One of the skills of mindful communication is Validating vs. Condoning. Look at the picture above and describe what you see. Did you see an old lady, or a young lady? If you saw both, which did you see first? Now assume your partner saw the old lady in the picture, and you saw the young lady. Which of you […]
Validating vs. Condoning
Body Communications
Body communications are a way of learning about how our bodies respond to emotional situations. Automatic processes are processes that we have engaged in so often that we don’t even have to think about them anymore. Remember when you first learned to drive a car? You were probably nervous, trying to remember all the rules of the road, what all […]
Internal Validation vs. External Validation
`“If it’s never our fault, we can’t take responsibility for it. If we can’t take responsibility for it, we’ll always be its victim.”` -Richard Bach, author Internal Validation is the art of validating ourselves. We all like to be validated. It’s why we have relationships in the first place. We enter relationships so that others can support us emotionally. This […]
Aggressive vs. Assertive Communication
In mindful communication, we learn to communicate in ways that are assertive rather than aggressive. By setting firm boundaries in non-aggressive ways, our interactions with others become assertive without resulting in hurt feelings, arguments, or conflict. If setting boundaries does lead to conflict, learning to be assertive rather than aggressive allows us to find peaceful and productive resolutions to differences […]