How to create emphatic and loving relationships. You ask, I answer.

This is the first in a series of articles that I wrote, based on questions I receive. Please send me more questions ( wishyouhealthyrelationship@gmail.com) and, if you find this article useful, please like our page on Facebook ( https://www.facebook.com/communicationandmore ).

It is often said that in order to have a happy intimate relationship, we need to compromise. The other person gives up some, I give up some and that way we reach a point where you have two people who are giving up. With this article I’ll show you that there is a much better way.

Meet Janet and Mark (I changed the names to guarantee privacy). I work with Janet, as she is the one to realize that their relationship is fast steering towards the rocks. Janet and Mark have a business together.

Janet finds some of the things that Mark does, in his everyday dealings, very difficult to accept, and she is building up more and more resentment towards him as he seems, in her words: “not to care”.

Janet and I decide to work on one specific thing that Mark does and that she finds really, really hard to deal with.

According to Janet, Mark leaves his tools, such as screwdrivers, hammer, wrenches, etc...right in front of the entrance of their business, causing visual clutter and, sometimes, as screwdrivers have a tendency to roll, they create a situation where guests need to jump over them.

Janet tells me she has addressed this issue with Mark several times, with no change.

Over the weeks that we work together, we are able to clarify a few things:

First, that when Janet sees the tools by the entrance to the business, she gets disturbed because some of her basic human needs are not met, specifically:

beauty (she perceives them as ugly at the entrance)

harmony (similar to the above)

cooperation (Mark leaving tools there even after she addressed it with him)

consideration (this and all following needs, similar to the above)

inclusion

mutuality

to be heard

safety (clients could trip over them)

Secondly, that because of lots of similar events in their relationship, in which messages seem to get lost in the ether, her level of resentment has reached historical levels and that, if we want to put it on a time-scale, she is at 1 minute to twelve, in terms of quitting the relationship. On the other hand, she deeply cares about him and the relationship and is really, really desperate to find a way to communicate with him, as she realizes that she is not managing.

Thirdly, related closely to point number two, we are able to identify that her way of communicating is mostly based on threats. Even when she doesn’t use the actual words, she is still falling into the retaliatory formula: “if you don’t do this, I will do that”. Clearly, when we address anyone in this way, we get a protective reaction from them as they feel threatened, and their fight-flight-freeze mechanisms kick in.

With these three points, we were able to get quite some work done over a period of four weeks. We started by addressing point three: use of communication.

Janet was able to see that if she wanted to make headway, she needed to approach Mark with different communication skills. In particular, she needed to be able to develop different listening skills so that she would be able to relate to his basic human needs. Why is this important? Because when we meet at the level of basic human needs we are meeting on a level playing field, where the potential for human connection is extremely high. This level playing field is often referred to as empathy.

So, over the weeks we spent together, Janet was able to approach Mark with “big ears”, with the ability to actually, fully hear what he was saying about the tools being where he left them.

She was able to establish that this strategy that he chose was really used to fulfill his basic human needs for:

ease (having them close to him when he needs them)

self-expression (this and the ones below, related to the basic human needs for autonomy)

choice

freedom

independence

space

So can you notice how a very interesting thing is happening here? We have an almost mathematical equation being born here: we have narrowed things down to a few common denominators, a few basic human needs; basic human need that we all share and that we can relate to:

Janet has mostly needs for beauty and inclusion as most prominent ones, while Mark has needs for peace and autonomy as strong ones, in this moment of his life.

When we finally came to this point, it was easy to create some common working strategies between Jane and Mark. During one of the Skype get-togethers that Jane and I had, we started an exercise in creative thinking; in other words, we started creating a list of practical ways (strategies) that she could suggest to Mark, to fulfill the needs of both.

We started off the list with about 10 strategies and narrowed it down to about 2 or 3.

Now we were facing the moment of truth. Would Mark take to any of the strategies that Jane was about to suggest?

I was really keeping my fingers crossed and feeling intrepid, till our next meeting.

A week passed and we got back on tele-conferencing. I was waiting with excitement for news. Jane told me that, over the weeks that we had worked together, she had started to act quite differently with Mark. In a way,she was better able to see his “humanity” and to accept the points that she, until recently, had chosen to see as “flaws”.

By the same token, she was able to try and guess what his basic human needs were, after we built up a bit of “needs fluency” for her. In so doing, she was able to connect to him in a completely different way, coming from a point of love and care most of the time, without labeling Mark as “slob” or “lazy”. Furthermore, by doing this work, by exercising her mind in this way, she was able to come up with a strategy that worked for both:

The tools would, from now on, Mark agreed to this, be left at a certain distance from the door, in such a way that they would not be too prominent yet, in such a way that he could grab them without further ado.

I hope that this article has shown you how easy it is to connect, when there is will by at least one person to create deep and meaningful engagement, without the need to compromise by anyone.

If you would like to receive, for free, on a weekly basis our communication tips that could help you create crystal clear, misunderstanding free connections in situations like the one you just read about, then subscribe now ( https://people-and-communication.com/blog-archive/ ). If you prefer one-on-one sessions, I (Jerry) have always two free sessions available for you, that you can sign up for by emailing me ( wishyouhealthyrelationship@gmail.com ). We all look forward to speaking with you! The team of Online Academy for Communication.

How to come back from a disconnected relationship.

Picture this: two individuals who clearly have a lot of love for one another, yet don't know anymore how to share it. They end up on a path of mutual recrimination.

Often, with sentences that start with: “you did”, “you said”, “you should”, “you shouldn't”, “the problem with you”, “you hurt me”, “you are not listening to me”.

When we go down this path, we hope that the other person will finally be ready to hear us, and that they will simply quieten down and open their ears.

The problem with this approach is that it obtains the exact opposite of what we would like: the

Picture nuttakit/freedigitalphotos.net

person that we so badly want to connect with, shuts down because they hear judgment and/or criticism. Wouldn't you?

What do we do with our relationship's rut?

 Mr. A and Ms. B, came to one of our relationship workshops because: “We have created a routine set of responses, a pattern if you will, to one another, and we see that we have grown apart. Each one of us is busy with his/her life, and we don't actually communicate. We live under the same roof, yet that seems, unfortunately, to be it. We lost the ability to have fun together, to do things that connect us intimately, to enjoy each other”

It didn't take us long to see that the real issue this couple had was the use of language and mental images of one another. They both believed that the other person was doing or saying certain things that were detracting from each other's lives; specifically, she believed that he was not sharing enough verbally about his intentions; he, on the other hand, believed that many of her behaviors were “nosy and stifling”.

It is no wonder that such dialogues, that imply wrongness of the other party, separate us humans, instead of bringing us closer.

 Understanding each other's basic human needs

Based on this understanding that we all share the same basic human needs, we were able to help them see that A had a strong need for sharing and togetherness and that B had a strong need for autonomy and space, as well as sharing and togetherness.

As we moved along through the days of our workshop, it became clearer and clearer to both of them that the dialogue that they had had so far was no longer a viable possibility. Equally, it became clearer to them, with a little help from us, that they actually shared most of the same needs. For example they had some needs whose commonality between the two of them was particularly strong: for closeness, independence, togetherness, autonomy and sharing.

So, now, you could ask: “this is all very well, yet how does this understanding of my needs help me come closer to the person/people that I no longer manage to have a constructive dialogue with?”

Let's continue and stay for a little while on the importance of understanding, and identifying our needs.

As we said before, all of us share the same basic human needs and these needs are never mutually exclusive. A few examples of needs could be: the need for sexual expression, for nutrition, for sharing, for growth, for (personal) space and the list goes on much further.

If we manage to connect to these needs within ourselves (most of us don't, including yours truly often...:-); it takes me my written list of needs to come to see which one it is) we can see that all that we do and say in our daily experience, is geared towards fulfilling these needs.

The only problem in this picture is...a horse and cart issue

Most of us are unaware of the fact that our doing and saying things are here to fulfill those needs; a clear case of putting the cart before the horse. We go find jobs we don't like -we fulfill our need for financial safety while at the same time we ignore our need for harmony and playfulness-, we get into relationships that are clearly not for us -we fulfill our need for sharing and sexual expression while at the same time we ignore our need for closeness and sharing-, we drink fluids that we don't really like yet we are with a group and believe we have to -we fulfill our need for sharing and belonging while we ignore our need for physical well-being-.

 The solution and the breakthrough?

Well, there is obviously never only one answer, yet, my/our take on it is that if we manage to connect at the level of those basic human needs, the shift to connection can be pretty rapid.

In the case of Ms. A and Mr. B there was a major breakthrough already on the first afternoon of the workshop; Mr B was, for the first time in years, able to hear what Ms. A needed; this breakthrough was possible because both were willing to drop their usual accusatory dialogue, and to try to listen to each other's basic human needs in a loving and emphatic way, as opposed to the “you this” and “you that” dialogue they had come to establish between themselves as a norm.

Their desire to reconnect, so as to be able to fulfill their needs for peace and harmony, led to this major breakthrough. 
When we reach these points, which I/we like to refer to as shifts, or tipping points, we already start from a new point of personal consciousness in the approach to one another.

In fact Mr. A and Ms. B, that same evening, after the daily workshop-session, had a situation that triggered a lot of pain in them both. However, as they had examined and reconsidered their dialogue for the better part of the afternoon, they were able to hear each other in a completely new way.

Instead of accusing each other of some wrongdoing, they tried to identify each other's needs and, although they still lacked the proficiency to do so fully while falling into some old traps, they were, in their own words: “clearly on a different path, literally looking at each other with different eyes, with a dialogue that was much more loving than the day before”.

A path that was connecting, instead of alienating and disconnecting.

As the workshop progressed, we were, all together, able to look at some of the “mistakes” that they were making.

To conclude, while it is easily possible to disconnect from one another with our busy lifestyles and a general lack of intimacy, there are ways to come back. If we take the time to actively listen to each other, the gap can be, pretty quickly, bridged. Focusing on each other's basic human needs is a way to connect to each other at the deepest level, with empathy and compassion.

I realize I was only able to touch the tip of the iceberg in such a brief article, so join all those of you who felt free to e-mail me -by clicking here- with any question (I won't charge you money of course...:-) )

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