to cause mental torture. It does not need to leave you feeling guilt ridden. It does not need to be wordy. It is not unkind to have no reason for the decline. You do not need to explain why you “can’t make it.” It’s perfectly okay & mature to say ‘NO” directly, concisely and respectfully. Believe it.
final words
Working on your communication skills is a practice that will serve you greatly as the quality of your relationships has been researched to be the biggest predictor of a happy, well lived life.
Until next time my friends. See below for some additional resources on this topic.
An Invitation For You
If this resonates with you:
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*Image by Photographer & Visual Artist Amy Lynn Bjornson
7 Signs That Your Love Connection is Healthy and Strong
An intimate relationship is a continuous work in progress. An important aspect of any romantic connection is that two people are choosing to grow in a positive direction with both themself and together. This post presents a framework for you to evaluate if your love connection is healthy, respectful and worth continuing to invest your sweet time into.
If you have one or two of these “signs” within your intimate relationship, great. If you have all of them, amazing. There’s no judgement and no such thing as a perfect anything, much less a perfect unity between two. If you’re not in a relationship, no worries, use this information to cultivate a vision for your future partnership.
7 Signs of A Legit Love Connection
1. Their Actions and Words Consistently Match Up
Your partner makes it clear via their words and actions that they're invested in you and see a future with you. You’re not confused about your partner's intentions because they make them crystal clear. Give or take being human; They call when they say they will and they show up when they say they will.
When someone is incongruent in their actions and words, we tend to feel doubtful about how they can show up for us. This leaves us in a state of not knowing, which is an easy breeding ground for our false assumptions, doubts and insecurities to live. Consistency is huge in relationships. It breeds trust and security. The bottom line is that we trust people who are consistent because it allows us to feel safe.
2. You Feel Good About Who You Are Around Them
It’s nothing that you can pin point, or maybe it is, but you just feel really good about yourself when you’re in your partner’s presence. They think you’re great, they support your ventures, they’re a huge fan of you, all imperfections included because we all have those, and that feels dam good.
3. They're Not Afraid to Have Real Conversations
Your partner is able to hold an inviting space for deep and vulnerable conversations. What does this mean? This means that you feel heard. It means that they can acknowledge your feelings without judgement and with appreciation of your self expression. There’s no avoidance of topics. There might be uncomfortable topics, although there’s no avoidance. If there is, they own it and do their best to work through it. Conversations are initiated around subject matter that allows further intimate connection, amongst fun conversations too. Balance is key. Topics can range from finances, insecurities, future life vision, your future together, etc. You feel better after releasing your feelings to your partner because they’re able to hold the space for you to release your emotions and that feels good.
4. You’re in Their Future Plans (Near and Far)
They make it known via their word and actions that you’re apart of their future plans. You guys make plans as a couple without question and you also have the freedom and space to still do you with their support.
5. They Respect The Relationships That Are Important to You
Your partner doesn’t necessarily need to be besties or even connect that much to some of the people you choose to have in your life, although they have to respect the significance that specific connections hold for you. Talking negatively about people that your partner knows you care about is a disrespectful act. There’s a difference between sharing your true feelings about a relationship with grace or concern vs. talking disrespectfully and putting down your judgement and desire for a specific relationship.
Ideally, it’s a great situation when you really gel and value the people that your partner brings into your life. This is not always the case, nor does it need to be, but it creates ease and flow when this is so.
6. You Trust Them & Feel Safe
This might be one of the most important aspects of any relationship. Trust and safety are foundational pieces that are the building blocks of any healthy connection. This is why when trust is compromised, it’s really difficult to recover. Trust is defined as the “firm belief in the reliability, truth, ability, or strength of someone or something.” Feeling that your partner is reliable, accountable and will always do their best to show up for you is a must in a solid and loving connection.
You either trust someone fully or you don’t. You either feel safe with someone or you don’t. Meaning, you feel safe to express emotions, show all sides of you, appealing and not so appealing. We’re able to be vulnerable without feeling like our partner is going to see something that they don’t like and go away. Trusting someone allows us to unveil ourselves fully. This sets the stage for a true love connection.
7. It’s Clear That You’re a Priority
The majority of the things that your partner does generates an inner knowing that you’re held in a very high regard. This inner knowing brings a sense of peace and calmness about the relationship because you know where you stand. You feel genuinely loved and valued by your partner. You feel respected, considered and acknowledged. You are and you feel that you are a top priority in your partners life.
Relationships are so complex. Each couple has their own way. If it works and is healthy, more power to you. With all the above said, I understand that everyone is operating based on where they're at both mentally and emotionally. If your partner is working on themself and doing their best, that’s awesome and should be acknowledged. We’re not all graced with the gift of gab or the ability to talk it out super affectively. That’s okay. As long as your partner is working on their side of the street to keep things moving in a healthy direction, that’s effort to be appreciated.
*Above Image is by Amy Lynn Bjornson, San Diego based Lifestyle & Wedding Photographer7
Reasons Why You’re Still Thinking About Your Ex? Words to Help You Understand Your Emotions Around a Break Up
When the heart and emotions are at stake a lot of our hidden and vulnerable emotions get triggered. This is so with break ups. Breaking up is hard. Straight up.
My intention for this particular blog is to help you settle some of the hard emotions that come along with a break up. The pain that a loss of a love connection can trigger can be so utterly uncomfortable. My hope is for these words to help ease some difficult feelings and provide you with some key insight so you can work through your emotions around your particular heart ache.
Below is a Q & A to some common questions that can come up when we’re working through our feelings around a past love.
What does it mean if I can’t get an ex out of my mind?
It means you invested yourself and your time. It means you cared. If you can't get an ex out of your mind, be careful about jumping into a story around what your emotions mean. For example, when you attach meanings such as, “I’m not over him/her” or “I’’ll never move on,” your feelings of discomfort and loss will be more intense. The story that we put to why we are feeling specific emotions is more the guiding factor in where our mind frame lies. Allow yourself to think of an ex if that’s what’s happening. Think about it and allow your feelings to process through. Allowing yourself to think about a past relationship vs. blacking it out of your mind will encourage and help you to move through your healing process.
4 Reasons Why You Could Still Be Thinking About Your Ex
1. Many times we're thinking of our ex because of our own unresolved issues that the breakup is triggering.
I see this so much with my clients struggling to cope with a break up. They become fixated on their ex. Instead of talking about themselves in their therapy session, they’re strictly talking about their ex. It’s always a red flag for me in the room when after an hour with a client I know much more about their ex then them. This usually points to some sort of a co-dependent dynamic within a relationship that was developed. Switching the focus of your energy back to YOU is a key step toward rediscovering your grounding and sense of self after a relationship ends.
2. We’re thinking about what could have been, rather than what actually was.
Whenever we’re seeing something through “rose colored glasses,” we’re not seeing the truth of the factual situation. The issue with this line of thinking is that it creates a false story about our past romance. We can begin to idealize our ex and start believing that "we blew" our chances. Putting our ex partner on a pedestal is a sure fire way to create more longing, pain and a false interpretation of what was. See it straight babes.
3. We’re trying to keep up with the Jones’s
Societal expectations can absolutely be playing into a more exaggerated feeling of loss when a relationship ends. As humans, we naturally tend to gravitate toward what others are doing. Therefore, if our social circle is filled with couples, we might think about our ex more out of loneliness vs. because our ex was the "right" match for us. It's important to do your best to ditch a timeline when it comes to love. Love shows up when it wants too. It shows up best when you’ve surrendered who it’s going to be, when it’s going to happen and how it's going to look.
4. You’re making it about them when it’s about you
How we deal with break ups and how we cope with our past has everything to do with our ability to let go and move forward in a healthy way. This can be a hard lesson for some of us. Realizing that people only have the amount of power over us that we give them can be a freeing way to think about past love connections. It happened, we learned, we loved. This is the process of life. Stay within your emotions and your process of working through a break up. Your feelings of loss and grief will be able to process through in a more flow state if you’re mindful to stay in your feelings not your ex’s.
Why can't we get an Ex out of our mind when it's been months or even years?
The relationships in our lives, especially impactful love connections, leave powerful impressions. Thinking about an ex doesn't mean anything negative unless you attach a meaning too it that doesn't serve you. For example, believing that it's "wrong" to think about a person whom you cared for and spent significant time with will increase your struggle to move forward.
To say it simply, learning to allow yourself to think of your ex is the exact way that you will think of them less.
Sort of counter intuitive, right? Let me explain. Famous psychologist, Carl Jung coined: “Whatever you resist persists.” When we convince ourselves that thinking about our ex means that we're not over them, we're creating a false story that’s keeping us stuck. Perhaps we’ll always think of an ex from time to time. Why is that negative? It doesn’t need to be. It’s only an issue if your mind creates it to be one. Remember that you control what your thoughts mean.
Is it normal to miss your ex?
Hell yes it’s normal. It’s very normal to have feelings of longing for someone you shared intimate and quality time with.
The bottom line is: Do not judge your process. So many of us make up stories as to "what it means" when we have an emotion. Thinking about an ex is normal, especially when you're still processing the relationship through. Whether a relationship was positive or negative; it existed and happened. If we're healthy individuals, we’ll spend time working through our emotions around the broken relationship in order to heal and move on.
If you're thinking about your ex so much that you can't focus or move forward within your life, it’s important to do the self care and seek the appropriate level of help, which might mean professional, to assist you in processing your past break up.
What should you do when you can't get your ex out of your mind?
Look at other areas of your life that you can be avoiding and not tending too because you’re thinking about your ex. Sometimes we focus on our past in order to avoid the present.
Realize that if you're struggling with chronic thoughts of another, it's usually pointing more toward an imbalance within yourself.
If your excessive thoughts persist about an ex, it might be beneficial to seek professional assistance. If that's too expensive or not an option for you, they’re great podcasts, u tube channels, books and other forms of tools to help you process through your feelings about a past love that are totally free and accessible.
Should I get back together with an ex?
First things first; It takes two to tango, meaning both individuals have to have the same desire and want for reconnection. If both parties of a past relationship are feeling the desire to rekindle, given that this was a healthy past relationship, a first step toward reconnection would be to have a conversation. Where that conversation goes, nobody could script or predict. Allowing yourself to spend some time to be truthful with yourself around your consideration of rekindling a past flame is important. Make sure that your intentions are pure and your want to get back together is for the "right" reasons. Take your time to evaluate this. Realize that it's not all up to you to "make" a relationship happen. Things that are meant to be have a funny way of working out. Trust this, and most importantly, trust life.
*Image above was taken by Amy Lynn Bjornson, San Diego based Wedding & Lifestyle photographer
"The Right" Kind of Love (Why It Might Not Look How You Thought It Would)
Why, so often, are we surprised or shocked when love shows up? Why doesn't love look the way we think it should? Why can we sometimes "miss it" when love is knocking on our door?
The topic of love and relationships is so vast. I CAN’T EVEN begin to explain. Yet, piece by piece, day by day, experience by experience and relationship by relationship the pieces will be revealed.
Here are some words to contemplate around the topic of love:
"If you are operating under the assumption that who you are before the surgery, underneath the hair dye, and without the makeup is unacceptable, then you may find yourself driven to find a mate with all of the "perfect" criteria (the "right job," "right look," from the "right family") as a way to compensate for what you consider to be your own inadequacies. You may find someone who has all of those external qualities and think, for a while anyway, that you have found love. But, sooner or later, these relationships tend to reveal themselves to be somewhat empty and soulless. The kind of love that we are looking for rarely comes from this way of seeking. There is no heart in it and soul connections are always revealed in the heart. That's why love doesn't always look the way you might think it should. Just like you, yourself, may not look the way you think you should."
....................For when we take a lover to our bed, it's all about opening ourselves totally and completely to the experience of being loved and adored for exactly who we are, and exactly who we are not, as well as being willing to extend this sweet state of grace to another."
-Katherine Woodward Thomas
Accepting ourselves, warts and all, will effect our urge to mask certain aspects of ourselves that we deem not good enough. F that! Life is too short to be walking around, aimlessly, trying to cover everything up. The irony is, the more truth you show about yourself, the more of an authentic and truthful love connection you can make. I know this to be true based on my own experience of love and by onlooking the relationships in my life that I value. The odds of finding a soul connection will increase when the inner need to hide self proclaimed "faults" quiet.
Own who you are. All of it. Doing so will lead you to the right relationships and soul connections. Period, The End.
and....Much Love.
* Above image by Amy Lynn Bjornson, San Diego based Photographer.