Give me a few short minutes here today and I can help you improve communication
in your marriage. Let's start with the basic communication model that I teach
in leadership training, in couples seminars in anything that involves
communication. It starts with an understanding of where the message is
going. So, it starts with a sender. The sender of the message. If it's a verbal
communication, this is the speaker, okay? If it's radio and television, this is the
point of origin for the signal. And then it goes over to a receiver. The message
travels this direction. So, in verbal communication this is the listener. Think
of it as the speaker and the listener. Let's say that the sender has message A
in mind. This is what I want to communicate to you if you're the
receiver. A, what happens first? First, the sender has to encode the message. So,
encoding is the way that the sender puts the message into some kind of a
deliverable medium. Encoding is typically language. So today, we're using English
here at Live On Purpose TV. I'm encoding everything that I want to send to you in
English. Then the message travels over to the receiver
but what has to happen on that end? Obviously, the receiver has to do some
decoding. Which if you don't speak English, you're probably looking at the
titles because that decodes it into your language. But if you already speak
English, you've already got a decoder installed. [Speaking Foreign Language]
Oh, sorry. Slipped into another code there. If you
speak Finnish, then you have a decoder for that. If you don't, then you probably
didn't understand what I just said. See how this works? So, the sender sends that
message over. After encoding it, it gets decoded on the
receivers end. But there's one other thing: On the way, that signal has to pass
through this big cloud of noise. And this can be physical noise. It could be mental
noise. It could be all the stuff that's going on in the brain of either the
sender or the receiver. All of this noise gets in the way. So that often what
happens is the receiver picks up B. Not A. And then the receiver reacts to and
responds to and assumes that B is what was intended. When it could be totally
different from what the sender was sending. With everything that goes on,
it's amazing we can communicate at all. What do we do to improve a communication
based on this model? Let's talk about four specific strategies that take all
of this into account. In a marriage, there's even more noise than there is in
some other communications. Because of the relationship dynamics. Because of the
history, because of how you've been hurt in the past, whatever it is. So, this first
step is to calm the noise in your own mind. I say in your mind but I also mean
in your body. Because when you get triggered emotionally, your body triggers
chemicals that get pumped into your bloodstream. We call this flooding, okay?
If you can picture the analogy of a flood in your home while you're being
flooded by emotion or affect or feelings. We have to calm the flooding in order
for you to do what's next. Because your brain operates very differently when
you're in fight-or-flight mode or when you're flooded emotionally than when
you're thinking logically and rationally. So, step 1: Calm the noise in your own
mind and body. Once you've got yourself calmed
a bit and the noise has subsided, your first job is to listen to understand. You
remember in the model, there's a sender and receiver. Assume that you are the
receiver first. And your goal is to listen. Now, the letters in the word
listen are exactly the same as the letters in the word silent. Which is
coincidental probably. But it's useful. So, you want to be silent. Calm the noise. But
it's more than just being quiet. And you've been in conversations before
where somebody's being quiet but you can tell they're not listening. It's like the
lights are on but nobody's home. Yet don't be that person.
You are intently listening to understand. Your goal is to make sure that A equals
A. And you're on the receiver side of that. So, you are listening just as
carefully as you can to what's being shared with you so that you can
understand what's going on in the sender's mind. You'll hear some noise
about this point. Because sometimes what the sender is trying to tell you is not
something that you personally agree with or you have a different opinion about it.
Don't get distracted by that. Your goal is simply to understand. Understanding
and agreeing are not the same thing. That's going to help, isn't it? All you
want to do is understand. If you understand then you won this round. Now,
after the sender has had a chance to express what they're thinking and you
are listening to receive over here to make sure you understand, take a moment.
This is an extra step, okay? Take a moment to reflect back to the sender. Your
understanding of what A is. Not what you think it is. Not your interpretation of
it. Not your spin on it. The way they see it. Because that's really important for
the next step. It's so crucial to understand because
the next step is that you are going to postpone your turn to be understood
until your spouse (the sender) is completely satisfied that you understand
their position. Think about what I'm saying. We're pushing the pause button. I
added this as an extra step because people don't do this. They're like, "Yeah,
yeah, yeah. Got it." And then they move into their own
discourse or their rebuttal or whatever it is. We're not going there. This step is
to pause and postpone your need to be understood. Until your spouse, your
partner, the sender is completely satisfied that you get it. That you
understand their position. Can you do this? This takes some maturity. I'm going to
admit that. Because everything inside of you just wants to clear it up or let
them know or Express where you're coming from. Yeah, push the pause button. We're
getting to that in step 4. This is a crucial step. Postpone your need to be
understood until they are satisfied that you do understand their position. I've
put you off long enough. Now, it's your turn to be understood. But not until your
spouse, your partner, the sender is convinced that you understand their
position. That was step 3. Now, we're moving into step 4. And you get to
express your position to be understood. We've got the same goal here. It's just
that you switched parts, okay? You used to be the receiver where you're listening
to understand. Now, you're moving over to be the sender where you are expressing
to be understood. Notice the goal here is not to persuade
or to convince or to rebut or to argue with what you just heard.
It's simply to be understood. Remember, we want A to equal A. So, you're going to do
everything that you can to encode your message in a language that's understood
by your receiver, your listener. That's why I'm not talking to you in Finnish
for this whole video. I get it that you want to hear it in English. So, the
encoding, the noise, calm the noise down. Put it in a context and in a language
that is most likely to be understood because that is your goal. If you found
this video helpful, the next one you'll want to watch is right up there. How to
improve your marriage relationship. Communication isn't all that there is to
it. You're going to get some other good tips there as well as the positive
relationships resources playlists here on the channel.
Hope you enjoy.