May 10, 2024 • 42 mins
Let’s talk about talking and the need to return to some basics of communication with regards to love and life. Although digital communication has its advantages, much is lost! Tune in and learn to master the art of verbal communication and improve your relationships one step at a time. If you cant’t talk about it, you can’t fix it!
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Episode Transcript
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(00:01):
Relationships weather, romantic, platonic,familial are complicated and can be downright MESSI
bringing out the best and worst inall of us. Here's an opportunity for
you to learn effective, concrete strategiesto help you build healthy relationships from the
inside out. It's Unbleep Your Lifeand Relationships with host Anita Ashling, psychotherapist
(00:23):
of over twenty five years. Hey, guys, welcome to another show of
Unbeep Your Life and Relationships. I'myour host, Anita Astley. If you're
joining us for the first time.I'm a licensed marriage, Family and Individual
therapist license in Wisconsin at the moment, and I recently came out with a
book called Unbleep Your Life and Relationships. Now just use your imagination. It's
(00:45):
not actually unbleep, but I can'tsay the word on this radio show because
of all the rules and regulations.But you can find that on Amazon and
you can find it on Simon andSchuster. My passion is to help other
people resolve some of their issues withinthemselves, but also their relationships. I've
been doing this for so long Idecided that I wanted to take my message
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out of my office and talk topeople on a larger scale and a national
level to come out of the goalis to become, you know, the
next opera of relationships. When Isay that to people and be like,
oh my god, you crazy,well I kind of am. I guess
to be in this business, youkind of have to be. And yes
I'm using that word loosely, sodon't report me or freak out. And
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I have in studio my producer Gregwho always chimes in. I love his
feedback on some of the stuff wetalk about. It gives us the male
perspective what I like about this show. And you know, doing it for
a couple of weeks, now youalways have you have answers at the end,
I tried all the questions and yeah, I have like five points or
something like that. Yeah, it'sthe top five things that you need to
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do to unbleep whatever it is you'retalking about. And now I always want
to remind the listeners that this isnot therapies. This is just me sharing
my expert opinion in my experiences andlike I do in the book my own
personal story on how Adversity builds Resilience. I do believe that most people can
unbleep their life and relationships from theinside I know use a tag phrase from
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the inside out, because we dohave to start with ourselves. We have
to look in the mirror. Todaywe are going to talk about talking.
People say, what are you goingto talk about talking? You're good at
talking. But there's various aspects ofcommunication I believe we need to get back
to in a very digital world.Last couple of shows, you know,
we talked about emotional intimacy, wetalked about physical intimacy. But none of
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those things can effectively be resolved.They're confronted if we don't know how to
talk to each other. Just thinkabout that. I have to help people
learn to talk to each other.And sometimes people come into my office with
you know, complicated and sometimes that'sa complicated issues. And communication, by
the way, is a huge umbrellabecause I'll say, what's going on?
Communication problems? It doesn't tell memuch. There's a lot of digging exploring
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that we end up doing together.But one of the major things, our
main things. I'll ask that personor a couple to say, well,
did you talk to the other personabout it? And often they'll look at
me like what what are you talkingabout? I'm like, did you know,
and they'll be like, is thiswhat I'm paying you for? Is
that all you got for me?I paid you all this money and you're
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just gonna go tell me to gotalk to this person. Like yeah,
because if you can't do that,we are not going to resolve any conflict.
We're not going to get anywhere.So that leads nicely into talking about
talking today. Most people today theirprimary mode of communication, Greg, what
do you think it is probably texting? Right? Yeah, it is texting.
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And why is that a problem?It is a problem because so much
in miss So much is missed ina text, like the tone, the
affect, and where when we're talking, Like Greg and I are sitting here
today in the studio, I'm lookingat him and we give each other cues.
There's verbal cue use, there's aphysical cues, gestures on his face
and then he'll go uh huh andI'll go uh huh. That tells us
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in this communication, in this conversation, that we are paying attention to the
other person. Now, in texting, so much of that is missed.
And of course there's all kinds ofmisinterpretations and miscommunications that take place. I've
seen people I have gone through thismyself and my kids will say, Mom,
you're not supposed to return a textwith a phone call. I'm like,
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listen, I talk about this inmy book. If I have to
write a paragraph to you to respondto this message, and this paragraph could
be totally taken out of context,words you know that are not supposed to
be taken the way. And thishas happened to me, and I listened
to this happening to people all thetime. I'm going to pick up the
phone and I'm going to call it. I do the same thing. I
even tell my kids because they're alwayssay that, why'd you call me,
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dad? I just just text me, I go, I want to.
I can't go for one thing.I got fat fingers. It takes me
forever to text anything. I'd ratherjust talk to you. Yeah, And
people don't know how to do that. It is an art to be able
to speak to somebody. And youknow, of course, I am not
purpuying texting. I love it.It's convenient. Of course, I want
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my kids or my patients to say, hey, I got to cancel,
or i'm late, or i'm here. It is great for data exchange.
Data that can't be misinterpreted like Iam going to be five minutes late,
how are you going to interpret?You can read all kinds of other stuff
into it, but generally speaking,it's like, Okay, you're going to
be five minutes late, thank youfor letting me know that, and I'm
going to be expecting that to happen. But to try to resolve complicated problems
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or issues through text messaging doesn't work, and I want this. If anything
you take away from today's show isto understand that that does not work.
And that's very different to saying,hey, we got a problem. Can
we talk about this today at fiveo'clock. Great, it's quick, it's
convenient, and I've related a messageto you. You received it, you
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can say yes, no, orwhatever. We can play around with that.
But to resolve complicated problems, it'san issue. And people will say
to me, well, why,and you know why do I got to
switch? Well all the reasons wejust mentioned, And one of the major
things is because if we don't learnto talk, it's going to affect our
entire relationship. Like we talked aboutemotional intimacy. If we can't resolve conflict,
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we can't develop build nurture our emotionalintimacy, and that's going to affect
our We talked about physical intimacy andso on and so on and so on,
so you get it. There's aripple effect that goes on. There's
a misinterpretation too, a lot oftimes with texts, What did you mean
by that? Well, what didthat mean? Was that okay? Or
is it just can't? I mean, yeah, I get that too.
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Yeah. Sometimes I have to Googleand my kids send me and there's an
abbreviation. I'm like, oh mygod, they can't they can they just
write the word? Is it sohard? Or just freaking call me?
I was? I almost adopt theFM, but that's fine. I just
think this is well, that wasa good form of communication that you guys.
Miss He kind of looked at me, and I looked at him,
like, oh, I'm not supposedto say that, but there we go.
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If we were texting about that,that wouldn't have happened. But anyway,
So I'm not an old fart.I love texting. It's convenient,
it's quick, but we have toget back to some of the basics of
love and life. Part of myone of the mantras I try to share
with other people, and I wantthem to eternalize some things we just need
to get back to, and that'sverbal communication. There's a reason I called
that chapter in my book, chapternumber three. It's called and bleep verbal
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communication is because I want people tostart talking to each other again. I
don't know if you've heard this,but I have friends who have businesses and
they're say to me, Anita,this generation can't pick up the phone.
They don't know how to deal witha customer. So there's personal reasons,
there's professional reasons. But today Iwant to talk about if we're trying to
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resolve a conflict, we need toget back to the basics of communicating with
each other. And you're gonna say, well, what are some of those
basic things we need to learn todo? Any idea? Oh help me?
Ah? Number One, actively listen. Most people do not actively listen,
and we're all guilty of that.Right we hear words, we kind
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of respond selectively because we take inwhat we want to hear. Selective listening
or hearing I want to call it. My wife says that to me all
the time. Selective hearing. Yeah, they're like, Greg, did you
actually hear what I said. Yeah, I heard the words, but I
wasn't listening. How many times doI hear that? In my office?
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He or she doesn't listen to me. My kids don't listen to me.
No one listens to me. AllI do is speak and shout and all
that kind of stuff. We needto get back to active listening. And
you might say, well, Inever learned to because in my family of
origin, no one listened to eachother. We just kind of yelled at
tea out O reach out, wetalked. That's what my family was.
We just kind of yelled, screamtalked over each other. Did anybody actually
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listen? Some things went in,but most things didn't go in. So
we need to replace what I callpassive listening with active listening. And I'm
gonna say, what is active listening? What is it? Just what we're
doing right now. I'm looking atyou, listening to you. We are
paying attention to what you're concentrating.I'm looking at you, you're looking at
me. So the part of activelistening let people miss. Number one thing
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we have to do is pay attentionto the physical, the nonverbal behavior that's
taking place. What I speak,I often use my hands, and when
I'm listening to somebody, I haveto put them down, like, okay,
I want the person to know thatI'm listening to them. So what
do I do with It's not onlyabout the ears. I'm listening with my
eyes. I'm looking at you.I'm making sure that what you're actually saying
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to me is congruent with what andyour body, Like if you're telling me
something, that's a positive thing.But I look kind of crying. I'm
like, oh, wait a minute, the two don't go together, like
what's going on here? If weweren't sitting here face to face, I
would miss that. All I wouldhear are the words, but I wouldn't
see your physical state. So it'svery important, guys. Number one thing
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when you're trying to actively listen tosomebody, and of course I encourage you
to be in the same room together. I get it that that can always
happen. What there's FaceTime and there'salso a phone call because the voice,
shaking of your voice, all thesethings tell me something about what it is
that you're thinking and what you're feelingand what you're trying to communicate to me.
But I jump the gun here.What I want to say is listening
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is an active process. It isactivity. Most people do it passively,
So that's what I'm doing right now. No, no, no, most
people do it passively. I wantyou to think about that, because we
don't think about listening as an activity, but it is an activity that requires
our body and mind to be involved. So the one thing I just shared
with you is a physical connection ofactually being in a conversation with somebody is
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paying attention to those things. Andthose are the things that we talked about
that are a mess in a textmessage. I don't see that. I
don't see the context of where youare. I don't see the context of
what you're physically saying to me.I'm in radio and i've in radio for
one hundred and fifty five years.I have inflection and I use that a
lot. On the phone is inflectiona big part of it too. Like
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if you're just talking on the phone, absolutely, I could say to you,
Greg, you suck, or Icould say, you know what,
you really suck? Like those two. The way that I just said that
is going to make you think howthe first one was like, oh,
are you serious? I answered itfor you. See, I'm not listening
to you right now. I seeyour point. Yes, So it's not
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necessarily well what we say, buthow we sit. And that's what we're
talking about today. Effective communication involvesactive listening. We're going to get back
to that in just a few minutes. Yeah, and we'll find out if
I really suck or not. Unbleepyour Life on News Talk eleven thirty WISN.
Here's more of Unbleep your Life andRelationships on News Talk eleven thirty WISA.
(11:52):
Welcome back to Unbleep your Life andRelationships. I'm your host, Danni
to Astley, psychotherapist of twenty fiveyears is I'm here to help you and
bleep your life and relationships from theinside out. Today we're talking about something
very basic which is kind of lostin today's world of digital communication, which
is getting back to the basics oftalking to each other. And Greg and
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I were just talking about well,he asked me, well, how do
I become a better listener? Andone of the things I say that you
have to do is become an activelistener. Most of us listen, but
we are passively listening. And Iwant to say to you guys, if
anything today, I want you tothink about listening as an active process.
You have to be engaged and youhave to be involved in one of the
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ways to do it because it's alwaysabout Okay, Anita, now that you've
diagnosed my problem, I don't knowhow to listen. I'm a passive listener.
How do I do this? Well. One of the things I can
I just try absolutely look at theperson. Yes, eye contact. I
was just gonna because you know,you're busy washing dishes or something like that,
and somebody's your wife is talking andyour husband's talking to you, and
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you're not really paying attention. You'renot paying attention just around a look.
Yeah, all right, And that'scalled actively listening. If I am like
right now, we're looking at eachother, you kind of on an angle.
But every time we're going to goto a commercial or do something,
we look at each other. Wedon't have to say anything, but the
gestures tell me that, Okay,Greg and his body his movement tells me
that he's getting ready for a breakand wants me to the Other thing to
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be a good active listener is toshut up very good. If I want
to actively listen to what you're saying, I have to shut up, and
most people have a hard time withthat because we love talking. We love
to talk about ourselves, we loveto share a story. But guess what,
when we are in a conversation withsomebody and we're trying to resolve something
or even a general conversation, weneed to shut up and list actively listen
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to what the other person is saying. We talked about the physical cues,
We talked about sitting in the sameroom together, next to each other,
making eye contact. The other partis we need to be quiet like this,
Oh yeah, that's really awkward onradio. We can't do that.
We can, but we have toget comfortable with silence. The other things
we need to learn to do.We have to get comfortable with silence.
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Whenever there's silence, we generally meanpeople become uncomfortable. They feel they have
to fill it up with some whatI call rice cake words. Yeah,
that's me. I do that allthe time. Get comfortable with silence and
don't use rice cake words, whichare any idea any anyone? So what's
going on? What do you mean? Yeah, they're fillers, like if
you think about a rice cake,I call letting like nice, fine,
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Okay, these are all fillers.They don't mean anything. And I call
them rice cake words because rice cakes, if you've ever had one, they
don't taste like anything. They're actuallyjust trying to fill yourself up with something.
But then you're like, why didI eat that? There's no nutritional
value, there's nothing, sure,nice, fine, Okay, are those
fillers And we don't need to dothat. We don't need to fill the
silence. Become comfortable with silence.And I know that's trually hard as a
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therapist. I had to do thatmyself. Become very comfortable when there's you
know, three of us, twoof us sitting in my therapy office and
then there's complete silence. It's okay. We have to become comfortable because that's
when processing is taking place. Weare reflecting, we are thinking back and
don't jump in. When you're theactive listener. Allow the silence to be
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there because maybe that person is theOther thing we need to do is breathing.
Yeah, because we forget. Iforget to do that to when I'm
talking. I forget to breathe becauseI talk fast sometimes, but breathe.
Allow the silence to take place.It is not an opportunity for you to
jump in the other thing that wedo when we're not a very good listener,
we interrupt. I do that sometimesstill, and I have to really
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be mindful of Okay, I haveto actively listen and I'm not going to
interrupt Greg because he's talking, he'ssharing what he's thinking and feeling with you.
You can you find a spot whereyou can interrupt. Is that what
you're looking for? Ques? Ifthe person is ending a sentence, it's
not the other thing you're bringing itLeading right to the other point is it's
not about you. When you're activelylistening, it's not about you. You're
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listening and trying to understand what theother person is saying to you. You
can ask clarifying questions, and that'sbeing a good active listeners, Like Okay,
when there's a pause, you cansay, well, what did you
mean by that? Can you clarifythat? For me? Ask questions.
If I really want to understand whatyou're saying about a conflict or whatever we're
discussing, I need to ask youquestions. And then when there's silence,
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I can say, can I askyou? Can I ask you a question
because I'm not really sure I understandwhat you're saying. Are you saying ABCD
And then you can say yeah,I'm saying that. O'm oh my god,
you're not. You know, peopleget accused athough you're not really listening
to what I'm saying. No,it might be in the situation that I
am, but I misunderstood. SoI ask a clarifying question, Greg,
did you mean to say this?And you're gonna say yes or no,
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but allow the silence to take place. We are very uncomfortable with silence as
a society because we feel we haveto jump in. But that's a you
problem, that's not a me problem. For in a conversation, and you
jump in every time there's silence.I've been Can I just process, I'm
reflecting on this what we're going throughbefore you go to the next thing.
I have to say. You gotto remember, I'm in radio. There's
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dead air. I know't I know, but well, we're not going to
be silent on here. But ifthe air that you don't have to do
that. But we are a societyof constantly wanting to hear something fill the
empty space up. And when you'rehaving a conversation with somebody, it's okay,
get comfortable with it, but Iunderstand that most of us, most
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of us, sorry, are uncomfortablewith it. Embrace the silence and ask
questions. I ask questions. Allright, next rebuttal? Do you know
what I mean by rebuttal? I'vebeen there, you've been there, We've
all been there. We are listeningto somebody passively listening, and what are
we doing? We're getting ready,we're not We're forming a rebuttal. Have
you done that? Sure? Yeah, you're like, okay, they're accusing
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me of this. Are cute,Like the wheels are turning. I can
tell when somebody is not actively there. The wheels are turning. They're waiting
to jump in. They're forming arebuttal about what the other person is saying,
and it generally starts with I don'tdo that. No, that's not
true, you're wrong. That's absolutelyright. I see what you're saying.
You're not actively listening if you're forminga rebuttal, because you're not paying attention
(18:06):
to the material that the person issharing with you. Your head is somewhere
else. You're not paying attention asan active listener. You got to shut
that out. And that's really hardto do because most of us are trained
to defend ourselves. It's our biology, particularly in relationships, when we feel
we're being accused of things, andwhen we have a serious conversation, whatever
turn the isolve a problem. Youknow, the feeling of we need to
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talk tonight. You're like, oh, I almost said, oh bleep,
what is it going to be anattack on me? What did I do
wrong this time? All these thingsabout ourselves where we don't go, well,
wait a minute, And I knowthis context outside of this, but
today we're talking about the mechanics oftalking to each other, engaging in an
effective conversation. So how do Iget away from doing the rebuttal It's retraining
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your mind and retraining the way youthink about the conversation and reframing what you
think about listening to. I'm goingto be an active listener. And for
me to be active listener, Ineed to do some of the things we're
talking about right now, and ittakes time. This is not going to
change overnight. This is something weneed to practice, and most of us
are not good at it, particularlyin today's world, because we have so
many things coming at us. Wedon't know how to actively listen. We
(19:15):
have a lot of noise, Wehave a lot of sounds. We hear
things. Even though we have twoears, we tend not to use them
very effectively because we're passive. Soas far as rebuddles, I mean,
what are you looking for? Whatam I trying not to do? If
trying, well, we talked aboutnot interrupting, you're trying to focus on
what they are saying about themselves.Yes, it includes you because if we're
(19:37):
in a relationship and we're going tohave a serious conversation about some issue that
we're having, it's dynamic. It'snot one way. It's two way.
But that's the part about active listeningthat it's a two way process. Passive
listening is not. It's just yousitting there like a lump, and then
I'll say to you did you hearme? And you'll be were you listening?
I mean, I'm sure if Gregare you listening? Anita a mom?
(20:00):
Are you listening? I get thatall the time and my kids are
You must suck as a therapist becauseyou don't know how to listen to me.
I'm like, dude, when Iget paid, it's a different story.
I'm active. I'm more actively listeningbut we are all we're all guilty
of doing it. So it's justtrying to become a better listener. Act
I'm confused, because how do youretrain your brain from doing that? Because
we always don't do that. Yes, first you have to recognize that you
(20:22):
do that, Like what the nexttime you're in a conversation with your partner
or a friend or whatever it is, ask yourself, am I really focused?
Am I paying attention? Or ismy mind going off to you know,
the kids are going to be homein like ten minutes and I've got
to put the snack out, orshoot, I got a yoga class coming
up, or get a run offto work. If that's going on,
then you can actually say to theperson, hey, I'm not really focused
(20:44):
right now. And sometimes it is. We've been talking way too long about
this, and I really want tolisten to what you're saying, but my
attention spent is just not there today. And to be able to say,
let's put this on, We're goingto talk about this at another show on
your emotional bookshelf very important. Weshould all we all have one guy,
We're going to talk about it ona different episode. Put it away,
but at least you have to agreeto come back to that conversation. Recognize
(21:06):
the fact that you're not able tofocus anymore. It's too much so so
don't think of that. You haveto defend yourself right off the bat.
Well most of us do because wefeel we're being attacked. That's we're going
to get to the you know,the other part of that, which is
effective sharing. So when you're activelylistening to somebody and you feel like you
can't focus anymore, you need tobe able to say, I can't focus.
(21:29):
Can we continue this very important conversationat a different time. But that
takes self awareness. You have tobe aware that you're losing focus. Let's
take that and go to the nextsegment and talk about that. It is
Unblip your Life on news Talk eleventhirty wisn. Anita Astlete has more advice
on how to on bleep your Lifeand Relationships on news Talk eleven thirty Wyss
(21:56):
Welcome back to Unbleep your Life andRelationships. I'm your host and to ask
lie today we are talking about talkinghow do we effectively engage in a conversation?
And I was saying, you know, to Greg over here, we
need to switch from passive listening toactive listening, and yes, friends,
it is an active process that involvesengagement, not just you know when people
(22:17):
say, well let me just sitback and listen. No, no,
no, lean into the conversation.We talked about some of the most important
things we need to do to demonstrateto the other person that we indeed are
actively listening with our body, withour eyes, and with our mind.
It is not a passive product formrebuttals every single time, no, shut
up and listen, actively listen.The other thing I want to talk about
(22:40):
is you know something that I've talkedI've mentioned before in previous conversations with you
guys, is put away your phone? Like now, right now, Greg's
phone was going off and I'm lookingat I'm like, Greg, your phone
is beeping. Can you put thataway? You're supposed to be engaged in
this, yeh with me? Don'tput it on the table. Don't you
know? I see that all thetime people carrying their phone phones around.
(23:00):
What do we do when we hadthe phones that plugged into the wall.
Most three, we're too young?What are you going to carry this big
black thing? In mind was carriedaround with you it's a problem, and
it doesn't. It's not It's notenough that you turn it off or you
silence that thing. You put itaway, out of sight, out of
mind. We need to be fullyengaged in the active listening process. Put
that thing away, and you guys, will hear me say this often.
(23:22):
I love technology, but it interfereswith some of the basic things we need
to get back to in life,which is verbal communication with each other.
So I love it, but sometimesit just needs to go. I want
the record to show that I putmy phone behind me, I can't see
it, and I shut it off. I'm just bugging. It was a
great opportunity for me to demonstrate Gregis like a guinea pig in here.
(23:45):
He's a great sport. The otherthing we need to do, and we're
not always mindful of, is rollingof the eyes. You know what I'm
talking about. We're in a conversationand we roll the eye. And what
does that tell the person They're notcare. They don't care, they don't
care. As an active listener,they don't care. Yeah whatever, Yeah,
(24:07):
And I could do that. I'msaying, yeah, I'm listening to
you, but I'm rolling my eyes. I'm looking at the ceiling. I'm
looking elsewhere, but at you.It's a nonverbal I would call them pat
while rolling of the eyes is verypassive aggressive. We will talk about that
at a later time. It's waytoo much to get into today, but
it is. It is sending offa signal to you. If I'm rolling
my eyes at you, you're gonnabe like, oh, here you go,
rolling your eyes again. You're notlosing it. Then it snowballs into
(24:30):
something else. We need to bemindful. Often we are not mindful of
what our body is saying. Thatmaybe in contradiction to what our words are
saying. There's an incongruence between whatwe're saying and what our body is saying
about it. Does that make sense? Well, how about your like your
shoulders, you're you know, shruggingof your shoulders. I'm sure that would
(24:51):
absolutely Yeah. So it's not justabout the words. It's about the physicality.
And I'll go back to what Italked about earlier, all of which
is missed when we're sending a textto each other. I don't see that.
If you're sending me a text withtrying to resolve something, I don't
see any of that. And that'svital information. And when people you know
kind of was related, not related, but kind of is after COVID or
(25:15):
during COVID, I did therapy virtuallyon the phone. Yeah, and when
I didn't see the person, ifit wasn't FaceTime or using some app which
allowed me to do that, Imissed all of those things. And when
we when people started coming back tothe office like, Okay, this is
what I need. Because part ofhelping and being engaged in a conversation therapeutic
conversation is obviously different. I wantto see you, I want to see
(25:37):
what your body is telling me.I want to listen to your words.
I want to also also know howyou're saying this to me. So all
those things are very important for meto understand what it is that you want
to share with me. And thatgets lost. Yeah, we're talking today
about talking, Yeah, and asan active listener as part of that process.
Before I talk about effective talking,we just talked about active listening.
(26:03):
When the conversation on the other person'sside you think is coming to a close,
like they're done, because we oftensaid are you done? That's not
the way we want to say,because you know it's like, yeah,
well you want me to shut up, break There's all kinds of things we
read into that. Again, toneright and say okay, are you finished
sharing your perspective? Then I suggestthat as the active listener, you summarize
(26:25):
kind of what you got from thatconversation. That's sharing that the other person
just did. So we have tomake sure we have an understanding because again,
as an active listener, of ourgoal is to understand the perspective of
the other person. It is notabout us. It is to really understand.
And when active listening is involved,we are looking to understand, not
(26:48):
judged, not convinced, because that'swhat a lot of people try to do
or to prove that they're wrong.We want to understand the other person's perspective.
That is the beauty of being anactive listener. We've been talking about
the listening aspect of this. Whatare some of the pointers that you can
give us to make sure we listen. Well, I'm going to give you
those things, those points that bleepyour life and relationships at the end of
(27:11):
the show. But before we dothat, Greg, we've got to talk
about the other side. What's thatwhen you're sharing you're an effective talker,
How to be an affection show taking, how to be an effective talker.
Okay, let's talk about that.Let's talk about it. What do you
think Number One thing we need todo when we are on the other side,
so we're not actively listening anymore.I'm done listening to you. Now
(27:32):
it's my turn to share what I'mgoing to say to you. Because there's
two sides of this. Remember,a conversation is an active, dynamic process.
There's somebody who's actively listening, hopefully, but the other person is sharing.
So I want to make I wantto make sure I get your attention
before I say anything, right,obviously, Okay, So the ability to
effectively talk. I'm going to sayone very I'm going to say several things,
(27:53):
but one of the things we haveto always keep in mind is less
is more. Don't be so verbose. You want to share about what you're
thinking and what you're feeling. Beclear, be precise, and concise.
Most of us go way around theworld to say the simplest thing. Sometimes
it's easy just to be linear.Say what you're thinking, say what you're
(28:14):
feeling. Now, I know that'scomplicated and it's full of a lot of
stuff that we can unpack at alater time, because that all goes back
to well, I'm not sure.I'm a little bit afraid to do that.
But in terms of the mechanics ofwhen you're sharing, be clear,
be precise. How many times areyou in a conversation like what are they
saying to me? I just don'tget it even when you're actually listening.
Be very precise. But before youdo that, before you head to the
(28:38):
table for that conversation, just havesome silence with yourself, reflect back on
what it is that you want toshare with the other person. Sometimes we
don't give ourselves time to reflect onwhat we want to share. We don't
know ourselves what we think and feelabout it, but we jump into the
conversation. If I text you andsay, hey, Greg, you know
I want to talk to you tonightabout what happened yesterday and I think we
(29:00):
need to resolve what happened, Ishould take a few minutes whatever time I
think I need to have this conversationwith you to reflect on it, and
I want to understand what I wantto say to you before I try to
help you understand what I'm trying tosay. Does that make any sense.
Yeah, I should. Yeah,most people they're very reactive in that part.
They just moddle it up and thenthe other person say, what are
you saying? Be clear, sitdown with yourself, have a vision of
(29:23):
what it is that you want theother person. So before we get into
the conversation, make sure you knowwhat you're going to say. Basically,
all you're saying is to the bestyou can get a couple of minutes and
just say, okay, this isI'm going to say it this way,
like what's my goal here, what'smy intention here? And use your use
your words with intention, purpose anddirection. People often go in circles,
right, I'm sure you've heard that. I've heard that we're going in circles
(29:45):
here. We're not getting anywhere.Yeah, yeah, because people do,
they're afraid and they take, youknow, five different exits to get to
exit one. Again, I understand. So we need to be clear,
we need to be precise, andwe need to also, like I said,
as any other active listening process isbreathe. Okay, sometimes I forget
to breathe when I'm talking, andthat raises our anxiety. It raises our
(30:07):
stress, and then we get scaredand we don't want to share what we're
thinking and feeling, we get anxious. Breathe. The silence is okay.
On the other side, too,we need to be able to take a
step back and say, okay,you know, give me a few minutes.
I need to recollect because I'm veryemotional. When we talk about emotional
things, we get emotional, andthat's okay. That's leading me into the
next point, which is come tothe conversation with more rationale than emotions.
(30:33):
Slow down, that would be anotherthing, right, yeah, slow down.
Well, the breathing will help ifyou can. If you control the
breathing, then you will slow down. Like I know, when I get
on here sometimes I'm a little bitmore nervous and anxious and that helps me.
But then I also have to say, okay, you to breathe.
The faster you talk, the morelikely you're going to say something unbleep things
you breathe, take a step back, but reflect on what you're going to
(30:56):
say. We need to be moreproactive than reactive. What does that mean
that again, going back to thinkabout what you're going to say, structured
in your mind as much as youcan, and come to the table with
that and I'm not saying don't shareyour emotions. It's very different. When
a conversation is led by my rationalmind, it's going to be much more
effective than it's led through my emotions. That's different to sharing. I can
(31:18):
be I can share my emotional emotionswith you in that time, but not
to be driven by my emotions.Does that make any sense? Oh yeah,
oh yeah absolutely, because if Iam, I'm going to start you
know, cursing, saying things maybethat you know, you're going to say,
I'm bleep a lot, Yeah,and then you're gonna check out and
active listening is going to go poopthroughout the window. We're going to wrap
this up in our next segment withsome some answers. Yeah, you're gonna
(31:41):
you're gonna help us out. Andit's all coming up on Unbleep Your Life
on News Talk eleven thirty wisn backto Unbleep your Life and Relationships on News
Talk eleven thirty wys Hey, guys, welcome back to Unbleep Your Life and
Relationships. I'm your host, AnitaAsley's a therapists of twenty five years and
plus. We are talking about talkingtoday and how to unbleep some of the
(32:05):
things that go wrong when we're tryingto have a conversation that's meaningful with our
partner, or our friends or ourfamily. We talked about becoming an active
listener, and then we're talking aboutthe other side, which is becoming an
effective talker. On the flip side, we have to be able to share
what we think and feel. AndI know that's complicated. It's not always
easy to do that, but todaywe're kind of talking about the mechanics of
how to make that happen. Andwe were just talking about in order to
(32:30):
share what we're thinking and feeling,we need to do certain things. And
one of the things I want toget into right now is to be respectful.
When we're sharing what we're thinking andfeeling, we need to be respectful
of the other person. We're notthere to call names, we're not there
to yell and scream. And Iget it. My I'm growing up in
an Indian family. There was alot of yelling and screaming, not a
(32:51):
lot of active listening. But alsoas a communicator and un like that,
I kind of speak with passion.I kind of speak like this most of
the time. And then I've beenwith people say why are you yelling?
I'm like, I'm not yelling.This is kind of how I talk,
so people have to get used tome. But that's okay. But I'm
always respectful. I'm not swearing,yelling, especially when I'm trying to solve
(33:12):
a problem with my partner. Letme get into you know, I want
to thank everybody who listens to thisshow and my Instagram followers who send me
questions all the time about how tounbleep their life and relationships, and especially
in regards to communication. It issuch a broad topic and there's so many
different parts of it, but todaywe're talking about the basic things we need
to get back to, which isan active listener, and of course the
(33:35):
other side is an effective communicator,meaning effective talking, sharing what you're thinking
and feeling. Question and I've alots of questions on this and comments,
but I'm going to pick one thatbasically, you know, synthesizes all of
it, which is when I talkto my partner, it seems they're never
listening to me, and we goaround in circles and when I come back
(33:57):
to what we just talked about,they have no idea they were listening.
They weren't actively listening, and thenwhen they shared that, the other person
became very defensive and then turn itsnowballs into something very ugly. And of
course I hear about that in myoffice all the time. How conversations don't
go to and of course you knowthere's parts of this question I want to
people start texting each other about it. Okay, guys, conversations are not
(34:20):
texting their verbal conversations. There's areason that that chapter in my book is
called unbleeping verbal communication. It's notcalled unbleeping texting. It's because we can
spend hours and hours in talking aboutthat. But I want to say to
people who have a similar scenario,if you can relate to what went on
with this couple and lots of othercouples when they're trying to resolve something,
(34:43):
is first of all, practice activelistening. We need to do that.
Come back to the table, andwhen you're effectively trying to share what you're
thinking and feeling, be precise,be direct, be respectful, be mindful.
But with this question, use intentionallanguage, and what does that mean?
Use eye language, don't use you. If I'm going to sit down
(35:05):
and try to solve a problem withyou, and I say, Greg,
every time you do this, youmake me feel blah blah blah. No,
I feel defensive, and I'm I'mgoing to come up with some kind
of rebuttal for that. Yeah,And you're going to defend yourself, and
then we're going to get into anattack defense mode of communication. Also something
we're going to talk about, whichis a very unhealthy dynamic. But if
I come to you and I said, Greg, I'm feeling really hurt every
(35:25):
time this happens, I'm not surehow to handle it because it really makes
me sad that we are always fightingin this relationship and I can't seem to
communicate very well. Right away,I'm thinking, I'm feeling like, what
can I do? What can Ihelp you? Yes, it's going to
be a constructed conversation and not adestructive conversation because the finger pointing you language
is basically finger pointing and putting youin the corner, and that's not going
(35:49):
to go anywhere productive. So wehave to be respectful. We have to
be mindful and own what it isthat we are doing in the conversation that's
not going well as the active asa passive listener. Perhaps that you are,
it's engaging in active listening, butalso as the effective talker, what
are you doing that's not making theconversation go where you want it to go.
We're going in circles. We don'twant to go in circles. We
(36:10):
want to break that negative dynamic andwe want a healthy, constructive conversation if
we're going to resolve something. Andthat's an Instagram question. You get those
all the time. I get alot of Instagram questions, and you guys
want to follow me on Instagram,it's called ask Anita. Ask Lee is
my handle, send me your commentsand questions, And that's part of the
show that I love. I lovebeing dynamic with my listeners and helping you
(36:31):
guys unbleep your life and relationships andsome of the basic things that we need
to get back to, which ishaving a verbal conversation with each other face
to face. If not face toface, then on the phone, maybe
FaceTime, but not through texting.I mean, sometimes we can't help it,
but if we're trying to resolve aproblem, it is not through texting
because that only goes sideways, becausewe miss so much of the affect We
(36:55):
miss so much of those stuff wetalked about today, like the non verbal
physical cues on both sides, whetheryou're the listener, active listener or whether
you're sharing the information every show.You kind of kind of wrapped things up
with five good points. Yes wegot some time. Go ahead. Top
five things to unbleep your life andrelationships. You guys need to write this
(37:15):
stuff up, put it on yourfridge and practice. You know, practice
does make perfect and it takes time. What I want you to know,
it takes time to unbleep these habitsthat we have and the new ones that
we're forming. We need to learnto unbleep that stuff again. I'm gonna
now express myself precisely, concisely andclearly because Greg is looking at me times
(37:35):
running out and here go run it. Okay, totally misread his physical cue.
Okay. Number one thing become anactive listener, you guys. You
can pick up my book. Ioutlined that in my book called Unbleep Your
Life and Relationships on Amazon and Simonand Schuster, and we just talked about
it. Listen to this show againand I guarantee you you can become an
active listener, have more productive conversations. Number two, going into a conversation,
(38:01):
seek to understand the other one's perspective. Most of us are not doing
that. What we're trying to dois get our point across. No,
no, no, shut up,and seek to understand. That's a very
different place to be than going inthere and just trying to force the other
person to prove, you know,prove that you're right, or they should
adopt adapt what you're thinking and feeling. No, we don't want to do
(38:22):
that. Number three, speak clearly, precisely and with intention. Don't waste
your words with meaningless rice cake words. Rice cake. We don't like them.
They have no nutrients and they don'tdo anything. They're a filler.
Number four. Internalize this mantra.Now I'm going to repeat this because when
(38:43):
I first aunt like what, onecannot not communicate? Okay, hold on,
what did you just say? Onecannot not communicate. Everything you do,
everything you say is a form ofcommunication. Whether you're the active listener
or whether you're the effective communicator,one cannot not communicate. It's like the
(39:04):
omission and commission of a crime.You can be guilty even while you fail
to do something, and you shouldhave done something. Oh I see.
What I'm trying to say is everythingthat we do is observable. While most
things are observable, it is tellingus something. It is some form of
communication. It's gonna take a whilejust digest. Well, yeah, well
we talked about it earlier. Therolling of the eyes, the shrugging of
the shoulders, everything is communication.Everything is communication. Be very mindful,
(39:28):
not just of what the other personis sharing with you through their nonverbal communication
and verbal communication, but also yourself. Like you said, rolling of the
eyes, Maybe you don't know thatyou do that. And then sometimes well
I often hear this, I didn'tdo that, Yeah you did. Are
you looking in the mirror right now, because I'm looking at you and you
just well your I didn't say it. I kind of a But that's the
(39:50):
kind of stuff that if our partneris saying that, rather than being defensive
about it, no I didn't,Maybe you did. But then you need
to slow your mind down, slowyour breathing down, instead of being defensive
about it, saying Okay, maybeshe's got a point, maybe he's got
a point. I've got to beopen to that. Have an open mind.
And number five, bring back verbalcommunication. In your relationship. Don't
(40:15):
let texting be the primary mode ofcommunication. Like just like in the last
or the other episode, I said, bring back gathered eating as opposed to
scathered eating, bring back verbal communication. We need to be able to talk
to each other physically with words,be in the same room. I love
the convenience of texting. It's quick, it's efficient, but it is not
(40:38):
good for resolving conflict. It isnot effective what I have found in my
personal and professional life. It onlycreates more because it just opens the door
for miscommunication and misinterpretation. Words areimportant. We need to make them count.
And when it's just a word ona screen, I could ascribe ten
(40:58):
different meanings to it. Because Idon't know your contexts and you don't know
mine. And depending on what's goingon with me or where I come from,
my family of origin stuff which wedidn't get into today, I'm going
to take that to a different placeand maybe it's meant to go there.
Talking communicating. That's what we didthis week. What are we going to
talk about next week? We aregoing to be talking about conflict resolution.
(41:20):
One of the things that people strugglewith. Most of us struggle with conflict
resolution. But guess what if wecan learn to talk to each other,
we can learn to resolve conflict.How do we get a hold of your
book? It is on Amazon andSimon and Schuster. It's caught on Bleep
Your Life and Relationships. I needto Askley, it's not really called on
bleep. But I can't say thatwe're on TV. Maybe we get on
TV, on radio, maybe wethe the you party is Yeah, maybe
(41:46):
we need to have a show onthat. Why can't we say that word?
How therapeutic that word really is?I know one of these shows these
days we are going to talk aboutit. But join us next week as
we continue is I continue to helpyou and Bleep Your Life and Relationship from
the inside Out A news talk eleventhirty WYSN
Relationships weather, romantic, platonic,familial are complicated and can be downright MESSI
bringing out the best and worst inall of us. Here's an opportunity for
you to learn effective, concrete strategiesto help you build healthy relationships from the
inside out. It's Unbleep Your Lifeand Relationships with host Anita Ashling, psychotherapist
(00:23):
of over twenty five years. Hey, guys, welcome to another show of
Unbeep Your Life and Relationships. I'myour host, Anita Astley. If you're
joining us for the first time.I'm a licensed marriage, Family and Individual
therapist license in Wisconsin at the moment, and I recently came out with a
book called Unbleep Your Life and Relationships. Now just use your imagination. It's
(00:45):
not actually unbleep, but I can'tsay the word on this radio show because
of all the rules and regulations.But you can find that on Amazon and
you can find it on Simon andSchuster. My passion is to help other
people resolve some of their issues withinthemselves, but also their relationships. I've
been doing this for so long Idecided that I wanted to take my message
(01:07):
out of my office and talk topeople on a larger scale and a national
level to come out of the goalis to become, you know, the
next opera of relationships. When Isay that to people and be like,
oh my god, you crazy,well I kind of am. I guess
to be in this business, youkind of have to be. And yes
I'm using that word loosely, sodon't report me or freak out. And
(01:29):
I have in studio my producer Gregwho always chimes in. I love his
feedback on some of the stuff wetalk about. It gives us the male
perspective what I like about this show. And you know, doing it for
a couple of weeks, now youalways have you have answers at the end,
I tried all the questions and yeah, I have like five points or
something like that. Yeah, it'sthe top five things that you need to
(01:49):
do to unbleep whatever it is you'retalking about. And now I always want
to remind the listeners that this isnot therapies. This is just me sharing
my expert opinion in my experiences andlike I do in the book my own
personal story on how Adversity builds Resilience. I do believe that most people can
unbleep their life and relationships from theinside I know use a tag phrase from
(02:13):
the inside out, because we dohave to start with ourselves. We have
to look in the mirror. Todaywe are going to talk about talking.
People say, what are you goingto talk about talking? You're good at
talking. But there's various aspects ofcommunication I believe we need to get back
to in a very digital world.Last couple of shows, you know,
we talked about emotional intimacy, wetalked about physical intimacy. But none of
(02:37):
those things can effectively be resolved.They're confronted if we don't know how to
talk to each other. Just thinkabout that. I have to help people
learn to talk to each other.And sometimes people come into my office with
you know, complicated and sometimes that'sa complicated issues. And communication, by
the way, is a huge umbrellabecause I'll say, what's going on?
Communication problems? It doesn't tell memuch. There's a lot of digging exploring
(03:00):
that we end up doing together.But one of the major things, our
main things. I'll ask that personor a couple to say, well,
did you talk to the other personabout it? And often they'll look at
me like what what are you talkingabout? I'm like, did you know,
and they'll be like, is thiswhat I'm paying you for? Is
that all you got for me?I paid you all this money and you're
(03:22):
just gonna go tell me to gotalk to this person. Like yeah,
because if you can't do that,we are not going to resolve any conflict.
We're not going to get anywhere.So that leads nicely into talking about
talking today. Most people today theirprimary mode of communication, Greg, what
do you think it is probably texting? Right? Yeah, it is texting.
(03:44):
And why is that a problem?It is a problem because so much
in miss So much is missed ina text, like the tone, the
affect, and where when we're talking, Like Greg and I are sitting here
today in the studio, I'm lookingat him and we give each other cues.
There's verbal cue use, there's aphysical cues, gestures on his face
and then he'll go uh huh andI'll go uh huh. That tells us
(04:05):
in this communication, in this conversation, that we are paying attention to the
other person. Now, in texting, so much of that is missed.
And of course there's all kinds ofmisinterpretations and miscommunications that take place. I've
seen people I have gone through thismyself and my kids will say, Mom,
you're not supposed to return a textwith a phone call. I'm like,
(04:27):
listen, I talk about this inmy book. If I have to
write a paragraph to you to respondto this message, and this paragraph could
be totally taken out of context,words you know that are not supposed to
be taken the way. And thishas happened to me, and I listened
to this happening to people all thetime. I'm going to pick up the
phone and I'm going to call it. I do the same thing. I
even tell my kids because they're alwayssay that, why'd you call me,
(04:48):
dad? I just just text me, I go, I want to.
I can't go for one thing.I got fat fingers. It takes me
forever to text anything. I'd ratherjust talk to you. Yeah, And
people don't know how to do that. It is an art to be able
to speak to somebody. And youknow, of course, I am not
purpuying texting. I love it.It's convenient. Of course, I want
(05:08):
my kids or my patients to say, hey, I got to cancel,
or i'm late, or i'm here. It is great for data exchange.
Data that can't be misinterpreted like Iam going to be five minutes late,
how are you going to interpret?You can read all kinds of other stuff
into it, but generally speaking,it's like, Okay, you're going to
be five minutes late, thank youfor letting me know that, and I'm
going to be expecting that to happen. But to try to resolve complicated problems
(05:31):
or issues through text messaging doesn't work, and I want this. If anything
you take away from today's show isto understand that that does not work.
And that's very different to saying,hey, we got a problem. Can
we talk about this today at fiveo'clock. Great, it's quick, it's
convenient, and I've related a messageto you. You received it, you
(05:51):
can say yes, no, orwhatever. We can play around with that.
But to resolve complicated problems, it'san issue. And people will say
to me, well, why,and you know why do I got to
switch? Well all the reasons wejust mentioned, And one of the major
things is because if we don't learnto talk, it's going to affect our
entire relationship. Like we talked aboutemotional intimacy. If we can't resolve conflict,
(06:15):
we can't develop build nurture our emotionalintimacy, and that's going to affect
our We talked about physical intimacy andso on and so on and so on,
so you get it. There's aripple effect that goes on. There's
a misinterpretation too, a lot oftimes with texts, What did you mean
by that? Well, what didthat mean? Was that okay? Or
is it just can't? I mean, yeah, I get that too.
(06:38):
Yeah. Sometimes I have to Googleand my kids send me and there's an
abbreviation. I'm like, oh mygod, they can't they can they just
write the word? Is it sohard? Or just freaking call me?
I was? I almost adopt theFM, but that's fine. I just
think this is well, that wasa good form of communication that you guys.
Miss He kind of looked at me, and I looked at him,
like, oh, I'm not supposedto say that, but there we go.
(06:59):
If we were texting about that,that wouldn't have happened. But anyway,
So I'm not an old fart.I love texting. It's convenient,
it's quick, but we have toget back to some of the basics of
love and life. Part of myone of the mantras I try to share
with other people, and I wantthem to eternalize some things we just need
to get back to, and that'sverbal communication. There's a reason I called
that chapter in my book, chapternumber three. It's called and bleep verbal
(07:24):
communication is because I want people tostart talking to each other again. I
don't know if you've heard this,but I have friends who have businesses and
they're say to me, Anita,this generation can't pick up the phone.
They don't know how to deal witha customer. So there's personal reasons,
there's professional reasons. But today Iwant to talk about if we're trying to
(07:47):
resolve a conflict, we need toget back to the basics of communicating with
each other. And you're gonna say, well, what are some of those
basic things we need to learn todo? Any idea? Oh help me?
Ah? Number One, actively listen. Most people do not actively listen,
and we're all guilty of that.Right we hear words, we kind
(08:09):
of respond selectively because we take inwhat we want to hear. Selective listening
or hearing I want to call it. My wife says that to me all
the time. Selective hearing. Yeah, they're like, Greg, did you
actually hear what I said. Yeah, I heard the words, but I
wasn't listening. How many times doI hear that? In my office?
(08:30):
He or she doesn't listen to me. My kids don't listen to me.
No one listens to me. AllI do is speak and shout and all
that kind of stuff. We needto get back to active listening. And
you might say, well, Inever learned to because in my family of
origin, no one listened to eachother. We just kind of yelled at
tea out O reach out, wetalked. That's what my family was.
We just kind of yelled, screamtalked over each other. Did anybody actually
(08:52):
listen? Some things went in,but most things didn't go in. So
we need to replace what I callpassive listening with active listening. And I'm
gonna say, what is active listening? What is it? Just what we're
doing right now. I'm looking atyou, listening to you. We are
paying attention to what you're concentrating.I'm looking at you, you're looking at
me. So the part of activelistening let people miss. Number one thing
(09:16):
we have to do is pay attentionto the physical, the nonverbal behavior that's
taking place. What I speak,I often use my hands, and when
I'm listening to somebody, I haveto put them down, like, okay,
I want the person to know thatI'm listening to them. So what
do I do with It's not onlyabout the ears. I'm listening with my
eyes. I'm looking at you.I'm making sure that what you're actually saying
(09:37):
to me is congruent with what andyour body, Like if you're telling me
something, that's a positive thing.But I look kind of crying. I'm
like, oh, wait a minute, the two don't go together, like
what's going on here? If weweren't sitting here face to face, I
would miss that. All I wouldhear are the words, but I wouldn't
see your physical state. So it'svery important, guys. Number one thing
(10:00):
when you're trying to actively listen tosomebody, and of course I encourage you
to be in the same room together. I get it that that can always
happen. What there's FaceTime and there'salso a phone call because the voice,
shaking of your voice, all thesethings tell me something about what it is
that you're thinking and what you're feelingand what you're trying to communicate to me.
But I jump the gun here.What I want to say is listening
(10:22):
is an active process. It isactivity. Most people do it passively,
So that's what I'm doing right now. No, no, no, most
people do it passively. I wantyou to think about that, because we
don't think about listening as an activity, but it is an activity that requires
our body and mind to be involved. So the one thing I just shared
with you is a physical connection ofactually being in a conversation with somebody is
(10:46):
paying attention to those things. Andthose are the things that we talked about
that are a mess in a textmessage. I don't see that. I
don't see the context of where youare. I don't see the context of
what you're physically saying to me.I'm in radio and i've in radio for
one hundred and fifty five years.I have inflection and I use that a
lot. On the phone is inflectiona big part of it too. Like
(11:07):
if you're just talking on the phone, absolutely, I could say to you,
Greg, you suck, or Icould say, you know what,
you really suck? Like those two. The way that I just said that
is going to make you think howthe first one was like, oh,
are you serious? I answered itfor you. See, I'm not listening
to you right now. I seeyour point. Yes, So it's not
(11:28):
necessarily well what we say, buthow we sit. And that's what we're
talking about today. Effective communication involvesactive listening. We're going to get back
to that in just a few minutes. Yeah, and we'll find out if
I really suck or not. Unbleepyour Life on News Talk eleven thirty WISN.
Here's more of Unbleep your Life andRelationships on News Talk eleven thirty WISA.
(11:52):
Welcome back to Unbleep your Life andRelationships. I'm your host, Danni
to Astley, psychotherapist of twenty fiveyears is I'm here to help you and
bleep your life and relationships from theinside out. Today we're talking about something
very basic which is kind of lostin today's world of digital communication, which
is getting back to the basics oftalking to each other. And Greg and
(12:13):
I were just talking about well,he asked me, well, how do
I become a better listener? Andone of the things I say that you
have to do is become an activelistener. Most of us listen, but
we are passively listening. And Iwant to say to you guys, if
anything today, I want you tothink about listening as an active process.
You have to be engaged and youhave to be involved in one of the
(12:35):
ways to do it because it's alwaysabout Okay, Anita, now that you've
diagnosed my problem, I don't knowhow to listen. I'm a passive listener.
How do I do this? Well. One of the things I can
I just try absolutely look at theperson. Yes, eye contact. I
was just gonna because you know,you're busy washing dishes or something like that,
and somebody's your wife is talking andyour husband's talking to you, and
(12:56):
you're not really paying attention. You'renot paying attention just around a look.
Yeah, all right, And that'scalled actively listening. If I am like
right now, we're looking at eachother, you kind of on an angle.
But every time we're going to goto a commercial or do something,
we look at each other. Wedon't have to say anything, but the
gestures tell me that, Okay,Greg and his body his movement tells me
that he's getting ready for a breakand wants me to the Other thing to
(13:20):
be a good active listener is toshut up very good. If I want
to actively listen to what you're saying, I have to shut up, and
most people have a hard time withthat because we love talking. We love
to talk about ourselves, we loveto share a story. But guess what,
when we are in a conversation withsomebody and we're trying to resolve something
or even a general conversation, weneed to shut up and list actively listen
(13:43):
to what the other person is saying. We talked about the physical cues,
We talked about sitting in the sameroom together, next to each other,
making eye contact. The other partis we need to be quiet like this,
Oh yeah, that's really awkward onradio. We can't do that.
We can, but we have toget comfortable with silence. The other things
we need to learn to do.We have to get comfortable with silence.
(14:03):
Whenever there's silence, we generally meanpeople become uncomfortable. They feel they have
to fill it up with some whatI call rice cake words. Yeah,
that's me. I do that allthe time. Get comfortable with silence and
don't use rice cake words, whichare any idea any anyone? So what's
going on? What do you mean? Yeah, they're fillers, like if
you think about a rice cake,I call letting like nice, fine,
(14:26):
Okay, these are all fillers.They don't mean anything. And I call
them rice cake words because rice cakes, if you've ever had one, they
don't taste like anything. They're actuallyjust trying to fill yourself up with something.
But then you're like, why didI eat that? There's no nutritional
value, there's nothing, sure,nice, fine, Okay, are those
fillers And we don't need to dothat. We don't need to fill the
silence. Become comfortable with silence.And I know that's trually hard as a
(14:50):
therapist. I had to do thatmyself. Become very comfortable when there's you
know, three of us, twoof us sitting in my therapy office and
then there's complete silence. It's okay. We have to become comfortable because that's
when processing is taking place. Weare reflecting, we are thinking back and
don't jump in. When you're theactive listener. Allow the silence to be
(15:11):
there because maybe that person is theOther thing we need to do is breathing.
Yeah, because we forget. Iforget to do that to when I'm
talking. I forget to breathe becauseI talk fast sometimes, but breathe.
Allow the silence to take place.It is not an opportunity for you to
jump in the other thing that wedo when we're not a very good listener,
we interrupt. I do that sometimesstill, and I have to really
(15:33):
be mindful of Okay, I haveto actively listen and I'm not going to
interrupt Greg because he's talking, he'ssharing what he's thinking and feeling with you.
You can you find a spot whereyou can interrupt. Is that what
you're looking for? Ques? Ifthe person is ending a sentence, it's
not the other thing you're bringing itLeading right to the other point is it's
not about you. When you're activelylistening, it's not about you. You're
(15:56):
listening and trying to understand what theother person is saying to you. You
can ask clarifying questions, and that'sbeing a good active listeners, Like Okay,
when there's a pause, you cansay, well, what did you
mean by that? Can you clarifythat? For me? Ask questions.
If I really want to understand whatyou're saying about a conflict or whatever we're
discussing, I need to ask youquestions. And then when there's silence,
(16:17):
I can say, can I askyou? Can I ask you a question
because I'm not really sure I understandwhat you're saying. Are you saying ABCD
And then you can say yeah,I'm saying that. O'm oh my god,
you're not. You know, peopleget accused athough you're not really listening
to what I'm saying. No,it might be in the situation that I
am, but I misunderstood. SoI ask a clarifying question, Greg,
did you mean to say this?And you're gonna say yes or no,
(16:37):
but allow the silence to take place. We are very uncomfortable with silence as
a society because we feel we haveto jump in. But that's a you
problem, that's not a me problem. For in a conversation, and you
jump in every time there's silence.I've been Can I just process, I'm
reflecting on this what we're going throughbefore you go to the next thing.
I have to say. You gotto remember, I'm in radio. There's
(17:00):
dead air. I know't I know, but well, we're not going to
be silent on here. But ifthe air that you don't have to do
that. But we are a societyof constantly wanting to hear something fill the
empty space up. And when you'rehaving a conversation with somebody, it's okay,
get comfortable with it, but Iunderstand that most of us, most
(17:22):
of us, sorry, are uncomfortablewith it. Embrace the silence and ask
questions. I ask questions. Allright, next rebuttal? Do you know
what I mean by rebuttal? I'vebeen there, you've been there, We've
all been there. We are listeningto somebody passively listening, and what are
we doing? We're getting ready,we're not We're forming a rebuttal. Have
you done that? Sure? Yeah, you're like, okay, they're accusing
(17:45):
me of this. Are cute,Like the wheels are turning. I can
tell when somebody is not actively there. The wheels are turning. They're waiting
to jump in. They're forming arebuttal about what the other person is saying,
and it generally starts with I don'tdo that. No, that's not
true, you're wrong. That's absolutelyright. I see what you're saying.
You're not actively listening if you're forminga rebuttal, because you're not paying attention
(18:06):
to the material that the person issharing with you. Your head is somewhere
else. You're not paying attention asan active listener. You got to shut
that out. And that's really hardto do because most of us are trained
to defend ourselves. It's our biology, particularly in relationships, when we feel
we're being accused of things, andwhen we have a serious conversation, whatever
turn the isolve a problem. Youknow, the feeling of we need to
(18:27):
talk tonight. You're like, oh, I almost said, oh bleep,
what is it going to be anattack on me? What did I do
wrong this time? All these thingsabout ourselves where we don't go, well,
wait a minute, And I knowthis context outside of this, but
today we're talking about the mechanics oftalking to each other, engaging in an
effective conversation. So how do Iget away from doing the rebuttal It's retraining
(18:52):
your mind and retraining the way youthink about the conversation and reframing what you
think about listening to. I'm goingto be an active listener. And for
me to be active listener, Ineed to do some of the things we're
talking about right now, and ittakes time. This is not going to
change overnight. This is something weneed to practice, and most of us
are not good at it, particularlyin today's world, because we have so
many things coming at us. Wedon't know how to actively listen. We
(19:15):
have a lot of noise, Wehave a lot of sounds. We hear
things. Even though we have twoears, we tend not to use them
very effectively because we're passive. Soas far as rebuddles, I mean,
what are you looking for? Whatam I trying not to do? If
trying, well, we talked aboutnot interrupting, you're trying to focus on
what they are saying about themselves.Yes, it includes you because if we're
(19:37):
in a relationship and we're going tohave a serious conversation about some issue that
we're having, it's dynamic. It'snot one way. It's two way.
But that's the part about active listeningthat it's a two way process. Passive
listening is not. It's just yousitting there like a lump, and then
I'll say to you did you hearme? And you'll be were you listening?
I mean, I'm sure if Gregare you listening? Anita a mom?
(20:00):
Are you listening? I get thatall the time and my kids are
You must suck as a therapist becauseyou don't know how to listen to me.
I'm like, dude, when Iget paid, it's a different story.
I'm active. I'm more actively listeningbut we are all we're all guilty
of doing it. So it's justtrying to become a better listener. Act
I'm confused, because how do youretrain your brain from doing that? Because
we always don't do that. Yes, first you have to recognize that you
(20:22):
do that, Like what the nexttime you're in a conversation with your partner
or a friend or whatever it is, ask yourself, am I really focused?
Am I paying attention? Or ismy mind going off to you know,
the kids are going to be homein like ten minutes and I've got
to put the snack out, orshoot, I got a yoga class coming
up, or get a run offto work. If that's going on,
then you can actually say to theperson, hey, I'm not really focused
(20:44):
right now. And sometimes it is. We've been talking way too long about
this, and I really want tolisten to what you're saying, but my
attention spent is just not there today. And to be able to say,
let's put this on, We're goingto talk about this at another show on
your emotional bookshelf very important. Weshould all we all have one guy,
We're going to talk about it ona different episode. Put it away,
but at least you have to agreeto come back to that conversation. Recognize
(21:06):
the fact that you're not able tofocus anymore. It's too much so so
don't think of that. You haveto defend yourself right off the bat.
Well most of us do because wefeel we're being attacked. That's we're going
to get to the you know,the other part of that, which is
effective sharing. So when you're activelylistening to somebody and you feel like you
can't focus anymore, you need tobe able to say, I can't focus.
(21:29):
Can we continue this very important conversationat a different time. But that
takes self awareness. You have tobe aware that you're losing focus. Let's
take that and go to the nextsegment and talk about that. It is
Unblip your Life on news Talk eleventhirty wisn. Anita Astlete has more advice
on how to on bleep your Lifeand Relationships on news Talk eleven thirty Wyss
(21:56):
Welcome back to Unbleep your Life andRelationships. I'm your host and to ask
lie today we are talking about talkinghow do we effectively engage in a conversation?
And I was saying, you know, to Greg over here, we
need to switch from passive listening toactive listening, and yes, friends,
it is an active process that involvesengagement, not just you know when people
(22:17):
say, well let me just sitback and listen. No, no,
no, lean into the conversation.We talked about some of the most important
things we need to do to demonstrateto the other person that we indeed are
actively listening with our body, withour eyes, and with our mind.
It is not a passive product formrebuttals every single time, no, shut
up and listen, actively listen.The other thing I want to talk about
(22:40):
is you know something that I've talkedI've mentioned before in previous conversations with you
guys, is put away your phone? Like now, right now, Greg's
phone was going off and I'm lookingat I'm like, Greg, your phone
is beeping. Can you put thataway? You're supposed to be engaged in
this, yeh with me? Don'tput it on the table. Don't you
know? I see that all thetime people carrying their phone phones around.
(23:00):
What do we do when we hadthe phones that plugged into the wall.
Most three, we're too young?What are you going to carry this big
black thing? In mind was carriedaround with you it's a problem, and
it doesn't. It's not It's notenough that you turn it off or you
silence that thing. You put itaway, out of sight, out of
mind. We need to be fullyengaged in the active listening process. Put
that thing away, and you guys, will hear me say this often.
(23:22):
I love technology, but it interfereswith some of the basic things we need
to get back to in life,which is verbal communication with each other.
So I love it, but sometimesit just needs to go. I want
the record to show that I putmy phone behind me, I can't see
it, and I shut it off. I'm just bugging. It was a
great opportunity for me to demonstrate Gregis like a guinea pig in here.
(23:45):
He's a great sport. The otherthing we need to do, and we're
not always mindful of, is rollingof the eyes. You know what I'm
talking about. We're in a conversationand we roll the eye. And what
does that tell the person They're notcare. They don't care, they don't
care. As an active listener,they don't care. Yeah whatever, Yeah,
(24:07):
And I could do that. I'msaying, yeah, I'm listening to
you, but I'm rolling my eyes. I'm looking at the ceiling. I'm
looking elsewhere, but at you.It's a nonverbal I would call them pat
while rolling of the eyes is verypassive aggressive. We will talk about that
at a later time. It's waytoo much to get into today, but
it is. It is sending offa signal to you. If I'm rolling
my eyes at you, you're gonnabe like, oh, here you go,
rolling your eyes again. You're notlosing it. Then it snowballs into
(24:30):
something else. We need to bemindful. Often we are not mindful of
what our body is saying. Thatmaybe in contradiction to what our words are
saying. There's an incongruence between whatwe're saying and what our body is saying
about it. Does that make sense? Well, how about your like your
shoulders, you're you know, shruggingof your shoulders. I'm sure that would
(24:51):
absolutely Yeah. So it's not justabout the words. It's about the physicality.
And I'll go back to what Italked about earlier, all of which
is missed when we're sending a textto each other. I don't see that.
If you're sending me a text withtrying to resolve something, I don't
see any of that. And that'svital information. And when people you know
kind of was related, not related, but kind of is after COVID or
(25:15):
during COVID, I did therapy virtuallyon the phone. Yeah, and when
I didn't see the person, ifit wasn't FaceTime or using some app which
allowed me to do that, Imissed all of those things. And when
we when people started coming back tothe office like, Okay, this is
what I need. Because part ofhelping and being engaged in a conversation therapeutic
conversation is obviously different. I wantto see you, I want to see
(25:37):
what your body is telling me.I want to listen to your words.
I want to also also know howyou're saying this to me. So all
those things are very important for meto understand what it is that you want
to share with me. And thatgets lost. Yeah, we're talking today
about talking, Yeah, and asan active listener as part of that process.
Before I talk about effective talking,we just talked about active listening.
(26:03):
When the conversation on the other person'sside you think is coming to a close,
like they're done, because we oftensaid are you done? That's not
the way we want to say,because you know it's like, yeah,
well you want me to shut up, break There's all kinds of things we
read into that. Again, toneright and say okay, are you finished
sharing your perspective? Then I suggestthat as the active listener, you summarize
(26:25):
kind of what you got from thatconversation. That's sharing that the other person
just did. So we have tomake sure we have an understanding because again,
as an active listener, of ourgoal is to understand the perspective of
the other person. It is notabout us. It is to really understand.
And when active listening is involved,we are looking to understand, not
(26:48):
judged, not convinced, because that'swhat a lot of people try to do
or to prove that they're wrong.We want to understand the other person's perspective.
That is the beauty of being anactive listener. We've been talking about
the listening aspect of this. Whatare some of the pointers that you can
give us to make sure we listen. Well, I'm going to give you
those things, those points that bleepyour life and relationships at the end of
(27:11):
the show. But before we dothat, Greg, we've got to talk
about the other side. What's thatwhen you're sharing you're an effective talker,
How to be an affection show taking, how to be an effective talker.
Okay, let's talk about that.Let's talk about it. What do you
think Number One thing we need todo when we are on the other side,
so we're not actively listening anymore.I'm done listening to you. Now
(27:32):
it's my turn to share what I'mgoing to say to you. Because there's
two sides of this. Remember,a conversation is an active, dynamic process.
There's somebody who's actively listening, hopefully, but the other person is sharing.
So I want to make I wantto make sure I get your attention
before I say anything, right,obviously, Okay, So the ability to
effectively talk. I'm going to sayone very I'm going to say several things,
(27:53):
but one of the things we haveto always keep in mind is less
is more. Don't be so verbose. You want to share about what you're
thinking and what you're feeling. Beclear, be precise, and concise.
Most of us go way around theworld to say the simplest thing. Sometimes
it's easy just to be linear.Say what you're thinking, say what you're
(28:14):
feeling. Now, I know that'scomplicated and it's full of a lot of
stuff that we can unpack at alater time, because that all goes back
to well, I'm not sure.I'm a little bit afraid to do that.
But in terms of the mechanics ofwhen you're sharing, be clear,
be precise. How many times areyou in a conversation like what are they
saying to me? I just don'tget it even when you're actually listening.
Be very precise. But before youdo that, before you head to the
(28:38):
table for that conversation, just havesome silence with yourself, reflect back on
what it is that you want toshare with the other person. Sometimes we
don't give ourselves time to reflect onwhat we want to share. We don't
know ourselves what we think and feelabout it, but we jump into the
conversation. If I text you andsay, hey, Greg, you know
I want to talk to you tonightabout what happened yesterday and I think we
(29:00):
need to resolve what happened, Ishould take a few minutes whatever time I
think I need to have this conversationwith you to reflect on it, and
I want to understand what I wantto say to you before I try to
help you understand what I'm trying tosay. Does that make any sense.
Yeah, I should. Yeah,most people they're very reactive in that part.
They just moddle it up and thenthe other person say, what are
you saying? Be clear, sitdown with yourself, have a vision of
(29:23):
what it is that you want theother person. So before we get into
the conversation, make sure you knowwhat you're going to say. Basically,
all you're saying is to the bestyou can get a couple of minutes and
just say, okay, this isI'm going to say it this way,
like what's my goal here, what'smy intention here? And use your use
your words with intention, purpose anddirection. People often go in circles,
right, I'm sure you've heard that. I've heard that we're going in circles
(29:45):
here. We're not getting anywhere.Yeah, yeah, because people do,
they're afraid and they take, youknow, five different exits to get to
exit one. Again, I understand. So we need to be clear,
we need to be precise, andwe need to also, like I said,
as any other active listening process isbreathe. Okay, sometimes I forget
to breathe when I'm talking, andthat raises our anxiety. It raises our
(30:07):
stress, and then we get scaredand we don't want to share what we're
thinking and feeling, we get anxious. Breathe. The silence is okay.
On the other side, too,we need to be able to take a
step back and say, okay,you know, give me a few minutes.
I need to recollect because I'm veryemotional. When we talk about emotional
things, we get emotional, andthat's okay. That's leading me into the
next point, which is come tothe conversation with more rationale than emotions.
(30:33):
Slow down, that would be anotherthing, right, yeah, slow down.
Well, the breathing will help ifyou can. If you control the
breathing, then you will slow down. Like I know, when I get
on here sometimes I'm a little bitmore nervous and anxious and that helps me.
But then I also have to say, okay, you to breathe.
The faster you talk, the morelikely you're going to say something unbleep things
you breathe, take a step back, but reflect on what you're going to
(30:56):
say. We need to be moreproactive than reactive. What does that mean
that again, going back to thinkabout what you're going to say, structured
in your mind as much as youcan, and come to the table with
that and I'm not saying don't shareyour emotions. It's very different. When
a conversation is led by my rationalmind, it's going to be much more
effective than it's led through my emotions. That's different to sharing. I can
(31:18):
be I can share my emotional emotionswith you in that time, but not
to be driven by my emotions.Does that make any sense? Oh yeah,
oh yeah absolutely, because if Iam, I'm going to start you
know, cursing, saying things maybethat you know, you're going to say,
I'm bleep a lot, Yeah,and then you're gonna check out and
active listening is going to go poopthroughout the window. We're going to wrap
this up in our next segment withsome some answers. Yeah, you're gonna
(31:41):
you're gonna help us out. Andit's all coming up on Unbleep Your Life
on News Talk eleven thirty wisn backto Unbleep your Life and Relationships on News
Talk eleven thirty wys Hey, guys, welcome back to Unbleep Your Life and
Relationships. I'm your host, AnitaAsley's a therapists of twenty five years and
plus. We are talking about talkingtoday and how to unbleep some of the
(32:05):
things that go wrong when we're tryingto have a conversation that's meaningful with our
partner, or our friends or ourfamily. We talked about becoming an active
listener, and then we're talking aboutthe other side, which is becoming an
effective talker. On the flip side, we have to be able to share
what we think and feel. AndI know that's complicated. It's not always
easy to do that, but todaywe're kind of talking about the mechanics of
how to make that happen. Andwe were just talking about in order to
(32:30):
share what we're thinking and feeling,we need to do certain things. And
one of the things I want toget into right now is to be respectful.
When we're sharing what we're thinking andfeeling, we need to be respectful
of the other person. We're notthere to call names, we're not there
to yell and scream. And Iget it. My I'm growing up in
an Indian family. There was alot of yelling and screaming, not a
(32:51):
lot of active listening. But alsoas a communicator and un like that,
I kind of speak with passion.I kind of speak like this most of
the time. And then I've beenwith people say why are you yelling?
I'm like, I'm not yelling.This is kind of how I talk,
so people have to get used tome. But that's okay. But I'm
always respectful. I'm not swearing,yelling, especially when I'm trying to solve
(33:12):
a problem with my partner. Letme get into you know, I want
to thank everybody who listens to thisshow and my Instagram followers who send me
questions all the time about how tounbleep their life and relationships, and especially
in regards to communication. It issuch a broad topic and there's so many
different parts of it, but todaywe're talking about the basic things we need
to get back to, which isan active listener, and of course the
(33:35):
other side is an effective communicator,meaning effective talking, sharing what you're thinking
and feeling. Question and I've alots of questions on this and comments,
but I'm going to pick one thatbasically, you know, synthesizes all of
it, which is when I talkto my partner, it seems they're never
listening to me, and we goaround in circles and when I come back
(33:57):
to what we just talked about,they have no idea they were listening.
They weren't actively listening, and thenwhen they shared that, the other person
became very defensive and then turn itsnowballs into something very ugly. And of
course I hear about that in myoffice all the time. How conversations don't
go to and of course you knowthere's parts of this question I want to
people start texting each other about it. Okay, guys, conversations are not
(34:20):
texting their verbal conversations. There's areason that that chapter in my book is
called unbleeping verbal communication. It's notcalled unbleeping texting. It's because we can
spend hours and hours in talking aboutthat. But I want to say to
people who have a similar scenario,if you can relate to what went on
with this couple and lots of othercouples when they're trying to resolve something,
(34:43):
is first of all, practice activelistening. We need to do that.
Come back to the table, andwhen you're effectively trying to share what you're
thinking and feeling, be precise,be direct, be respectful, be mindful.
But with this question, use intentionallanguage, and what does that mean?
Use eye language, don't use you. If I'm going to sit down
(35:05):
and try to solve a problem withyou, and I say, Greg,
every time you do this, youmake me feel blah blah blah. No,
I feel defensive, and I'm I'mgoing to come up with some kind
of rebuttal for that. Yeah,And you're going to defend yourself, and
then we're going to get into anattack defense mode of communication. Also something
we're going to talk about, whichis a very unhealthy dynamic. But if
I come to you and I said, Greg, I'm feeling really hurt every
(35:25):
time this happens, I'm not surehow to handle it because it really makes
me sad that we are always fightingin this relationship and I can't seem to
communicate very well. Right away,I'm thinking, I'm feeling like, what
can I do? What can Ihelp you? Yes, it's going to
be a constructed conversation and not adestructive conversation because the finger pointing you language
is basically finger pointing and putting youin the corner, and that's not going
(35:49):
to go anywhere productive. So wehave to be respectful. We have to
be mindful and own what it isthat we are doing in the conversation that's
not going well as the active asa passive listener. Perhaps that you are,
it's engaging in active listening, butalso as the effective talker, what
are you doing that's not making theconversation go where you want it to go.
We're going in circles. We don'twant to go in circles. We
(36:10):
want to break that negative dynamic andwe want a healthy, constructive conversation if
we're going to resolve something. Andthat's an Instagram question. You get those
all the time. I get alot of Instagram questions, and you guys
want to follow me on Instagram,it's called ask Anita. Ask Lee is
my handle, send me your commentsand questions, And that's part of the
show that I love. I lovebeing dynamic with my listeners and helping you
(36:31):
guys unbleep your life and relationships andsome of the basic things that we need
to get back to, which ishaving a verbal conversation with each other face
to face. If not face toface, then on the phone, maybe
FaceTime, but not through texting.I mean, sometimes we can't help it,
but if we're trying to resolve aproblem, it is not through texting
because that only goes sideways, becausewe miss so much of the affect We
(36:55):
miss so much of those stuff wetalked about today, like the non verbal
physical cues on both sides, whetheryou're the listener, active listener or whether
you're sharing the information every show.You kind of kind of wrapped things up
with five good points. Yes wegot some time. Go ahead. Top
five things to unbleep your life andrelationships. You guys need to write this
(37:15):
stuff up, put it on yourfridge and practice. You know, practice
does make perfect and it takes time. What I want you to know,
it takes time to unbleep these habitsthat we have and the new ones that
we're forming. We need to learnto unbleep that stuff again. I'm gonna
now express myself precisely, concisely andclearly because Greg is looking at me times
(37:35):
running out and here go run it. Okay, totally misread his physical cue.
Okay. Number one thing become anactive listener, you guys. You
can pick up my book. Ioutlined that in my book called Unbleep Your
Life and Relationships on Amazon and Simonand Schuster, and we just talked about
it. Listen to this show againand I guarantee you you can become an
active listener, have more productive conversations. Number two, going into a conversation,
(38:01):
seek to understand the other one's perspective. Most of us are not doing
that. What we're trying to dois get our point across. No,
no, no, shut up,and seek to understand. That's a very
different place to be than going inthere and just trying to force the other
person to prove, you know,prove that you're right, or they should
adopt adapt what you're thinking and feeling. No, we don't want to do
(38:22):
that. Number three, speak clearly, precisely and with intention. Don't waste
your words with meaningless rice cake words. Rice cake. We don't like them.
They have no nutrients and they don'tdo anything. They're a filler.
Number four. Internalize this mantra.Now I'm going to repeat this because when
(38:43):
I first aunt like what, onecannot not communicate? Okay, hold on,
what did you just say? Onecannot not communicate. Everything you do,
everything you say is a form ofcommunication. Whether you're the active listener
or whether you're the effective communicator,one cannot not communicate. It's like the
(39:04):
omission and commission of a crime.You can be guilty even while you fail
to do something, and you shouldhave done something. Oh I see.
What I'm trying to say is everythingthat we do is observable. While most
things are observable, it is tellingus something. It is some form of
communication. It's gonna take a whilejust digest. Well, yeah, well
we talked about it earlier. Therolling of the eyes, the shrugging of
the shoulders, everything is communication.Everything is communication. Be very mindful,
(39:28):
not just of what the other personis sharing with you through their nonverbal communication
and verbal communication, but also yourself. Like you said, rolling of the
eyes, Maybe you don't know thatyou do that. And then sometimes well
I often hear this, I didn'tdo that, Yeah you did. Are
you looking in the mirror right now, because I'm looking at you and you
just well your I didn't say it. I kind of a But that's the
(39:50):
kind of stuff that if our partneris saying that, rather than being defensive
about it, no I didn't,Maybe you did. But then you need
to slow your mind down, slowyour breathing down, instead of being defensive
about it, saying Okay, maybeshe's got a point, maybe he's got
a point. I've got to beopen to that. Have an open mind.
And number five, bring back verbalcommunication. In your relationship. Don't
(40:15):
let texting be the primary mode ofcommunication. Like just like in the last
or the other episode, I said, bring back gathered eating as opposed to
scathered eating, bring back verbal communication. We need to be able to talk
to each other physically with words,be in the same room. I love
the convenience of texting. It's quick, it's efficient, but it is not
(40:38):
good for resolving conflict. It isnot effective what I have found in my
personal and professional life. It onlycreates more because it just opens the door
for miscommunication and misinterpretation. Words areimportant. We need to make them count.
And when it's just a word ona screen, I could ascribe ten
(40:58):
different meanings to it. Because Idon't know your contexts and you don't know
mine. And depending on what's goingon with me or where I come from,
my family of origin stuff which wedidn't get into today, I'm going
to take that to a different placeand maybe it's meant to go there.
Talking communicating. That's what we didthis week. What are we going to
talk about next week? We aregoing to be talking about conflict resolution.
(41:20):
One of the things that people strugglewith. Most of us struggle with conflict
resolution. But guess what if wecan learn to talk to each other,
we can learn to resolve conflict.How do we get a hold of your
book? It is on Amazon andSimon and Schuster. It's caught on Bleep
Your Life and Relationships. I needto Askley, it's not really called on
bleep. But I can't say thatwe're on TV. Maybe we get on
TV, on radio, maybe wethe the you party is Yeah, maybe
(41:46):
we need to have a show onthat. Why can't we say that word?
How therapeutic that word really is?I know one of these shows these
days we are going to talk aboutit. But join us next week as
we continue is I continue to helpyou and Bleep Your Life and Relationship from
the inside Out A news talk eleventhirty WYSN
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