How to communicate better with the people in your life (with Sara Ness)
Spencer Greenberg speaks with Sarah Ness about her 'relating languages' framework, which categorizes communication styles to improve understanding and reduce loneliness. They discuss how these styles shift under stress and the importance of emotional awareness for better relationships.
Deep Dive Analysis
15 Topic Outline
Introduction to Relating Languages and Their Purpose
The Six Relating Languages and Their Dialects
Questioning Language: Scientist vs. Space Holder
Storytelling Language: Chronicler vs. Bard
Joking Language: Cynic vs. Clown
Doing Language: Maker vs. Helper
Conversationalist Language: Teacher vs. Turn Taker
Observer Language: Guardian vs. Witness
Validity and Utility of the Relating Languages Framework
Host's Personal Relating Languages and Shifts
Defining Authenticity and its Components
Understanding Emotions as Information and Boundary Setting
Authentic Relating Games and the Manual
Critique and Value of Personality Typologies (Myers-Briggs, Enneagram)
The Importance of Frameworks and Language in Understanding Behavior
6 Key Concepts
Relating Languages
A framework categorizing universal interaction styles and individual communication biases, which can shift based on feelings of safety or stress. It helps understand why people communicate differently and why conflicts arise, offering a developmental system to learn new interaction styles.
Internal vs. External Focus (Dialects)
A spectrum within each relating language that describes how much a person's attention is directed internally (towards self) versus externally (towards others). This focus can change under stress, impacting relationship dynamics and leading to misunderstandings if not recognized.
Authenticity (Sara Ness's View)
Authenticity is not a single thing but comprises two aspects: awareness (being honest with oneself about motivations, especially conflicting ones) and action (congruence between one's values, feelings, and actions). The goal is to find alignment between what is true internally and how one acts and communicates externally.
Emotional Body
A concept suggesting that emotions function as a 'body within the body,' having their own reactions and serving as a source of information. This 'body' speaks a different language than the mind, requiring conscious effort and attention to interpret its signals for self-understanding and boundary setting.
Emotions as Situation Detectors
This perspective views emotions as signals that detect specific situations (e.g., anxiety as a 'dangerous situation detector,' anger as a 'someone is interfering with my goals detector'). It encourages listening to emotions for valuable information, while acknowledging they can sometimes be inaccurate or 'go haywire.'
Internal Family Systems (IFS)
A psychological model positing that individuals have multiple 'parts' to their personality, each with distinct desires, needs, and backgrounds, rather than a single unified self. This framework helps in understanding internal conflicts and fostering self-compassion by recognizing the validity of different internal motivations.
7 Questions Answered
Relating languages are a framework to categorize different interaction styles people use, often biasing towards certain ones depending on whether they feel safe or stressed. They can be used to understand why communication breaks down, identify one's own and others' communication patterns, and develop new interaction skills.
People tend to err towards certain relating languages (often one or two) when they feel stressed or unsafe, and towards other types when they feel safe. This shift in internal/external focus can lead to personality conflicts and misunderstandings.
Authenticity involves two main aspects: awareness (being honest with oneself about motivations, even conflicting ones) and action (being congruent between one's values, feelings, and actions). It's about aligning one's inner truth with outward expression.
By paying attention to physical sensations and energy levels, one can learn to distinguish between a 'yes' (leaning forward, energy, solidity) and a 'no' (tenseness, less aliveness, confusion). When feeling confused or uncertain, saying 'no' can indicate a boundary.
A useful technique is the 'inner why' technique, which involves noticing emotional shifts as soon as they occur and immediately asking oneself what just happened to trigger that shift. This helps pinpoint the cause of emotions more accurately.
While Myers-Briggs provides a useful language for discussing personality and self-understanding, its scientific validity is often questioned. It struggles with dichotomous categorization (many people are in the middle) and type stability over time, and it lacks a measure for neuroticism compared to the Big Five.
Frameworks provide a common language to think and talk about complex human behaviors and experiences, making them easier to understand and discuss. Even if not entirely accurate, they offer a starting point for conversation and can lead to useful insights and de-stigmatization of others' behaviors.
22 Actionable Insights
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.
7 Key Quotes
If I'm not anticipating that people are going to change, is there something that would describe more of how we relate with each other and why we get into some of the conflicts that we do?
Sara Ness
It's not just about the intention behind what we're communicating, but it's like, that's part of it, but it's also just what we consider polite and what we consider normal.
Sara Ness
If you only have attention towards yourself, you lose awareness of what's happening with other people. You can seem insensitive or unempathetic or self-centered, whatever it is. But if you're entirely on the other side and all your attention is out towards other people, you lose awareness of what your boundaries are and your desires.
Sara Ness
When you look at it this way, instead of dismissing emotions, you think, okay, what is this emotion trying to say to me? What is it? What is it detected?
Spencer Greenberg
Authenticity is not always, we don't always get to say the pleasant thing.
Sara Ness
By the time you step into the river a second time, both you and the river have moved on. Like you can never step into the same river twice, but our minds want this sense of stability and security. That's just out of alignment with the way the world works.
Sara Ness
If you have a categorization system, there's some sense in which a categorization is arbitrary... there's no right way to categorize things, but there are more and less useful ways to categorize things.
Spencer Greenberg
4 Protocols
Taking a Breath (Facilitation Tool)
Sara Ness- When the room is in chaos or you don't know what to do, invite everyone to take a breath.
- Take 10 breaths to calm everyone's nervous system and create space.
Noticing Game (Somatic Awareness)
Sara Ness- One person says, 'Being with you, I notice...' or 'I feel...' (describing somatic or emotional experience).
- The other person responds, 'Hearing that, I notice...' or 'I feel...'
- Continue back and forth to gain real-time awareness of how statements and body sensations influence feelings and responses.
Translator Game (Communication Awareness)
Sara Ness- Two or more people have a conversation, each with a 'translator.'
- One person speaks.
- Their translator says what they think the speaker *really* means.
- The other person responds.
- Their translator translates.
- Continue the conversation with translations to reveal underlying meanings and intentions.
Spectrum Activity (Group Needs Assessment)
Sara Ness- Offer two opposite concepts (e.g., 'life is too slow' vs. 'life is too fast').
- Have people physically stand on a spectrum in the room (or use an online tool) to indicate where they fall between the two opposites.
- Observe the distribution to understand diverse needs within the group.
- Offer different options or approaches to meet the varied needs of the different groups identified.