To Communicate and Express My Feeling Is My Deepest Fear

3 things I’ve learned to love-confronting because I care.

“It takes skills to listen, but it’s my heart to hears your’s.”

When our communication is like a broken link, it is difficult to pinpoint what seems wrong, which is so frustrating.

“How many times we talk. You don’t understand?”

“What are you thinking?”

“I’m done. Let’s end this.”

Sounds familiar…?

That was the last time we finally spoke, and the result was a breakup of a six-year relationship. I couldn’t get over it from what my partner said. And I thought to myself, am I stupid or what?

I was a talkative person in some way. But the inner me felt tired when I talk too much. Everyone sees me as a bubbly person. Well, yes, and mostly ‘nonsense.’

I’m not someone that can speak it right when coping with confrontation or in-depth discussion. I’ll always felt left behind. I guess this is low confidence? And when I try to talk, no one seems like listening.

As time goes by, I started to get quiet. I don’t feel like talking anymore since, to me is a tiring matter. But not until when I realized, communication is a rope that draws two or more people together. I want that and to be a ‘normal person. And I’ve decided to focus on myself and get back up on my feet.

Yes, this is me. I felt like a loser. I am trying very hard to learn the art of communicating.

“There’ll be no one except you to give yourself a chance to communicate.”

These days, we lived in. Communication has never been such easy, texting, SMS, chat app, but why — you are so near but felt so far away from me. I mean…Seriously, let’s talk about communicating — face to face. You are not listening to me anymore. We’ve heard this all the time. At the cafe, a couple talking, friends arguing, and the list goes on.

From the previous relationship and the mistakes I’ve learned throughout the years, here’s what I understand.

To Listen and Be listened.

Everyone is a listener. I want you to listen. I want someone to listen and hear me, the deepest part of me that is talking. And it is both ways.

We aren’t good listeners. Our listen span is low. When we can’t get it, we’ll get over it and zone out while the speaker is still talking. To this extent, we tend to assume that we know everything the person got to say. And we’ll brush it across and put it at the back of our head.

Everyone starts to take each other for granted, and that breaks a relationship when the feeling is hurt, then one is stress, and another is lost. Tension builds up, and arguments break out.

I’m not a self-appointed expert in any field or what. But I know that we want to be listened to and understood, but sometimes we lost the patience to understand each other.

Suppose you can relate to this — We’re only “parents trained,” hence, we tend to be impatient and without listening will break the transfer of communication.

We need to relearn the purpose of listening to hear, to feel, and to care. We can keep an open ear that is from the heart — communication in a two-way conversation.

Quick learn:

• Open your inner ear and attuned to what is said.
• Be sure you listen to the crucial point, and the meaning is met.
• Ask questions if you don’t understand what the person is trying to say. Be empathy. Not everyone is good at expressing.
• If you’re the one listening, be patient.
• Don’t assume.
• Be an active listener that has the intention to connect.

Learn to speak up is essential.

Like part of human natural body function, what goes in, need to comes out. Every resentment starts to build up, and we thought to ourselves that it’s OK, it will be OK soon. But the truth is, it’s never OK. There’s something we need to let go of or say out and speak out.

I had deep bothered issues with my childhood buddy. My ‘tolerance’ ended, and I flared out, with all the f%#k words that I never dreamed I would rant in that way. Pardon me, but is it forever friend or forever joke.

Long story aside, after years of the same sick joke, I got tired of being made fun of within the group. I told myself, it’s enough joke on me. When I keep mute doesn’t mean I’m OK to be a laughing object for years. This is where not speaking up hurts. The person that’s hurting yourself is — you allow it.

Communicating is a way to get meaning across. We speak so that to let them hears — listen. What is the purpose of sharing when there is no output? Good communication is the ability to say the most stuff in the fewest words. Clear and precise.

Quick learn:

• Do not bottom-up your feeling, which is unhealthy. We’re created with emotion. We cry, laugh, joke, express our feeling. We are given a mouth to speak, some thinking “juice in our brain.” We can learn to speak up too — bit by bit.
• People don’t remember what you say after some time. It’s OK to speak up. Try at least for few times. Once you break through the barrier, your confidence will build up over time.
• Learn to start reaching out to daily quotes for faith.
• Speak to yourself in the mirror, like you're talking to someone. Practice talking to yourself.
• Make a plan if you have decided to speak up for work, be professional.
• Be Relevance.

Resolve conflict as quickly as — now.

While conflict destroys trust but then it also builds trust.

“That’s great. Now is my fault?’ When conflict is still up in the air, that’s what happens. Very often, we’ll start to blame. All it gets on to everyone’s neck. The relationship turns sour and distanced.

Here is how the conflict started. Issues become bigger, resentment grows. When hear-say happened, that caused uncleared answers and sidestepping conversation saddened what is already untrue.

To make things worst, we tend to avoid conflict as much as possible for many reasons. People-pleasing took deep-rooted fear of afraid of upsetting others. I did that too on some occasions that I do not know how to solve. Caught up and fall into communication traps.

Quick learn:

• We can use sentences like — “I agreed to disagree with you” in our daily conversations to had another person agree on the point and share our ideas, we don’t need to fight our’s is right, and theirs is wrong. After all, it’s a world of sharing pieces of information.
• Simple management of own emotion, keep in mind, there’s no need to fight our way to win.
• Remember that conflict is inevitable. Learn to welcome it as well, as it’s part of our personal growth, and it can build trust.
• It teaches us both listening and communication skill.
• Get out of a conflict as soon as possible, and you won’t be trapped in it forever.

Final Thoughts

Human beings communicate every day. We don’t even know how many word counts we had said in our life.

Often, poor communication leads to significant issues that are rooted. Our communication skill is a work in progress. There will never be a stopping point.

Don’t give up, set a new experience, and overcome the fear of communicating and express more. I hope that you too. Move forward from conflict to love-confront.

Express one’s feeling does not need to consist of sharp-words, self-defensive mode. All we need to seek out is harmony and healthy assertiveness.