Unlock the secrets to effective communication with your partner as we sit down with Sherry Timko, an expert couple's relationship coach. Misunderstandings could be at the root of many of your arguments, but what if simple changes in the way you communicate could resolve them? Learn how to articulate your thoughts clearly and how over-communicating can foster greater understanding.
Ever wondered why your partner seems to hear something completely different from what you said? We dissect communication into four key stages: what you think, what you say, what your partner hears, and how they interpret it. Cheri discusses the complexities introduced by cultural backgrounds, personality traits, and personal experiences. By anticipating and recognizing these barriers, you can develop strategies to prevent conflicts and build healthier communication habits, like choosing the right moments to talk and understanding your partner's emotional triggers.
Discover how the principles from professional communication can be seamlessly integrated into your personal life. Inspired by James Clear's "Atomic Habits," we delve into practices like summarizing conversations for clarity and setting clear intentions. Cheri also reveals the advantages of her communication course, emphasizing that improved interactions lead to better problem-solving and relationship security. For continuous growth, join her "Date Night Community" Facebook group and visit CheriTimko.com for more resources. Get ready to transform your relationship through the power of effective communication!
This is a show where ideas come together. The guest statements expressed on The Savvy Communicator Podcast are their own and not necessarily the views of The Savvy Communicator.
Thanks for joining us! Become part of the conversation at www.savvycommunicator.com, and follow me on social media: my handle is @savvycommunicator.
Unlock the secrets to effective communication with your partner as we sit down with Sherry Timko, an expert couple's relationship coach. Misunderstandings could be at the root of many of your arguments, but what if simple changes in the way you communicate could resolve them? Learn how to articulate your thoughts clearly and how over-communicating can foster greater understanding.
Ever wondered why your partner seems to hear something completely different from what you said? We dissect communication into four key stages: what you think, what you say, what your partner hears, and how they interpret it. Cheri discusses the complexities introduced by cultural backgrounds, personality traits, and personal experiences. By anticipating and recognizing these barriers, you can develop strategies to prevent conflicts and build healthier communication habits, like choosing the right moments to talk and understanding your partner's emotional triggers.
Discover how the principles from professional communication can be seamlessly integrated into your personal life. Inspired by James Clear's "Atomic Habits," we delve into practices like summarizing conversations for clarity and setting clear intentions. Cheri also reveals the advantages of her communication course, emphasizing that improved interactions lead to better problem-solving and relationship security. For continuous growth, join her "Date Night Community" Facebook group and visit CheriTimko.com for more resources. Get ready to transform your relationship through the power of effective communication!
This is a show where ideas come together. The guest statements expressed on The Savvy Communicator Podcast are their own and not necessarily the views of The Savvy Communicator.
Thanks for joining us! Become part of the conversation at www.savvycommunicator.com, and follow me on social media: my handle is @savvycommunicator.
Speaker 1:
Hello and welcome to the Savvy Communicator podcast. Today we'll be exploring the four parts of communication that allow you to talk so that your partner can hear you. Our expert guest is Sherry Timko, who teaches several different courses on communication, relationship healing and dating your way out of roommate syndrome.
Speaker 2:
Hello, Sherry, welcome to the show. Oh, thank you so much for having me today.
Speaker 1:
You are a couple's relationship coach and one of the things you specialize in is how to talk so that your partner will hear you. And that sounds really important to me as far as communication goes, because I agree, certainly, that we think a lot of the times you say, well, if I'm talking, the other person is not only listening, but they're understanding what I have to say and that's probably not what's going on.
Speaker 2:
What's your perspective on that? Even when people speak the same language, even when they come from very similar backgrounds, they often are speaking just slightly differently, and that can be as simple as having different meanings of different words or having different interpretations of a word. So, you know, you might say something like oh, one of my favorites, clean up after dinner. Clean up after dinner can mean, you know, clear off the table and put the food in the fridge. Or it can mean wipe off the table, sweep the kitchen floor, do the dishes, fill the you know, empty and fill the dishwasher and wipe down the countertop. So even something as simple as you know, clean up after dinner can have vastly different interpretations.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, you're just making me think of. A couple weeks ago I had kind of you know, a tangle with a colleague over words, in that I was, you know, trying to do one thing, he was trying to do the exact same thing, and we were just like, no, that's not what I'm saying, we have to do it, you know, this way. And it's like, well, why do we have to do it that way if it accomplishes it this way? Well, that's not what I meant. That kind of thing, yeah, you know that can really make you angry.
Speaker 2:
Well, when you add the element of living with that person and having an intimate connection with them, it just ramps all of that up and can make it really intense. So this is how couples can get into arguments over you know, the most, seemingly smallest detail in life, and they will potentially fight to the death about it, whereas maybe in another situation I'd be like oh you know, I don't really care how you keep your own tube of toothpaste and whether you roll it up from the bottom or not. Tubes, you know when you have to see it and it just that can make it seem like maybe you don't have the same values or maybe you don't live the same in the world, and it just becomes the symbol of everything else in the relationship.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, my husband, who is great, and I have very different perceptions on a lot of things, especially how to clean the house, and that he's very precise and I'm kind of the Tasmanian devil, so and he would say things like, can you fold the laundry today? And I said, all right, I would fold the laundry and then I would place it, you know, on the dresser or the bed. And he would come in and be like, why is this out here? I'm like, well, you said, fold the laundry. He's like, but aren't you going to put it away? And I was like, yeah, you know, I'll get to that. And we've done a lot of work on being able to say I need to know this fully. Even if it seems weird to explain it to me, please do, because obviously I'm not picking up what you're putting down.
Speaker 2:
Yeah. And couples have the added element that when they are really comfortable with each other, they actually talk in half sentences, half thoughts. So he said fold the laundry. You're like I can literally fold the laundry, I have no problem folding the laundry. And if he had said can literally fold the laundry, I have no problem folding the laundry. And if he had said, fold the laundry and put it away, you would have been like I can fold the laundry and put it away. That's my problem, like not even a big deal. But because he said fold the laundry and didn't say the rest of his thought, you were arguing that you did exactly what he asked and he's saying, but you didn't do what I asked, right, Yep, that was exactly it.
Speaker 1:
So I know you work with a lot of couple.
Speaker 2:
But if you had to generalize what people come to you for initially their chief complaint or their primary worry or things like that what would you say is kind of generally what people come in for Most people, most couples, will come and work with me because they have communication issues and they'll talk about misunderstanding each other, or their partner doesn't get them, or they take it wrong, or their communication will escalate. And then you know all bets are off and they're into an argument. And I know that communication issues also is related to solving problems and that it often can translate into either too intense so arguing or silence and disconnection. So when they come to me and they're like we have communication issues, I'm like okay, so which direction are you going in? What is your version of not being able to communicate with each other? Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 1:
So what are some of the techniques for being able to talk so that your partner will hear?
Speaker 2:
Well, there are a lot of them and the trick is to find the tools that work best for you and your partner. In general, fully communicating, or what might feel like over communicating, is the best way to kind of figure out how to bridge that, and then you'll start to see what actually works. So over communicating means if I say something and you give me a reaction, I'm gonna like pause and be like okay, what did I just say? And give the full thought. Or it's going to be saying, okay, what'd you hear? All right, let me fill in the rest of that. So just communicating much more clearly and not expecting your partner to be able to fill in the blanks.
Speaker 2:
The other tool that works really well is to do a little bit of meta-communication. The meta-communication is communication about how you communicate, and that would be like stopping and saying, okay, what's going on for you, or what did you just interpret me to have said? Or when I say this, how does that hit you? And just talk about kind of the rules around how you communicate. A lot of couples have triggers and they don't really pay much attention to them. A trigger is anything that you say that will set off a reaction in your spouse, and that can be whether you mean to say it or you don't mean to say it. It's just the recognition that it does set off a reaction in your spouse and then deciding not to say it. That way, if you can say something 20 different ways, you don't have to say it in a way that's going to trigger a negative reaction in your spouse. You could just say it a different way.
Speaker 1:
Do you find a lot of people are resistant, either at first or through the process?
Speaker 2:
Well, a lot of people come to me because they're already in a lot of discomfort or pain, so they're usually willing to try some new things, and one of the things that I often will tell clients is that if you feel uncomfortable, that may mean that we're on the right track, because staying in your comfort zone is what's not working for you. So even if you try something and it's an abysmal failure and you're like, oh, that was terrible, that didn't work at all. At least we tried something new. That then will help you get out of that comfortability that just keeps everything going exactly the same way.
Speaker 1:
When we talked earlier, we talked a little bit about the four parts of communication.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, I heard. Take us through that. Yeah, I heard this framework recently and really liked it. I've been talking about it a lot with clients. I'd love to credit the person who originally came up with it, but I can't seem to find the credit for it.
Speaker 2:
But it's this idea that there are four parts to communication. The first part is what you think in your head, so it's like what you mean to say when you say something. The second part is what you actually say. Now, if you think back to conversations and you hear your partner say what they think you said and you're like no, no, that's not what I meant, you know that there's a real disconnect between like what we think and then what we actually say, the words we actually choose. The third part is what our partner hears. Now, this is an interesting part of communication because we all know that our partner is not sitting around wondering what we're thinking, trying to hear us most of the time Like logically, we know that they are having their own thoughts and they're doing their own thing. They're engaged with their own stuff. They might even be thinking that we're listening for them, but really couples are busy doing other things. So when we start to talk. When we're talking, our partner is listening, hopefully.
Speaker 2:
Or they're distracted or you know, maybe they didn't even catch the fact that we had stopped talking to the dog and are now talking to them. So the third part is what they actually hear, and that can be 100% of what we said, that could be 50% of what we said, that could be 10% of what we said. And then the fourth part is how they interpret what they hear, and that interpretation can be based on what you actually said. That interpretation can be based on history of what you've said, that what they interpret could be part of what they grew up with or how they look at the world. So that interpretation can really be very different than what you meant, what you said, and even very different than what you meant yeah okay, so any of those four parts can go wrong in communication I'm just letting that digest.
Speaker 1:
That's really true and makes it so much more complex. I I think and I kind of mentioned this before that with communication there's a quote that's been attributed to a lot of different people, but it says the most important thing about communication is making sure it has occurred, being sure that it's actually happened, because so many times we're talking at people and we say, well, of course you understand this, I understand this, so of course you do too, and then it's a shock when they don't. So I really like your four part of communication and it's really taking into account culture and sort of acknowledging that we all grow up in a different culture, that sort of individual to ourself, and that that has to be taken into account. I think that's really important that you do that.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, it will color everything. It'll color how you think about a problem, it'll color what you say about a problem and it definitely will color what you hear and how you interpret that. And you said culture, which is absolutely a big piece of it, but also personality and personal experience will color how you say things and how you hear things say things and how you hear things. That's why couples who even are very, very similar in their background they're likely to have communication issues.
Speaker 1:
What.
Speaker 2:
I think is interesting is that sometimes the couples who are more similar, the impact of communication issues is actually greater than if they come from very different backgrounds.
Speaker 1:
Really.
Speaker 2:
Because when you are very different from your spouse, you expect them to not get it. You're going to say a lot more and you're going to expect to have to negotiate a lot more about how to live. When people grow up and it's very similar sometimes they think well, you should know what I'm thinking because you're similar, and so they minimize the impact. They minimize those differences in a way that then makes those problems bigger.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, it takes a lot of effort, doesn't it? It can. Yeah you have to want it, but, like you said, when people are coming to you, they probably already want it very much, because they need help.
Speaker 2:
I think there's a habit element to this, and when you set up good habit in your relationship, we think about habits as individual, but we also have couple habits and we have relationship habits, and so how you set up those communication habits is going to then like then you just do what that habit is.
Speaker 2:
So if your habit is to get the other person's attention and say, hey, is this a good time to talk? And I have something important to tell you, can I you know, is this a good time to tell you? And then you tell them well, that's going to set that communication up for much better understanding. Or if your habit is to say, okay, I'm not just going to have this whole conversation in my head, I'm going to have this with my spouse and actually get them to talk back with me, then you're going to have a much better understanding of what they're thinking, rather than guessing what their part of the conversation is. So, yes, it does take effort to communicate, but it also you can minimize that effort by communicating in a way that actually fits with your partner's communication and then having good habits around those.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, that's so true and that really resonates with me. I know one of the things that my husband and I have worked out is that I can't come in and say the words we need to talk, because, you know, that sort of sends him into worrying about things. So I have to do exactly what you said. I said you know I have some things to tell you. Is this a good time? And he'll say you know what I'm focusing on this? Can it wait till later yet or no, it really needs to be now, and you know it makes a world of difference.
Speaker 2:
That's a really good trigger to have. On your list of things. You can ask to have a conversation in 20 different ways. You know that for your husband, saying we need to talk about something is going to be a negative trigger, and so you need to just say it in a different way.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, we had to work that out because I was coming in and saying, hey, we need to talk, because we did need to talk, and he would be like what, what is it, what is it? And he would be like what, what is it, what is it? And you know, finally I was like what's going on with you? Why does this concern you? And he's like I just hate those words. It makes me worry that something's going to happen. And I'm like okay, I didn't think of that and you know, working it out makes it so much easier. Now I'm more relaxed and he's more relaxed too.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, absolutely, and that is the goal to be more relaxed with your partner. Another good communication relationship habit would be to sum up the conversation at the end and make sure that you're both on the same page, or very similar to that is to confirm that you actually have an agreement or a plan. Sometimes couples will just be talking about a bunch of different things and one partner leaves thinking that, okay, we have a plan, I'm ready to go, and the other one thinks that they were just kind of like shooting the breeze, throwing out some ideas, and you know they would get to a plan at some point, but they haven't quite gotten there yet.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, yeah, I can see that a lot. It's so interesting that you use the word habit instead of anything else. Is there a reason why you chose that particular word?
Speaker 2:
Yeah, this concept of relationship habit has really resonated with me in a lot of ways.
Speaker 2:
If you think about the rest of your life, we develop habits around all sorts of things and automate so many parts of our lives.
Speaker 2:
But then when it comes to our relationship, we can be really lazy about those habits. We're thoughtless about them and they're still very powerful. They're just a habit that's created by two people rather than an internal solo habit, and we have all kinds of relationship habits from saying, you know, from the things that we do first thing in the morning, whether that's snuggling with our spouse for a few minutes before getting up or saying good morning when both of us are finally up, to having a cup of coffee and having a few minutes to talk about things, to saying goodbye and having some sort of intimate connection then, or checking in about each other's day, to the communication that you have throughout the day, maybe whether it can be texts, it can be phone calls, to how you say hello at the end of the day, to eating dinner together, to spending time like saying goodnight, like there are so many places where having just a very short intentional habit there becomes a point of connection. And the more points of connection that you have, the more safe your relationship feels and therefore your communication is easier. There's not so much pressure on saying everything exactly right because you feel close and connected through these relationship habits.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, I really like that choice of word. It's interesting. I just read the book Atomic Habits by James Clear and you were talking about Bullet Eater, sort of going over the conversation at the end, making sure that everybody's on the same page, ready to do the same thing. And he does the same thing in his book, in that he'll write a chapter and then at the end there are bullet points to go over and be like remember, so there's this and this and this that we talked about, and I thought that's really amusing and cool that you do the same thing.
Speaker 2:
Isn't it amazing that we have these kind of communication tools that we use at work or with others out in the world, but then we get home and we don't practice them? Now there's a good reason why we don't. The reason is that we relax with our partners. Okay, now, this is a good thing Like I want people to relax with their partner, with their spouse but when you relax, then you stop intentionally communicating. You stop thinking about every word that you say and how you say it, thinking about every word that you say and how you say it. So the bridge to that is that if you have some good relationship habit, some good communication habits in place, then you relax, but you're still using these habits that keep communication working in a positive way.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, okay, I get it. I get it, yeah, because when you come home, you want to kind of shrug off the day and not have to do the things you were doing all day, which is thinking about communication. How am I going to say this? How am I going to talk to my boss, how am I going to talk to my staff, or whatever it is, and kind of having to tiptoe a little bit throughout that, and you don't want to do that when you get home. That makes so much sense. That makes so much sense.
Speaker 2:
The good news is, most of these will work both at work and at home. Really, I mean, if you're used to saying to people at work, hey, is this a good time to talk to you? I need to go through a few things with you that's very easy to use at home. If you start using that at home, that's also a wonderful tool to use at work. So once you get into good communication habits, you probably can relax in both environments.
Speaker 1:
True, I guess the first thing that flashed into my mind when you said that it's a great thing at work is I thought well, there's so many people. You know I got a little overwhelmed for a second, thinking that so many people, that so many different types of habits that I have to build, you know, is it even possible? I just thought about the number of people at a job, but I'm sure it's possible with your techniques.
Speaker 2:
Well, is the other one about summing up the conversation at the end of the conversation. That's also going to work with most of your colleagues. In fact, many of them will like to know okay, did we reach an agreement? Are we all on the same page here?
Speaker 1:
Yeah.
Speaker 2:
And then move off into your day and be able to know whether that was an actionable conversation or a brainstorming conversation.
Speaker 1:
You said an interesting conversation or a.
Speaker 2:
A actionable conversation.
Speaker 1:
Actionable.
Speaker 2:
Or a brainstorming conversation.
Speaker 1:
Okay, yeah, I like that too, because those are both positive words. So you're not saying it's a bad thing that we didn't make a decision here, we just want to brainstorm it, yeah.
Speaker 2:
Now that I think about it, remember when the pandemic started and everyone was saying now we know what could have been an email versus a meeting. Yes, think that that may be the crossing. The like, miscommunication of many, many meetings is half the people might walk in thinking, all right, we're coming up with a plan, we're going to leave with an actionable plan, and half are walking in saying, all right, we need to brainstorm this, come up with a bunch of different solutions and then process whether those solutions are going to work. There's another place for being clear on what that intention is, for that meeting would completely change whether people find it helpful or whether they think it's a waste of time.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, I just flashed on this joke. Talking about meetings, there is a. William Goldman was a Hollywood screenwriter. He wrote the Princess Bride and he said that he attended so many meetings that he thought there should be an Academy Award for meetings Because it would be best original meeting, best meeting based on material from a previous meeting. You know that kind of thing. It just makes me laugh every single time.
Speaker 1:
Wow that's great Because, yeah, we've kind of gone back into the same habit of meeting in person wherever we can, or virtually, but there's still a lot of face-to-face that maybe we don't need. So, sherry, to wrap up our conversation, which I have been thoroughly enjoying, what are some of the positive benefits that people find if they are taking your course on communication? What do you see happening after people finish the course?
Speaker 2:
Well, once I work with couples whether it's I work with couples in a variety of different ways, whether it's I work with couples in a variety of different ways One is that I'm a couples psychotherapist and so I do one-on-one couples therapy with them, and then I also have a program through my coaching and then I have some free materials.
Speaker 2:
So the thing that pulls through all of them is being able to see a cycle, see how two people are interacting and see the part that needs to be adjusted so that they can communicate better.
Speaker 2:
So one of the things that I say a lot is that nobody needs a personality overhaul in order to make their relationship work.
Speaker 2:
We need to find the places where things are getting tricked up, where there's some rough spot, and then figure out what the workaround is.
Speaker 2:
So a lot of the work that I do is kind of figuring out how to make two different personalities fit together in a way that they live well together. So at the end of the work when I work with couples, they often are communicating much more clearly, they're more at ease with each other, they're able to enjoy each other the time that they spend with each other, they are able to solve problems better together and so they just can feel more at ease and comfortable with each other on that day-to-day basis. So there's a lot of benefits to working on your primary relationship and in a lot of ways that will trickle out into all sorts of other relationships, whether that's relationships with your kids or extended family or co-workers, or sometimes even you know the person that you start talking with when you're standing in line at the grocery store, because you're able to have that basis of connection and security that then becomes a platform to improve all sorts of other relationships.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, I like that you use the word security. I think that's a really good description of it.
Speaker 2:
It takes a lot of effort and you have to be pretty intentional to go back and think, okay, well, this is what I tried and this is how it worked out. And is that the outcome that I wanted from well, people like you who specialize in communication and being able to say, oh well, this is a tool that maybe would work, rather than just, you know, trying this, see if, what is that expression If the spaghetti sticks to the wall yes, you know, and then trying something different and see if that works or not. Like having some source of new information, new ideas, new techniques and new tools is really important. So you're not just kind of making it up which can work Like. You can base it on your intuition, but it just means using a lot of effort. But maybe we don't have to.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, that's great. That's good to know that you don't have to, but that's one of the biggest things that can improve with communication.
Speaker 2:
I like that very much, and it doesn't have to be that hard yeah.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, yeah, sherry. How can our listeners get in touch with you if they'd like to learn more about what you do?
Speaker 2:
Yeah, probably the best place to find me is on my website at SherryTimcocom. You can find links to everything. But if you want to come hang out with me, come hang out with me in my Facebook group, date night community, because it is geared towards helping couples stay connected and and claim that lifelong commitment that they really want. One of the things that I give in that group is, every week I give three conversation questions so that they, when they go on a date, when they spend some time together, they can talk about things other than the three topics that most couples spend most of their time talking about. You know what they are.
Speaker 1:
What are they? Well, work, oh, let's see. Oh sorry you were going Blissy. Okay, work, you said is one, yeah, work is one Finance Really. Oh, I got it right.
Speaker 2:
Okay, and say children, if you have children yeah, work, family and home like those are the three, three topics that most couples talk about. Certainly finances is part of home and when they only talk about those things their communication can fall into some real ruts and they stop knowing how each other thinks. So the conversation questions are really to help them talk about things that they wouldn't normally talk about.
Speaker 1:
I think that is so cool. That is really great. I'm joining your Facebook page. I want to know about these questions. Find out you've picked my husband's brain about different things. That sounds great, so we'll have all of your information in the show notes. Sherry Timko, thank you so much for being here today.
Speaker 2:
Well, thank you so much for having me. It's been such a pleasure to talk with you.
Speaker 1:
It's been a great time. I've really enjoyed it. Thank you everyone for joining us today. Remember you can reach Sherry at her website, which is Sherry C-H-E-R-I-T-I-M-K-O dot com. You can find lots of courses there and free materials. And don't forget about her Facebook page.
