I’ve studied many types of communication recommended to repair relationships. They all have similarities and make sense, but these empathy-based strategies so hard to practice! Especially when those I want to use this communication with are the people I love most, the ones who share my house. I actually think I’m fairly good at some of it, but there’s evidence that I’m delusional here. I’ll come back to this in a moment.
My biggest barriers to good communication as I see them are these:
- Truth-telling
- Fixing
- Ego
I’m going to start with ego because I work so hard on this one. I remind myself many times a day to set my ego aside when I’m communicating with loved ones. This is another example of clunky progress in my life with glimpses of success then falling back into old patterns (the theme of yesterday’s post.) I even blogged about the time I straight up asked my daughter to list my parenting qualities that she claimed were making her life hell, thinking I had my ego in check enough to handle the feedback maturely.
What happened instead was a meltdown of spectacular magnitude, the likes of which I had never seen in myself, even in the early romantic relationships of my adulthood that were so marked by drama. I totally lost my shit and flew into a rage at what felt like such an unfair, inaccurate assessment of my mothering. My eruptive response not only reinforced her poor opinion of me but gave her more reasons to conclude I’m a terrible mother. It continues to haunt me since it created such a vivid memory for her to pull up time and again as an example of my poor skills and judgment.
However, I am able to clock evidence that I’ve made progress on managing my ego. I see the tender, reciprocal affection and connection my daughter and I share and am always grateful for our many moments of closeness, even if she chooses to disregard these when she summarizes our relationship. My baby boy (now 12) has a surprisingly mature ability to check his ego and manage his communication. He doesn’t always choose to exercise this intention, but he’s clearly capable and it’s such a joy when he does; I am certain modeling this for him has made an impact.
Which brings me to a communication skill I own and celebrate in myself: the ability to see and highlight strengths and progress. Not that I don’t still see the problems, but I can consciously shift my lens and feel gratitude—after years of hard work establishing this habit. It’s not foolproof by any means, but I continue to practice!
Ah, fixing. Why can’t I just listen? Is it cultural? My husband has this problem too. For a long time, I didn’t even recognize my own compulsion to offer a solution or a new perspective. In fact, it’s the latter that I’m most prone to do. I’m so determined to shift the lens of the other person, yet I am consistently met with resistance every time I attempt this. I just have such little tolerance for a victim mindset or damning conclusions about the behavior of another—especially when that person is not present to defend his/herself, so forever I chocked this up to “teaching” perspective. But the bottom line is it’s ineffective. Maybe. I keep hoping that I’m planting seeds that will eventually bloom into some wisdom for my kiddos. My daughter is especially critical and intolerant—something I was determined to model the opposite of— and these traits are now inhibiting her ability to fully engage with life.
But the communication experts insist this approach will damage the relationship, and I’ve witnessed firsthand how “fixing” does just that. My daughter’s biggest complaint about me? I don’t listen. This initially came as such a shock when I thought of the endless hours I’ve spent in her room talking about things that are going on in her life or society at large. However, when I really started paying attention I realized I was always trying to shift her perspective or problem-solve rather than just listening. I’m practicing more curiosity because it’s a way to respond that doesn’t invalidate her experience, but man, this is a hard one! Especially when her perspective seems so dangerous to her overall wellbeing. I have some moments of success here but this takes intensely conscious vigilance and I’m far from mastering this one.
And finally, truth-telling. Ugh. So hard. Authenticity and clarity are so important to me. I can see much more progress here in my relationship with my girl (though it continues to be incredibly effortful when witnessing some of her cognitive dissonance) but for the life of me, I can’t seem to replace truth-telling with empathy when it comes to my husband. Actually, that’s not completely true. And this is going to sound defensive (another poor communication skill—getting defensive) but both Hubby and the girl hate when I try to practice empathy. I work so hard to ensure that it’s sincere, and it can be super tricky to find honest empathy at times, but I know I cannot pull off disingenuous responses.
Evidently, I can’t pull off genuine empathy either because they both shut me down every time I try. I suspect that they enjoy the conflict and have their own need to “truth-tell” and be right. I get the appeal of argument, I enjoy a good debate, and it’s taken me a good long time to realize that no one ever wins. All this approach does is cause the other person to dig in and defend their position, even contriving evidence, if necessary, to stand strong. I also know that I modeled this for most of my oldest’s life, because damn if I don’t love me a good argument (though of course, I never contrived evidence!)
Knowledge that isn’t applied is useless. Overcoming decades of ingrained communication tactics is so freaking hard, but I am trying. If I could waive a magic wand, I would have family members that were also invested in relationship repair and willing to effort through this with me. All the books, experts, therapists, coaches say that doesn’t matter, and I know that I cannot change others. I’ve seen some evidence that the strategies can work, but the way my family members respond to my attempts at empathy are not very encouraging. I can only assume that I’m actually not good at it, or my family members would not be so resistant, right? It’s becoming really challenging to sustain the effort, and I find myself backsliding more frequently into my own truth-telling, fixing, egoic communication habits.
Just processing through my current thoughts and conclusions on where I am on my journey to restore Justis (not justice. A part two post about restoring Justis is coming soon.) Thanks for listening. Drop a little empathy in the comments, would ya?
Restoring Justis 