What is accurate expression? It's like hitting the pause button on the emotions and feelings you experience and describe them in a non-challenging way. If there are distractions, tiredness, uptightness, health ailments like sinus headaches, elderly parents being rushed to hospital, heavy drinking, alcoholism, drug use, and PTSD, these all affect how you react and your ability to convey accurate expression.
How would you use accurate expression? Inaccurate expression impacts communication and interactions because the dynamics stack up and add a layer to the interaction with the other person. When you're not your normal self, all those things stated, which impair judgment affect how you cope. It takes practice to practice accurate expression. For example, if you have the chills from a cold, and if you get the flu in the winter and your furnace isn't working, all of these cause you to be cold. However, if you blame it all on the either the flu or the bad furnace, that would be viewing the situation myopically, because either or both can be the cause of the problem. You should take a breath to ask yourself, "What are the pieces making me cold or feel this way?" For example, if you are irritable because of your wife's actions, you should think to yourself, I'm irritable, and maybe my wife's actions is causing it, but some of it can also come from any of the aforementioned things or even totally different things as well. All these issues make it hard to sort out what's going on inside you.
Accurate expression is when a person expresses accurately what they are feeling, while the other person listens actively or hard by focusing your total attention. To actively listen when you don't agree with something someone is saying is difficult to do. Practice by doing this when you're not fighting, because it is better to practice this when you are not in the heat of a confrontation which is when people are more receptive. When a person tells you something, understand, repeat, and validate what they have told you. People should repeatedly practice accurate expression before they have a real problem. You don't want to practice swimming when you've fallen out of the boat. Practice is required because it takes time to reach a level of sensitivity, reactivity and equilibrium.
Our emotions are things we feel and do all the time. They are not all necessarily pleasant or unpleasant. When things we don't like are done to us, it stirs up negative emotions in us and many other factors come into play as well like our character, temperament, sensitivity, PSTD, and our learning. All these things affect how we react. When people are more sensitive, it may be because they have had relationships that didn't end well, or for example, they are in the last week before a relationship ends. You can remember how you felt about the person and how you now feel. We are taught on how emotions respond to situations. Ongoing arguments that have been going on for several days leave us less objective, to the point where when a partner comes into the room negative feelings surface.
With high conflict couples, emotional vulnerability is heightened and negative emotional arousal causes judgment and inaccurate expression, leaving people feeling threatened and thrown off base. Such mis-understanding and conflict is what we often participate in, whether we realize it or not. When something occurs, stop and breakdown what's occurring, so you don't jump to the wrong conclusion, which angers you and triggers, wrong responses. The ideal is to be in a different place and space in an interaction. Energy is wasted in conflict and reducing this reduces wasted energy.
Validation is trying to understand the other person's experience. I love the concept of validating. Validation is how we communicate how we feel and why it's legitimate. So we can negotiate instead of trying to win. With people you never will see again like a grocery store clerk, you don't have to care about how you interact with them, but with people you love, you must find the motivation to be interested in them and their emotions. Even if they are mad at you, you don't want to ignore their feelings. You want to validate it. Validating what your partner is doing, feeling, saying and wanting is the key to effective communication and is very essential to good quality relationships. Are you having a hard time giving validation because you haven't received it yourself? Then it's something you should work on.
Role Playing Scenario:
A wife is upset that husband comes home late because she cooks his meal, but by the time he gets home it is cold. If he's practicing validation, his responses will validate her feelings and take the sting out of her anger. The first thing is to acknowledge what she's going through such as the fact that she's upset. Then you should say you're not doing what you are doing deliberately to upset her. Then acknowledge the work she is doing by cooking for you and why you can see anyone in her position being upset. Such responses diffuse what would have been a volatile situation.
Q and A:
Q: I have a yeller spouse. He hurts my feelings, gets upset at everything I do and then he'll say, "This is why I don't come home as much or I don't want to talk to you." This is making the relationship go downhill. I want to be done with the relationship. Our disagreement is usually about the kids or finances and he talks at me instead of to me. He's 10 years older, so I can't tell him he's wrong. He says, "I've been here longer than you. I know this, I know that." He doesn't listen to me. I was in counseling but he doesn't receive counseling.
A: This is a problem. You feel he doesn't get what you're saying, but he may feel overwhelmed, while you feel you are not being listened to. It's a vicious cycle where you are both sensitive and no more available to each other. When interacting with others, just because we are doing something doesn't mean the other person understands it. Take a cooling down period and start over and do a different emotional dance of no criticism or blame. When you talk to him, he thinks the same thing that has happened in the past is going to happen again and wants to avoid it all together.
Try a different approach. You can sit with him, hold his hand and say," I'm in a different place and I want to do things differently. Starting sentences with the word, "you," which shows you are coming from a defensive posture or stance, throws people off because they have to defend their stance and leads to more conflict. There may be different communication styles and temperaments at play here. We don't know his history, which may affect his interactions and responses to conflict. He's afraid to get in conflict, but we can't judge him because there's a reason for his actions and reactions.
You need a coach/counselor to help you navigate this situation. You need a neutral person to intervene. However, counseling shouldn't be about what he's not doing. It should be about making you the best person you can be. People get stuck in this area that destroys relationship. You want a loving and nice relationship, but she feels disempowered. If you manage your emotions effectively, it positively impacts other areas of your life. Don't learn to swim after you fall out of the boat. Reducing conflict is a two way street not just one person's responsibility. Validation communicates that you are not interested in you being right or your partner being wrong. Responding to be hurtful is what you are avoiding by validating the other person. Validation as a method of soothing is important. Why is it important? Soothing is important because it shows the other person understands our experience and has automatic positive pychological and physiological responses for social evolution and reduces the idea that others are a threat. By being understanding and validating of people’s emotions, you deflect their anger. We feel relived, comforted and soothed when we are validated. If someone calls you a jerk, that doesn't help you. However, to validate them you say," Wow, you're really upset with me." That's validating that the person feels angry.
Q: My spouse turns off his emotions when he feels overwhelmed. We have been together for 2 years. One day he woke up and said I'm done. I believe in communication and affection. In the beginning, the relationship was great. It bothers me when I ask him questions that make him feel I want to be involved in his life intimately. Not that I don't care, but I'm not an emotional person. However, when I ask where he is going? Or where is this relationship going? He's upset.
A: It's a like switch for him and a jolt for you. Maybe he's bringing his past relationships into the interaction because he's attached a negative connotation based on his history to such questions. A past intrusive or controlling partner could be what he is responding to, when interacting with you. Also, men are often not as communicative and touchy, feely as women are. We also should understand that we are all different, so you won't have an exact emotional partner. Also, you don't have all the person's history and information. For example; you don't know the deep trauma that has occurred that the other person has in them. It's not to excuse it, but to explain what they are doing and where they are coming from. As a partner, it may not have anything to do with you, even though you think it does. It's easy for one partner to let go, while it's not for him. It sounds like an old pattern used by the person as a coping mechanism that is familiar and automatic to them because they've been doing it for so long. Get some coaching/counseling and advice to deal with the situation. Focus on you and what you can do to develop yourself, so you don't lose yourself and the other person in the midst of it.
She seemed blind sighted and wounded by it. But it's very sad because maybe different temperaments are responsible for the situation. However, people who click too easily in the beginning of a relationship often can't manage relationship conflicts. If they hit a bump in the road down the line, they can get derailed by it, in comparison to those who had issues which were resolved and addressed early on, because they worked on it early, learned and built from it. However, note that you can reduce not eliminate conflict in relationships.
Do you argue? Do you start with conversation, but there's a meltdown that leaves you arguing over little things? Do you want to know how to stop that or put a handle on it? Use validation to smooth things out, to understand each other and get to the source of conflict without attacking each other.
High emotion arousal affects your interactions. Infidelity is painful, but recovery is possible. There must be repair if the partner will accept it. The unfaithful person must figure out why and how they strayed. Is it because they are unfulfilled, unhappy, angry, feeling distant or unappreciated? So when someone else appreciates or does things like being nice to them or complements them, it's like water in the desert and they go for it. If you are attracted to someone other than your partner, you should run home and talk to your partner. Validation shows the other person you are committed to their half of the story or experience and shows that they matter. Most people are nice, so it's harder for them to do hurtful things to others when they validate how the other person feels. When people are unaware of how you feel, they don't mind stepping on your toes, but if they know it hurts you, they don't.
Source: The Audrey Chapman Show
Edited by: Susan E. Majek
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