Ditching “hard criticism” and using “soft complaints” can easily resolve unnecessary interpersonal “grudges”. So, are you ready? The “Soft Complaint” method of communication.
First, explain your needs without making attacks.
The “hard criticism” opening often raises a fire in the other person’s belly. For example, “What’s wrong with you? All you can think about is work, not me!” The first thing you can do is to call me and never think of sending me a gift, no matter what holiday you have in mind. Boy, who can stand to talk like that?
Let’s learn how to “softly complain”: point out your needs without blaming or attacking the other person. For example, “Honey, I really need you to help with the kids on the weekends, but you’ve been working every weekend for the past month.” , “I would love to be cared for by you, but it seems that in our relationship it’s always me who calls to check on you, and only me who remembers to give you gifts for the holidays.”
Second, don’t generalize and focus on specific behaviors.
The “hard criticism” is: “You always talk and never take responsibility! ” In this way, it is a heavy sentence on his/her personality, of course, to make people angry. The master of the “soft complaint” will say: “Tonight we agreed to have dinner together, but you made me wait alone for a long time.” That is, describing what happened rather than stating your own conclusions about his/her personality.
Third, emotions can be “all talk and no action.
Most of the time, it’s not smart to “just talk about it,” but in intimate communication, the smartest thing to do when dealing with your negative emotions is to “talk about it. The most intelligent way to deal with your negative emotions in intimate communication is to “talk about them, not do them”. That is, finding ways to discuss your feelings with the other person without actually acting on them.
For example, you could say, “I’m so angry that I want to break something!” By saying this, you have expressed the true feelings in your heart and can omit the destructive practice of dropping things altogether.
or, “You just said that and it made me a little too angry, and now I want to run away.” By the way, don’t do what you feel in your heart; you don’t need to grab the door and walk out, but stay and have a good discussion with the other person about how you feel.
Another example: “I have an urge to open my mouth right now and curse you to protect myself.” Instead of actually blaming the other person for the hurtful words, say what you are feeling in the moment and what motivates you in your heart, so that you avoid irreparable damage to the relationship and instead improve the emotional exchange between each other.
Talking about your feelings in an “emotionally charged way” doesn’t make the problem go away, but it’s a super effective invitation to intimacy. It’s like handing the person an invitation to intimacy, so that they know more about how you feel and understand that my intention is not to hurt you, but to get closer to you, so that he/she has a chance to make an intimate mental connection with you.