Let's talk about speaking assertively

For the last month, we have been chatting about communication!

We went over the 4 communication styles: Aggressive, Passive, Passive Aggressive and Assertive.

Today, we are going to talk about assertive speaking.

With assertive speaking, there is a formula that we use.

It is called I statements.

The first part is:

I feel(feeling) when you(specific behavior) because(reason for the feeling).

The mistake that many people make(including therapists) is instead of using a specific behavior, they use a label. For example, "I feel frustrated when you act selfish because you should know better" Is not an I statement.

Why?

Because "act selfish" is a label and not a behavior! And "you should know better" is actually an aggressive communication.

So an I statement would look more like:

I feel frustrated when you look at your phone while we are talking because I feel like you are not listening.

Does that make sense? The difference between the two?:)

So AFTER we do that part, we say:

I would rather you (specific behavior) instead.

So, in the example above, it would be something like:

I would rather you look towards me instead.

Or

I would rather you have your phone face down instead.

Then you can talk about the specific behavior can be changed/done and see if there is an agreement that can be made :)

Some other difficulties that I have seen people struggle with is figuring out what the behavior they WANT is.

Some of my clients have said to me, "Chisato, I know what I don't want... But I have no idea what I want."

The difficulty in that is.. So... how can the other person know?

In that case, we turn it into a brainstorming session together, so it can still be connecting!

"Can we figure out what would work together?" is so much more connecting than "well, you should know, even though I don't."

If we are able to assertively communicate, it can help us to set appropriate boundaries! And hopefully, connect with the other person (if that is what we want).

Until next time, for now, let's jump into this week's Therapist Mama Bear tip!