“Why Don’t People Just Speak That Way?” Shari and Matt explore what makes expressing your feelings so difficult

The Question

When my older two sons were in college, we had an annual tradition of visiting my mom (AKA Grandma) in Florida for a few days during winter break. Of course, Grandma was always very excited that we were coming and made sure she had stocked all of our favorite snacks in anticipation of our arrival. She also spent a lot of time making dinner reservations, as restaurants in and around Delray are often booked well in advance during snowbird season. For those of you who have visited parents or grandparents in that area, you know the drill. 

One night, to accommodate one of my sons’ social plans, we had to take two cars into downtown Delray for dinner. My oldest son, Zach, offered to drive my mother and her boyfriend, Joel, may he rest in peace, in Joel’s car. Zach is a competent and (some might argue overly) confident driver. I drove with my middle son, Matt, in the rental car. The plan was to park wherever each of us could find spots and meet at the restaurant. 

When Zach arrived at the restaurant with my mom and Joel, he seemed agitated. He approached Matt and me and told us, “I am never driving in a car with Grandma and Joel again.”  “What happened?” we asked. Zach described a stressful thirty-ish minute drive from the apartment to the restaurant, in which my mother and Joel coached him endlessly on how to best reach their destination. When he told them he was using the GPS on his phone, they insisted that  they were familiar with the area and knew the best way to go. When their suggestions led Zach into heavy traffic, my mom and Joel started bickering and tension in the car grew. Overall, Zach had an unpleasant and anxiety-producing experience as chauffeur. 

I was struck by Zach’s response to the situation. Instead of speaking up in the car to express how he was feeling, he chose to let my mom and Joel do their thing. Afterwards, he told Matt and me, but not his grandmother, how he felt. In order to avoid this type of unpleasantness in the future, he declared that he would never drive with them again. This solution seemed unlikely at the time he stated it and proved to be untrue in the future.  Zach is not a shy person. In fact, he is quite articulate. I wondered why he preferred not to communicate what he was feeling to his grandmother, either during the experience or afterwards. 

“Zach, why didn’t you just tell Grandma and Joel that you were using GPS and that you were feeling stressed listening to them tell you to go a different way?” 

“I’d rather just not drive with them again. It’s easier,” he said. 

I couldn’t believe it. Zach would rather make an empty threat than tell his grandmother, who he  had a close relationship with, that her behavior was affecting him. In an effort to get Zach to see things my way, I offered him a script:

“Grandma, I appreciate that you are trying to be helpful and know you are familiar with the area. There seems to be a lot of traffic heading downtown, so I would prefer to use GPS. I’m finding it stressful to follow your instructions when GPS is telling me to go another way. Please let me drive the way I feel comfortable driving.”

With that, Zach repeated his intention to avoid driving with Grandma and Joel going forward. Matt, who had been quietly listening to the conversation between Zach and me, posed the question that would inspire this post:

“Why don’t people just speak that way?”  

At first, I thought Matt was mocking me, as sarcasm is part of his charm. I asked him if he was serious. He replied, “Yes. Why don’t people just say what they are thinking and feeling?” 

With his question, Matt touched upon an issue that I have struggled with for decades and that I find confusing to this day.

The Struggle

Over the course of my adult life, I have stepped into an embarrassing number of potholes as a result of directly expressing my feelings. Time and time again, my words have induced uncomfortable feelings in friends and family members.  Since neither you nor I have the time to explore all of these missteps, I will share just a few of those not-proud experiences with you. 

Shortly after my wedding, my direct and, most likely, harsh feedback to a childhood friend about some things she had said and done at the wedding caused her to retreat from our friendship for ten years. She was so overwhelmed by my words that she was unable to accept my apology or speak to me for a full decade. She finally contacted me after hearing that my father had passed away. 

By then, we had missed so much in each other’s lives. After sharing many earlier life experiences, I didn’t attend her wedding and we weren’t in each other’s lives for the births of our children. She didn’t know I had changed careers or that my father had been terminally ill for eight months before he died of stomach cancer. Although we thankfully reconnected more than twenty years ago and were able to repair the rift between us, I deeply regret the detour our friendship took as a result of my unskillful communication. 

When my oldest son was a baby, I scared away a new mommy friend by telling her I was disappointed when she called to cancel the play-date we had planned with our babies.  She was very insulted and perceived my words as judgments that she was “rude” and “a bad friend.” I tried to explain that I didn’t see it that way, that I was just sad that we weren’t meeting. I never heard from her again.

One friend shared the feelings of shame she experienced after I approached her a few years ago and told her directly that I was disappointed she hadn’t reached out to me after I had completed a stressful and important professional milestone. What I had intended as a direct expression of rightfully-felt feelings, she experienced as a confrontation. Thankfully, she was able to move past the interaction, but told me years later that she was always a little anxious around me, worried that I might confront her about something else. 

On more than one occasion I have brought one very close friend to tears in response to feedback that she didn’t show up for me as I would have liked her to in certain situations. Fortunately, she loved me enough to stick around after she recovered from being told that she had hurt me. 

Sigh. I could go on and on but I think you get the point. You might even be wondering, “What on earth is wrong with her and why does she keep doing the same stupid thing over and over again?” Great question. In fact, I often wonder that myself. 

In addition to a natural tendency to express myself clearly, honestly, and directly, I received a lot of positive reinforcement for doing so during the eight years I attended group therapy in New York City.  Before having children, I participated in a process group led by my beloved mentor and therapist, Dr. Bonnie Jacobson, may her memory be for a blessing. The primary instruction for group participation was to say exactly what you were thinking and feeling to any member of the group or to the therapist. I’m guessing that some of you are wondering why on earth anyone would voluntarily subject themselves to this particular form of interpersonal torture, showing up to be on the giving and receiving ends of other people’s feedback and projections. 

I’ll tell you why I did it. Group therapy was the best opportunity I have ever had to connect  deeply and vulnerably with other human beings. I knew those group members on a deeper level than I knew most of my friends and family members.  And I knew that no matter what happened between us in that room, that we would not cut each other off or stop talking to each other. We would deal with the pain, the hurt, the anger, or the shame in a safe and sacred space that week or the next one or the one after that. We gave each other the opportunity to be imperfect and to repair what had been broken. We didn’t run away or say “No worries” then pull away when another group member hurt our feelings. We stayed, we told each other how we felt, we listened to each other, and by doing so, we learned to love each other, unconditionally.

The problem was that the skills I developed in group therapy did not translate well to the real world. If Bonnie were alive now, and I wish with all my heart that she were, I would ask her “What the hell were you thinking??” Seriously, I would be sitting on her couch trying to understand why I had, yet again, upset someone I cared about in my effort to let that person know that I was hurting because of something they had or had not done. 

By now, I imagine that most of you are wondering why I don’t just learn to keep my mouth shut. If speaking honestly and directly about my feelings causes other people to be upset with me and sometimes even disconnect from me, why do I continue doing it? Again, good question. 

The struggle for me is that I don’t know a better way to genuinely connect with another human being than to speak honestly and directly from my heart using the language of emotion.  

The Strategy

Each time I stepped into one of these potholes, I struggled with intense feelings of guilt, shame and humiliation AND I used each painful experience as an opportunity to better understand if, how, and when to express my feelings to someone who was important to me. 

I want to share some strategies I’ve integrated following my adventures in the pothole:

1. Know your audience:  When I shared my latest pothole escapade with my close friend, Penni, she gave me some valuable feedback. She said, “I think the issue is that you assume people have more capacity than they actually have.” She’s right. Most people don’t go to group therapy or intentionally put themselves in situations designed to teach them how they might be impacting or impacted by others. In fact, most people I know, if given a choice, would avoid the opportunity to engage in an honest give-and-take about hurt feelings. For most people, those types of conversations feel very, if not intolerably, uncomfortable. While some people are open to receiving feedback from others or letting another person know that something they did or didn’t do hurt them, my impression is that most people would rather avoid the whole situation. Even though I appreciate and even enjoy the opportunity to dive into the waters of emotional vulnerability, most people do not share my perspective. Maybe it makes more sense for me to assume that no one wants to hear how I’m feeling unless I am certain they do. I will only know for sure if I ask them directly. 

2. Back it up:  When I reach the precipice of sharing how I’m feeling, I need to back up. Further. Even more, Shari. When I get to the point where I feel like I’ve backed up enough, I need to take a few more steps back. This means that I cannot approach anyone with direct feedback at any time in any place in any way that shows up in my emotional body. I need to make sure I am calm and able to speak slowly. I need to ask if it’s a good time to talk about something that’s been bothering me. If the person says no, I need to ask them to let me know if there’s a time that works better for them. I can’t just launch into an emotional explanation of my hurt feelings. I might ask if the other person is interested in hearing about what I’ve been feeling. I need to set the situation up well, give the person time to prepare themselves to take in the feedback, and proceed one step at a time, assessing the other person’s capacity to take in my words. I need to pause frequently and check in after each phrase or sentence. “Is it OK if I go on?” or “How are you hearing what I’m saying?” might be appropriate questions to ask. 

3. Less is more:  I have learned the hard way that I don’t always need to say everything I am thinking or feeling. Make the point minimally and move on. 

4. Timing is everything:  I strongly recommend not telling someone what you are feeling at a party or other social gathering. While this may seem incredibly obvious to you, I somehow missed that memo and have stepped into the bad timing pothole on several occasions. It’s hard enough to hear that you have upset someone in a private space. People go to social gatherings to have fun, not to have intense emotional conversations. Just reminding myself, here. You guys already knew that.  Since we never know what another person is dealing with, it makes sense to ask if it’s a good time before approaching someone with an emotional issue.

5.  Watch your language: Since many of us aren’t taught by our families or social circles to express our feelings or give feedback directly, we often don’t have language for letting people know when we are upset. It seems to me that many people resort to phrases like “no worries,” “no problem,” or “kk” when they want to avoid having a difficult conversation about something that is bothering them. Unfortunately, the person who is on the receiving end of those comments will not benefit from potentially life-improving feedback in this situation. They may also never understand what went wrong or have the opportunity to repair the damage if you pull away instead of addressing the issue. 

On the other end of the spectrum, people who want to assert themselves but don’t have a refined skill set for doing so might use language like “You made me feel bad,” “You were so rude,” or “You hurt my feelings.” This type of accusatory language (note that each of those phrases starts with the word “You”) usually doesn’t land well with the recipient. Statements like those usually trigger defensiveness and shame, making it less likely that both parties will feel heard and respected. When both parties feel heard and respected, not attacked, it is much more likely that the situation will be genuinely resolved and the relationship will move forward authentically, without lingering resentment. 

Although I have been trying to develop an effective communication system for decades, I have recently learned, once again the hard way, that my approach still falls short. I’m hoping that my son, Matt, who just completed his third year of a doctoral program in clinical psychology, will offer some guidance on an approach that will allow me to speak my truth and be vulnerable in a way that connects me to other people instead of disconnecting me. 

Matt’s Reflections: 

At many points in my life, communicating my wants, needs, thoughts, and perspectives has felt both simple and easy. I was lucky enough to grow up in an environment that allowed my brothers and myself to speak our minds, and a culture of transparency and honesty led to a simple heuristic for communicating - say what’s on your mind. The belief was that if I spoke honestly, others could not be upset by it, as honesty is well agreed upon as a “good” trait. 

Leaving the east coast for college showed me that this style was not as universally appreciated and accepted as I might have believed. I found myself using my own honesty as a crutch to avoid deep consideration of what I was saying to others. I was always communicating honestly, but not always thoughtfully. Talking to people from various backgrounds showed me that many people were not appreciative of this bluntness, and some people even said they would prefer to be lied to in certain circumstances to protect them from being hurt. I have never found myself to shy from receiving bad news or critical feedback. I prefer it to uncertainty, anxiety, or guessing games. I was incorrectly and lazily assuming others felt the same way. 

I mentioned that I found communicating to be simple and easy, and I still agree with about half of that. The simple part of it is that we have an objective, which is to share what we want to with the other person. In order to say what we want, we have to first understand what exactly the message is that we want to communicate. For Zach in Delray, the simple part would be that he had an unpleasant experience driving and would not feel comfortable or willing to drive again unless things changed. The harder part is figuring out how to get the message across. Sometimes, it happens to be easy. With a close friend who you know to appreciate honesty, telling them you were bothered by something they did might be easy to communicate effectively in the way I would have done as a teenager. On the other end, there are some people, messages, and situations that even the most “expert” communicators could not navigate with all of the “I feel” statements in the world. If a friend tells me they would not want to know the truth about a certain situation, I may find that the right thing to do is withhold communication even if I believe it would be best for them to know, and even if I really really want to say something. 

The often-prescribed “I feel” statements as well as the five guidelines outlined by my mom are a great place to start with communication. They all increase the likelihood that the message will be received in a way that connects rather than divides. Unfortunately, there isn’t a better one-size-fits-all approach than this. When I speak honestly and bluntly to others under the assumption that honesty is always appreciated, I am taking a shortcut, just like when we avoid saying what we need to out of fear the other person will not accept our message, or us. 

Sometimes, communication can serve a straightforward and effective purpose of connecting us to another person while allowing them to see our perspective. Other times, its purpose can be in the face of a failed communication that causes conflict or is not seemingly heard and integrated. This apparent failure can provide incredibly valuable information that can lead people to more thought and collaborative discussion about what might work better in the future (or sometimes a realization that the relationship itself needs reevaluation). Trying will lead to learning either way, so try.

When I asked my mom why people don’t just say what’s on their mind, I was onto something. I also was missing several answers that explain exactly why people don’t just say what’s on their minds, and I have come to understand that much more clearly over recent years. When somebody is important to us, we can ask them how they like to communicate and how they like things to be communicated with them. I will always tell people that I prefer to receive honesty and blunt feedback, and that works quite well with some people and is impossible for others - which is something I would not have been able to understand without having these types of conversations. 

Simple - finding what it is you want to get across to the other person

Maybe not so easy but probably very helpful - asking somebody you care about what their preferred methods of receiving and communicating messages are and thoughtfully integrating their preferences with your own. 

When I stopped communicating almost everything bluntly, I took a step back in terms of the rate at which I would say what was on my mind and probably kept more to myself than I would have liked. This step back has allowed me to start a new journey, however, where I keep my principles of expressing myself to others and add in the consideration of what the particular message and person on the other side happen to be in that situation. This is a challenging journey on which I have a long way to go and much to learn, and I am grateful to have the opportunity to talk and write about it with my Mom this Mother’s Day.