what experiences from childhood influence how you communicate?

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Welcome to my imperfect email.

As always, every week, we’ll send a question that will help you reflect on your own imperfect life, inspired by this week’s episode.

Ahh, communication. A word that seems to have so many different meanings to so many different people.

To talk us through what effective, healthy and respectful communication looks and feels like, Dr Emily is back in the studio (thank god, we really missed her).

ttyl,

Bell

Bell Northeast

what experiences from childhood influence how you communicate? does this communication style still serve you?

We'd love to hear your answer to this question. If you're in the mood to get vulnerable and share your writing, send it through.

Send in your answer

You Had Me At Communication

With Dr Emily Musgrove

Is your communication style a red flag?

It’s our favourite time of the month and Dr Emily Musgrove, our resident psychologist, is back in the studio to talk the talk (and walk the walk) about healthy communication.

The impact of our learning history (colloquially known as “baggage”) gets a heavy feature in this episode, as Ryan, Josh and Bridge unpack their communication styles, and how this has impacted their intimate relationships.

Dr Emily talks us through why the real challenge of communicating is not our use of language, but rather regulation of emotion, and gifts us a plethora of acronyms to practice at home the skills of effective communication.

Dr Em, always a pleasure.

Watch now

For right now

Find out what your communication style is. (11:06-11:54)

^{Complete this}^quiz^{to learn whether the way you communicate is competing, collaborating, compromising, avoiding or accomodating. Once you know what you’re working with, you can practice skills for more effective communication.}

For this week

It’s not what you say, it’s how you say it. (29:17-29:30)

As Dr Emily explains, often it is not the use of language which impacts our ability to communicate effectively, but the way we are able to regulate our emotions whilst trying to get our point across.

For this season of your life

A cheat sheet of all the acronyms Dr Em mentions in this episode (47:51)

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what aspects of your identity have you held onto for too long?

I grew up in a family that didn't talk openly about vulnerable topics.

Nor was there any accountability role modelled by the adults. Things were always swept under the rug. And I'm not talking about any major events of trauma. I'm talking about something as simple as a parent saying sorry when they should have. Or it being acceptable for the children to say, "I am really upset by what you said."

Being connected to your feelings and accepting them seemed to trigger those who couldn't. This is a cocktail of confusion when it's the child being forced to take on the role of the parent and seek to find safe emotional regulation for all involved.

There was no emotional safety in the home. Simply questioning my parents’ decisions got me into a lot of trouble. They didn't like being challenged.

Working with children now, I understand the inevitability that children are going to feel like things are unfair at times. But it is ok for them to feel that way. It is a feeling that they will continue to experience in life as adults. In my household, it was never ok to feel that and there would be no emotional understanding from the grown-ups involved. Children are to be seen and not heard was the go.

This was really, really challenging. Especially considering I was growing up, going through the absolute rollercoaster of hormonal changes teenagers go through.

Unfortunately, the lack of emotional understanding and support meant I was given the label of being difficult. I remember being told "you need to change" constantly. Now imagine these examples being reinforced regularly over time. Imagine the hurt of hearing this from the people you love the most, the people that you are meant to turn to and encourage you to grow into the best person you can be.

This led me to form the self-belief that I was not a good person. My self-esteem was incredibly low during my teenage years. I was the quiet one at high school. Very self-conscious, shy, and felt like I was being judged constantly. I mean, kids will literally laugh at their classmates for having their hair a certain way.

I felt a lot of pressure to be "perfect" and to blend into the background. A boy I really liked asked me out and I instantly thought he was doing it as a joke, so I panicked and rejected him on the spot. “Why would anyone want to be with me?” I thought.

I honestly preferred to be in the library on lunch break, away from everyone. Instead, I was surrounded by these outspoken, overconfident kids which just made my insecurities worse. Generally, people say they only like school for the social side of it, but for me the social side was the most uncomfortable.

Because I didn't know how to like who I was. I wasn't taught how to like who I was. I was taught to NOT like who I was.

This, unfortunately, fostered a growth of perfectionism, as well as pressure not to make any mistakes or say anything even remotely awkward. I worked overtime at people pleasing and putting others first to prove I was a good person.

Unbeknownst at the time I started to develop anxiety, and I felt I had to tiptoe around my family, to not question any of their decisions or be upset with them. Yet still, somehow, I was seen as the "problem child".

This is something that sticks and I don't think we realise to what extent. I'm 33 now. It was probably around 28-29 that I grew aware of just how strongly that belief of not being good enough had attached to my identity.

I work hard every day to consciously detach from it. To take my power back and remind myself that it isn't mine to carry. It isn't who I am. I know I am a good person. I've worked hard on boundaries (omg challenging, right?!), eased off on trying to control how people perceive me, and more importantly, consciously grow to enjoy being me!

All the things I'm driven to teach the next generation of kids. It is true, hurt people hurt others. But I like to think that healed people can help heal other people to.

Caylie