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Ways to communicate hurt feelings to someone without placing blame
From emphasising on the behavior to mentioning how much we care about the relationship, here are a few ways shared by the expert.
In a relationship, it is important to create a healthy space for communication and understanding. Communication – one of the foundation blocks of a healthy relationship – determines clarity, honesty and transparency in the relationship. Trying to understand and validate the emotions of the other person requires a lot of effort, especially when they are hurt. However, when a person is hurt by another person, the go-to way is always to place blame and speak about the emotions. But this can affect the health of the relationship when repeated constantly. "The foundation and environment of communication is as (if not more) important than what you say. Healthy and safe environments that open conversations or differences of opinion are safe spaces to communicate. If someone has proved to you a pattern of neglecting your emotions or not understanding your needs - then that's a different story," wrote Therapist Divya Robin.
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The Therapist further shared a few ways by which we can communicate hurt feelings without getting into the blame game:
Emphasise on behavior: Often the mistake we make is we start to bring up their character in general rather than the specific behavior that hurt us. Instead, we should emphasise on the behavior that affected us. We should also check with them if it’s a good time to have a conversation on the same.
Using I statement: Instead of talking in general, we should focus on our own feelings and perspectives and talk about how we are currently feeling. We should try to avoid making generic statements and hurting the other person in the process.
Care about the relationship: We should consciously mention how much we care about the relationship. This will enable the other person to understand that the relationship is not in danger – it is a conversation about sharing emotions.
Triggers: Mentioning the trauma and the triggers that we have will help the other person to understand us better.
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