Are you feeling frustrated every time you attempt to have an emotional engagement or conversation with your partner? Do they shut down on you, avoid you or argue with you instead of understand you?
What if I told you all of this could radically change once you master a simple set of conflict resolution skills that many of us were never taught?
When we practice conflict management, we're not always thinking about conflict as a skill set. We're not automatically thinking about the requirement of a game strategy, like playing chess. We often react out of our very, very human emotional space. And when we do that, we actually do more damage to our relationships. Rather, many of us lose the opportunity to build a stronger relationship foundation of understanding and connection.
The second step in effective emotional communication is caring for yourself. You may be saying, “Hey, Char, my problem was with the other person. So why are you telling me to take care of myself?”
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How do you express yourself when you experience strong or negative emotion? Do you find that people are drawn to you, making you feel more connected? Or does it seem to have the opposite effect of pushing people away. . . avoiding you whenever you are experiencing strong or negative emotion?
What if I told you the way you show up when you are in strong emotion is one of the biggest lost opportunities for deeper intimacy? Understanding your own emotions and how to invite others into understanding your emotions is a learned behavior. Unfortunately, many of us were not taught this skill, and so, rely on our instinct and impulses, harming our relationships.
Over the next few posts, we're going discuss three very simple steps to effectively express your emotions. With practice in patience, applying these principles to your life will help you feel more connected and engaged with others—even when expressing negative emotions. This practice will cause you to no longer put people off or cause people to avoid you.
The very first step is that you convert your own feelings into words. It is very common for a person to experience strong emotion and be asked, “how are you feeling?” Yet too many people lack the words to accurately express the emotion. Rather, the default expression is:
I’m angry...
I feel bad.. .
I’m not happy…
But the more you take the time to check in with yourself, the better you develop an accurate description of what you're experiencing. Are you feeling disappointed? Are you feeling betrayed? Are you feeling confused, frustrated, or resentful? Are you enraged? These words, communicate the degree of pain or discomfort you are in. Taking time with yourself is the very first important thing to do.
What was modeled for many of us is that when you feel a negative emotion, you blow up and you vomit on other people in the moment. But what does that accomplish? How do you feel when someone just—all of a sudden—vomits on you? Even when you caused it, even when you made a mistake? Is it fun when someone pukes their negative emotion on you? Yet somehow, we were taught this this method of expressing negative emotion. On the opposite extreme, what was modeled is total shutdown, withdrawal or avoidance. On either extreme, we gain the exact opposite of what we really want. What we really want is to be understood. What we really want is to be connected with. But instead of seizing our connection opportunity, we vomit on people or totally withdraw.
When people get vomited on, or when they are unsure about your withdrawal, they're going to find ways to avoid you more and more and more. Or in other instances, when they notice the little pressure buildup happening, they find convenient, exit doors to get away from you.
So what do you want to do? You actually want to take a “time out.” You want time out, you want to have a conversation with yourself. This is your soul's way of telling you need to pay closer attention to yourself right now.
It’s time to attend to what you are experiencing in the emotional realm.
What is it that I'm feeling? How can I express this in words and how can I take care of myself in this moment? How do I puzzle this out in words before I attempt to communicate it to another human being? Fifty percent of our interpersonal conflict can come to closure so much more quickly when we practice this very, very important step.
Take care of yourself and communicate with yourself in words. What are you actually feeling?
Be blessed and encouraged,
Judge Char
Are you a professional woman of faith who is dominating in the workplace but struggling in your marriage? You checked off all the boxes. You went to school. You nailed your dream job. You settled down with your husband. You are attending church and are faithfully serving others.
But the coldness in your marriage is trying your faith. You are questioning everything you were taught. You have been praying and nothing has changed. You are looking for the exception to the “God hates divorce” guidance everyone keeps giving you.
What if I told you that the problem is not that you lack faith? What if the answers you have been hoping, praying and crying for is simply because you do not understand the law of love?
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Do you struggle with embracing your inner child? Is life constantly serving you an overwhelming dose of adulting that you just can’t seem to get a break from? Are you tempted to explode into tantrums or outbursts, but shove it all down deep inside for the sake of appearances?
If you struggle with connecting to your inner child, you’re not alone. Many people struggle with embracing themselves because of societal definitions of adulthood. This often drives internal conflict. And when a person is pressured to constantly repress the childlike aspects of themselves, that child eventually shows up at the worst times.
Our inner child finds a way to show up and show out when we are in conflict with others.
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Are you more preoccupied talking about and complaining about all of the things that your husband does wrong? Have you found it difficult to even imagine anything redeeming about him? Anything that you're grateful for towards him? Do you struggle to recognize anything that he actually does right half the time?
What if I told you the solution to address your misery is rooted in a fruit problem? Today I want to confront you about the fruit that you've been serving. This fruit being the key to the sweetness that you really desire out of life.
Today’s story comes from an episode of my own life. I was dominating at work, and performing quite well. Yet I was struggling in my marriage. I really just felt lonely and frustrated with everything that was wrong with my husband.
I mean, you name it, I had a problem with him.
And so I found a small group Bible study, a women's group that met Friday nights. This was perfect, because I was longing for connection and an opportunity to let my hair down after saving the world all week. I showed up every single Friday. Each week, I was a little more willing to open up about the anger and frustration I had been hiding for so many years. This continued for several months—my complaining and crying about my husband’s wrongness. But then one day, the small group leader hit me with a compassionate confrontation. She directly challenged my own mess. She redirected my focus to consider how I was constantly complaining. For crying out loud, I was so hyper-focused on the misery of my marriage, I didn't even have anything good to say about my own child.
