Communication - Part 2 (Episode 15)

In Part 2 of Communication, Brent and Janis discuss how to deepen our relationships using the three parts of awareness in conversation. 

The Life & Love Nuggets podcast will help you learn valuable insights into relationships, life, and love. Brent and Janis have been empowering couples through pre-marriage and marriage therapy in their private practice, Life Connection Counseling, since 1982. They recently retired after forty years of pastoral ministry and are continuing to help individuals, marriages and families in their private practice.

This podcast should not be considered or used for counseling but for educational purposes only.

Transcript:

[Brent]: Hello, friends. Welcome back to Life & Love Nuggets, and we're going to continue today talking about communication. We started that last time and talked about how it's so easy for us to interpret meaning, based on what I would have meant if I said what you said, and if we do that, we're going to misfire most of the time, because we all have all these filters behind how we communicate and how we hear another person and so, we talked about these three parts of awareness that we have. We have thoughts and we have feelings and we have wants and oftentimes, we communicate out of one or two of these naturally. I know I lived in the thought world, you know? We talked about it being at the point of a triangle. Well, I live in a dot world. I mean, thoughts were just the most important thing even when-- Even when I diagram this in my office, I still put thoughts at the top.

[Janis]: Of course, you do.

[Brent]: That’s probably a subconscious kind of thing. “They're still the most important”, but I had to learn how to realize they're really all important and if we leave off some of these, we can easily misfire and so, the idea is, how do we learn how to communicate all three of these parts: thoughts, feelings and wants? And how do we learn how to listen for all of these parts?

[Brent]: And we're trying to engage in what we call active listening, which is “I have something to focus on”. Because we knew early in our marriage, we needed to be better listeners, but we didn't know how to do that and this actually gave us something to latch on to, that engaged our brain in active listening. So, we're going to unpack these three parts, because there's some really important kind of parts of the definition that I think are critical, for us to really understand how this works.

[Janis]: So, we want to start with thoughts. Now, seems like thoughts would be “well, I know what I think”. But so, oftentimes we think our thoughts are facts, where they're really logical interpretations of events and it's based on our own unique past, our environment, our present and our perceived future. So, we have to keep in mind that our thoughts are not facts and that's hard.

[Janis]: Because we really believe, if we're truly honest, that what I think is true. That “that's not an opinion, that’s the truth, it’s really the truth”.

[Brent]: “The way see it is the right way”, yeah.

[Janis]: So, we have a few examples. One of them was early in our marriage, we told you already in the last session about our gorgeous Toyota Celica hatchback.

[Brent]: 1978

[Janis]: Yeah, 1978, chocolate brown, orange pinstripe. It was-- We were quite proud of that car. Well, when we first got married, one day we got a call from my dad and my dad had some businesses where he bought and sold a lot of cars and trucks and so, it's very common in my family to get new cars. My parents would not keep a car very long. If the car got to be like 50,000 miles on it, they would trade it in.

[Brent]: Okay, kind of like maybe when the car needed the oil changed.

[Janis]: It wasn't that bad.

[Brent]: You just traded it.

[Janis]: It wasn’t that bad.

[Brent]: All right, you go with that thought.

[Janis]: But-- I don’t remember my parents having to have work done on their cars, because they got new cars all the time and part of it, was because my dad got a really good deal and if you get a good deal, then you may buy two cars at one time and he was a car guy. So, I came away with this impression that you never should really have a car long enough that you have to do any repairs on it, you should just get a new car.

[Janis]: So, I came into this marriage with “okay, we have an older car, we'll get a new car before too long” and then my dad called one day and he said “hey, I'm working with a Toyota dealer and he can get me a really good deal on a little Celica hatchback, and I just wondered if you guys would want to get that”.

[Janis]: You can-- You already heard we did, but just for the sake of argument, let's just say we hadn't made that decision yet. So, my dad believed that you shouldn't keep a car too long, you shouldn't have to pay repair bills on it, you just went and got another car. I married someone whose father was also very successful. He was a colonel in the military, very successful and he pretty much believed my interpretation was “you bought an older car and then--”

[Brent]: “You should never buy a new car”.

[Janis]: Never

[Brent]: “Total waste of money”.

[Janis]: “And then you drove it until it was dust and then you swept it up”.

[Brent]: Yes, you drive something that-- You buy something that’s 18 months, two years, something like that and then you drive it forever and ever and ever.

[Janis]: And his dad had like, a log in the glove box all of the things that he had done on the car, like change belts and doing this. I don't even know if they have belts in cars anymore.

[Brent]: Yeah, they do.

[Janis]: Change--

[Brent]: When you tighten those and when you rotate the tires.

[Brent]: Transmission fluid changes and the other car is in and out of the shop quite a bit, doing preventative maintenance. They were always in great shape.

[Brent]: They always drove old cars.

[Brent]: So, you can kind of see where the story's going.

[Janis]: So, my dad said--

[Brent]: Cultural clash, right?

[Janis]: We should get a new car and here's a Toyota that we can get. His family believed that we should never get a new car. So, who's right? Both of our dads are successful, so of course, if our dad believes that, it must be true. But we had to recognize that those were merely opinions based on our own unique paths.

[Brent]: And they both had good reasons on why they did what they did.

[Janis]: Absolutely, but they were opinions and nothing more than opinions. So, we have to know, we've got to hold our thoughts tentative. Just because we think them, doesn't mean they're facts.

[Brent]: Probably the most difficult thing for us to possibly do, is to hold our thoughts tentative. Because again, by adulthood we all think that the way we see the world is very accurate and the way I interpret it and now, if you agree with me, you're just a super bright person. But the minute you disagree with me, well, you must be wrong, because I’m right.

[Janis]: “What is wrong with you?”

[Brent]: So, anyway, is holding those thoughts tentative. Because if we don't, if I see my thoughts as facts, if I don't hold them tentative, then there's no reason for me to listen to you. You just need to listen to me and [Unintelligible]

[Janis]: Which I think we’re seeing a lot of people like that in our culture right now.

[Brent]: Oh my goodness, oh my goodness, and now, we don't have to face each other, we can just say it through social media, so we can say [Unintelligible]

[Janis]: That’s true, so you can know how right I am and how wrong you are.

[Brent]: Oh my gosh. So, those are thoughts, very important part of the triangle we're talking about, the three parts and then we have feelings. Feelings are more of a right brain function, they're spontaneous emotional responses; They're pretty much just there. Thoughts are interpretive, it takes a little more reasons why we come to those. Emote-- Feelings are an emotional response to some circumstance, but it's pretty much an immediate thing. I've already told you how bad I was at these; I was totally unaware. Again, dad colonel in the Army, all boys, middle of three boys, no need for feelings in my family. Just kind of doesn't matter how you feel, just do it anyway, you know? And so, I was just very underdeveloped. I always say that I was in preschool regarding emotions and I married someone that had a PhD in emotions.

[Brent]: So, I was either like “I'm okay” or “I'm upset”. So, I have like a range of two and Janis had like 1,735 gradations in between all of those.

[Janis]: Be nice.

[Brent]: And so, we just were different creatures.

[Brent]: And so, I would listen to feelings, I would kind of just deflect them and I would explain why that feeling wasn't quite accurate because of you misinterpreted something and it was really just, really, really horrible. I've already told you-- I've already used the word validation with-- You know, 6,000 times on this Procap-- Podcast. You know, in the several weeks so far. But I use it over and over again because it is so important, it is-- It is the key to processing feelings is to validate each other's feelings.

[Brent]: They're-- A person's feelings are their reality. Now, it doesn't mean that it's ultimate truth.

[Brent]: Or we should make all of our decisions out of our feelings, which would be a bit chaotic.

[Brent]: But they are an equal player on the triangle and that's what I didn't understand, and it was because I thought it meant I had to agree with it. That if you were-- For example, last time where you felt disrespected at work and unappreciated and you didn't think this job was going to work and so forth. It didn't mean I had to agree that “oh, this job will definitely not work”, you know? It just means--

[Janis]: Or that I was disrespected.

[Brent]: Maybe, yeah.

[Janis]: Right. No, it didn't.

[Brent]: Didn’t mean I even had to agree with that, it just meant you felt disrespected. I may not have thought that they were actually being disrespectful on some of the things they did or said, but you were feeling that way. That was your reality and to not validate that, is harmful, it's damaging, it's saying “well, what you're feeling it's not really real, it's not legitimate, it's--” and very harmful and I was harming. I caused harm, I'd say, for many years.

[Janis]: I lived.

[Brent]: Okay. I'm glad. God's grace.

[Janis]: But I do see and I saw this in my own life with my kids, is that my kids would say something and it was easy for me to go “no, no, we're going to fix it this way” or “no, you're okay”, instead of recognizing they needed to express feelings sometimes.

[Brent]: So, the key to thoughts is holding our thoughts tentative. The key with feelings is validating each other's feelings and acknowledging the reality of what they're experiencing and giving value to it. Again, if I don't value it, I'm not going to listen to it. I'm not listening deeply emotionally for the-- To connect with you on that level and I would always say that early in our marriage, we had intellectual intimacy. We were studying the same field, you know?

[Brent]: And I would say we really connected and bonded on that level. But I would say it took us a while to have emotional intimacy, because you were like, laying out feelings to me and I was just like, discounting them. I was kicking them off to the side and so, it wasn't until I was able to embrace them and then, I actually learned how to realize-- Now, the surprising thing was I realized I have just as many feelings. I'm just unaware of them. When I started being aware of them and being able to share some of them, then we started-- I think we started connecting on a deeper level and so--

[Janis]: And an interesting thing I noticed in the last podcast, I didn't tell you this, but I noticed in the last podcast, when we discussed our story about me coming home from a bad day.

[Janis]: I used a lot more thoughts in describing it this time and so, I think as you've grown in expressing more feelings, I think I've grown more in expressing thoughts first and adding feelings in there.

[Brent]: Knowing that I’m gonna that better.

[Janis]: Yes, knowing that you're going to hear that better.

[Janis]: And I didn't even realize I'd done that, until I was listening to that and I thought “oh, I really described that more as thoughts instead of feelings”.

[Brent]: Yeah, because I don't remember that in the very-- I don't remember that, 42 years ago. I remember mostly feelings.

[Janis]: Pretty much. I mean, I'm not saying 100%, it could have been 102% or something. But yes, that was pretty much there. But there's a third one on the triangle that we need to talk about and that's wants. It seems like that's very straightforward, we-- “I want this, I want that. I want to quit my job”. But the interesting thing about wants, is we often have conflicting wants, but we don't want to express the conflicting ones, because we don't want to look irrational or we don't want to look selfish and so, oftentimes people don't express their wants and that goes back to some of the things we've talked about in earlier podcasts with idealism in marriage. It's like “well, if you loved me, you should know what I want. I'll express these once, but you should know the wants that are underneath there”.

[Janis]: So, some conflicting ones that I usually talk about is, let's say you've just gone through a Dave Ramsey course and you're like, [Unintelligible]

[Brent]: “Financial Peace University”.

[Janis]: Yes. “We're going to get out of debt, we're going to work on this as a New Year. We're not going to spend money on anything unnecessary. We're going to put everything down to the budget” and you both agree on and say “yes, we're on the same page” and then, somebody goes out and buys a bass boat or goes on a mall run and spends a lot of money that you haven't agreed upon. So, the other one's like “what happened here!? You told me you agreed with this financial plan. Why did you do this?”. Well, there was an unexpressed want that was there. Maybe that person was feeling trapped in their job, maybe they were going through a season of their life where a lot of things were shifting and it's like “I just need something special for me” or “I don't feel like I get enough leisure time and so, I want to find something to have more leisure time” and so, they will go out and do something that does appear completely irrational, but it's those unexpressed wants.

[Janis]: So, we have to be aware in ourselves of what are all my wants, even if they sound tacky, even if they sound selfish and communicate those with our partner especially and just say “I'm not saying we need to do this, but this is a want that I have”.

[Brent]: Yes, and of course, we had another experience on this one. We early in the marriage, we just bought second house.

[Brent]: And we'd kind of stretched for this one and I remember a day standing on a ladder, painting the family room and I remember you sitting on the couch and you were flipping through a travel magazine, talking about all the beautiful places that you wanted to travel in the world and you came on this picture of a castle on an island off the coast of Scotland and you said to me “honey, look. Wouldn't it be awesome to go here?”.

[Brent]: And I'm thinking “we just stretched for this house, you know? What are you saying?” and I think I said something like “what!? What are you thinking?” and I think what you heard was that I thought that was just ridiculous.

[Janis]: “That's stupid. Don't you realize we just bought a new house? That's stupid!”. It's not what he said, because he's a really nice guy, but I automatically heard “give it up. We bought a house, we're not gonna be able to ever do anything like that”.

[Brent]: Yeah, and that there was-- There's just a waste of money to travel like that, it's ridiculous. That's not what I meant. A more complete response that that could have been heard better, would have been something like “wow, honey. You're the fun-loving one in our relationship. Sounds cool! Do you want to figure out how we could do that one of these days?”. Now, do you see? There's difference there. I'm communicating both sides of my wants. “I would love to follow your inspiration, but I don't ever want to go into debt to do this”. That would have been received better and you wouldn't have thought I thought it was stupid or ridiculous or that you were being irrational and so, it's how do we communicate all of our wants? Even the conflicting ones.

[Janis]: And I could have communicated better by saying “oh, look at this cool castle in Scotland. You know what? Someday I would like us to really come up with a plan, so that we could do something like that”.

[Brent]: Yeah, and so, 19 years ago, on our 25th wedding anniversary, we actually did go stay in a castle on an island off the coast of Scotland. It took us 25 years to pull that off.

[Janis]: It was awesome.

[Brent]: But we did that and last year on our 44th anniversary, we went back to the same castle.

[Brent]: It's one of the places in the world that--

[Janis]: One of the two places.

[Brent]: That Janis has said to me “will you please bring me back here?” and cool story. Getting off track a little bit, but cool story.

[Brent]: Is we found out this is a family castle 5,000 acres on the north of this island, off the coast of Scotland and we found out this was the last year, that the family was going to open up a few rooms to the public. The family is--

[Janis]: Which is where we had stayed, it was actually in the castle.

[Brent]: In the castle both times and so, we didn't even know that and so, we got the last year that they were even opening it up to the public and so-- But we were able to do both. We were able to do the fun, but also do it in ways that were reasonable with our budget and so-- And I would also say not only conflicting wants, but I would say simply-- Some of you may have this experience too, just sharing your wants, period.

[Brent]: I-- Now, nobody told me-- My parents are wonderful people, but I don't think anybody ever said this to me. But I kind of picked up the idea, they're so loving and caring for everybody and just diminishing their own needs and always caring about everybody else. So, they never said any wants. To this day, my amazing Mom, that's 91, will not share her wants.

[Brent]: “Mom--”

[Janis]: She makes Christmas really hard.

[Brent]: “Mom, what do you want?”.

[Janis]: Yeah. “Where do you want to eat?”.

[Brent]: “Oh, it doesn’t matter, whatever you kids want”. “Mom, what do you want?”.

[Brent]: And I think I picked that up and I don't think for several years, I ever shared my wants. Now, the kicker is, then I got upset that you didn't attend to those wants.

[Brent]: That's craziness! Okay? To not show your wants and then get mad at somebody for not attending to your wants and so, communicate them. Now, do you see this picture of this triangle? We've got thoughts, we've got feelings, we got wants. Do you see where if we left out one or two of these even, it would leave a whole lot of room for misunderstanding and confusion?

[Brent]: And so, how do we pay attention to these, how do we listen for these, how do we communicate these, will enhance our sense of connection. So, a couple of-- An exercise we want to encourage you to consider and then, we're going to talk about how do we actually use this in day-to-day life.

[Brent]: So, this exercise is what I call an over learning exercise. If you're learning a sport, they will have you do some weird things, that you won't actually do when you're out on the court or the golf course or whatever.

[Janis]: Is this a Karate Kid wax on wax off kind of thing?

[Brent]: Kinda. No, exactly, that's a good example.

[Janis]: Thank you.

[Brent]: The wax on and wax off. The guy is “what am I doing here!?” and he didn't realize he was going to use that later. So, that's kind of-- This is a wax on wax off exercise here.

[Brent]: So, I have you get with a person, it can be a roommate, it could be a child, it could be a spouse, somebody you work with and both of you come up with a topic to talk about. Now, make sure this topic could never be a conflict between the two people, but also more than just where you want to go to lunch. So, think about something you could talk about. Something you saw in the news or something that's happened at work or whatever, and you talk about it just for a few minutes, and the other person gets a little piece of paper out, draws yourself a little triangle, puts “thoughts”, “feelings” and “wants” and you're trying to take notes while they're talking.

[Brent]: So, if they're saying “gosh, they hired this new person at the front desk. I do not think this is going to work out. I'm so frustrated that they did-- They jumped again, they just got somebody just to get somebody. I'm so frustrated because I need this person, they do a lot of work for me and I really want them to go ahead and just get rid of them quick and find somebody that I can really work with”. So, you're sitting there writing down “okay, they hired some-- The thoughts where they hired somebody, he thinks they did it prematurely. Frustrated is the feeling and then, ‘I want them to let the person go and get a new person’”.

[Janis]: Get somebody, uh huh.

[Brent]: Okay. So, you're trying to write down each of those parts. When they're done-- Now, when we practiced this 40 some years ago in a class, I don't think I ever said feelings and you had to say “okay, I don't think I heard any feelings” and I had to stop and think about how I felt. This is how I got a feeling vocabulary, because I could stop and think about what I felt, but I couldn't just come up with it and so, you give them the opportunity to come up with the part-- Maybe they left out one. But once they have all of them-- Have been cleared, then you basically try to let them know what you heard and they either confirm or clarify it. They're either like “yeah, that's what I said” or “no, that's not what I said. This is really what I meant” and then you reverse roles.

[Brent]: And so, again, it's an overlearning exercise, but the first part of this is I'm thinking triangle. I always tell people when you're-- When somebody's talking, envision a little triangle around their head and so, you're listening for the parts. Now, when you're listening for the parts, you have to pay attention, you can't be thinking about what you're going to say next. This engages us in active listening.

[Brent]: So, we encourage you to try that exercise. See how that goes and then, we're going to talk about kind of three times that we find this helpful.

[Janis]: Let me say this. For those of you who aren't necessarily or let's just say, you don't have a good feeling vocabulary. One thing that can be really helpful, even though it seems silly, but I have clients do this, is download a list of feelings from the internet or they've got the diagrams that have happy faces, sad faces or whatever, to help you really figure out what you're feeling. Because I do think a lot of people are either “okay”, “sad” or “mad” and they don't know “I'm bewildered” or “I'm intimidated” or “I'm overwhelmed” and so, sometimes you need to have that cheat sheet in a sense, to actually help you figure that out and then eventually, you don't need the sheet anymore. But just to get that process going.

[Brent]: You didn't need-- You didn’t need a cheat sheet.

[Brent]: I did.

[Brent]: Because I could look at a list and pull a feeling off. “I feel unappreciated” or “I feel misportrayed”. I could pull that off the list, but I could not have pulled that over my head early.

[Brent]: And in adulthood and so, it is a way that we can learn a feeling vocabulary and it also is helpful, because when you share on that level, then the other person can actually hear it and can attend to that. If you don't share that feeling on that level, they don't get it.

[Janis]: Well, if they say “I'm afraid” instead of “I'm angry”, that's a whole different interpretation and oftentimes, we see people as angry and we don't see that they're afraid or they're intimidated or they're overwhelmed and so, it helps us connect with them on a different level and to help them in a different way.

[Brent]: Yeah, because if we talked about anger, we'll talk about it again probably. Anger is a secondary emotion and underneath it, is hurt, I feel a loss, I feel disrespected, I feel fearful or whatever and if all of it comes out as anger, then the other person is just going to reel from that and going to feel like “I don't like you” or you know, “I'm mad at you”. But if I say “I feel unappreciated”, it's a different thing, a person can actually attend to that.

[Brent]: And so, we really engage in listening differently and so, how do we use this so that we don't have to diagram triangles the rest of our life? There are three different times that I found this critical. One was, if we are the sender, if I'm communicating something that's really, really important to me and I now know the parts, there's three parts, it would be smart of me to communicate all of them. I need to communicate my thoughts, my feelings and my wants, if I want the person to have a chance to really hear it clearly and not misunderstand me. Because we all communicate to be heard, right? We don't just talk to talk, we heard-- We want to be heard. They have the best chance of hearing us if we communicate all three.

[Brent]: And then the second and third one, are kind of from a receiver position. Now, I know there's a part. If you say-- If I hear mainly emotions from you, I listen differently. I go “okay, these are feelings, these are important. I need to validate these. But Brent, don't freak out. We don't know what this means, we don't know what she's gonna do or wants to do or whatever. Keep listening” and what I found in all these years, is if I keep listening, you usually fill in the other parts or I would have stopped listening before. You usually then go on to share your thoughts and your wants and I hear more and more clearly and so-- Or if you didn't, sometimes people will share their thoughts and their feelings, but they won't say their wants. Then, it gives us something to ask for.

[Brent]: “Well, what do you want to do there?” and I found-- I found this in business settings a lot. If I-- When somebody's complaining about something, like “well, what do you want?”. Oftentimes what they say they want it's like “oh, okay, that's fine”.

[Janis]: Yeah. “We can work that out”.

[Brent]: I was catastrophizing it, okay? And then, we find out “oh, that's what they want” and it's more clear and so, listening for the parts and knowing what to ask for that's left out and then, the final one is probably the most important one for us to practice and some people call this “a shared meaning process” and people call it “active listening”, “active reflective listening”; there's all different kind of words for this. But if you go back to our first situation that happened in our last session, that we talked about where you came home and you were frustrated about your job and so forth. What we've learned to do is, if I'm confused about what the person is saying or if I'm having an emotional reaction. Instead of giving a response, my responsibility is to reflect back what I heard the person say.

[Brent]: If I had stopped and simply said “wow, what a day you had. I'm so sorry”.

[Janis]: “It was awful”.

[Brent]: “It sounds horrible. The fact that you feel like you need to quit and get another job, that's serious, you know? I'm so sorry, honey”. If I had said something like that and I might have even gone on and said-- Because I would have need to let you know what I heard is “wow, it sounds like you need to like, quit like, immediately. You need to-- I mean, did you quit your job?”.

[Janis]: “No” and that would have been my response.

[Brent]: Yeah, but that gives-- You needed to have known that's what I said.

[Janis]: That's what you heard.

[Brent]: That's what I heard and if I had said that, then you would have said “no”.

[Janis]: “No, but I really need to get out of there. So, I'm going to start working on my resume and look at another job, because I don't want to keep staying there”.

[Brent]: Yeah. So, if whatever you say then, it's my responsibility to then reflect that back to you, because-- Now that might have settled it, if you had said that. If you had said that “no, I just need to get my resume together and start looking”, I would have probably gone “Oh, okay. I understand”. Done, I mean, that would have taken a minute or two instead of--

[Janis]: In the same room.

[Brent]: Instead of three hours of horror, okay?

[Brent]: And I would have had clear understanding. But sometimes we don't even-- It's not even clearly settled the first time.

[Brent]: So, let's say I said “wow. What a day, honey. It sounds like you need-- You know, did you quit your job?” and let's just say you would have said “yeah, I just-- I've got to-- I've got to get out of there, I just can't keep doing this and you know, I'm not gonna quit until I find something else or whatever” or let's say you didn't even say that. Let's-- You just said “I just--”

[Janis]: “I gotta get out of there”.

[Brent]: “I just gotta get out of there”.

[Janis]: “I can’t keep doing this anymore”.

[Brent]: Then, I might need to have said it again. So, “okay, I hear you. You just need to get out of there, you need to find a new job. Are you thinking just like, any job? Like, just a job to get a job like, in a week or two? Or are you thinking the same, you know, professional level? You can take your time”. Then you probably would have said “no, I'm gonna-- You know, I think-- I'm thinking six months. I'm gonna get my resume together and start networking and I can hang in there for six months, but I cannot be doing this at the end of six months”.

[Brent]: Well, that gets clearer and clearer and clearer and at that point, I'm like “Sweet. I have no issue, no problem with that” and we have, again, shared meaning. We have the same understanding of each other within just a few minutes. It would have saved three hours of horror and so, it's learning to repeat back, to reflect back. Now, this is not parroting, it's not saying word for word, but it’s “this is what I heard you say” and then, letting the person clarify, and realize that the meaning is in the speaker.

[Brent]: I’ve heard too many people going “no, that's not what you really mean. I know what you really mean”. “No, you don't”. They're the ones and they're an adult. They're a responsible adult that says “this is what I mean”. We have to accept that as that's what they mean and-- So, it's a-- Again, it engages our listening where we are actively listening and it's a way to clear things up. Now, at some point we're going to talk about conflict, because good communication will significantly reduce things that feel like conflict, that are not conflict. But it will not eliminate it. I could have said “wow, what a day you had. Do you need to quit your job?” and you could have said “oh yeah, I'm done-- Matter of fact, I've written up the resignation letter. I'm planning on dropping off the key in the morning; I am out of there”.

[Brent]: Okay, I have a good understanding, but let's say I don't agree with this. Then, that means we now have a conflict we got to talk about, okay? And at some point, we're going to talk about that, how do we actually do that then. That's where we shift into “wow, if that would have been a conflict for me, I need to talk about this some more” and hopefully, we would have been able to negotiate. You might have wanted to quit that night, I might have wanted you to wait for six months and we might have-- You might have been willing to do it for 30 days or something or we find something, a blend of what both of us can do and resolve the issue.

[Janis]: And I know we're not getting into conflict resolution now, but what I would say is, at that point we have to realize the person is not the problem, the problem is the problem.

[Janis]: So, it's not “I'm a terrible person because I quit my job”, it is “I no longer have a job. We've got an issue here that we need to resolve”. So, many times our conflicts are “you are bad and you need to change”, instead of “this needs to be fixed”. So, it's not that “you're bad, you didn't do the dishes”, which would never be true in your case, but “there are dirty dishes in the sink”. But we'll talk about that more when we get into conflict resolution.

[Brent]: So, and how do we walk out of this? Keep those three things in mind when you're the sender and it's really important, how do you make sure you're communicating all three of the areas if possible? It's really significant. How do you listen differently and make sure you're hearing the parts and ask for those things that are missed? And then, just this practice of reflecting back what you're hearing. We encourage-- When we have couples, I encourage them to do this for 30 days, just to kind of go a little bit overboard, you know? So that we are-- So don't wait on when you're having confusion or a real emotional reaction.

[Brent]: If they've said something about their day that's got a little meat to it, just go ahead and say “okay, let me see if I heard you right”. Just to practice it when there's not much emotion, you know, not tenseness involved, so that we're pretty good at this, so that when we really do need it, we're ready for it.

[Brent]: So, I'm just kind of go overboard a little bit with that and practice that and let's just give each other the gift of listening.

[Brent]: It is a powerful thing that we can offer somebody and it's one of the greatest gifts we can give somebody, is to listen fully. It says “you're important”.

[Janis]: “I value you”

[Janis]: “And I value what you have to say”.

[Brent]: Absolutely. So, let's go and up our game in the area of communication.

[Brent]: Blessings as you go today. Go in peace.