Latest / RiseUp - Live Joy Your Way / Ep. 28 – Assertive Communication

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Ep. 28 – Assertive Communication · RiseUp - Live Joy Your Way

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: Today's episode is produced by my friends at Walk West.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_01: If you're looking to grow your brand and generate leads through podcast or video production, head over to walkwest.com.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, let's start the show.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Rise Up.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: Live Joy Your Way with Comedy Wood.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's time to step into your power.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_01: Hi everybody, and welcome to another episode of Rise Up, Live Joy Your Way.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_01: I am Comedy Wood, and for those of you who are unfamiliar with who I am or what I do, I am a mother of five myself, but I'm also a certified life coach that works with individuals on really healing that relationship with self with oneself, really rebuilding that trust with oneself, ending the outsourcing of self-worth, all in an effort to be able to have healthy relationships and to be able to go on to find success and happiness as they define it, both in business and in personal, in their personal lives.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_01: Today I actually wanted to talk a little bit about communication, but in a different sense.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_01: I know that I talk a lot about communication because when we are really trying to find our own personal joy in our lives, having healthy relationships with others is so important.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_01: But in that essence, we have to also learn how to communicate in a compassionate way, or as Marshall Rosenberg would say, in a nonviolent way, so that we can actually build these healthy relationships.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_01: And I've really noticed a commonality about amongst many of my clients right now, which is, you know, just due to COVID and the pandemic and just having many family members at home, communication has become a real issue.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_01: Being able to communicate how one's feeling, how what one needs, and really make requests of the other person has become really vital in our efforts to maintain some type of harmony within our households.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_01: So that's why I wanted to just talk today a little bit about the difference between assertive communication and aggressive communication.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_01: Assertive communication has been defined as the ability to speak and interact in a manner that considers and respects the rights and opinions of others while also standing up for your rights, needs, and personal boundaries.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_01: Now, what that really means to me is assertive communication is a way to effectively communicate your needs and make requests of another person in a non-confrontational way, meaning in a non-demanding way.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_01: Aggressive communication is when we make demands of the other person versus being able to come from a place of empathy and understanding of how the other person may be feeling in that situation, honoring our own personal boundaries, needs and desires, and making a request of the other person.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_01: So truthfully, you know, when we can when we can speak in this assertive way rather than an aggressive way, we can speak up for our our own personal rights and we can hopefully work towards reducing conflict with somebody else, but we're also doing it in a way where we are being somewhat compassionate or being respectful of each other's opinions, needs, and desires at the same time.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_01: So assertive communication still can involve rejecting somebody else's demands on us.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_01: It can look like us saying, no, I'm not gonna do that today, or um, you know, uh um being able to stand in our own, our own empowered state where we can we can say no to somebody else.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_01: However, it doesn't involve um belittling or really putting a demand on that other person.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_01: Essentially, assertive communication is about achieving your own goals, but not creating a situation where that relationship with the other person could be destroyed or detrimentally affected.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_01: There are um nine characteristics of assertive communication, uh, one being direct eye contact.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_01: That shows to the other speaker, one, that you're engaged fully in the conversation, and two, that you're you're not intimidated by what it is that they're saying.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_01: When we're not making eye contact with somebody, you know, it can either come across as though we're not actually engaged in the conversation, we really don't care, or conversely, it can also make leave room to for the other person to feel as though they can they can make demands on us because maybe we're not we're not fully standing in our own power.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_01: We really don't believe in what what we're saying.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_01: Which leads me to the second one, which is the the posture that we come into the conversation with, you know, making sure that you know we're not standing in an aggressive manner, like with our arms crossed, but that we're taking a posture whereby we are somewhat confident in in our approach to the conversation.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um, oftentimes when I have clients dealing with uh confidence issues, you know, we'll even talk about really before going into a meeting, for instance, having that um that either a superman pose or the superwoman pose where you know they may seem it may seem silly at first, but when we can really stand up, stand up straight, you know, shoulders back, we're taking on this physical posture, which translates to that emotional connection.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_01: Another characteristic of assertive communication is our tone of voice.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_01: So when we have a strong voice that that conveys that we're being assertive, that we believe in what we're saying.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_01: However, it's we also have control of the tone of our voice that we're not coming across aggressively, we're not raising our voice in such a manner that it sounds like we're, you know, either angry or hostile.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um, our facial expression is another one.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_01: Expressions that are neither angry nor anxious are really important in our in our efforts to have a sort of communication.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um, timing is really important when we're communicating assertively.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_01: And what I mean by this is just, you know, when we are when we want to engage in a conversation with somebody, just being cognizant of what the other person is doing or where they're at.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_01: For instance, getting involved in a conversation with somebody who's maybe in the middle of doing something else.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_01: You know, for instance, if we we call our spouse in the middle of the day and they're at work and we know that they're you know busy with what's going on, and now we want to have this like long drawn-out conversation.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_01: It it timing is important when we're when we're trying to make requests of somebody else and we're trying to assert our own needs, desires, requests.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_01: We we just want to be cognizant of whether or not that other person is even in a position to receive it.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_01: Not that we're taking responsibility for what it is that's happening, because sometimes we have to have conversations, you know, immediately because something is happening.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_01: But oftentimes we could recognize that the person that we're trying to speak to might not be in a position to actually receive what it is that we're saying, and we could just, you know, shift when we actually have that conversation.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um what's really important, and I and uh Marshall Rosenberg really does talk about this a lot in his um in his trainings on nonviolent communication, but it's really using non-threatening and non-blaming language.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_01: So we can be assertive without blaming the other person or without um threatening the other person.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_01: And sometimes that even involves those you statements, right?
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_01: We have to it if we can move away from the you statement, which almost comes across as though we are um blaming the other person and into move into more of those I statements, like I feel, I need, I request, rather than you did this, you did this, you make me feel this way, because those really do sound more threatening than they do assertive.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_01: Because again, when we're asserting, when we're using assertive communication, we're really coming from this place of empowered self, trust of self, that what we need, desire is is is true and right for us, versus when we come from a place of you or blaming, that's almost a disempowered state.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_01: Another really important um uh communication style or uh characteristic of assertive communication is clarity.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_01: Uh being as clear as we can be, but then also so we're we try to convey our requests and our needs as clearly as possible, but when we're not understanding what the person that we're speaking to is saying back to us, asking for clarity, or even making sure that we ask the other person if they're understanding what we're saying.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um because if there's vagueness, it's very hard to really make sure that that other person heard what you were trying to say.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_01: Again, because sometimes, you know, we we each have our own our own ideas when we enter into conversation, we make our own assumptions, and so when we can slow it down and make sure that we're being clear or that the other person has heard us clearly, we're able to make sure that we're coming from this place of assertiveness rather than a disempowered state, and not rather, and also rather than coming from an aggressive point of point of view.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_01: Positive language is super important in assertive communication.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um again, when we approach somebody with a negative request or something like you know, will you stop doing X, Y, or Z?
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_01: Will you will you do, will you stop, you know, chewing your food so loudly?
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's a negative request.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_01: If we could somehow turn that into a positive request, um, such as um, you know, it's really hard with the chewing one.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_01: Actually, that's a pet peeve of mine, the loud chewing.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_01: But let's say that somebody, you know, somebody leaves their their shoes, um, you know, their shoes spread out over the living room.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_01: That's been a big one in our house too.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_01: You know, instead of saying, you know, will you stop leaving your shoes out in the living room, it's here, I set up, you know, this basket by the door.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_01: May you please possibly just place your shoes in there, which is a positive way.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_01: And granted, yes, it's still a you statement, but it's a positive way to make a request rather than that sort of um demeaning way and and um almost that calling out way, that aggressive way, when we say it like, will you stop doing da-da-da-da?
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_01: Will you stop putting your shoes out on the floor?
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_01: It's a way to to to reframe that to switch it into a more positive request of the other person.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_01: And yes, as a mama five, I've had to have that conversation many times.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_01: Uh the language and also then finally, it's it's really using language without criticism of the other person.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um so when we are speaking to the other person, really not putting them down, you know, with with statements like, didn't anyone ever teach you not to do that?
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_01: Or didn't anyone ever teach you to be nicer?
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_01: Those types of statements are really just critical and they put the other person on the defensive.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_01: And then what ends up happening is you know, that other person feels like they have to justify, argue, or defend what and why and where they came from and why they make the decisions that they make.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_01: And that it that in in and of itself puts us in this position of having a c a conflicted conversation rather than a generative conversation.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_01: And the whole point of assertive communication versus aggressive communication is to really be able to speak with somebody else, get our point across, have our boundaries maintained, you know, make sure that we're our needs are being met, but not in a way that the other person feels like they have to defend themselves or um because what happens is that it whatever the point of the conversation gets completely lost because then we both just and both people in the conversation just are out there to prove why it is that they're right or that you know it ego gets involved at that point, truthfully.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_01: So I in terms of communication, I really do feel that this is one of those really big issues overall in general, as we are trying to build these healthy relationships with one another.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm not just talking about romantic relationships, I'm talking about workplace relationships, friendships, parent-child relationships.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_01: Communication is the bedrock of how those relationships are going to unfold.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I do know that especially as I mentioned when we first at the beginning of the podcast, you know, right now with being in a situation where there's so much uncertainty, not just with COVID, I mean, even everything that's happening across the board, environmentally, socially, all of the curveballs that life is throwing at us, many of us are under a lot of stress and and just emotional, um, just that emotional pressure.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_01: And so it's really important as we are talking to those in our lives, again, any any whether it be you know family or social or or friendships, it's really important to recognize what our true uh needs are and making requests in a compassionate, nonviolent, and assertive way, but not an aggressive way.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_01: Because what that does is it really does deplete the relationship and does create that confrontational dynamic.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so anyway, I'm hope I hope this was helpful today to talk about this particular topic.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_01: If you need support or would like to speak with me about uh what's going on in your life, I would be happy to.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_01: You can always reach out to me at chatwithcomedy.com and book a time to speak with me.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_01: Or if you just like more information on different topics, feel free to jump over to my website and visit my blog at comedywood.com.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_01: And until next time, I am Comedy Wood.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for listening to Rise Up.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: Always remember your uniqueness and the gift that you bring to this world.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: Life happens for you, not to you.