How to communicate better with the people in your life (with Sara Ness)

1. Cultivate Emotional Boundary Awareness

To establish better boundaries, pay close attention to your body’s signals: tension, confusion, or lack of energy might indicate a ’no,’ while aliveness and clarity suggest a ‘yes.’ Learning to read these subtle cues helps identify and honor your limits.

2. Redefine Authenticity: Awareness & Action

Understand authenticity as the interplay of self-awareness (honestly recognizing conflicting motivations) and congruent action (aligning your values, feelings, and behaviors). Focus on this alignment rather than a singular ‘authentic self.’

3. Treat Emotions as Situation Detectors

Consider emotions as valuable ‘situation detectors’ that provide information about your environment. Instead of dismissing them, inquire what they are trying to communicate, while acknowledging that they can sometimes be inaccurate and may need to be overridden.

4. Practice “Inner Why” for Emotions

When you experience an emotional shift, immediately ask yourself ‘why?’ and ‘what just happened?’ This ‘inner why’ technique helps you quickly identify triggers and gather nuanced information about your emotional responses before they become muddled.

5. Adapt Communication for Conflict

When standard communication practices fail with people you have history or conflict with, recognize that they may not be willing to engage in the same conversation style. Adapt your approach beyond typical ‘good communication skills’ to bridge the gap.

6. Integrate by Adapting Communication

When feeling disconnected in a new group, observe their communication patterns and adapt your own. For instance, if they tell stories and interrupt, try participating in that style, reframing interruptions as engagement rather than rudeness, to foster comfort and connection.

7. Develop New Relating Languages

Utilize the relating languages framework to identify communication styles you lack skill in, those that bother you, and how your style changes under stress. Actively practice and learn new languages to enhance your adaptability in different social situations.

8. Uncover Communication Motivations

When engaging with others, seek to understand the underlying motivations for their communication style, rather than just their behavior. This awareness can help you better meet their needs and navigate interactions more effectively.

9. Balance Internal & External Attention

During conversations, be mindful of whether your attention is solely internal (risking insensitivity) or external (risking boundary loss). Aim for a balanced focus to maintain both self-awareness and connection with others.

10. Track Stress-Induced Communication Shifts

Pay attention to how your own and others’ communication styles shift when under stress or feeling unsafe, especially the ‘internal-external flip.’ This awareness can clarify sudden conflicts and help you understand underlying reasons for changed behavior.

11. Adjust Listening, Not Others’ Behavior

Recognize that you cannot change others’ behavior, but you can change how you listen and interpret their communication. Adapt your listening approach and make clear requests to manage interactions, rather than expecting others to change.

12. Leverage Frameworks for Communication

Employ communication frameworks like ‘relating languages’ to establish a shared vocabulary for discussing interaction styles. This facilitates clearer conversations about personal preferences, unmet needs, and desired ways of relating with others.

13. Calm with Deep Breaths

In moments of upset or chaos, consciously take a deep breath, or even ten. This simple practice helps calm your nervous system, creating space for a more measured and thoughtful response.

14. Reflect to Calm & Gain Time

When engaging with an upset person, reflect back what you hear them say. This practice helps them feel understood and provides you with valuable time to calm your own nervous system before responding.

15. Accept Internal Incongruence

Adopt the mindset that your internal parts or motivations don’t always need to make perfect sense or be congruent. Allowing space for this paradox can reduce self-judgment and foster a more tender understanding of your inner world.

16. De-stigmatize Communication Styles

Challenge your judgments of others’ communication styles by seeking to understand their underlying motivations and needs. This approach can help de-stigmatize behaviors you find irritating and foster greater flexibility in your relationships.

17. Cultivate Thicker Communication Skin

When interacting, avoid taking things personally by developing a ’thicker skin’ and maintaining some internal awareness, rather than directing all your attention outwards. This can help you feel more comfortable and less offended by differing communication styles.

18. Cater to Diverse Group Needs

When leading or participating in groups, acknowledge and cater to diverse needs, such as preferences for speed or processing time. Offer varied options or approaches to ensure everyone’s needs are met, rather than imposing a single style.

19. Play Somatic Noticing Games

Participate in somatic ’noticing’ games, where you verbally share your real-time physical and emotional sensations (e.g., ‘being with you, I notice…’). This practice enhances awareness of how interactions affect your body and feelings.

20. Play “Translator” for Intentions

Engage in the ’translator’ game where a third party interprets what they believe a speaker truly means. This playful exercise can highlight unspoken intentions and foster deeper, more nuanced understanding in conversations.

21. Practice Authentic Relating Games

To enhance social skills and explore diverse interaction styles, utilize the ‘Authentic Relating Games Manual’ (available at authrev.org) which contains over 250 games and variations designed for conscious communication and connection.

22. Learn from Any System

When encountering a new system or framework, especially one widely praised, adopt a mindset of ‘What can I learn here?’ rather than immediate skepticism. Focus on extracting valuable insights and pieces, even if the system isn’t fully scientifically proven.