Posts by Dr. Karen Finn
How To Decide If Your Marriage Is Just Unhealthy Or Completely Toxic
If you’ve ignored the early signs, your unhealthy marriage might have become toxic.
Every relationship has its emotional ebbs and flows. And locking in your commitment through marriage doesn’t guarantee steady waters for life. When boredom sets in or tempers flare, you may start wondering what happened to your fairytale utopia. What if I made the wrong choice? What if our marriage is unhealthy? What if the person I married isn’t really the person I married?
Even the best of marriages navigate predictable stages. No one can remain saturated in those stimulating, excitable romance hormones forever. At some point, couples have to live, return to work, raise children, deal with crises, see family and friends.
Ask the experts and they will tell you there are as few as three and as many as twelve stages of love. The number is less important than the message: love evolves. It is no more static than your feelings, preferences, and hairstyles are static.
But that doesn’t mean love can’t be steady and sustained. And, when the question of whether a marriage is unhealthy arises, it’s important to return to this awareness. How do you know if your healthy marriage has become unhealthy? And, worse yet, how do you know if your unhealthy marriage has become completely toxic?
A healthy marriage is grounded in friendship. Each spouse cares about the well-being and highest good of the other and accepts responsibility for his/her role when problems arise. The marriage is a partnership, not an enmeshment.
A healthy marriage supports the uniqueness of each individual, just as it nurtures the uniqueness of the union itself.
How do you gauge if your marriage is unhealthy? If there were a thermometer for relationship health, what would it be?
The most transparent indicator of the health of a relationship is how the partners communicate. You may not be hanging on one another’s every word anymore. But, if you’re not listening to or caring about what your spouse says (or vice versa), you should be seeing some red flags.
Communication whittles its way into every aspect of a relationship. It goes beyond the spoken word to what is unspoken, assumed, feared, felt, implied. We are always communicating (even with ourselves). What matters is what and how we’re communicating and whether we have the self-awareness to recognize those essential relationship elements.
Here are some signs that your marriage is unhealthy (or is heading in that direction):
- You start blaming one another.
It takes a lot of energy to look within yourself and evaluate where you could have done better in a situation. And it takes a lot of humility and trust to offer a sincere apology and commitment to work harder on behalf of your marriage.
Healthy marriages are anchored in self-responsibility. Spouses may have their tiffs, but they know how to fess up to their own failings.
When communication starts getting careless, spouses aren’t as interested in the other’s side of the story. It becomes easier to deflect, dodge, and open dialogue with “you” statements. And that becomes a tough habit to reel back in.
- You stop spending meaningful time together.
Marriage requires a constant infusion of positive intention. And, when life gets jam-packed with careers and children, you may lose interest in scheduling time for the two of you.
While sex is important to the health of a marriage, it’s not everything. Spending time talking, planning, going on dates, and trying new things together are all ways to build and secure intimacy.
If you notice that you’ve become more like avoidant roommates than a happily married couple, you may have a sign that your marriage is unhealthy.
- You avoid fighting.
This isn’t a trick statement. Obviously world peace is everyone’s goal, even on the homefront. But people in healthy marriages do fight. It’s why and how that matters.
If you are changing your behavior or giving up on things that matter to you because you don’t want to fight, pay attention. This pattern could be a red flag that bigger issues are going on.
Are you afraid of your spouse’s temper? Do you feel exhausted just thinking about what the fight will look like? Do the two of you not have rules about arguing? Have you started giving up on your marriage?
- One partner starts controlling the other.
Marriage is supposed to be an equal partnership in which both parties bring their influences, needs, and wants to the same table.
When a marriage is unhealthy, issues of control are usually evident. Finances are an easy weapon of control. One partner starts deciding how money is spent and how much the other spouse can spend.
Control can also spill over into areas like friendships and outside activities.
- You stop laughing together.
Laughter isn’t just good medicine, it’s like Super Glue. Couples who laugh at themselves and at their own “relationship funnies” have a deeper intimacy than those who don’t.
Think about how your relationship and life in general would look if you didn’t take yourself quite so seriously.
The leap from “unhealthy” to “toxic” may seem more like a fine line than a leap, especially if you don’t pay attention to early signs.
In toxic marriages, feelings of unhappiness are often coupled with feelings of fear and/or hopelessness.
Here are some signs that your marriage may be toxic:
- One partner becomes extremely controlling.
When one spouse uses intimidation, demands, or threats to control what the other spouse spends or does, the marriage may be toxic.
Control is one of the many signs of abuse, and it can bleed over into every area of a relationship.
- You start to feel isolated.
Control (and abuse in general) thrives in a context of isolation. If you notice that your social life has become non-existent, or if your spouse shames you for your friendships, you have reason to be concerned.
- You have no voice.
In a healthy marriage, both partners have an equal voice — even when they disagree. Each person’s feelings, needs, and wants matter as much as the other’s.
In a toxic relationship, however, one partner is often shut down and given no voice.
- Criticism becomes common.
As one of John Gottman’s Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, criticism is a way of attacking another person. It goes straight to the person’s character, usually in the form of “you always/never” statements. It is the entry to a cycle of criticism and defensiveness, both of which can quickly erode a marriage.
- Your core values are worlds apart.
Even when a marriage is unhealthy, spouses may still have common core values. They just may have lost sight of how to live them out in the context of the marriage.
If your marriage has become toxic, you probably don’t have even the most essential things to hold onto anymore. If you’re not on the same page about essentials like children, careers, and issues of faith, it’s difficult to have something to work toward.
- You feel as if you are losing yourself.
A healthy marriage is fertile ground for the self-esteem of both partners to grow and be strengthened. When you don’t even recognize yourself anymore, you may be in a toxic, even abusive, relationship.
Both unhealthy and toxic relationships are cause for immediate action. Seeking intervention can help you fix an unhealthy marriage and get that loving feeling back.
Fixing a completely toxic marriage may not be possible. But ultimately only you and your spouse can decide if it is worth the effort. Whether to stay in your miserable marriage or divorce is a difficult decision. But when there is self-awareness and determination to evolve, there is always hope.
I’m Dr. Karen Finn, a life and divorce coach who helps people, just like you, who question whether to stay in a miserable marriage or divorce. You can download your FREE copy of “Contemplating Divorce? Here’s What You Need To Know”. And if you’re interested in working with me personally, you can book an introductory 30-minute private coaching session with me.
Looking for more ideas for what to do about your unhappy marriage? You’ll find what you’re looking for in Unhappy Marriage.
How Can Self-Awareness Help Me?
Would you like your life to be better?
Mirrors are funny things. How else would you have any sense of your countenance without reflective surfaces? That visual self-awareness, however, is just that — visual (and the reverse of how you appear to others). Answering the question How can self-awareness help me? requires a different (and much more important) kind of mirror.
For all the eye rolls women get for the time they spend in front of mirrors, it turns out men have greater expression of the Narcissus gene. Men look at their reflection an average of 23 times a day, compared to 16 times a day for women.
What is especially interesting about this study’s findings is that men visit their reflection to admire it. Women, on the other hand, approach with a more critical eye.
No matter how easy it is to focus on the exterior, life and relationships are about so much more. There’s nothing like the revolving door of Hollywood marriages to drive home the point that wealth and physical beauty don’t guarantee happiness.
So you ask, How can self-awareness help me? How can it make a positive difference in my life if I don’t even realize I need it?
Self-awareness is a component of emotional intelligence. It’s how you bring your interior, unconscious filters to the level of consciousness so you can make better choices and healthier responses.
And this, in a nutshell, is how self-awareness can affect communication in positive ways and, by doing so, improve your life.
It brings clarity to your personal experiences. Instead of your thoughts and feelings getting confused, they assume their own identities, allowing you to recognize the influences behind your responses.
Think about how often you respond to a stimulus without even thinking first. It’s as if, at some point in your life, you went on autopilot. You didn’t need to learn anymore, listen anymore, think anymore.
You had somehow compiled all the information you needed to respond to any experience and any person. Your unconscious mind had convinced you that it already knew all you needed to know. No need to delve further, dig deeper, explore the unknown (or at least the not-understood).
It’s so easy to make assumptions and have a knee-jerk reaction to them. You may not even know how you get from A to Z, but, by golly, you get there in a heartbeat. Your boss/spouse/family member says or does something that triggers you, and all bets are off.
The next thing you know, you’ve done a split-second psychoanalysis of what the other person was “really” saying, and you’re off to the races. Your pulse quickens, your body language gets defensive, your voice tenses and gets louder, and you become reactive to a script that was written inside yourself.
And therein lies the key to understanding self-awareness. It’s an inside job.
How can self-awareness help me? If being happy is your fundamental goal in life, at some point you’re going to have to embark on the journey inward.
Happiness, like the self-awareness that fuels it, really is an inside job. It stems from the choice to respond to life with acceptance, curiosity, gratitude, and joy.
And there is no way you can make a choice unless you first know your options.
Self-awareness exposes and clarifies those options. It holds a mirror up to those life experiences that have shaped your thoughts, triggered your feelings, and inspired your values.
It connects your sensory experience in the present to its deep-seeded history. And it gives you the opportunity to verify the applicability of that history to the experience at hand.
In other words, self-awareness allows you to stand confidently and authentically in the present. And it does that, in part, by helping you own your past.
Why do I get so angry when he comes home late without calling? Why do I feel so threatened when she buys expensive things without telling me? Why do I feel objectified when he wants sex all the time? Why do I feel so rejected when she never wants sex? Why do I assume he doesn’t love me when he leaves me with all the housework and childcare to go play golf? Why do I feel like shutting down when she nags me about things I’m not doing right?
While there may be valid reasons for these feelings and questions to rise out of your present circumstances, there is likely more to the story.
There is good reason that relationships are likened to mirrors. They are a reflection of what lies unresolved within us, a beckoning to wounds left open or only partially healed.
And, regardless of all the fantasy and flutters that draw us into romantic relationships, we are actually drawn to them for deeper reasons. Relationships have the power to heal – even rewrite – the past.
But they don’t magically do the work alone. They can become a battleground for acting out, allowing old wounds to continue bleeding with a certain fatalistic “I knew this would happen.”
They can also become a healing sanctuary – a haven of safety for the deep, often painful exploration into what holds you back from self-fulfillment.
Can self-awareness improve your relationships? Absolutely.
Can your relationships help your self-awareness? Absolutely.
As with any kind of growth, however, there has to be the willingness to stretch beyond your comfort zone. You can’t be self-aware and emotionally sedentary at the same time.
Self-awareness comes with a honey-do list. It expects you to pay attention – first and foremost to yourself so you can then give your conscious attention to others.
It expects you to be on-purpose with your thoughts, words, and actions and to recognize their influence on the present.
And, most importantly, self-awareness asks you to sign a contract exchanging victimhood for self-accountability.
The reward is self-empowerment and the ability to fearlessly step into and embrace the present, whether to learn, grow, heal…or simply enjoy.
How can self-awareness help me? It’s the first and most essential question in what will become a lifetime of self-learning.
And the answer will be revealed and continue to be revealed in each moment of happiness you experience.
I’m Dr. Karen Finn and I’m a life coach. Schedule a 30-minute private consultation for support in discovering how developing your self-awareness can help you find greater happiness.
Looking for more information about how you can have a happier life? You’ll find what you’re looking for in How To Be More Self-Aware.
9 Things All Happy People Know About Being Genuinely Happy
Are you ready to discover how to be genuinely happy?
Happiness. Genuine, effortless, unencumbered happiness. It’s the Holy Grail of our pursuits, the quest of our madness in a world bent on having more, more, more. We work harder, condense the contents of time, and speed up the hamster wheel with every step. All in an effort to be genuinely happy.
Every year, on the International Day of Happiness, the World Happiness Report is released. It ranks countries based on their residents’ life satisfaction, rated on a scale of 1-10.
The telling results? Negative feelings – anger, sadness, worry – have significantly increased over the past decade.
And, for all the bragging rights beheld by “America,” the United States doesn’t even make the top 10. Not even close. (Top honors go to the northern European countries.) Seems there is more to being genuinely happy than “living the American dream.”
So, what is it that all happy people know about being genuinely happy? If nationality, income, social status, and even health status aren’t assured predictors of happiness, what are the predictors?
One thing’s for sure when it comes to the secrets to happiness: Being genuinely happy is a choice…and an inside job.
Here are 9 things that all happy people know about being genuinely happy:
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Happy people have a positive outlook.
There is inherent truth in that great perspective your elders used to counter your childhood complaints: There are always going to be people better off and worse off than you.
Happy people know that there are always going to be situations that don’t elicit a “yippee” from their attitude. Everyone suffers loss, everyone experiences personal injustice, and everyone has more than a welcomed share of “those days.”
But when a $6 latte spills down the front of her favorite designer dress, the happy person knows how to choose her response. “Dang it! Well, how fortunate I am that I can afford this coffee and nice clothes to wear.”
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Happy people are grateful for what they have.
This doesn’t mean they have no ambition to improve their lives. It simply means genuinely happy people are focused on what they do have, not on what they don’t have.
Happy people are more likely to see possessions as fluid than as property that must be hoarded and guarded with their lives. (Yup, even with recent the fears of COVID-19.) They are as happy to share as they are to receive.
And, even as they strive to improve their lives, they are fully satisfied with (and grateful for) what they have.
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Happy people are happy for others’ success.
We all know what the tug of jealousy feels like. Someone else gets something you’ve always wanted or believe you deserve, and your first thought is, “But I want to win Powerball!”
Happy people know there’s always enough for everyone. Enough success. Enough love. Enough happiness. They also know that pinning others down with jealousy only serves to suppress themselves – and their relationships.
And they don’t fake their excitement for others. It’s genuine. It’s also contagious. Inevitably success finds them, and all that goodwill comes pouring back to them.
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Happy people don’t compare themselves to others.
There is always that fine line between comparing to get a gauge for progress and comparing as a gauge for the ego.
Genuinely happy people aren’t preoccupied with “keeping up with the Joneses.” They may observe some of the Joneses’ behaviors and decide they are worth emulating. But they don’t attach their self-worth to having the same possessions, titles, or successes.
Comparisons are only for self-improvement, not for competition.
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Happy people take risks and confront their fears.
We all know someone who’s always the first in line for life’s tallest roller coaster. And they sit in the front seat with their hands in the air and a smile on their faces. It can be downright maddening and intimidating to watch!
Happy people aren’t reckless with their lives, but they don’t let fear stop them from living.
When Eleanor Roosevelt wisely counseled that we should all do something everyday that frightens us, she knew something about happiness. Turns out that leaning into the sources of our stress and fear unleashes creativity, increases productivity, and prepares us to handle change and adversity.
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Happy people cherish and nurture their relationships.
We’ve all heard the adage that, if you finish this life with a handful of good friends, you have been blessed. Genuinely happy people know this in spades, and they are mindful to take good care of those relationships. They lead with kindness and compassion, no matter what the relationship.
They understand that you get out of relationships what you put into them. And they know there is no price you can place on the treasure of a good friend or beloved family member.
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Happy people forgive.
Happiness is a light, elevating emotion. It can’t lift you if your life is weighed down by grudges and the daily ruminating of past hurts.
Happy people, as part of choosing happiness, choose forgiveness as a conduit to being liberated from negativity.
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Happy people laugh.
Laughter is such good medicine – physically, emotionally, socially – that happy people won’t live without it. They know how to laugh at themselves and the ironies of life without laughing at the expense of others.
Because they don’t take themselves too seriously, they’re able to let go and experience the lightness and sparkling brightness of laughter.
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Happy people keep their childlike wonder.
Having a sense of awe is an expression of humility – a sense of being small in a huge, wondrous world.
Happy people hold onto that capacity to be awed. They know it connects them to the world and to all forms of life that inhabit it. It makes life more enjoyable and less stressful, and it increases cognition while decreasing materialism.
And that is totally awesome!
Perhaps no one summed up the secret to happiness better than Abraham Lincoln: Most folks are as happy as they make up their minds to be.
I’m Dr. Karen Finn and I’m a divorce and life coach. Schedule a 30-minute private consultation for support in putting together the pieces so you can begin feeling genuinely happy.
Looking for more information about how you can have a happier life? You’ll find what you’re looking for in Building A Happy Life.
What It Really Means When You Think, “I Have No Life After Divorce”
Not all thoughts are true – no matter how much you believe them.
Living in an unhappy marriage can feel like no life at all. The imprisonment of feeling trapped and seeing no way out can extinguish your vitality and your hope for the future. But even in the worst of experiences that beg for an escape route, divorce isn’t necessarily a panacea. Whether or not you wanted the split, you probably didn’t anticipate thinking, “I have no life after divorce.”
It goes without saying that healing after a divorce is different for everyone. Just as there are so many unique factors and influences that come together in the commitment of marriage, so there are in a divorce.
Not only are there differences in divorce survival from person to person, but there are gender differences in surviving the consequences of divorce, as well. In general, men tend to eventually recover from the strain of divorce, while women tend to suffer chronically. Long-term differences in income and risk of poverty along with single-parenting set the stage for stark differences in post-divorce happiness.
Depending on factors like the length of the marriage and how it ended, divorce may seem like a step off a cliff into a dark unknown. Where will I go? How will I make money? What’s going to happen to my kids? Will I lose all my friends? Will I ever trust again? Will anyone ever love me again? Will I ever be happy again? Why do I feel as if I have no life after divorce? Will I always feel this way?
Before you can get to the point of rebuilding your life after divorce, you have to confront the reasons you feel so lifeless. Even if you’re the one who wanted the divorce, you may be surprised by its emotional impact.
Cognitive science distinguishes between two types of emotional suffering: clean pain and dirty pain.
Clean pain is a natural response to an objective event. Bereavement after a death. Sorrow and grief after a divorce.
Dirty pain, on the other hand, is a subjective self-assault that comes from your processing of painful situations. Negative inner dialogues. Assumptions about others’ thoughts. Presumption of judgment by others. Conjuring up a fatalistic storyline for your future.
If you feel stuck in the belief that “I have no life after divorce,” you are living in dirty pain. You are going beyond the natural consequences of loss and debilitating your future with negative thought patterns that keep you stuck.
There’s no denying that divorce is one of the most difficult and stressful experiences imaginable. It severs all that feels familiar and directed toward the future. It can change children forever and shape their own views of love, family, and commitment.
Here are some common reasons you might be stuck saying to yourself, “I have no life after divorce.” Connecting to these reasons and allowing them to speak can actually help you let them go and embrace a new, happy life.
- You have lost companionship and intimacy.
Unless you throw wisdom to the wind and head straight from divorce to dating, you’re going to spend some time alone. And a lot of that time, at least early on, is going to be painful and exhausting.
You won’t be coming home to someone with whom you can talk. You won’t have a built-in date for dinners out and plus-one events. And you won’t have the intimacy you may have taken for granted, even in difficult times.
That loss is huge. And it is so tempting to seek refuge in the company of someone new. But the loss of your relationship with your spouse will still be there.
- You will mourn.
The loss of a marriage is a death in its own right. Even if you needed to leave your marriage for your emotional or physical safety, you will still suffer a great loss. The loss of love. The loss of your dreams. The loss of your home. The loss of your children.
Life going forward doesn’t have a script, and the life behind you has just closed its book. You will be left to feel what you may not even want to think about.
But grieving is normal. And trying to circumvent its necessity will only prolong the process.
It’s difficult to feel like you have much of a life during the grieving process, but coming back to life requires it.
- If you have children, you will have to co-parent.
Suddenly the simple things like tucking your kids in at night won’t be so simple. Your children won’t be with you all the time, and yet, your ex will be in your life forever.
After all you’ve gone through to separate your lives, you will have to come together for the most important reason of all: your children.
No matter what custody arrangement you decide on, it will place limits on your life. Instead of feeling as if your options have increased, you may instead feel like “I have no life after divorce.”
Yes, you will have time without your children. But you and your ex will have to work harder to coordinate schedules and ensure you are on the same page regarding your children’s lives.
- Your finances may be a rude awakening.
No matter how illogical it may seem, couples often stay together for the money, just as they do “for the kids.” Giving up a lifestyle to which you are accustomed, only to take a major step down in the division of assets, can be life-altering.
You may, for example, have been used to being home with the children while your spouse moved up the ranks in his/her career. Both of you were contributing your all to a common goal.
But only one will walk away with a career and income stream intact. The spouse who has had the career won’t suffer diminished rights to the children. But the spouse who stayed home to care for them may have to start from the ground up on a career.
- The loss of your dreams.
You have spent all these years contributing your individual gifts and passions to a common future and dream. And suddenly that has all been ripped out from under you.
Expecting yourself to simply walk out of your established life into a new dream with a clear path is unrealistic. You will probably feel disoriented, ungrounded, floundering for a sense of who and where you are today, let alone in the future.
And when you don’t have a sense of direction, it’s only natural to conclude, “I have no life after divorce.”
Believing you have no life after divorce is a response to the all-encompassing life-shift that comes from losing your marriage. The idea of future happiness sounds impossible in the early stages after divorce.
You haven’t lost just your marriage and family, you’ve lost a huge part of yourself – at least that’s how it feels. All the qualities of yourself that are essential to dreaming of and building a life have taken a blow. Your sense of life, order, happiness, safety, and assurance has imploded.
But know that your perception of your life – in the present and in the future – will evolve. As you accept and embrace the finality of your marriage and the changes it brings, you will have a new foundation to build on.
Your divorce may have left you feeling lifeless today. But trust that rebuilding your life after divorce will connect you to the happiness you seek for tomorrow.
I’m Dr. Karen Finn, a divorce and life coach. If you’d like additional support in creating a life you love after divorce, you can join my newsletter list for free weekly advice or you can schedule a 30-minute private consultation with me.
Looking for more information about how to start over after divorce? You’ll find what you’re looking for in Life After Divorce.
What Is Unhealthy Communication In Marriage?
Once you know what it is, you’ll be able to begin making your marriage better.
The joy of falling in love is usually – at least in part – rooted in the natural ease of communication with one another. You have so much in common. You think so much alike. You resolve your disagreements seemingly before they happen. You say please, thank you, and I’m sorry. You listen, care, avoid judgment, and put one another first. But somewhere along the line unhealthy communication in marriage starts to eat away at your relationship.
It’s insidious and doesn’t always have a clear beginning. But if you don’t wake up and recognize it, it will definitely have a clear end.
If healthy communication is the glue that holds happy marriages together, then unhealthy communication in marriage can be the relationship’s unraveling.
Think about people and things you hold in high esteem. A work of art, a musician, an actor, a surgeon – they can all leave you in awe. But why? What makes you revere, applaud, respect one entity over another?
Chances are it has something to do with how effortless the execution of quality seems. When you are in the presence of “masters,” you don’t have to analyze their performances. You can simply enjoy them.
And so it is with happy couples. Most of us can think of at least one couple that has been married just this side of forever. What keeps them together? What is it they have that other couples don’t? How have they managed not to have unhealthy communication in their marriage?
Learning about the successful practices of those who have been married over 50 years can be a good way to gauge your own success. What are they doing that seems so “easy” for them and yet so difficult for you?
Sometimes unhealthy communication in marriage is about doing the opposite of the “right” thing. And sometimes it’s about simply not doing the “right” thing…or enough of it.
It may come as a surprise that the mark of a happy marriage isn’t “having no issues.” It’s not even the ability to resolve all or most of a couple’s issues.
According to marriage researcher John Gottman, 69% of issues in a marriage don’t get resolved. Yes, those happy couples who have made it past their golden wedding anniversaries are sitting on a lot of unresolved stuff!
What makes communication healthy and couples happy is how partners choose to respond to their issues – even the ones that don’t go away. The same is true for unhealthy communication.
Here are some behaviors and thought patterns that reveal unhealthy communication in marriage.
- Yelling
Anger is a natural emotion. But when it’s not kept in check and expressed in a responsible way, it can build up and eventually explode. And when that happens, the content of the message is lost to the intensity of delivery.
The person being yelled at doesn’t hear the hurt, frustration, or underlying fear of the other. S/he hears and remembers only the loud, offensive assault with negativity.
A primary goal of healthy communication is keeping your emotions under control so they don’t dominate your communication.
- Blaming your spouse
Beginning statements with “you” is a slippery slope into blame. Words like “always” and “never” often follow, and before you know it, your spouse is playing defense.
Shifting your language to “I” statements can automatically soften the mood and make both of you willing to own part of the problem.
Always starting with a pointed finger and accusatory tone actually takes your power away and makes you a victim. Working on your self-awareness can help your relationship by helping you to stay contained and accountable for your own behavior.
- Having a competitive attitude
If you struggle with insecurities, you may not even realize what you do in order not to feel them. You may shelter your feelings, refuse to be vulnerable, and even project your feelings onto your spouse.
Instead of being about the union, your focus is on yourself and how you can feel good enough. And that usually comes out as an effort to always be right or superior. So much energy goes into being on top that you lose sight of the “we” that defines marriage in the first place.
- Criticism
As one of Gottman’s Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, criticism bypasses a complaint about the situation and goes for the person. It’s a close kin to blame in that it often comes out as “you always” and “you never.”
A complaint, on the other hand, acknowledges a personal feeling in response to a specific behavior. And it leaves space to negotiate a resolution.
- Defensiveness
It’s only natural to defend yourself if you feel attacked and/or blamed. “You always” has a knee-jerk reaction of “No I don’t!” or even a counter-blame.
Those who use defensiveness on a regular basis, though, avoid taking responsibility for anything in the relationship.
- Contempt
This terribly negative communication style exudes moral superiority and disdain in the form of sarcasm, mocking, and hurtful humor. It is the worst of the Four Horsemen and the most dangerous form of unhealthy communication in marriage.
It is mean, demoralizing, devoid of empathy, emotionally dangerous…and the number-one predictor of divorce.
- Stonewalling
People who stonewall shut down for self-preservation when they are overwhelmed or flooded in an argument. They go silent, look away, or remove themselves from the attack.
In the dance of contempt and stonewalling, all of the foundational essentials of a healthy marriage are lost. There is no trust, no emotional safety, no mutual respect, no kindness.
- Forgetting the “we.”
If you are caught up in what you want, what you feel, and what you’re not getting, you will easily forget the “we” of your marriage.
One inspiring behavior of couples who have been happily married for a long time is that they remember to walk in one another’s shoes. They try to think from the other person’s perspective and allow the other person to express feelings first.
And they look for ways to compromise and do loving things for their spouse.
The intimacy that is unique to marriage is rare in the opportunity it affords two people to heal old wounds. It is also unparalleled in the opportunity it offers two people to expand into the best versions of themselves.
If you’re struggling with unhealthy communication in marriage, give your relationship the chance it deserves. Everything comes down to communication. Why not use it to guarantee your happiness?
I’m Dr. Karen Finn, a life and divorce coach who helps people, just like you, who are struggling with unhealthy communication in their marriage. You can download your FREE copy of “Contemplating Divorce? Here’s What You Need To Know”. And if you’re interested in working with me personally, you can book an introductory 30-minute private coaching session with me.
Looking for more ideas for what to do about your unhappy marriage? You’ll find what you’re looking for in Unhappy Marriage.
How Can Self-Awareness Improve Your Relationship?
The real question is, “How can’t it?”
If you’re married, have you ever pondered the evolution (or de-evolution) of your relationship from an emotional and communication standpoint? Have you ever wondered how you went from hanging onto your soon-to-be spouse’s every word to having a knee-jerk reaction to everything s/he now says? It’s so easy to be aware of every little annoyance inflicted by the other person. And yet, that awareness never solves anything. So how can self-awareness improve your relationship if other-awareness can’t?
Words like “improve,” “grow,” and “evolve” are really just positive expressions for “change.” As we all know, the only thing consistent in life is change. But the defining element for the nature and quality of that change is awareness. Without it, change has no direction, no higher purpose.
Being aware of what is going on outside of you is far easier than being aware of what is going on inside of you. What others say and do, how they say and do it; traffic; weather; politics; love; hatred; kindness; war. Who has time to self-examine when there is so much to focus on “out there”? And by focusing “out there” you’re opening yourself up to being judgmental and placing blame.
The problem with blame is that, if your focus on the outside, then your power evaporates. You can’t change anything because you have no stake in the game. You become and remain a victim.
Having no responsibility means you also have no power. And having no power means you can’t effect change when and where you want.
As a victim in your own life and relationships, you retreat into defensiveness to protect yourself from a world that you assume is against you. To borrow a term from social psychology, you make a fundamental attribution error. The other person, in your mind, behaves out of ill will toward you. You jump to conclusions, make assumptions, and behave accordingly.
Before long, you’re looking at a marriage trampled by the Four Horsemen of the (Marriage) Apocalypse.
And all this because your awareness is pointed in the wrong direction.
So how can self-awareness help improve your relationship?
A few things about self-awareness first….
Self-awareness is a dimension of emotional intelligence, which is all about recognizing and managing your own emotions and helping others to do the same. Self-awareness is a moment-to-moment perception of what is going on in your own body, mind, feelings, and behavior. It involves the recognition of the interconnectedness of everything that comes from and affects you.
How can self-awareness help when your relationship is struggling and you don’t know how to fix it? Let’s start with what drives everything in relationships: communication.
When couples start fighting and distancing themselves from their former level of intimacy, there is inevitably a breakdown of communication at the core. One or both partners aren’t feeling heard and/or aren’t getting their needs met.
In the daily rush of life, it becomes easy to throw blame onto the other person. You never…you always…why can’t you…you don’t care…If I mattered, you would….Far quicker and easier to go that route than to check in with yourself and start digging for answers.
But digging for answers is at the heart of self-awareness. And once those answers reveal themselves, they stand at the ready to assist in moments of tension and negativity.
Consider the fact that “not feeling heard” is the fundamental issue of much marital discontent. What goes into feeling heard? What does that communication style look like?
One of the reasons that working with counselors and life coaches can be so effective is that active listening is foundational to their practices. If you have ever worked with a counselor or life coach, you will recognize the impact of eye contact, body language, and open-ended questions. You will notice, if you think about it, that the sessions are about you, and not what the professional projects onto you.
In a marriage, it can become easy to lose your grip on this important commitment in your communication style. And the only way to lose your grip is to lose (or never have) self-awareness.
If communication is at the heart of a healthy relationship, how can self-awareness help?
Getting in touch with your own emotions isn’t as easy as you might think. And recognizing what emotions are at bat and what emotions are on-deck can be tricky, especially when tempers are flaring.
But you have your body to deliver powerful signals and information to you. Flushed cheeks, quickened heart rate and respiration, tension in your muscles. These are all ways your body informs you of underlying emotional information.
When you are self-aware, you don’t let that physical, sensory information go by without acknowledging it. You ask it to lead you to the underlying emotion. Are you angry? Afraid? Sad? Worried?
Once you pinpoint the underlying emotion that is manifesting in physical form, you can tap into the history behind it. Have I experienced this fear before? What was happening in my life at that time? Is this really the same circumstance, or is it just a trigger to those old feelings and fears?
You may also recognize belief systems, assumptions, and other derivatives of your personal history popping up to shape your reactions and behaviors. Self-awareness empowers you to own those influencers. It also helps you to separate their message from the message you are receiving from your partner.
By dedicating time to the process of becoming self-aware, you (re)shape your communication. You are no longer a victim, but a facilitator of the change you want to see.
It doesn’t always feel good to revisit those old wounds whose scars like to get attention. But when you own them and take responsibility for how you live with them, you automatically shift the responses you get. You control your own behavior, soften the mood, and decrease the intensity between you and your partner.
All this because you took the time for self-examination.
All this because you learned and owned your own story.
All this because you became the change you wanted to see in your relationship.
I’m Dr. Karen Finn and I’m a life coach. Schedule a 30-minute private consultation for support in becoming more self-aware and how self-awareness can help improve your relationship.
Looking for more information about how you can have a happier life? You’ll find what you’re looking for in How To Become More Self-Aware.
Funny, Inspirational Quotes About Life And Happiness
We all need a little perspective now and again.
We’re all guilty of taking ourselves too seriously at times. And, while we’re wallowing in the heaviness of our thoughts, the motive for our pursuits is often tiptoeing out the back door. We lose the moment, our sense of humor, and often our sense of purpose in life. Sometimes having little reminders in the form of funny, inspirational quotes about life and happiness can reel us back in.
Yes, those journal-cover, greeting-card, sappy, quippy niblets of wisdom and encouragement can actually help keep our lives on track. We may “blah blah blah” with an eye roll when we hear familiar quotes dropped like original thought, but our brains are actually paying attention. We stash those funny, inspirational quotes about life and happiness like free candy. Their big-truths-in-a-few-words are part fortune cookie, part motivational psychology, part “ain’t life ironic?”
Quite frankly, sometimes we all need to step back and revisit those mantras that help us focus on what’s essential. Keeping a few favorites in the memory bank can be a subconscious source of positivity. It can also be a reminder that we aren’t alone on this crazy journey called ‘life.’
Here are several funny, inspirational quotes about life and happiness to help you clear out the mental cobwebs and focus on your life’s purpose and possibilities.
“The way I see it, if you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain.”
Dolly Parton
Of course Dolly would sum up life in one pithy line — and no doubt with a smile and giggle for punctuation.
Have you ever noticed that those people who gracefully accept the good with the bad are the happiest people? They strive for and look for the best at all times, but they know that life always presents struggles.
Just as stars need the dark sky to shine, rainbows rely on water to manifest the sun’s colorful gift. And so it is with life. With the right perspective, the dark times just become a backdrop for the good times to really shine.
“The hardest thing to find in life is happiness. Money is only hard to find because it gets wasted trying to find happiness.”
Unknown
This may sound more tragic than funny. But it’s definitely ironic.
As easy as it is to say that money can’t buy happiness, most of us still focus a good part of our lives on it. We want to make more so we can spend more, usually because there is an emptiness we are trying to fill.
Sure, money is a vehicle that can help facilitate happiness. But when it becomes so connected to your happiness that you can’t have happiness without it, you will likely come up short on both.
“You never really learn much from hearing yourself speak.”
George Clooney
Look at any relationship that is in a dry spell or downward spiral, and poor communication is usually the underlying issue.
Whether your struggling relationship is a marriage, “SO romance,” family-of-origin connection, or friendship, communication is key. And one principle, if used to guide your choices, can change everything. Everyone wants to feel heard. Not just verbally “heard,” but deeply, soulfully heard.
That means practicing active listening. Show genuine interest in what the other person has to say. Ask questions to go deeper into the person’s thoughts and feelings. Pay attention to your body language while reading the information communicated in the other person’s body language.
As St. Francis said in his famous prayer, seek to understand, not to be understood. If you do that, the reciprocal effort is all but guaranteed to follow.
“If you can do what you do best and be happy, you’re further along than most people.”
Leonardo DiCaprio
Look around you. How many people seem to be truly happy? How many people that you know are doing what they do best and truly want to do?
Even among the people you would consider to be highly successful, how many are following their hearts? And how many are following the money or a sense of obligation?
Finding happiness in what you love and do well, regardless of what the world expects, is a holy grail that more people seek than find.
“Don’t cry because it’s over. Smile because it happened.”
Dr. Seuss
Dr. Seuss was a master of delivering funny, inspirational quotes about life and happiness. He just had a way of going right to the heart in a way that children inherently understood and adults needed to be reminded of.
This quote is often used as a condolence for those experiencing grief over death or loss. And, while telling someone to smile instead of cry doesn’t take away the pain, it does plant a seed of gratitude. And gratitude is one of the most healing mindsets available to us.
Remember that it happened. Rejoice that it happened. Plant that seed, even in the midst of your grief — over death, divorce, or disappointment. You will find the healing comes more quickly. And the negative emotions attached to grief — anger, confusion, guilt — will more easily fall away.
“Be happy. It drives people crazy.”
Anonymous
Isn’t it the truth? When everyone around you is being Eeyore, and Tigger comes bouncing into the room, it’s impossible to stay in the doldrums.
Even if that overdose of positive energy is maddening, you can’t ignore it. And you can’t simply return to what you were doing before Mr. Tiggerific came springing in to ruin your woe-is-me party.
So go ahead. Stay a step ahead of the crowd on the happiness scale. See if you can’t force at least a crack of a smile. You’ll at least make some eyes roll. And even that is a shift in the right direction.
“Now and then it’s good to pause in our pursuit of happiness and just be happy.”
Guillaume Apollinaire
Funny, inspiring quotes about life and happiness could fill your Pinterest quota. But in the end, they really come down to this one. Don’t forget the very thing you are seeking: happiness!
Happiness isn’t something to be found. It’s something to be lived. And living is about being in the moment. Cliché as it sounds, this moment is all anyone has. So stop looking for it. It’s right here. Why not be happy in it?
I’m Dr. Karen Finn and I’m a divorce and life coach. Schedule a 30-minute private consultation for support in putting together the pieces so you can begin living your happy life.
Looking for more information about how you can have a happier life? You’ll find what you’re looking for in Building A Happy Life.
6 Strategies To Get To The Point Where You Can Truthfully Say, “I Love My Life After Divorce”
Moving forward won’t necessarily be easy, but it is necessary if you want to love your life again.
It’s the end of life as you know it. It marks the influx of unknowns and full-spectrum emotions you may not even recognize, let alone be able to identify. It’s also the beginning of a paradigm shift that can leave you saying, “I love my life after divorce.”
The end of a marriage is hardly the recommended way to rediscover yourself and evolve into a newer and better you. But when divorce does happen, those people parting ways have choices to make. And those choices extend far beyond the division of assets and the determination of custody arrangements.
At a time when your world has just spun off its axis, making decisions may seem futile, if not impossible. You may feel as if you have landed in a black hole with no vision and no sense of direction.
But the world around you won’t stop spinning. And it won’t stop expecting you to show up if you are going to be a part of it.
How you show up, however, can make all the difference between hating your life and saying, “I love my life after divorce.”
And yes, for better or for worse, you are the one who will have to make the choice…and the effort.
How do you get to this idyllic place of being able to say, “I love my life after divorce”? How do you keep the hurt, betrayal, anger, rancor, disappointment, and sense of loss from turning you into a cynic? How do you pull yourself out of your own sense of failure and set your new life up to succeed?
Some of the work will be painful, difficult, even ugly. But it will be essential for reaching the work that is hopeful, invigorating, even enjoyable.
Below are 6 strategies for getting to the point where you can truthfully say, “I love my life after divorce.”
- The mourning after.
This is the hump you simply have to get over if you want to move forward. Grief isn’t an option. It doesn’t have a gender preference, and it doesn’t evaporate simply because you think you are bigger than it is.Most importantly, grief isn’t a sign of weakness. It is a navigation of loss.
Whether or not you wanted your divorce doesn’t change the fact that there is a big, vacuous hole where your “life” used to be. There is chaos where there was once order. There is unpredictability where routine used to be.Even in the worst of marriages for which divorce is a blessing, there is an end to vows, dreams, and a huge time commitment.
When dealing with grief after divorce and its complexity of emotions, remember that the journey will not necessarily be linear. But you will know when you are far enough along to take the plunge into bigger life decisions.
- Work through your feelings.
Grief and feelings go hand-in-hand. You will naturally experience feelings like sadness, anger, and confusion. But you will have a flood of other emotions, too, some of which may be a blend of primary emotions.It takes great courage to embrace your feelings – to give them the opportunity to speak while you actively listen and learn.
By spending time with yourself this way, you inevitably evolve your sense of self. You learn how to recognize the signals your emotions send you. And in doing so, you become empowered to make better choices about your responses to your life experiences.
Look back on your relationship that has ended in divorce and consider how many issues existed because you or your spouse didn’t know how to deal with feelings.
Now fast forward to a potential love relationship in the future. How do you want it to be different than your previous relationship? How do you want your communication to look different? How do you want to feel differently? And what feelings do you want to be able to release in order to move on?
Working through your feelings now will open the door to saying, “I love my life after divorce.”
- Schedule time to be good to yourself…every…single…day.
You don’t need anyone else to tell you what makes you feel good or what you “should” want. You get to choose for yourself. And it’s important that you indulge that liberating empowerment every day.Commit to even fifteen minutes a day. Do something that makes you feel comforted, indulged, creative, rewarded, relaxed. And by all means, do something that makes you feel special and loved.
Down the road, when you are in a new relationship, you will have developed the important habit of remembering your own self-worth. You will naturally build “me-time” into your daily routine, and you will feel confident doing so.
- Make new friends, but keep the old.
Divorce has a way of dragging unexpected consequences in its wake. People you thought were lifetime friends turn out to be “couples-only” friends, while some who were less visible in your life step up like heroes.Just because you and your ex are no longer a couple doesn’t mean you have to sever all your ties with mutual friends. But your new life is an invitation to new friends and new streams of influence.
As you take stock of the other things in your life, take stock of your relationships, too. Who are the people who model the behaviors and relationships you want to emulate? Who are the people who have been there for you through thick and thin?
And, as you start meeting new people, who are the ones who prove to be worth your time and energy? As you embark on your single life, other singles will assume a more important role in your life.
- Revisit old passions and create new ones.
It’s inevitable that couples lose some of their individuality and personal passions to the larger entity of marriage. But now that you don’t have to answer to a spouse (and may have more free time due to co-parenting), it’s time to reinvent yourself.What talents and interests got put on the back burner while you were a slave to your mortgage and children? What yearnings still burn inside, waiting for expression and maybe even a new professional pursuit?
Listening to your creative, ambitious, enthusiastic nudges will lead you into exciting opportunities to learn, grow, and meet new people.
- Dream, dream, dream.
You may be surprised at how stunted your dreaming ability has become. Marriage usually starts off with expansive visions of the future – building a home, having children, traveling the world, making tons of money.But reality and its unexpected turns can dull your dreams and truncate your bucket list. You may not even notice the shift until someone asks you what your dreams are for the future.
Now is the time to plant seeds. Explore ideas. Open magazines. Watch travel shows. Meditate on how you can make a positive difference in the world.
Don’t edit. Just dream.
If you are in the early throes of divorce, you may not believe that you will ever say, “I love my life after divorce.” The pain may be too deep. The change in lifestyle may be too extreme.
But loving your life at all its stages is the intention, and therefore the possibility, for your life. Post-divorce is simply another chapter. You may not have seen it coming, but it’s here.
And, if you are willing to focus through the dark tunnel of grief and letting go, you will find that life awaits you with open arms of possibility.
The next chapter is yours to write.
I’m Dr. Karen Finn, a divorce and life coach. If you’d like additional support in creating a you’re your love after divorce, you can join my newsletter list for free weekly advice or you can schedule a 30-minute private consultation with me.
Looking for more information about how to start over after divorce? You’ll find what you’re looking for in Life After Divorce.
How To Fix An Unhealthy Marriage And Get That Loving Feeling Back
Yes, it is possible.
Considering how important relationships are, it’s amazing, really, how often people expect them to simply take care of themselves. Even more so when a relationship has gone the next step to marriage. It seems too many couples forget to focus on the constancy of effort required to make a marriage thrive. They do the upfront work of love to get to marriage. But eventually, they find themselves wondering how to fix an unhealthy marriage.
Recommended Reading: 3 Definite Signs You Should Get A Divorce
Once a marriage has eroded to the point of being unhealthy, the idea of falling back in love may seem unattainable. Figuring out how to fix an unhealthy marriage — assuming it’s fixable — is one thing. Getting back into the groove of “that loving feeling” may just be too much to ask.
Or is it?
Consider that 42-45% of first marriages end in divorce, and that percentage increases with each subsequent marriage.
What is it about walking down the aisle that makes those early-love dreams so vulnerable to destruction? Do people not know how to pick the right partners? Do they not know how to be the right partners? Do they take each other and their marriages for granted?
Perhaps they think the work of love will be easy once they have fallen in love because falling is so effortless.
If you’re wondering how to fix an unhealthy marriage, here are some of the most important keys to repairing it.
And the built-in surprise? You won’t just restore the health of your marriage. You’ll also get that loving feeling back.
- Choose to love, regardless of how you feel.
When you and your spouse were dating, you were probably more aware of how you felt than how you chose. Limerence is so riddled with infatuation hormones that you feel loving and therefore naturally want to act in loving ways.But little by little the fairy dust wears off, and choice becomes the determinant of marital success. True love is anchored in loving choices, not necessarily loving feelings. And more often than not, feelings will follow action.
- Remember what made you fall in love.
If you are able to look back and smile to remember falling in love with your spouse, your marriage has great hope.Take a detailed trip down memory lane. Ignore what has happened in your lives since that time and focus on what forged your initial attraction and sustained your connection.
- Stop the negativity.
You can’t get to a better place when your road map is full of anger, sarcasm, criticism, complaining, and other forms of negativity.Choose to stop and turn around. Even if you don’t know how to fix an unhealthy marriage, at least stop doing what guarantees its failure.
- Start dating again.
Your spouse, that is.Too often “life” sneaks in and sucks the energy out of what holds a couple together. “If I start working evenings, we can save toward a bigger house in a few years.” “The kids need…my parents need…my boss expects….” And before you know it, that date night that was once the highlight of your week is a birthday dinner at best.
Now that you have made the choice to love and have reflected on what made you fall in love, it’s time to date. Start over. Recreate your romance. Give those qualities you fell in love with the time and place to express themselves again.
- Change how you listen.
There was a time when you actually cared about what your partner said. You listened to learn. You weren’t afraid of your partner’s opinions or reactions and weren’t bored by his/her stories.Give your spouse the benefit of the doubt. Trust that s/he still has thoughts and ideas worth hearing. Show interest in the minutiae of one another’s day. Seek to learn the nuances of the person you married.
And remember that, if you have evolved over the years, your spouse has, too.
Listen with the intention to learn so that you can chart a new course together.
- Change how you speak.
Unfortunately, many people don’t consider their personal accountability for how they speak. They “let ‘er rip” and don’t care that the person listening feels the sting of every accusatory, criticizing “you.” “You make me feel,” “you always,” “you never.”
Know the difference between thoughts and feelings. And speak accordingly. Own what comes out of your mind and off your tongue. “I feel sad when….” “I think you don’t care about my career. Is that true?”
By staying centered within yourself, you will spare your spouse the perception of being attacked. You will prevent the need for defensiveness and will foster clear and focused communication that actually gets somewhere.
- Focus on changing yourself.
“You can’t change anyone else. You can change only yourself.” Sounds simple…until you stop and acknowledge that almost all arguments are about trying to change the other person.Your goal should be to become the best version of yourself, regardless of what your spouse does.
- Prioritize your spouse’s happiness over your own.
No, you don’t need to become a martyr or ignore your own happiness.But if all you do is shift your thinking to “How can I make my beloved happy today?” you will change the course of your marriage.
You may have lost your sense of direction in your marriage. You may wonder how to fix an unhealthy marriage — or if you even can.
The realm of what is possible is grounded in the power of choice. (Click here for additional ways to choose love and help heal your marriage.) The choice to love will determine all the behaviors that follow.
And those new behaviors will lead you back to that loving feeling.
I’m Dr. Karen Finn, a life and divorce coach who helps people, just like you, who are wondering how to fix an unhealthy marriage. You can download your FREE copy of “Contemplating Divorce? Here’s What You Need To Know”. And if you’re interested in working with me personally, you can book an introductory 30-minute private coaching session with me.
Looking for more ideas for what to do about your unhappy marriage? You’ll find what you’re looking for in Unhappy Marriage.
How Self-Awareness Can Affect Communication With Anyone In Incredibly Positive Ways
Knowing yourself will help you better understand what others are trying to tell you.
When you think of being “self-aware,” you may have flashbacks to self-help books and guided meditations. But would you even consider how self-awareness can affect communication with the people in your life? Would it dawn on you that your ability — and willingness — to know yourself can improve your ability to know others?
If you’re stuck in the perception that communication is all about what you say, you’ll miss out on how self-awareness can affect communication.
It rarely occurs to most people that listening is the most important part of communication. If you’re all ears and no talk, what kind of communication is really going on?
A lot, actually — especially if the listening starts with yourself.
And this is what self-awareness is all about. It’s not a chapter in New Age spiritualism or a state of mind achieved only under hypnosis (although hypnosis can help).
Awareness is the ability to be conscious of the experiences and stimuli that ultimately determine how you take in and process information. What you think, believe, and sense is a reflection of what is already dwelling and stirring within you.
Self-awareness, in a nutshell, is looking at your internal filters and making sense of them. Your life experiences, beliefs, values, assumptions, biases, fears, and expectations all influence how you listen. And how you listen is the key to how self-awareness can affect communication.
There are three parts to this internal experience: your thoughts, your emotions, and your bodily sensations.
Thinking, as you would imagine, is connected to the mind, while sensing is connected to the body. Intersecting the two is feeling — the emotional component that can be affected by your thoughts, but isn’t always logical.
Self-awareness is your ability to recognize and separate these different experiences so you can address each for what it is.
Think about the last heated argument you had with someone — the kind of argument that left you feeling out of control, flushed, confused, exhausted. Can you remember what you thought, felt, sensed? Or did it all run together and intensify an already intense situation?
Did you find yourself saying things without thinking first? Tossing around accusations and assumptions as if they were facts? Perhaps not being able to distinguish what was coming from within yourself from what was coming from the other person?
Most importantly, did you find it difficult to listen — deeply listen — to the other person? If you were asked to repeat what the other person said and to express understanding of it, would your mirroring be accurate? Or would it reflect your personal experiences, biases, feelings, disappointments?
Self-awareness is the antidote to this internal flooding. Especially in situations of conflict, it isolates and identifies your internal filters. It helps you to know what is actually happening inside of you. Am I projecting my own thoughts onto this person? Am I feeling a specific emotion like anger or sadness? Is my body giving me signals like numbness or flushing?
Knowing how self-awareness can affect communication can improve every relationship in your life. It’s a powerful tool that can facilitate problem-solving and resolution of deep-seated issues.
Go back to that heated argument and try to remember things that were said and reactions to them.
Phrases like “I feel like you” and “you never/always/don’t” are land mines when it comes to effective communication. They muddle the internal experiences of thoughts, feelings, and sensations, leaving the speaker confused, the listener defensive, and the situation more intense.
Imagine now how that argument would have sounded if you were able to separate the components of your interior experience.
What if you had been able to recognize your sadness as a feeling and your assumption of lack of love as a thought? And what if, instead of saying, “I feel like you don’t care about or love me,” you spoke with clarity out of your self-awareness? “I feel very sad, and what I am making up in my mind is that you don’t love me anymore. Is that true?”
By recognizing the components of your own inner life, you’re far more likely to take ownership of it.
“I feel like you” is really a side-door introduction of a thought — an assumption, an accusation. But feelings are feelings — they aren’t always logical and they don’t need to be justified or defended. They simply ‘are.’
Thoughts, however, are the seat of our judgments, assumptions, and biases. They are closely connected to our beliefs, which form a frame of reference for how we see the world.
If you want to understand how self-awareness can affect communication, you need to understand the distinctions and interrelations between these interior players.
And, just as importantly, you need to accept responsibility for that inner experience that only you have. It’s up to you to identify it for what it is and then express it clearly, authentically, honestly, and compassionately.
The deep yearning within any relationship is to feel heard — deeply, soulfully heard — and understood. At its purest level, all communication is an outreach for this satisfaction.
But we are not mind-readers, no matter how close we may be in our relationships. So it’s incumbent upon each of us to listen — deeply listen — to what accumulates and stirs within ourselves.
Then and only then can we hope to communicate accurately what we long to have safely, lovingly reflected back to us.
And in that reflection lies the hope of resolution, healing, and moving forward.
I’m Dr. Karen Finn and I’m a life coach. Schedule a 30-minute private consultation for support in becoming more self-aware and how self-awareness can affect communication in all of your relationships.