Communication Traps | LQ044

Welcome to our love space today. I love it when I get to come out and meet you guys in the real world. And I got to chat with so many people the other week, it was so exciting to hear everyone's experiences and everyone's thoughts on relationships. And I just love that if you are one of the people that I got to meet out in the real world, or even if you're one of the people who have only met here in our love space, do always feel free to reach out, DM me on Instagram, leave a voice message, or through Tiktok. On Instagram, I'm at sparked forever, or on Tiktok, I'm at sparked underscore forever. I love to hear from you guys about your questions, your curiosity, things you want to explore. I am always open to you know, if someone sends me a question or a curiosity to exploring it right here on the podcast. So do not be shy. Do reach out, because this is your this love space. Is your relationship community. This is your place to explore, to get your questions answered, to do deep dives into maybe things you haven't thought about for your love space or in your relationship with the love of your life. And that's what I'm here to do, is just help you guys be sparked, stay sparked, you know, and help you thrive and grow. That is my wish for all of you to be in a growing, thriving love space. And as we all know, all love quirks here, right? That love is imperfect. It quirks, right? It's quirky, it's there's no one set way to do it right, even though some relationship people might tell you there is, there is not, right, there's some big picture pieces that we probably all need, but the details and the way you guys want to fill them in is going to be different for everyone, and that's what I'm here to help you find out and explore and put together for yourselves. So today, one of the things that actually came up in some of the you all who have done the quiz recently, my little reignite your spark quiz, which, if you haven't done it, I believe there's a link in the show notes to do so, please feel free to follow that and give that a try. But communication actually came back as the top thing this week from everyone who's done the quiz as being kind of the place that people are maybe having some more hiccups or maybe want some more growth in. So I thought I would touch on a few communication traps today. So we're going to go over three ones quickly again, if you want to deep dive into any of them more, so do let me know over the DMS or, you know, reach out however you'd like. Or if you want to work one on one 100% we can get that set up for you. So relationship trap number one that we're going to chat about today is wanting to be right or to be in control of the love space. Okay? So when someone believes that there is one better way or one final absolute way to do things, okay? That's when we get this kind of dynamic right, that someone believes that they are right, they know how to do all of these things. Or you may have realms that this could be both of you, where you maybe both have realms where you feel like you are right and know how to do all the right things, and that the other person is just constantly doing everything wrong. So you can see how this would be wearing on the person who is the person who's doing everything wrong all the time, or who constantly has to change the way they do things to meet your expectations of how things should be done. Okay, so that's really going to put some hiccups into place, that's going to create tension right from the beginning, and really what it is, is when we have that, it's really a perspective taking issue, right? So if you're like, Oh, I think the bed should always be made this way, or that the bed should always be made, you know, these are really, that is your personal perspective. Now, a lot of these personal perspectives or personal beliefs right come from how we were brought up. So either we're following exactly how we were brought up, and we feel we were brought up in the right way, and everyone else in the world should do that. And the interesting thing, the thing I have actually lucked out on in my life journey, is when you know, when I worked with families of kids and teens who are neurodiverse is that I got to go into a lot of people's homes, hundreds of people's homes, right? And same thing when I've been doing some couple work, I I've gone in home a few times, but not as much as I've done on Zoom and in office, but I've been in hundreds of people's homes over the course of, you know, my career. And the interesting thing is, there is such a range and variety of how homes are run, of how homes function, because I've had the luxury of going into people's homes where it's not at its best. It's not like friends and guests or whatever is coming over. No. Just plain old crystals coming over, and she knows about our life. So here's our home, right? And so I get to see how people really, truly live day to day. And there, again, as I always talk about, there is a whole spectrum of how people live and what people think is clean or acceptable in their daily living and what is not acceptable in their daily living. And like I said, usually these beliefs come out of how we were raised and or we might want to do the opposite of how we're raised. That happens sometimes, or we've seen how our friends do things, right? So this can have a lot to do with that idea of keeping up with the Joneses. I don't know if we use that really that phrase anymore, but that's the idea of like, oh, you see what everyone else is doing, your neighbors are doing, your friends are doing all that kind of thing, and you're trying to match that standard, right? Kind of like, you know, the Martha Stewart documentary came, just came out, not just, but, you know, and I definitely grew up in the Martha Stewart era, and that gave us a lot, or gave a lot of us the idea that that was the standard of, you know, of home living, or being a housewife, right? And I like, look around my house, I'd be like, that's not how we're living. But I guess maybe my family's doing it the wrong way. Maybe this is the way that really the rest of the world does it. And then I lucked out, because when I got out into the real world and I started working with families, I was like, Oh no, actually, most, many, many people do it a lot closer to the way I grew up than the way Martha Stewart is presenting on TV right or on her show. So again, it's all about perspective and beliefs. When we have this hiccup about some one person thinking that they have the right way to do it right, that's based on their belief, and that's also based on their personal perspective. This can actually also crop up or get crop up when we have I know in my personal relationship, this happens a lot with speed, because I am the slow slug in the relationship, and he is like the little speed demon. And so we can often misalign on how fast we should think chores should be done, or how long they're going to take, or, you know, how quickly we should be moving around the house, things like that. So we have to remember that that's both of each of our perspectives, and we have to be flexible with how the other person is carries out their chores or does their errands, or does their whatever things that are coming up with this. It's usually an errand or a tour or, you know, some sort of household expectation. I find that usually this is centered around but what we want to do to make it better, so that's, that's our, you know, one of our communication traps is that someone thinks they know the absolute right way. Fine, you can present that argument, but you have also have to take the perspective that it's the the other person you know, in whatever household they came from, that was maybe the right way, and there's no wrong way of doing it. The only caveat I will put in there is if there is a health or safety issue with your level of cleanliness or hygiene in your home. And by that, I mean, like, you know, when you see the hoarder shows and things have really, really gotten out of hand. And if a health and safety person came in, they would be like, Oh my gosh, no, you will be getting sick. We maybe have, like, you know, hidden rodent infestations, not because they get in our house just accidentally every once in a while, which is the norm, you know, but because that there is maybe a bigger issue here, so that if this is this, if that's what's happening in your house, we can get some

other help for you, but that is, like the only place where I say we would draw the line for this kind of thing. Otherwise, there are, you know, many ways to do a task, and everyone can have a different perspective on it. And so the way we want to flip this, to make this not a communication trap, is we want to think of what are our relationship values, rather than what our beliefs are for how clean our house should be, or what order things should be done in, or how something should be done. We want to think of what our value is right, and if our values, you know, if we value efficiency in our house, or if that's your personal value that is better to share with the person right to share with the love of your life, rather than know this that you have to do steps A, B, C and D, and that's the only way to do it. Now you may be saying like, hey, you know, I value efficiency. This is the most efficient way I have found to do it, but I you know, and so I'm sharing that with you. But if you would like to do it your way, really, the goal in our relationship and in our house management is to have that thing completed and completed in a timely manner and and or when it needs to be done by and if our partner is doing that. If our love of our life is checking that off or mostly checking that off right, we can remember to be flexible with that. Okay, so remember, and we also have to remember that the compromise needs to come both ways. So even though we may think we're right, which we know that relationships aren't about being right or wrong, they're about being teamwork, collaborations. So if we believe that we are right, we need to also come halfway to be like I see your perspective that it actually isn't important that you save time on this chore or be efficient about it, or you don't think it's important to do step four, and that's okay. I can let go of Step Four for this one, right? But when it's your turn to do it, or when you are, you know, initiating the task, those kind of things, right? Remember, it's your love space and your your your possibility bringing, you know, some people come from very different backgrounds, so you're possibly bringing two belief systems together. If you're doing that, there's going to have to be a lot of mixing together, of flexibility and of really realigning our relationships to be values based, and picking out what or values that we want to have in our love space, rather than okay, you get to pick two things, and I get to pick two things we want to kind of create a New space, a new belief system that's going to help us move forward. The next communication trap that we can get caught in often is when we approach something with big emotions. So I call this like big emotions versus problem solving when we are having big emotions, it is very difficult for us to problem solve, for us to listen actively, for us to be able to figure out what the miscommunication is. So this like, and I talked a little bit about this in my Hello, hiccup. Hello, hiccups episode, I think that's what it's called. It's just a few episodes ago, and sometimes we have the instinct to come into a conversation with a big feeling or a big emotion. Now that can be either because we are feeling that big feeling or emotion right then and there we are seeing red, right? We are fully escalated, and we need to emote that. Okay, that could be one reason that we are using a big emotion to sort of say what's wrong, to bring up an issue or a concern, or how we're feeling, but it can all sometimes, in the back of our little lizard brains, we could be using a big emotion, because we're really trying to drive the point home of how we are feeling. So rather than it just happens to be, I am this escalated, and I want to show you how escalated I am, it can end up being more along the lines of like I am feeling this escalated, but I want to make sure, or maybe I'm feeling this escalated, but I want to make sure you really understand how very angry I am. So I'm going to come at you with a how very angry I am tone so that you truly understand. Okay. Now, it is weird that our that our brains want to do that, because what? What happens when we approach someone, and we see this on social media all the time, when you see people who are doing like, the the like, the angry thing like that. I need to see your manager kind of approach. That's what kind of what this is. Oh, I should call it that. I need to see your manager approach to problem solving. Okay, so it's so that's really what it is. And what happens is, when we approach people with that energy, as one of my favorite business gurus, Sue Chadwick, says Your energy is your invitation. So if I approach someone with that energy, Okay, with that very intense, high emotive energy, I am going to get back that very intensive, high emotive energy. Okay? And so it's going to cause someone to put up their defenses. It's going to cause someone to just yell back at me. And now, instead of being in a place to do problem solving, now we're just in an escalated argument, and maybe we're yelling, and maybe we're, you know, doing whatever, but we're certainly not, and we're calling names, I don't know, hopefully not, but we're doing whatever that is the opposite of what we need to do to get to a problem solving stage. No problem solving is happening when we have those big, high emotions. So what we really need to do is we really need to pause that is the best place to be first. We could actually if, if you feel yourself in your back of your brain being like, I need to come at this harsh and hard and serious, because otherwise they won't understand if that is the place you are coming from. There are probably some other things that we need to do and we need to tweak first before we get. To being able to positively problem solve, because we are probably already missing some foundational pieces, or or have started to, you know, hit so many of these communication traps in this area that we feel we need to come in super powerful and strong, because otherwise we're not being heard. So we need to probably tweak and fix that before a pause and agreeing to disagree is going to help us. So if you are there, please reach out and we can put it. We can work on putting in those more foundational pieces that need to happen before you'll be able to problem solve at this stage. But really what you need to put in is some sort of pause if you have come in too strong and now you realize we are in an argument. We need to pause, because no problems are being solved in that high emotive state. Okay, so we need to pause and come back when we are calm. Ish. So again, there's that saying, like, don't go to bed angry. That's like, hit and miss. It depends on who you are, but I would say, don't go to bed like super yellow angry. I would say, go to bed with like an understanding that you have paused the argument because you are agreeing to disagree for the moment and that you will come back to it when things are calmer. So, you know, you don't want to not come back to it. I think that's probably more what is meant by that, like old saying, it's like, don't go to bed angry, because maybe you'll wake up in the morning and you'll feel slightly better, but you won't have solved the problem, right? We want to make sure we are going to come back to the problem solving. So it's fine to sleep on it, but remember, we need to come back and talk about it, and not just sweep it under the carpet or under the rug, whatever. I'm using a lot of old saints today.

Oh, well, that's where my brain is at, okay? And I would like to say that also sometimes, this once, we've paused and we've agreed to disagree, when, sometimes, when we come back to it, you know, we might come back to it and have a little 10 minute conversation. Be like, Ah, yes, that's where that miscommunication was, okay, perfect. And, you know, it could happen that half a day layer. And because I'm a bit of a verbal processor, half a day layer, you know, I might be like, ah, do you know what this thought popped into my head? And, you know, I would like to just share it with you. And it's not bringing up the argument again, but it's just like, kind of peeling back another layer. Like, do you know what I actually thought? Like, you know, this is what the miscommunication is about. But maybe it also had a little bit to do with this. And then the and then my partner could be like, Oh yeah, that totally makes sense. And again, we're having just like a little conversation about it. We're not getting into anything heightened. It's more just like some observation, some curiosities. Because, again, if we can peel back more layers, right, we're not rehashing this argument. It's like, oh, this thought popped into my head. I was curious if I was upset about this, maybe because of this other point, like, I know we had this miscommunication, but maybe if we peel back another layer, maybe here's the thing under the thing. Oh, interesting. Okay, right? And that gives us all that gives me more personal information about me him, more personal information about him, right? And self reflection and helps us grow our relationship for the future. And if you don't come back and problem solve, this is where we start to build in those layers where we will get repetitive arguments, right and and either we'll get repetitive arguments, our arguments will get bigger, or people will fall into silence, because they'll be like, Oh, every time I bring something up, it turns into a huge argument. And then we never, you know, solve anything about it. So I might as well just not say anything. Right? It can lead people to being scared to say something, or, just like, apathetic to saying something. And then what happens is, then we start to build up resentment, because we're still experiencing those things that made us feel upset in the first place, right? We don't want that, and that will lead to resentment. And as we know, resentment is, you know, often a huge nail in the coffin for relationships. Okay, our last little communication trap that we're going to talk about today is the kind of defend and justify trap that we can get into. So this is when someone brings up an issue or a concern, and then we immediately start to defend against it or justify against it. So, so this is bad, right? Because if we're immediately saying why it's not a problem or why it was okay I did this thing, then we're not we're probably already, you know, trying to come up with that response while the person's still talking and still sharing about their feelings, so then we're not doing active listening, and then we're also more worried about our self in that moment, rather than our teamwork collaboration project, which is our relationship, right? So if you're like, Oh no, but it was because of blah blah, blah, blah, blah. Before you fully, actively listened and taken in that person's thoughts and feelings and said, Ah, okay, I can understand. I hear that you're saying you feel this and this, okay, this is my perspective on it, right? And then you really want to share your perspective on it, and not just it was okay because of this and this and this, right? We want to share our perspectives, right, and our thoughts and what we went through, because that really helps us find where the miscommunications lie in our relationships. So for example, I have a real life example is that, you know, my partner went out, and what I heard is, oh, I'm going out for a few beers with my friends. Fantastic, right? That's not a problem. That's what I heard. He actually meant to say he's going for more of, like a full, like boys evening. So I'm thinking normally, when he says, Oh, I'm gonna go for a beer or two with the guys. He's back in like an hour or two, which I'm always like, Ah, you're always back. You're back. So soon. This is the pattern I'm used to. So, you know, the other day when he's like, Hey, I'm gonna go out for a few beers. I was like, Cool. And so it was in my brain, like, he'll be back in in like, a couple hours, right? And then like, four or five hours went by and I like, where is he right? So, you know, and also I was not, oh my gosh. Now, look, now, even in my recount to the story, I was going to start justifying my reason for being upset at him. So interesting. So see, even my brain right there wanted to go right into the defend and justify piece. So what happened is he came home, and I was like, Girl, blah, you've been out forever, no time and and it actually wasn't a big deal, so, but I had a big, over emotional, like tantrum about it, and I and so that needed to be apologized for later on, once I calmed down for my tantrum. But what really the miscommunication was there is, you know, or what we what we figured out once we process through and talk through it was that there was a misalignment of expectations, because he thought he had clearly communicated what kind of like plans he had for the evening, and I had just made assumptions from his previous, you know, behavior patterns as my brain is want to do. Unfortunately, it's great for work, not always a wonderful to have your brain processing everything all day for your relationship, but anywho. So I was, you know, I was basing it on the past experience. He thought he clearly communicated what his intentions were for the evening, and that's what the miscommunication was. And so, you know, we figured out what our plan is for next time, but we did have to have a little pause and a little Calm down, especially for me, because I was definitely the one with the higher emotions, and even though they're kind of just medium emotions, I still needed to have a pause and a calm down before I was just going to stop being repetitive. Because that can often happen too when we're in these kind of arguments where we want to justify and defend, is that I want to just keep saying why it's okay for me to be this escalated, where, actually I just need to be, where we just need to pause, agree to disagree for this moment. I need to step aside and process my feelings, whether I feel that like obviously I'm allowed to feel how I love to feel, but whether you know my I need to process my feelings around my perspective and my interpretation of what has happened, and then we needed to come back together and actually do some active listening, right? Or I actually had to do some active listening. Actually, I'm both ways. The miscommunication was more definitely on my part this time. But that's fine, because we're remembering always that we are working together as a team work collaboration, and so it's not about who had more of the miscommunication or less of the miscommunication this time, or who is the winner in this argument, or who was in the right it's about discovering the miscommunication, owning your piece in it, and being able to truly and authentically be accountable for your piece in it, apologize for your piece in the miscommunication, and to be able to have a plan for moving forward for next time, right so and again, we might try a plan for next time, and maybe that needs a tweak, or that didn't quite work, and that's fine, because our relationships are a growing project, just like our love, right? Our love space is a growing project. Our relationship is growing project. There's no end to it. It keeps going, which is fantastic, because that means we can keep tweaking it. We can keep making it better. We can keep growing it, right? There's a never. Ever in all of these communication traps, we have to keep in mind that there is never, ever a winner in an argument, right? There is only discovery of what didn't work. Let me repeat that again. There is never, ever a winner in any of the arguments that you have, or any of the discussions or any of the hiccups, it should only be about discovering what didn't work. And if you do feel that there should be a winner or a loser in an argument, then that mindset we need to shift, because otherwise we're constantly going to be stuck in an adversarial situation with the love of our life, and that's not what we want for growth. So don't get

trapped. Don't get trapped. Here's what you're going to do instead. Always know that you are a team work collaboration, and that means growth and tweaking, and that's positive and fantastic. Remember pausing and agreeing to disagree for a moment, until you can get to that calm place to really communicate with each other is going to be so beneficial. Making miscommunications about discovering the miscommunications and not about winning, is really going to create that foundation to be open and vulnerable and honest with each other, and not a love space full of silence and resentment. And finally, we really want to embrace perspective taking and flexibility with the love of our life, because that is what is going to keep you sparked.