Why It's Best to Talk When You Feel 'Okay'
When your emotions aren't in a comfortable state of mind, it's not always smart to engage with others
There are situations when it strongly feels and makes sense to us to communicate. The problem is that we may not be in the best place in our minds, emotionally and psychologically, to express ourselves in an effective manner for a beneficial outcome.
It’s a point that Sothy Eng, PhD, has written about to help people gain valuable and helpful understanding. Eng, an associate professor in human development and family science at the University of Hawaii at Mānoa, asserted patience will prevent problems.
“Talk when you’re okay,” he has said. “Not when you’re overwhelmed.”
Here’s why (it may surprise you) …
“Ironically, communication can be most effective when we need it the least,’ Eng contended.
That conclusion and statement may need to rattle around in people’s minds a while to be understood. At least that’s what my brain required.
“When we’re calm, centered and okay, we listen better,” Eng explained.
We don’t always think about how we can best listen to solve problems or help others be in a better state of mind to listen to us. Yet it’s a critical variable in communicating more effectively to increase the probability of achieving the outcomes we desire most and more consistently.
Working our minds into a less reactive state isn’t easy yet the benefits are clear when we resume interacting with someone.
“We ask with curiosity rather than accusation. We give space instead of rushing in. We recognize that a partner’s silence may not be rejection but their own processing,” Eng added. “That’s the kind of communication that builds rather than breaks.”
When we’re overwhelmed emotionally, whether we think we are or not, we’re not doing (at least as much and as well as we assume) what Eng says a mind in a less emotionally-flooded person can accomplish, which is be more balanced and genuinely curious, offering added space to someone and recognizing respectful possibility.
For most people and in more situations, this can lead to communication that connects and doesn’t break.
Eng points to a study about marriage (although, I’d argue, it can apply to other romantic partnerships, friendships and additional human relationships), to illustrate his point.
“A well-known study by Gottman and Levenson (1992), which followed 73 couples over four years, measured both behavior and physiological responses during conflict,” Eng wrote, “and found that couples that were able to physiologically self-soothe, by pausing and calming themselves before re-engaging in conflict, were more likely to maintain stable and lasting marriages.
“When one partner became emotionally flooded, with elevated heart rates and stress responses, the risk of stonewalling and eventual dissolution increased.”
Is that a total surprise? Likely not to most of us, yet I’d confidently predict that this would be news to many people.
An Idea that may Catch and Keep Your Attention
“What if we taught ourselves and our partners to check in first, not with each other but with ourselves?” Eng rhetorically asked. “To ask: ‘Am I okay enough to listen? Am I speaking from clarity or from chaos?’”
Eng knows that we are not naturally wired to do it. It has to be taught, learned and practiced before we need to respond wisely to gain the benefits.
“Am I ok to listen,” is a powerful question. People in my own life have shown, with their reactions, “not now!” My default move has most regularly been wanting to sensitively resolve disputes and conflicts now, as long as it takes.
Not everyone prefers that approach, as I have learned the hard, slow way. While it has not made sense to me, what Eng detailed helps me (and hopefully others now) see other people, emotions and communication more expertly.
“What if we allowed ourselves the pause, the breath, the quiet, even if it meant waiting a few hours, a day or longer, to return with kindness instead of urgency?”
Anyone else just say, “wow?” I did, after reading, “to return with kindness instead of urgency?” Visualize what our interactions, regardless of what kind, could become with many more people than not, if we choose this strategy and decision.
“Saying the right thing starts with being the right self: the ordinary, non-defensive, present self,” Eng wrote, “not the self driven by tension, fear or illusion. “That’s where real intimacy begins, not in the urgency to talk, but in the patience to understand.”
This shows that how we often or most often communicate is determined by our emotional, psychological state. The probability is higher that will gain positive results when we are in a safer place in our minds and have the “patience” to listen, be curious and openness and commitment “to understand.”
“Because in the end,” Eng wrote, “the most powerful words we speak in our relationships aren’t the ones we rush to say. They’re the ones we’re (more in control and) ready to say.”
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