Communication Toolkit: 7 Blogs to Enhance Your Communication Skills
Having strong communication skills is one of the most important elements to a healthy relationship–but many of us don’t grow up observing or practicing intentional, compassionate and direct communication. It’s a skill we all need to practice continually, but figuring out where to get started can be difficult, especially on our own.
To help you dig into your own communication skills, we’ve pulled together seven blogs to get you started.
From tips to help you initiate difficult conversations, to understanding safe words and how they should be used, we want to help you master intentional communication within your relationships:
Fostering Open & Honest Dialogue (In Any Kind of Relationship):
There are a number of reasons why we have diverse ways of showing that we’re listening--whether due to family behaviors we’ve picked up, norms ascribed to our gender identity (or the gender role into which we were socialized), culturally relevant signals of listening, or just our unique, personal mannerisms.
We may feel heard regardless of our partner’s listening style, but for some, getting advice when it’s unwanted can be irritating, and end a conversation prematurely. For others, it may feel like a conversation partner isn’t listening if they remain silent throughout an expression of feelings. Because these responses tend to be well-intentioned, simply touching base on what to expect and what would be most helpful can potentially mitigate feelings of tension or disconnection.
Communicating your needs in a Long-Term Relationship:
When you don’t know what your needs are, you can’t communicate them, and when your needs aren’t communicated there’s a much greater chance that they will go unmet. In a long-term relationship, this can lead to a build-up of resentments which can threaten the foundation of the relationship. By taking the time to understand and listen to ourselves, and to understand what we need from the relationship, we can create a stronger and more fulfilling connection with the person.So, how do you begin to listen to yourself and your body in a long-term relationship?
How Do I Bring It Up? Tips for Initiating Difficult Conversations:
It is also important to note that there will be no absolutely perfect time to have a hard conversation. So while you should consider the time and setting, don’t keep putting off a difficult discussion because everything doesn’t feel perfect. Reflecting on the urgency of the situation before can be helpful in navigating your timeline. Sometimes hard conversations still need to happen in less than ideal circumstances.
Communication Skills To Enhance Intimacy:
Without intention, intimacy can become stagnant and a relationship can feel more like a habit than an active decision to be in partnership with others. This applies to all of our relationships, but can be felt intensely within romantic and sexual dynamics. Intimacy takes energy, time, and commitment to nurture. One of our most powerful tools of connection is active communication. You have the ability to transform your relationships exactly as you desire them and continue to enhance the intimacy you cultivate with your partner(s).
Some of us have busy schedules that make consistent dialogues difficult or find that unstructured conversations can often get off track. Maybe you find yourself not knowing how to approach difficult topics with others or are looking for a consistent way to check in with those you care about. Most often the emphasis in relationships is always placed on open and honest communication but that can be difficult to achieve when you don’t know how to structure those conversations.
Safe Words: What You Need to Know:
While safe words are thought of mainly as something used in kink spaces, incorporating them into your sex life can be a good practice for anyone, including people who aren’t interested in exploring kink! Safe words provide an easy, quick, and clear way to communicate exactly what you need in the moment, with minimal chances of miscommunication.
How to Talk About Your Sexual History
Even if you do tend to communicate well with your partner(s), there can be topics that are more difficult than others. For example, talking about your sexual history with your partner(s) can be a tough topic for many, partially because we’re socialized to not talk about sex. This kind of conversation might seem intimidating - it’s an intimate and vulnerable topic. It can be really great to share our histories, whether that be relationship history, sexual history, general life history, and so on. When it comes to sharing sexual histories, that experience can be useful in getting to know each other.
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