Category Communication

5 WAYS TO SOOTHE VERBAL BLUNDERS

Kathe Skinner, M.A., L.M.F.T. 3 Comments

Open mouth, insert foot.  It’s the verbal version of walking through the restaurant with toilet paper on your shoe.  We’ve all  experienced the mortification of poor verbal choices.  Sometimes, embarrassing stuff just happens.  Letting those blunders happen  more often than       not, though, is a problem that goes beyond stuff that sometimes happens.  woman holds breath

In fact, as I describe on my website www.BeingHeardNow.,com, verbal pratfalls reflect how good your communication skills are overall.  Luckily, preventing verbal embarrassment is surprisingly easy.

1.  Slow Down:  I’m reminded of reading only the first part of a test question only to have it turn out that the actual question was in the part I didn’t take time to read.  Being impatient diminishes the amount of information you have at hand, which leads to uninformed or ill-informed comments. You haven’t demonstrated complete interest in someone else; you’ve taken over control of their  speech.  You’re seen as self-centered, rude, brainless and uncaring.  Men report that women talk too much, citing that as the reason they don’t listen.  Whatever the cause, look for the speaker to  shut down and become disinterested in you as a conversation partner.

2.  Pay Attention:  It is nothing short of insulting when the listener doesn’t appear to be listening.  The oops can be verbal or non-verbal:  eyes looking elsewhere instead of making contact with the speaker; paying attention to your own task while saying you’re listening; saying something irrelevant to the conversation.  Some of my worst oopses have come from replacing the speaker’s reality with my own. The result is that I’m left behind and the speaker knows it’s because I’ve broken a cardinal rule of good communication: I haven’t paid attention.   I cringe every time I look at a picture taken at a business function where one of the guys I’m talking to is looking around the room, not at me.  When that happens to you pay attention to how you feel; I guarantee you won’t do it to anyone else.

2.  Stop Assuming:  Unless your crystal-ball is in good working order, acknowledge you don’t know everything.   Take in what your environment is really about; those who assume don’t.  The result includes finishing other peoples” sentences, interrupting with comments that go in the wrong direction, misinterpreting what’s really being said.  Women pull out their crystal balls when they complain that their partners don’t talk to them, or even listen in the first place.  The assumption is that a partner’s thoughts, and especially feelings, are being purposely withheld.  The result can lead to a rift that is about far more than what the topic of conversation was.  Want a clue?   Look for a surprised or confused look from the speaker.

3.  When in Doubt:  People are generally uncomfortable with dead air.  If you doubt that’s true, pay attention to your comfort level when the radio or t.v. looses sound.  In fact, there is no rule that says that the air must be filled with someone always saying something.  For some of us, the tendency to chatter takes hold, resulting in poor or unconsidered statements.    When in doubt, zip it.

4.  Apologize Sincerely:  There are times when everything you’ve done has turned out wrong.  Your enthusiasm leads to interruptions, perhaps because of identifying so much with the speaker’s topic  you take over.  Other times your disinterest may show.  Or you may fail to edit yourself: what comes up, comes out.   There are so many examples, I’m sure everyone can think of a cringe-worthy moment.  Whether or not you’re responsible, tune immediately into the speaker.  Be truly sincere when you say how sorry you are you’ve caused confusion or distress.   People generally react warmly to someone who really cares how they feel.  Don’t make it long and drawn out and be light-hearted if you can.  Whatever you do, don’t put blame out there somewhere.  Accept responsibility and be sincere about it.

5.  Know Yourself:  I’m an inveterate talker because I’m so curious.  I know, too, that when I get nervous I talk too much.  Two thousand feet down in the Molly Kathleen gold mine, you couldn’t shut me up; the tour guide finally stopped acknowledging me at all and my husband pretended like he didn’t know me. When I tuned in to their non-verbal responses to me, I knew to be quiet.

Truth is that sometimes goofs happen.  Part of what makes us endearing is having flaws and being vulnerable because of them.  Pay attention to basic communication skills; you’ll benefit from not crossing the line into mean, and your oopses will be quickly forgiven.

Kathe Skinner is a Colorado Springs Relationship Coach with a sub-specialty working with couples whose relationship has been impacted by invisible disability.  She herself has MS.  Kathe and her husband, David, teach Couples Communication Classes along the Front Range of Colorado.   Personal experience makes them believers that good communication skills are necessary for a successful relationship.

VERBAL OOPSES

Kathe Skinner, M.A., L.M.F.T. 4 Comments

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I was in the health food store yesterday and helped a little girl, about 8 years old, who couldn’t reach the roll of plastic food bags.  When I left the store, I saw her standing with an older woman; I smiled at the woman and asked if the little blonde was her granddaughter.  In halting, Scandinavian-accented English she told me no, the little girl was her daughter.   Hoping my embarrassment didn’t show I went ahead with what I was going to say in the first place – that the little girl was beautiful and very polite.  But with her having trouble speaking English, and it being the holidays and all, I do think it was “mormor” after all, visiting from Europe.

I’ve been wrong other times, too; either by omission or assumption.  When I greet already-established clients as newbies what is there to say?   Name slips are easier to cover; I just correct myself after apologizing profusely.  It’s when I discover my screw-up after the client’s left that grates; unfinished business or lack of closure or something like that.  All I know is that I hate having apologies go undelivered.  The absolute worst is making dead-wrong assumptions that are innocent but insulting.  Ever asked an overweight woman when she’s due?

I don’t think I’m the only one whose engagement with others doesn’t always work out.  It’s not always true that other people want to be vulnerable to strangers; it’s the grand assumption I make about people, probably because of what I do for a living.

There are unspoken rules about physical proximity, “getting in someone’s space”, and there are verbal ones, too.  Like how you talk, what you say, the purpose of saying something at all.

Women often complain that their partners don’t talk to them.  It’s assumed (there’s that word, again) that a partner’s thoughts, and especially feelings, are being purposely withheld.  It would be a darned interesting experiment (but unethical) to see if those same partners are verbally receptive to stranger-talk.  We’re usually nicer to strangers than we are to the ones we love.

Sometimes things just come out wrong.   Last time I was snacking my way through Costco I told the sample lady I’d knock her out just to steal every one of the cream puffs she was demo-ing.  Thankfully she was quick on the uptake, got it, and didn’t call security.

Do guys make these goofy blunders?  I know they do in sitcoms but do they in real life?  Don’t know; my partner hasn’t said.

Kathe Skinner is an inveterate chatter who specializes in coaching couples, especially couples whose relationship is impacted by invisible disability.  She lives in Colorado with her mostly-quiet husband, David, and their two hooligan cats.  Lucy chats more than Petey; guess what they say about women talking more than men is true of cats, too.

How Come It’s “We’re Pregnant” But It’s Not “We’re Disabled”?

Kathe Skinner, M.A., L.M.F.T. 1 Comment

I don’t know when it became fashionable to identify pregnancy as an adventure à deux.  It always seemed lopsided that pregnancy excluded men from throwing up, having swollen ankles and shrewish moods.  I’m not even talking about all those forever changes like stretch marks, a bigger butt, and wider hips.  With the possibility of gestational diabetes, postpartum depression, or miscarriage, the adventure becomes a challenge, albeit one that affects the relationship although it is physically experienced only by the woman.

Not to make it one-sided, men’s experiences are extraordinary, too, and may include being the target of a woman’s whacky moods or being the late-night junk food scrounger.  For guys, it hits that the two of you are now a family, with all the attendant expectations to be the one who forevermore protects and provides.

Without a doubt there are many, many women for whom pregnancy is a delightful experience. The glowing, the growing, and giving life is an experience like no other.  Pregnant women and moms belong to an exclusive club that has unbend-able  membership rules.  So even if it was the two of you being pregnant, only one of you, in the strictest sense, is a mom.

It’s the same when a woman is disabled or chronically ill.  Only one of you is impaired even while both of you — your relationship — can be impaired.   Having an invisible disability can be the worst of all.

Our society looks for proof; needs to name it; needs to touch it or otherwise experience its reality.  You can’t be “a little bit pregnant”; you either are or you’re not.  Pee on a stick and you prove it.  With invisible disabilities, there’s no pee test.  For some people, taking it on faith is harder than believing that what isn’t seen is true.  For example, not being able to prove the existence of god doesn’t mean god doesn’t exist.  Obviously, it’s the emotion surrounding belief that counts; to disbelieve or doubt a person’s physical or emotional perceptions is tantamount to discrediting someone’s very existence.  The truth of it is immaterial, while the emotion surrounding such thoughts is what counts.  The thoughts may even be rooted in jealousy of a sort – “What, so you get a break but I don’t?”  “Buck up, you’re just being lazy.”  “I worked all day but I still have to make dinner and do the laundry and get the kids to bed before I can sit down and catch my breath and where are you? in bed.”

Quantification when invisible disability is present requires a different yardstick but most of all it requires belief, support, and compassion.

Adding a stress load to any system that is already compromised results in a predictable, and usually disastrous, outcome (think of how a building with cracks in the foundation responds to an earthquake).  The same thing happens when an already dysfunctional body system is unable to respond well when stressors are piled on.  Such stressors may include walking through a mall or having relationship difficulties.

“We’re pregnant” or “we’re disabled” is an implicit bonding between partners.  Life-changing events happen from which there is no return.  Legal sanctions apply in both situations:  the 20% of women, nationwide, who are disabled are entitled to lifetime support; children until they reach the age of majority.  Society doesn’t seem to have recognized that the “we” of marriage with children and the “we” of disability in a relationship are the same thing.

To say “we’re disabled” says that both partners are in it together, that there is emotional and physical support of the partner who is less capacitated. Pregnancy usually involves the active participation of both partners while acquiring disability isn’t chosen by either partner.  Parenthood never ends, just as disability does not; a major difference is in the expected trajectory – that parenting gets more pleasurable once the nest is empty, while disability often does the opposite.  Disability is different in that there is no consent, no pre-planning, and certainly no enjoyment in acquiring the condition.

Kathe Skinner is a Relationship Coach in private practice.   Specializing in relationships, especially those with invisible disability in the mix, she offers both in-person and web-based programs for couples.  See http://www.BeingHeardNow.com to find the right program for you!

©Kathe Skinner, 2012