Safe Communication: Part Two

Here are some of the techniques you can begin practicing in your communication with family, friends and co-workers:

1. Practice keeping in your “adult self” in the presence of your family members. In other words, even if your parents tend to see and treat you as if you were still age twelve, in business settings, try to act in the same mature and professional way you would during discussions with vendors, clients or co-workers.
2. Pay attention to physical signals—such as a dry mouth or a racing heart—that you may get when you are uncomfortable. As you become more aware of these physical signals, you can remind yourself to stay calm. Some people find it helpful to concentrate on breathing slowly, and observing what is going on without judging anyone.
3. Be honest about your discomfort without blaming others. You, not they, are in charge of the way you show your emotions.
4. Realize that you will be much more successful in changing your own behavior than you will be at changing the behavior of one of your relatives. Focus on becoming who you want to be in a difficult relationship instead of being who you become when family members push your buttons.
5. Try to imagine another person’s history and what emotions they might be feeling. This will help you realize they are doing the best they know how to do. For instance, your father may not feel comfortable expressing how proud he is of you. Perhaps he learned this from his own father, and never learned how to show his emotions.
6. The inability to be calm and mature in the presence of your parents is a classic adult challenge. If you feel stuck with this challenge, there are many counselors who are very good at helping people with these issues.

Calling a time out

After clients have worked for a while on these issues, they recognize it’s helpful to call a time out if discussions become too emotional. Such families can pause and step outside the intensity of conversation to reflect on their state of mind and on what’s happening between family members. They may recognize when they in a room with six family members trying to cope with an issue that really involves only two. The group can agree to set aside time later for these members to speak with each other to deal with those issues.

We often employ a technique called doubling, which is not something for families to try on their own but that may be effective when working with a consultant. For instance, a founder’s daughter-in-law was so reactive to the founder that she had fallen into a pattern of becoming upset way too easily by anything he said. One of us consultants pretended to be her and acted out a civil conversation that she might have if she were less reactive to her father-in-law. This enabled us to lay the issues on the table peacefully and respectfully and acknowledge the separate concerns each party had. That helped drain the emotional charge out of their interaction. You can do a version of this by role-playing a situation as you would like it to be if you were your “best self.”

This is a temporary fix, but the more time spent in these kinds of conversations the more durable they become. Usually we point out to people that they don’t like who they are when they’re with a person they are emotionally reactive to. It’s not always a question of whether you love a person or not, but whether you like who you are when you are with them.