COMMUNICATION USING I MESSAGES

The cornerstone of any healthy relationship is effective communication. It seems simple enough. Say how you feel. In my experience, this gets complicated very quickly, especially as strong emotions become involved. It’s easy to become accusatory and blaming, which can lead to the other person shutting down or escalating emotions leading to fights and arguments. The last thing we want to do is hurt the people we care about and instead of saying how we feel we end up keeping our feelings to ourselves. Emotions are pesky though, and demand to be felt and expressed. The longer we repress them, the higher the likelihood that we will be triggered and explode. Which is generally when we end up saying the most hurtful and destructive things. So how do we express our strong emotions without hurting the other person and/or ourselves?

What I have found to be the most effective is using assertive communication. The skills of using assertive language is a core communication skill and can help you to express your thoughts and feelings in an open, honest, and direct way without coming across as accusatory or blaming. Using this type of communication also help to reduce stress and conflict within relationships because it helps to foster an environment where both parties feel comfortable in being open and also allow for clear boundaries to be drawn. A key skill in assertive communication is the use of “I messages”. Often when you start a sentence with “you” it comes across as an attack and puts up the defenses of the other person. Starting off the with “I” reduced blame and focuses more on how you are being impacted by the other persons behaviors. However using I messages is not as simple as putting “I” at the start of a sentence. The key is focusing on your emotions rather than placing blame on the other person.

Accusing Language Looks Like:

· I want you to stop making me feel so angry

· I feel that you don’t care about me

· I want you to not be so mean

· I wish you wouldn’t be so annoying and loud

· I’d like for you to stop bossing me around

Assertive Language Looks Like:

· I feel really upset and hurt

· I feel lonely and disconnected from you

· I wanted to be treated with kindness

· I have a hard time focusing when there’s loud noises

· I’d prefer to make my own decision about this