Vulnerably Badass Tomomi says, "If You Want to Bring Happiness...
“If you want to bring happiness to the whole world, go home and love your family.”
I agree. I totally agree. We have to begin with the closest person. I would love to do so. To be completely honest and vulnerable, it’s been very challenging to communicate intimately with my husband whom I love very much.
Love needs to be communicated. But, we express and interpret messages differently. Gary Chapman says in his book, The 5 Love Languages, that we have different languages of love.
Words of Affirmation
Physical Touch
Quality Time
Act of Service
Gifts
If your partner speaks a different love language, and you keep speaking your language, the other person doesn’t feel loved. My husband and I speak different love languages. Mines are Words of Affirmation and Physical Touch, his Act of Service and Gifts.
In Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus, John Gray says men and women communicate differently. Men tries to problem-solve, and women want empathy. When coping with stress, men go into their caves and women talk.
Yes, this happens to us. My husband is very logical, detailed oriented when we talk about something, and I just want to have a good free-style fun conversation to exchange ideas and validate each other on what is expressed. When something is stressful, my husband goes into his cave, which seems like a long deep one for me, and I have to talk to feel the emotions and/or think what I don’t like or what I want. It must sounds like nagging to him. Giving space and time seems so distant and so long, so I try but it is so difficult. I know we never have bad intentions, but the different communication styles and coping styles send unintended messages.
And our communication style differences can be even cultural. Erin Meyer says in her book, The Culture Map, she describes the differences in how people express disagreements in the American culture and Japanese culture. She shows a four-quadrant matrix in which the US falls in quadrant A which is emotionally expressive and confrontational. And Japan is on the other end in quadrant D - emotionally unexpressive and avoids confrontation.
Until I met my husband, I thought I was confrontational as a Japanese person. I thought the 9 years of education in the states influenced me. But after I met husband and started communicating with him daily and experiencing disagreements and hearing strong NOs, I found myself very very very confrontation averse. It’s interesting how everything is relative.
So, it’s obvious we communicate differently. Then, how can I make myself understood? I’m an intercultural trainer and coach, I should do this perfectly all the time, right? Nah… lol but I do believe this challenge is making me a better intercultural trainer and coach. I read Nonviolent Communication (NVC) by Marshall B. Rosenberg and try to do the four steps when I need to express my needs or requests.
Observation
Feelings
Needs
Requests
Since I haven’t mastered NVC although I took NVC 1 course, sometimes this works, and sometimes doesn’t. I need to work on myself more.
As you can see, I’ve read many books to figure out what’s the best way to communicate. Although communication is important, sometimes not communicating is the best way depending on the context. The bottom line is this. Draw my boundaries and respect his boundaries. This can be done by saying no and respecting no. In the book Boundaries in Marriage by Henry Cloud & John Townsend, it’s called Law #4 (out of 10): The Law of Respect. I know it’s hard for me to hear short abrupt “no” or “no thank you” without any sentences preceding or following it. But, I just have to learn not to take no personally and accept it, then move on to do whatever I want to do or I can do on my own. Because in the end, the only thing you can change is your mindset and behavior.
If I can add another sentence to Mother Theresa’s quote on the top of this page, I wanna add this.
“If you want to bring happiness to your family, go inward and love yourself.”
