Communicate Openly

Goal

To effectively share your emotions, listen to others, and respond to others.

Skills for Sharing Emotions (Fulton State Hospital, p. 32)

1. State your views as your own feelings and thoughts, not as absolute truths.
2. When expressing negative emotions or concerns, also include any positive feelings you have about the person or situation.
3. Make your statement as specific as possible, both in terms of emotions and thoughts.
4. Speak in “paragraphs”. That is, express one main idea with some elaboration and then allow the other person to respond.
5. Express your feelings and thoughts with tact and timing so that the person can listen to what you are saying without becoming defensive.

Skills for Listening (Fulton State Hospital, p. 32)

1. Show that you understand the person’s statements and accept their right to have those thoughts and feelings.
2. Demonstrate acceptance through your tone of voice, facial expressions, and posture.
3. Try to put yourself in the other person’s place and look at the situation from their perspective in order to determine how the other person feels and thinks about the issue.

Skills for Responding (Fulton State Hospital, p. 32)

1. After the person finishes speaking, summarize and restate their most important feelings, desires, conflicts, and thoughts.
2. While in the listener role, DO NOT:
   • Ask questions, except for clarification.
   • Express your own viewpoint or opinion.
   • Interpret or change the meaning of the other person’s statements.
   • Offer solutions or attempt to solve a problem if one exists.
   • Make judgments or evaluate what the person has said.

In your day-to-day conversations, intentionally practice sharing your emotions, listening, and responding using the suggestions from this lesson.