Effective emotional communication
A lot of times, when I meet people struggling with communicating effectively in their everyday lives, they would tell me, “I become so overwhelmed with feelings in any significant interaction with my family, spouse, partner or friends that I lash out and cause them hurt without meaning to.” If you are someone similar and you feel a lot of emotions rushing at you during a difficult conversation and that usually ends up some mean things being said unintentionally and either you or the other person being hurt, here are a few steps to take to change this pattern of interaction and find better ways to help yourself regulate emotionally.
1) Validate your emotions
It is important to know that as a human being, the amygdala or the emotion centre of the brain is the strongest and the busiest part of our brains. This means that we do not have to apologise or dismiss or minimise our emotions in any way. What we can do is, validate our emotions and know that there is always a reason behind why we feel what we feel.
2) Knowing what emotions we are feeling:
Research also shows that when we label or identify our emotions, we actually stabilise the functioning of our amygdala(the emotion centre of our brains) and help our brains to become more stable and for ourselves to feel calmer.
3) Label your emotions:
Just using one or two words to understand what you are feeling goes a long way in helping us become emotionally regulated. You might check in with yourself and tell yourself, “oh, I am actually feeling lonely and sad.” Or “ I am feeling upbeat and confident today.”
4) Find your vulnerable emotions: There are two levels of emotions that we feel:
a) Secondary emotions such as anxiety, anger, frustration, guilt, worry etc. These emotions are always on the surface and we can feel them easily and other can see them too in us quite clearly
b) Primary emotions are the emotions that underly secondary emotions such as loneliness, rejection, grief, abandonment etc. These emotions are behind all the worry, anxiety, guilt, frustration that we feel on a daily basis but primary emotions require us to dig deeper to unravel them for ourselves.
For example, when our calls are not returned by a friend we may feel frustrated and we might want to lash out at them. But instead, we can dig deeper and find our primary emotions as feeling rejected and abandoned when they do not return our calls. It is important to find these primary emotions for ourselves because then we are able to be vulnerable with ourselves and be better able to empathise with ourselves.
5) Finding out the Why? behind our primary emotions
Asking ourselves ‘what made me feel this way’ is important to understand the sources of our primary/vulnerable emotions. This can actually stop us from blaming others for making us feel a certain way because we realise that our brain associated another event from the past with us feeling rejected which keeps playing out over and over again in different situations.
6) Giving yourself the time:
Take the time to process all of the above steps and then pick out a calmer, more stable time and place to communicate your emotions. At times, this might also mean removing yourself physically from a difficult interaction and then coming back to it with a calm mind full of intention to reduce hurt and misunderstanding and communicate what you felt and what made you feel a certain way. You might even have to say things such as, “I need to clear my head, I will be back in two minutes.” Or “I just need to take a breather from this conversation and come back to it.” When you do come back to the conversation and to the other person, explain to them that you removed yourself to stop yourself from lashing out at them and causing them hurt.
7) Use “I” statements
There is a huge difference between using ‘I’ statements and ‘You’ statements. ‘You’ statements make people defensive as they feel blamed for making you feel a certain way. Using “I” statements help the other person understand the impact of their words and actions on you and instead helps them empathise with you.
Instead of saying,” you made me feel this way!” say, “I felt this way when this was being said.”
An ‘I’ statement is less aggressive and confrontational. It focuses on the speaker, i.e., you taking full responsibility for your own feelings.
8) Solution oriented conversations:
This can also can help repair hurt in relationships; finding practical, achievable solutions. For example, saying, “Can we find a fixed time for a call during the week so that we both have it set in our schedule and that we don’t miss each others’ calls?” Finding a goal that you and the other person can work on is key towards having healthier relationships with others.
9) Choosing when to communicate your emotions and with whom:
At times, there could be situations when the other person might not care about your feelings. These people are not the ones you want to share your feelings and be vulnerable with. You might want to reconsider them being a part of your life. People who care about you will always make the time to empathise with you and care about your feelings and understand the impact of their behaviors on you.