4 Ways To Improve Your Relationships

0:07Welcome to today's episode of the Mindset Mentor podcast. I am your host, Rob Dial. If you have not yet done so, hit that subscribe button so that you never miss another podcast episode. And if you're out there and you love this podcast, you'll also love my free journaling course that I just created. It is a short video that shows you exactly how to go through the journaling process so that you can use it for your self-development, grow and get better. And also with that free video course, I also have 30 free journaling prompts that you can use daily to help you improve and get better as well.

0:36So if you want that, all you have to do is go to mindsetmentorjournal.com. once again, Mindset Mentor Journal, and download it absolutely free. Today, we're going to be talking about your relationships. And we're going to talk about how to improve your relationships, but specifically around how to improve your communication in relationships. And so when you look at your relationships, especially your romantic relationships, one of the things that I find with people is that the main thing that's holding them back from having a better relationship is their communication. And sometimes it's being open and honest with those people that are there in front of us that we're in a relationship with, but sometimes it's also understanding how we might be needing improvement in our communication style, depending on who's in front of us.

1:24We might be realizing, and I have a really big idea that a lot of you are going to hear something in here and go, oh shit, that's what I do. Or you're going to go, oh shit, that's what my boyfriend does or my wife does or whatever it might be. This will help you in your romantic relationships, but it's also going to help you in your friendships. And these patterns can be present in all relationships, you know, friendships, familial relationships, marriage, boyfriend, girlfriend, all of that. And what we're going to talk about is what Joel Gottman calls the four horsemen. These are communication patterns that can be really destructive to relationships if they're kind of left unchecked.

2:01And, you know, as I'm going through this, all I ask is that you are open-minded and say, hey, is there a possibility that I communicate verbally, non-verbally, tonality, body language in my relationships this way when I go through each one of these? And so throughout this episode, we're going to dive deeper and take a look at the four horsemen, and I'll give you examples of how they show up in your relationships, either how that other person is doing it or how you are doing it as well. Cool? So the first of the four horsemen is criticism. Criticism is the first one. It's characterized by attacking a person's character or personality rather than their behavior.

2:41So this is really important for you to understand in your communication style. It's attacking the person's character or their personality rather than their behavior. So it's basically attacking who they are versus what they have done. Make sense? So criticism can be really, really destructive if it happens a lot. And some people in relationships criticize, like they don't have things the way that they want. So they constantly criticize, criticize, criticize, criticize. And that can lead to a lot of resentment and the other person disconnecting from you. So, you know, for example, let's say that your partner, you're frequently criticizing them because they are, you know, let's just, let's just say you're not even criticizing them yet.

3:29Let's just say your partner, the person you're in a relationship with is not the tidiest of people, right? Some of you guys are out there and you're like, yes, my husband is sloppy as hell, right? That might be something that is true, right? So that is the thing that's happening in the relationship. But instead of focusing on the behavior, what you would want to, like what the person would say. So instead of you saying, talking about the behavior of the person, what you might say to him is, John, you're just so lazy. Or Tim, like, you never do anything around the house. You're so lazy. You never do anything around the house.

4:04You leave this all for me. And, you know, you leave your plates all over the place. And you never do anything. Like, you're just such a lazy POS, right? Whatever it might be. That is an example of you attacking the person's character. like that language attacks a person's character versus a specific behavior. So an example is instead of saying, hey, you're so lazy because that person's not cleaning up, it could be like, hey, Tim, could you really do me a favor? Like, I would really appreciate it if you would start putting your dishes away more, right? The dishes is the actual behavior, not putting away the dishes versus saying you're so lazy.

4:46You don't do shit around the house. It's all my fault. I have to do everything and you don't help me at all, right? Do you see how if you criticize somebody's character versus the behavior that they can become very defensive and shut off? So to address the criticism, what you want to do is you want to focus on the behaviors rather than attacking the person's character. Because it's not actually who they are. It's just something that they have done. So a more effective approach would be to say something like, hey, I would really appreciate it if you could help me keep the house clean. And anytime they do help around the house, thank them.

5:22One of the things that's very important is to learn that people respond better to positive reinforcement over negative reinforcement. If you're like, you don't ever do shit around the house and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You're so lazy. You don't ever help me out. That's attacking their character. That's attacking them. But if you notice the positive behavior, they take a fork and they put a fork in the dishwasher. Oh, honey, thank you so much. I really appreciate that. If you want your significant other to start cleaning up more, praise them, not in a fake way, but praise them for helping you out.

5:52It will make them feel good and make them more likely to do it later on down the road. So that's the first thing is the criticism side. The next thing is contempt. So the next of the four horsemen is contempt. Contempt is characterized by the feelings of disgust or disrespect towards your partner. So what the hell does that mean, right? This communication pattern, it could come in a lot of different forms, but it's basically in a way of thinking of it as like sarcasm, eye rolling, name calling. For example, let's say that your partner, let's say that you're frequently contempt towards your significant other.

6:31What does that look like? Well, let's say they are towards you. Maybe let's just say that's how they are towards you. Your partner is always, not always, often, because always is very general. There's no way they're always this way towards you. But they are oftentimes contempt towards you. They might use sarcasm when you talk about your hobbies. They might use sarcasm when you're talking about your goals or what you want to do or how you have these, you've been listening to this podcast to improve yourself. Or they might do that whenever you're reading a book. They might roll their eyes whenever you make a mistake or they do that noise.

7:15Or they show disgust towards you when you say something that they don't necessarily like. And that's how they respond to you. And this behavior, whenever someone starts to do this, can make someone feel really disrespected and severely underappreciated. And so to address the contempt, what you want to do in your relationship is to try to build a culture of appreciation more in your relationship. And so what often happens is usually if somebody has contempt towards another person, they roll their eyes, they make fun of them, they put down all of the different things that are on their vision board or whatever it might be.

7:56What's happening is there's not really a whole lot of appreciation. There's not a whole lot of gratitude inside of that relationship. And so what it would look like is this can involve making a really conscious effort to express gratitude and appreciation for who someone is, how they are, and no matter how small of the things that they do. And so it comes down to you having the conversation with them. Maybe you play this episode for them. Maybe they go through and read the book about it. And then actually start to talk about it and say, hey, how can we just have, like, would you agree that our relationship would be better just if we had more gratitude towards each other, if we had more appreciation towards each other?

8:36I would hope that they'd say yes. It's like, okay, well, how do you think that we could develop more appreciation towards each other, more gratitude towards each other? And then you start going on that route. So you're trying to basically cultivate a more conscious effort to be more grateful and appreciative of each other. So that's the second one. Hey, think about someone who's changed your life for the better. How incredible would it be if your company could find more of those life-changing people right now when you needed them? If you're hiring, you need Indeed. Indeed is a hiring platform where you can attract, interview, and hire all in one place.

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10:14So this communication pattern often pops up in response to criticism or to contempt. And so you can see how these two kind of work together, right? And they can lead to a downward spiral of negative communication patterns. So, you know, when one partner becomes defensive, it can be really difficult for the other partner to express their concerns without feeling attacked. Because sometimes what happens is you might, for instance, be in a relationship with somebody and they did something that made you feel a certain way, made you feel bad, right? And now you have probably come to them before and said, hey, what you did didn't make me feel good.

10:48And what happened was their defensiveness went up and they started attacking you for something that you did instead of actually just listening to how you feel. This happens a lot in relationships, especially with people who are, I'm just going to say it honestly, kind of emotionally insecure or emotionally, not really emotionally developed, is somebody will come and present to you or to them a circumstance. And instead of listening to that person and hearing them out and making them feel heard and feel understood, they immediately attack back because they are not secure enough in themselves to be able to be told that there's something that they're doing wrong.

11:31So an example would be like, let's say that a partner becomes defensive when their significant other brings up concerns about their behavior. So instead of taking responsibility for the actions, they might say, well, I didn't do anything wrong. Or you're just overreacting. It's just a fork. I didn't put away the freaking fork, right? So what happens is you could bring the concern to them and then they basically come back and yell at you for bringing the concern to them. Or you tell them how you feel and then they yell at you because they say, well, that's also how you made me feel, right? And I only did that because of what you did, right?

12:03Never really taking any responsibility. And this type of response can leave the other partner feeling really unheard and really frustrated. And over time, we've all done this before. If you've had a partner like this before, I know definitely have in the past where you bring them something, you want to talk about it, they throw it back at you. And then over time, you're just like, I'm just not going to fucking talk about anything. Because no matter what it is, if I start to feel certain when I bring it up to this person, they're just going to attack me back. So I'd rather just not get into an argument.

12:31I just push this under the rug. Right? So if you want to address defensiveness, you have to try, if you notice in yourself that you are a defensive person, oh yeah, shit, I actually do do that with my wife, with my husband, with my boyfriend, girlfriend, with my mom, whoever this might be. Once again, it doesn't have to just be romantic relationships. Try taking responsibility for your actions rather than making excuses or trying to find a way to blame others. So a more effective response to be saying something like, you know but I'm sorry. I can really see how my behavior might have hurt you in that situation.

13:03I apologize. That's the better way of doing it versus saying, well, I only did that because of what you did. And you do that to me all the time. So that's number three. And then the fourth horseman is something called stonewalling. So stonewalling is the fourth and final of the four horsemen. It is withdrawing from a conversation or an interaction rather than engaging with it. I'm not going to talk about this. We're not talking about this. Nope, not going to do it. That would be an example of stonewalling. So the pattern often pops up in response to feeling overwhelmed or flooded with emotions and not knowing how to really work through them.

13:38It can really be a sign that a partner is feeling emotionally disconnected from the other. And so a lot of people I have found are not really versed in dealing with their emotions. And so sometimes they'll just be like, nope, we're not talking about this. Get away from me. We're done. And it's not like they even come back to the conversation. They're just like, they try to push it away and act like it's never there. So stonewalling can be really damaging to a relationship because it can leave one partner feeling ignored and neglected whenever they're trying to work through something. That doesn't feel very good, right?

14:06So an example would be, let's say the couple is having an argument and one partner starts to feel overwhelmed with their emotions. They might withdraw from the conversation, stop responding, leave the room, drive away from the house and come back tomorrow, right? Like that's stonewalling. And the behavior can leave the other partner feeling like they're really ignored and they're not being heard, but also very frustrated. Like there's nothing I can do because talking to this person makes them shut off. And so it turns into a fight, they shut off and then there's no resolve, right? And it might even start having them start thinking that they don't even care.

14:42They don't even care. Every time I bring something up, they run away. So they must not care. And so to address the stonewalling, the best way of doing it, if it's, you know, that their emotions are so high, is try taking a break from the conversation and engaging in self-soothing activities, like deep breathing or going for a walk. So if you notice that maybe you are a stonewalling person, what you do is if you're in a, you know, a little bit of an argument or conversation, and you start to notice the flood of emotions, it's like, hey, I really feel like I need to pause this conversation because my emotions are getting really high.

15:14Is it okay if I just go for a walk for like 10 minutes, 20 minutes, and then just come back when I feel like I can understand my emotions a little bit better? And what you do, if you just do that, is you just go for the walk. You do some deep breathing in through the nose, out through the mouth. You try to regulate your nervous system. And the goal is to take a break and to calm down and regulate your emotions, regulate your nervous system so that you can return back to the conversation with a clear mind. and because the reason why is because if your emotions are really high, when your emotions are high, your logic is low.

15:46When your emotions are really high, it actually tends to shut down parts of the prefrontal cortex, which is your executive thinking part of your brain, which means that your logic is low, which is why sometimes you're in an argument and you say something and then 20 minutes later, like, shit, why did I say that? It's because you weren't really thinking that well. And so you want to disconnect from it. Let them know you will be back. Don't just disappear and never go back into the conversation again, but you disconnect from it and you come back a little while when your emotions are less heightened, you have been able to take this information, kind of put it into your nervous system, and then you can actually go, okay, now I can have this conversation.

16:22And so that's the fourth one, which is stonewalling. And so the four horsemen, if you don't work through these, if you leave them for a long time, can have a really negative effect on your relationships. It can erode your emotional connection with somebody. It can lead to a lot of feelings of resentment, disconnection, distrust. In extreme cases, breaking up if you're in a relationship with them or if it's a friendship, just not seeing them again. And so to prevent the four horsemen from damaging your relationships, it's really important to be aware of their presence and to address them whenever they arise.

16:57If I'm being honest, we have to learn to be adults, to effectively communicate with other human beings. The most important thing you can do is really work together. This is a two-way street. And if somebody's not willing to work with you, well, then you're also noticing something that's a problem there. And so it's to really work together to establish a really healthy communication between the two of you, which is expressing appreciation, taking responsibility for our actions, regulating our own nervous system. But it's also important to address them as soon as they arise rather than letting them grow longer, bigger, become bigger resentments, and then it blows up.

17:35And so it really comes to the two of you deciding that, you know what, our relationship is important and it is something that we do want to work on. It's going to require work. It's going to require some hardship, some emotions, some crying, some screaming, all of those things. But we love each other enough in our relationship to work on these things. So that's what I got for you for today's episode. If you love this episode, if you learned a lot from it, share it with your partner because they probably fucking need to hear it as much as you did, right? So if you love the episode, please share it with someone you know and love.

18:04and also share it on your Instagram stories and tag me in at RobDialJr, R-O-B-D-I-A-L-J-R. And I'm gonna leave it the same way I leave you every single episode. Make it your mission to make someone else's day better. I appreciate you and I hope that you have an amazing day.