I Before You
What you give out,
you get back
Relationships are tricky and communication in relationships can be even tricker. Perhaps it is the communication itself that makes them tricker. We all know the concept of what goes around comes around or what you give out you get back, well this is so true when it comes to communicating with others.
So often we start a conversation with the word ‘You”. We may feel unheard, not appreciated, taken for granted or unloved and in trying to express our feelings we say to the other “You never listen” or “You are always doing this” or some such words starting with “You.” This immediately starts the conversation in a defensive way. The other may immediately feel judged or blamed by our words. If you think about it, in speaking in this way we are not saying anything directly about what is going on for us. We are making it all about the other and they are most likely going to respond defensively by putting it right back on us. In other words, we get back what we give out.
When we speak from the “I” place we speak from a place of authority because we know about ourselves. We speak about our own thoughts, our feelings, our desires and our needs. It is the only place that we have authority to speak from and it is the place where we are in our power. From here we can tell the other what is going on for us in relationship with that other in an open way. It is all about ourselves. This might sound like “I feel angry and frustrated when you are constantly late for our meetings” or “I feel sad when my feelings are not taken into account” or “I need the house to be tidy and I believe that it is good for us as a family to have a tidy house.”
When we speak with “I” we are speaking about ourselves and we are taking full responsibility for what we want to say. We are telling the other how life is for us. We are speaking from the inside out. This is powerful.
When we speak with “You” we are speaking from the outside in. We are in unknown territory because we cannot speak for another. We are communicating defensively and we have handed over our power to the other.
When I learned this I began to reflect on my own way of communicating and I found regular patterns which were defensive in nature. Very often I did not verbalise what it was I trying to say. I was putting it on the other to magically understand what it was I wanted to say and what it was I needed. This often ended badly to say the least. When I actively practiced speaking for myself, from the ‘I’ place, it is not an exaggeration to say that my relationships with others improved dramatically.
This way of speaking of “I Before You” can be particularly powerful in workplaces also, where there is often a hierarchy and a diversity of needs between the employer and the employee. Speaking from the ‘I” place to voice a grievance or in a review meeting can really lead to understanding and a depth in the relationship and all the positivity that flows from that.
My invitation to you is to try this out. I encourage you to take maybe one regular interaction in one relationship and reflect on what you are giving out and see what you are getting back. If you are feeling frustrated or unheard after these interactions, or if you feel that there is no shift in the dynamic after repeated interactions then why not give this a try. Reflect on what it is you want to say, in other words what you think, how it is you feel and what it is you need and say it clearly starting with and staying with “I” and see what happens.
“One of the most beautiful gifts in the world is the gift of encouragement. When someone encourages you, that person helps you over a threshold you might otherwise never have crossed on your own”. - John O’Donohue