Why Can’t We Talk About Us?

Why can’t we talk about us? We are the ones who need it most. Children, work, weather, ball games–we talk about them easily. Why not why I feel so sad when I watch you go to work? Sex. Why can’t we talk about sex like we used to? It was the passion that drove us together. Now all we do is drive each other apart.

Do you know that talking is the true love? Sex lasts a few minutes but a conversation can last an hour or more. Good communication is sharing our true feelings about an issue. How do you really feel about my dad chewing tobacco and spitting it on the dining room rug? Love is risking telling how you really feel about that tobacco or your sister using your toothbrush. And, of course, there are deeper issues.

Are you aware that most adults do not know how to bring up difficult subjects or how to talk about them without becoming argumentative? I emphasize to my clients in every session the skills that they have never learned but need today. Talking is a skill. Some are better at it than others. Talking intimately demands another set of skills. Just because you are married or in relationship doesn’t mean you have the skills for intimate conversation. No, each must learn the skills of talking about what is most important. Would you like to learn a shortcut to learning how to talk more emotionally to your mate or friends? Read on.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. So is speaking one emotion. I teach my clients to communicate with one word. What do they do with all that time they would have used verbalizing or arguing? They jump under the covers or go to a show.
Imagine your husband trying to sum up your feelings of the day in one word. If he does, all the explanative words will be useless. The car broke down, the inlaws called to say they are coming for the weekend, your dog has run off, your youngest child had to have a bone set and you have burned all the hamburgers. What’s that one word, that one emotion that says it all for him and for you? Helpless. “I feel helpless.”

Now jump in bed and bring back some old memories!