FOR HIM & HER: Better Communication Skills – Part III: To Thine Own Self Be True

Better Communication Skills – Part III: To Thine Own Self Be True

Good relationships take effort and time to allow hearts to open and soften into each showing themselves to each other. To do this we need to communicate clearly with our partner and learn to express ourselves and our needs more clearly.

Be Explicit About What You Need
We can only expect others to meet our needs if we know what they are ourselves. So firstly, work out what it is you really need within the relationship – whether that is being together or time alone, silence or socialising, physical touch, more softness, etc. Ask ourselves what is it we really want from the other?

As children, most of us learnt that “I want doesn’t get” or were told “Don’t be so selfish”. SO we learn that it’s not ok for us to ask for our needs to be met, so we stay silent about them. When we don’t express our needs, they are unlikely to be met. The more specific and explicit you can be about your needs, the more likely you are to have them met.

By expressing our needs we risk rejection, having our needs neglected or misunderstood. It’s much easier to stay silent, allowing our feelings of neglect and resentment build up until it’s all too easy to blame the other for not meeting our unspoken needs.

Practise expressing your needs to the other. Work out what your own needs are and learn to share them with your partner. But be aware, this does not mean that the other has to comply, just because we express them. Your partner has needs to. Encourage them to express their needs to you as well. Sometimes your needs and those of your partner may be in conflict. Instead of becoming locked into argument over this see if there is a way that you can step aside from being so involved in the situation and work on it as a couple. Rather than asking yourself “what do I need?” ask “what do we need as a couple?” Assuming that you still want to be in relationship with this other, then the greater need is that which meets the needs of the couple rather than the individual needs of either of you. Tackling the problem together rather than on opposing sides is more likely to have a beneficial outcome for you both.

Be Wary of Expectations
Having expectations of the other limits possibility. For example, the more we identify them as “annoying” the more we are likely we are to perceive only their “annoying” traits. It’s as though we are looking through a filter which only lets through what we expect to see.

We can never control or change the other. They are how they are. Give them the freedom to be who they are and try to accept them for it. I love Eckhart Tolle’s thought on this. In any situation, he says, “you have three options: remove yourself from the situation, change it, or accept it totally”. So make an empowered choice around the other about which of those works best for you. Don’t seek to control them or put expectations of behaviour on them because the chances are that if you expect them to cheat on you, they probably will be driven to it by your suspiciousness.

Be Yourself and the Other be Themselves
As Monty Python pointed out in Life of Brian, “you’re all different, you’re all individuals!” As I comment more fully in my blog The Search for the Magical Other (15th April 2010), instead of aiming to make the other more like you, learn to celebrate the differences between you. Allow the other space to expand into themselves and celebrate them for that. The more someone is truly themselves the more the layers of protective shell fall away, revealing their true, divine nature.

“This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man”.
Shakespeare, Hamlet Act 1, scene 3, 78–82

© Mike Lousada 2010
Sacred Sexual Healer
www.heartdaka.com