Communication Tips: Part 3

Communication Tips:  This is the third of a six part series on Communication

  1. When in Conflict
  2. Expressing Emotion
  3. Engaging your Partner
  4. Engaging your teen
  5. Establishing Boundaries
  6. Saying  sorry – accepting responsibility for your actions

Communication Tips Part Three: Engaging your Partner

Engagement is an interesting thing. It can mean something as simple as how was your day or as much as you are everything to me. Engagement is a vital process between couples that maintains the importance of each other in their lives together.

Words of engagement  can communicate the meaning of love, attraction, support or interest.

It can be as simple as “how was your day honey” to “you are so beautiful/handsome” to “I missed you all day long.”

It can include a caring invitation “looks like you need to talk.”

It can be playful “kids are out, dinners ready, candles are lit and I have on that cologne you bought me for Xmas.”

How we engage is as important as what we say while we engage.

Think about it for a minute.

A warm smile, welcoming hug, or intimate look can immediately make your partners day and begin a wonderful evening for the both of you.

Essential elements of engagement:

In order to engage well, couples need to understand each other and what works for them. In good times, a hug and kiss with conversation is the perfect beginning to an evening together.

However after a bad day, one person may be better engaged by a hug and offer of some alone time to work things out for themselves.

So to properly engage, each person has to be fully aware of their partners needs during different times. A mistake in engagement is to do what you may want or need and expect that to be the same for your partner.

Communication and knowing your partner is the best way to fully understand and fulfill each other’s needs given the complexity of life circumstances.

Living in the moment: When you are engaging your partner it is important that he/she knows they are the most important person in the room. So it is imperative to engage in the moment – shut out everything for that few minutes to reach out to your partner.

Valuable steps in engagement:

1)    Be ready to set aside the dinner plans, catch up with the kid’s homework, putting the dog out or shoveling the snow. It can all wait for a few valuable minutes that engagement takes.

2)    Look for him/her like you did when you were dating. Remember how you once made each other the priority over everything else. That energy and good feeling when you saw or talked to one another?

3)    Use actions and words that invite your partner to engage you. “Hey, how was your day beautiful?”

4)    Use eye contact; remember that part of communication that shows interest, meaning and value of someone? It seems lost given the fast paced life we all live in with technology commanding all of our time. So set aside the phone, laptop, iPod, iPad, television etc and live in the moment with your partner.

5)    Set aside a few minutes each day to engage and ensure you and your partner are both feeling heard and needs are being met.

6)    Enjoy each other in the engagement process as it is perhaps one of the most important processes a couple can do together during good times and bad. It can calm a potential storm, light up a bad day, communicate love, attraction, happiness and a sense that we are in this together and this is very good.

We hope this engagement tip will add to your lives together.
So engage each other with the excitement of being in love again…for the first time.

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Communication Tips: Part 6

Saying Sorry: We all have done or said things that upset or hurt the ones we love and care about. That is part of being human, that part of us that reacts to the inner drive to defend, hurt, push away, surrender to anger or get even with the ones we love.

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Communication Tips: Part 5

Boundaries are an interesting thing. I am often asked what a boundary is and how do you set them?
Well if we really look, boundaries are all around us:

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Communication Tips: Part 4

Engagement of teenagers, well how can I describe this process?
Well it’s kind of like feeding a deer. You can stand still, look them in the eye and hope they come to you but if you make the slightest move in the wrong direction, BAM they run in the bush.

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Communication Tips: Part 2

How many times have you skipped through your day with the energy of happiness? You know what I mean, saying hello to strangers, doing something nice for someone, singing in your car.

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Communication Tips: Part 1

When in Conflict:
As we all know, conflict is a part of life. It’s really everywhere – in our homes, at school or work, in social situations and interactions. Most people do not like conflict, in fact, many try to avoid it at all costs.

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