SEASON 12, EPISODE 5

[INTRODUCTION]

[0:00:13] ANNOUNCER: Welcome to SLP Learning Series, a podcast series presented by speechtherapypd.com. The SLP Learning Series explores various topics of speech-language pathology. Each season dives deeper into a topic with a different host and guests who are leaders in the field. Some topics include stuttering, AAC, sports concussion, teletherapy, ethics, and more. Each episode has an accompanying audio course on speechtherapypd.com and is available for 0.1 ASHA CEUs. Now, come along with us as we look closer into the many topics of speech-language pathology. 

[INTERVIEW]

[00:01:04] SMS: All right. Hello, hello, everybody. Welcome back to our fifth episode. Thank you for joining us on this continued journey of self-discovery, self-connection, and growth. I'm your host, Stephanie Michele Sweigart. I'm a licensed and practicing school-based SLP out in Los Angeles, California. And my pronouns are she/her. And I am also certified as a teacher of mindfulness and compassion-based practices. 

Thank you so, so much for being here for this episode. And thank you to speechtherapypd.com for this incredible opportunity for all of us to really learn, and grow, and connect in this way with holistic self-development. 

We are winding down on this miniseries. I really want to express my gratitude to everybody who's been joining episode after episode or maybe those of you who are here for the first time. This has been such an incredible journey that we've been able to share together so far. And I think it's really been unique for me in the sense that we can contribute this way in our field, in speech pathology, and in this format together in a podcast. Having your support in the chat box has been amazing. Getting your follow-up emails and connecting with you that way has been great. I've learned from your valuable feedback. Thank you to all of you who have contributed in that way. It has been immensely rewarding. And please continue to do so.

Before we get started, I do have a few things I need to alert you to. As always, this podcast provides informational and educational content only. This is not a substitute for professional therapy. Discussions here are going to aim for self-discovery. And we're going to offer mindful strategies for addressing work conflicts. Suggestions aren't definitive solutions for your circumstances. Your choices are your responsibility. Please seek professional advice or personalized support. By listening, you acknowledge that information is general in nature and it may not suit your needs, and that's okay. Exercise caution and consult relevant professionals before making any decisions.Ê

I'm excited to have a guest on our episode today who has graciously offered their story, their time, their wisdom. And they're going to be sharing with us a personal challenge that they have faced in the workplace in years past.Ê

All right. Welcome, Elizabeth Perry, our guest here today. Elizabeth Perry is the Founder and Director of Speech Therapy and Accent Group, which is a concierge speech and occupational therapy practice which is based just north of me in the San Francisco Bay Area. Liz received her bachelor of arts degree from UC Davis in 2010 and a master of science degree from Brigham Young University in 2012.

Additionally, she received the Compton PESL Accent Modification Certification in 2013. Very cool. And an AAC Specialist Certification from Stockton University in 2020. In addition to her domestic work, Elizabeth is actively involved in teaching evidence-based speech therapy principles in China. That is incredible. I want to hear a little bit more about that.Ê

And her areas of specialty include independent educational evaluations. Those IEEs. Corporate coaching in accent modification acquisition and interpersonal communication skills, which is what we're going to be talking about today. Autism spectrum disorder and early intervention practices.Ê

You are wearing many hats, Elizabeth. If you're not with clients Ð also, you have five children, you told me, right?Ê

[00:04:25] EP: Yes.

[00:04:26] SMS: You are a busy lady.

[00:04:27] EP: Well, aren't we all?

[00:04:29] SMS: Thank you so much for taking the time to be here with us today. We have someone from Redondo Beach. Shout out to Redondo Beach. And they're wishing me a happy birthday. Thank you so much for knowing it's my birthday. It's another Stephanie in the chat box. Awesome. Thank you so much.

Elizabeth, at this time, do you have any financial or non-financial disclosures to discuss?

[00:04:48] EP: Yes, I have one financial disclosure that I'll be receiving a small compensation from SpeechTherapyPD for appearing in this podcast episode. Thank you so much for having me today. I'm very grateful for the opportunity.

[00:05:01] SMS: Awesome. Okay. As far as myself, I do have financial disclosures to discuss. I am the owner of a non-public agency in Southern California. I do receive speaking fees from speechtherapypd.com for this podcast and also the sale of digital courses that I have. I do not have any non-financial disclosures at this time. A bit of housekeeping guys, each episode, 60 minutes. It's going to be offered for 0.1 ASHA CEUs.Ê

All right. We got all the housekeeping out of the way. Let's do a quick little check-in, Elizabeth, if you will. Maybe just a little self-connection exercise. If we could just maybe come up with one feeling that kind of comes up for you right now, maybe one feeling word that you might be experiencing as we're getting ready to start this new episode.

[00:05:44] EP: Excitement.

[00:05:46] SMS: Excitement. I love it. All right. We've got excitement. Anybody else? If you want to do a quick little self-connection, you can come up with a feeling where you have. Maybe it's excitement for the episode. Or just joy for being here and connecting this way. Or exhaustion from the day. Or maybe you're hungry.Ê

Curiosity. We've got curiosity coming in the chat box. Yes. I love it when people bring curiosity. Awesome. Feel free along the way just to popcorn that little check-in if you do that self-connection exercise.

Today's episode is Communication Mastery: Revealing 5 Transformative Secrets With an SLP. For those of you listening to this episode, I've also prepared something special for you. If you go ahead and scan the QR code in the handouts, you can download your workbook companion. I've also included there is Elizabeth's handout, which will be next to that workbook. And that will be a guide for you today as we are navigating our topic that Elizabeth has graciously provided. Go ahead and grab that QR code. Grab Elizabeth's handouts. Have the frameworks ready. And we're going to dive into a conversation that is not just informative but is going to be experiential.Ê

Let's kick off everybody first by talking about the "S" word. This is stress. We all acknowledge the prevalence of stress in our field, in our journey in speech path, which has started as early as when we entered the field. This is really our first objective tonight. We're going to talk about stress. And we're going to understand that fight, flight, freeze response to stress. And then we're going to talk to Elizabeth about a real-life scenario when maybe she experienced some stress in the workplace. 

Again, when we started our journey, maybe stress started as early as school with demanding casework or extensive clinic work. Maybe late-night studying with your study buddy. This all made stress a significant part of our experience. And we need to recognize that stress is ongoing. This is something that's not going to go away. And it's going to show up in our career, in our professional, and our personal lives. It's really crucial to be able to develop effective tools to manage it and to also prevent it from completely drowning us in overwhelm. 

When I think back on my education and in my grad schooling, I don't remember teachers really touching on the topic of stress or providing my particular class with effective stress management tools that we would need to be able to tackle those conflicts and challenges in the field.Ê

And now, 17 years later, I continue to see through the years, I'm witnessing SLPs that are leaving the profession due to increased stress, overwhelm, burnout. Or they're transitioning out of the school systems and they're looking to work in private practice because maybe of inadequate support. The support that they need isn't being met in school systems.Ê

And due to this sort of early lack of guidance, I know I had in my education, I'm not sure what is happening in the grab programs right now, I wasn't prepared for these emotional challenges that were going to come up, right? The emotional challenges of just dealing with the overwhelm. Whether it's the workload and the caseload. Or if it's a broken system that we're working in. Or team conflicts. All of these things can really trigger stress in us or a stress response. And that's where our bodies go into this place of fight, fight back, flight. I'm out of here. Or freeze. I don't know what to do. And this is what happens sometimes when we're in the face of those difficulties.Ê

Stress occurs when now our bodies, the chemicals are imbalanced. And when the chemicals are imbalanced what happens is, now, we're going into a reactive state. We're reacting to the things that are happening in our external environment. And this stress response is very normal because this is how our body is trying to cope with what's happening to us.Ê

And it's amazing because we think about it, there's a lot of research, evidence-based research, just on how mindfulness of thoughts, how we're thinking alone can already send us into this short-term stress. And then if we stay in short-term stress for too long, we call it long-term stress. And then we know the difficulties that can come from that with our health, with our well-being, our self-esteem, our communication, our relationships. It's detrimental to us.Ê

I want to pop over to the chat box now if everybody is on and participating. I'd love to know if you're here. If you're experiencing short-term or long-term stress in your current position that has impacted your well-being, give me a big shout-out, all caps, YES, in that chat box. I just want to know if there's anybody that can relate right now to feeling that stress or feeling that pressure from Ð yes, we've got long-term stress. Absolutely. Lori says yep. Carl says yes. Because this is very real. And I think there's so much going on in our world right now. This is really hard times. And then, what all is going on in the world paired with what we have to do in our professional lives makes everything really challenging. Megan says, "For sure. Absolutely." 

Being in this, like Carl said, long-term stress. When we're in this prolonged state of fight, flight, freeze, what happens is this depletes the essential energy that's really needed to be able to build our inner resources. And this excessive stress has the potential now to create these emotions in us where now maybe we've got fear, we've got aggression, we've got anger, we've got frustration, we've got anxiety. The list goes on and on and on.Ê

I'm reading an amazing book. It's calledÊBreaking the Habit of Being Yourself. And it's written by Dr. Joe Dispenza. He is a chiropractor. And he talks a lot about this and how these hormones that are released in our body come during stress. And when these hormones are released and we're experiencing this stress, the research shows we're less aware, we're more reactive and we're less present in the moment. That, as a little bit of background. 

Elizabeth, we sent out a questionnaire to you and we specifically asked you what is your situational conflict or challenge, current or in the past. And how has it impacted you with either stress, or worry, or well-being? Include necessary details but no names. I was wondering if you could share a little bit about your experience 11 years ago that you shared with us when you were working with a school district and you decided to make what you called an abrupt leave. I thought this would be a really great place that we could start our conversation and share your transformative journey so that others can learn from that as well.

[00:12:18] EP: Sure. About 12 years ago, I was jumping into my clinical fellowship and my clinical fellowship supervisor had been so diligent in her job of supervising. The school district was in a difficult position of not having enough speech therapists. It was difficult to find contractors. Some things haven't changed. That actually gotten more difficult in our field with time, right?

I was very stressed out in the position. And then I was given this beautiful opportunity to go join a private practice. And this happened to be a week before the next school year was about to start. And I was only halfway through my clinical fellowship. Being as stressed out as I was with the school position and wanting to leap at the opportunity to work at this private practice, I sent an email to this special education director and I said, "I've found a position with a new company and I'm leaving." And I let my clinical fellowship supervisor know as well, "I found a new position. Thank you for everything you did. I'm leaving." And that was it. It was very brief and abrupt.Ê

When I talked to the special education supervisor later, she was very cold, which at the time I did not understand. But she said just leave your things on the desk and go. And it seemed very strange to me that she behaved that way when I told my clinical fellowship supervisor, she gave me a very similar response. And there just wasn't any further communication there.Ê

10 years down the line, I'm doing an independent educational evaluation for this district with my own company and I ran into this clinical fellowship supervisor who is now a program supervisor for the district. At this point, I'm feeling nervous and scared to engage with her having burned some bridges along the way, and decided, "You know, this would probably be a really good time to reach out and have a conversation." Maybe not a full conversation about this but to at least apologize for my behavior not understanding the position that that would put the school district in. To just have a speech therapist who they were relying on for full-time work to just leave a week before this school started. I didn't know. I didn't have any experience on that side of trying to manage things. But it's not an excuse.

[00:14:40] SMS: Yeah. What I'm hearing in your story is, back then, you were looking at your perspective of it and what your needs were and trying to make the decision that felt right and best for you. But not realizing the impact that it had on the school that you were leaving behind. And maybe at that time not understanding the perspectives of why the other individuals you were communicating with were feeling the way they were feeling, right?Ê

[00:15:02] EP: Right.Ê

[00:15:02] SMS: And it could be really hard leaving a school district in such a way. That can be a very challenging experience. And I'm imagining that created some disconnection in your relationships. And it's funny, because as you're saying that and you went back you said 12 years later for the IEE, I always think about this. Because when you burn bridges, it's like I don't want to run into somebody at the grocery store where I'm like hiding in a certain aisle and I'm embarrassed about how I chose to show up or how I reacted. But that's how it is when we're acting out of a place of reactivity. And then later we look back on it and we're like, "Oh, I should have opened my mouth in certain ways or whatever." I'm speaking from my own experience. It's sometimes really hard to navigate those situations. Thank you for just being open about this, your openness to share your vulnerability to tell your story with us today. I'm really grateful for that.Ê

And that's going to kind of lend us into the next part of our conversation where Ð so, time has moved on. And you've run into this person. And you mentioned you tried to repair the conversation and the relationship at that point. You said from 2017 to 2019 that you had some training with Dr. David Burns. And I would love to hear sort of how you discovered these ÒFive Secrets of Effective Communication.Ó What that process was like for you? How you learned about it? Just sort of your story on these tools that came your way that are going to be so transformative for your future self.Ê

[00:16:30] EP: Sure. Sure. Back in 2012, when all of this was happening, 2013, whatever year it was, I was not wanting to have this conversation because conflict is scary. And if you're not sure how it's going to go down, oftentimes we just avoid it. How many times in our lives have we, even those of us who are not conflict-avoidant, had these conflict-avoidant moments where it's just easier to walk away from something than to have a harder conversation?Ê

In 2017, I had just started my own business and I was starting to get some referrals from some Stanford-affiliated pediatricians. And they connected me with this emeritus faculty member over at Stanford Medical School named Dr. David Burns. And he is the author of the bookÊFeeling Good. If you've heard of it, it's an international bestseller. And it's a really fabulous book. He also wroteÊWhen Panic Attacks. And he has quite a few books that are I think worth the read.Ê

But when we met, we went on some hikes together where we would do some personal work on hikes. It was just a bunch of psychiatrists and me. And we all discussed this methodology that he developed personally, which is evidence-based. And there's more and more research coming out on it. He developed this new form of cognitive behavioral therapy called team CBT. It's like a rapid-fire cognitive behavioral therapy form. And within this brand of CBT, he's developed this communication methodology which has some similarities to others like non-violent communication, and circling, and some others similar to that. And it's called "The Five Secrets of Effective Communication". 

He wrote an entire book on it which it has done pretty well feeling good together. And we spent quite a couple of years refining this methodology where the entire point is you don't have to be scared of high conflict. And you don't have to be scared of having hard conversations even if they are bringing up the biggest, scariest emotions for you or you imagine that they might bring up those big, big scary emotions for someone else. You can still feel confident in your ability to walk into that conversation and do a really good job on your end so that you can walk away feeling proud of how you communicated in a moment which could have been really scary or highly conflictual.Ê

[00:18:48] SMS: Yes. I like how you pointed out that even if you're not typically conflict-avoidant as your habitual response style to conflict, there can be those moments where it's like it's easier just to not deal in this moment. I don't want to deal with it. And I just want to normalize that that there's being very human.Ê

And sometimes there are moments where that's the safest option. It's the safest option, emotionally safe or physically safe, that we do need to remove ourselves from the situation. But if it is a situation where it can be a safe environment and you feel comfortable, then it is about building that confidence and building your inner resources and learning maybe a communication style or tools like the one we're going to talk about today. So that, like Elizabeth is saying, you can show up with confidence. You can feel like you're skillful in your words. You're using wise speech. And you're not coming from a place of reactivity. But you are intentional. You are conscious. You have regulated emotionally. Regulated yourself and the place that you're in. You've maybe pre-thought about what's going on for you and what matters. What your values are? What you desire? What's important to you? You've done a little analysis on that. And then you thought about, "Hey, how can I go about expressing this to strategize a way that we can collaborate?Ê

Because, really, in conflict, it's really about mutual understanding. Like we were talking about with the perspective-taking of not just your own needs or your own feelings but the perspective of others who you're in the conflict with. And then being able to collaborate together so you can see if it's possible to resolve the problem or strategize different solutions.Ê

For anybody that's listening, there is a handout from Elizabeth again that you guys can grab from the speechtherapypd.com account. And she put together a three-page handout. It's very thorough. I love it. It's got a lot of bullet points, and steps, and, it looks like, some examples of looking through some different conversations on what the conversation styles would look like when we're incorporating the different skills. I do want to touch on that.Ê

I want to ask the people in our chat box, has anybody here ever heard of what we're talking about today, which is David Burns? Have you heard of David Burns? His work. Or have you heard of Marshall Rosenberg's Nonviolent Communication? NVC. 

I just kind of want to get a feel for where our audience is. And if this is something new to you or if you are familiar with it. But feel free if you have the time or Ð okay, Carl's not familiar. If you've heard of Burns, you can just put Burns in. Melanie says this is new to me. Thanks, Melanie. If you've heard of NVC. Yep. Just like Lori did. Lori's heard of NVC. Maureen, new to me. Right.Ê

There might be some people in our audience where you're hearing this for the first time. There might be some of you who have had a little bit of exposure to it. There might be some of you that are well-versed and practicing these skills. Sheena said, yeah, new to me. Good. Okay.Ê

If you guys have those burning questions, we're going to be taking those burning questions at the end of this episode. If you think you might forget your episode, that's okay. You can feel free to put it in the Q&A box or you can pop it into the chat box and we will make sure we get to any questions that you have. Whether it's new to you or you're a seasoned veteran with this, you can pop your questions in there.

In this ShiftMakers Podcast episode, and in all the episodes really that we've been sharing, I've been contributing information about Nonviolent Communication or compassionate communication in the hopes to really inspire listeners to learn more about it. I've heard from so people that once they get their hands on just one book, and maybe the book that Elizabeth was talking about, where you read it and you think, "I'm hooked. I want to learn more. I want to practice more. This makes sense."Ê

I really think that Marshall Rosenberg, and it's in your reference, NonviolentÊCommunication: A Language of Life,Êwas that book for me. I picked it up in 2011 and I had so much interest in it. And I wanted to continue to learn more about these types of communication styles.Ê

Now I know one style doesn't fit for everybody. It may or may not fit for you. I noticed that David Burn's "5 Secrets of Effective Communication" and Dr. Marshall Rosenberg's Nonviolent Communication, they have a lot of common principles weaved between the two of them in really promoting effective communication and compassionate communication. But maybe some of the frameworks or the perspectives of them look a little different.Ê

I don't know, Elizabeth, how familiar you are with some of those differences. because I know you're familiar with both. If you wanted to share on any of that.

[00:23:38] EP: Yeah. A little bit. Now please correct me if I'm wrong about NVC. Just because you're more of an expert in this area than I am. But I think that one big difference between 5 Secrets and NVC is the terminology that you get around to when you're practicing assertiveness. Meaning when you are making a statement about your own feelings. Then in Nonviolent Communication, there's more of what I could use from you or what I could need from you in this moment that could be helpful for me. And that terminology is not used in "5 Secrets". The terminology that's used in "5 Secrets" is more of a when you blah-blah-blah, then I blank. Like when you told me that I was a jerk for not taking out the trash, I felt hurt and scared. And I was telling myself a story in my head that I had really messed up. And that I'm a horrible person and a terrible wife. And I don't know if that story is accurate. It's just kind of a different framing where Ð you know what? I'm going to let you continue this conversation. 

[00:24:42] SMS: No worries. And I think what might be helpful too. Maybe I should back it up just a notch. My listeners have been following along with Nonviolent Communication and compassionate communication. But maybe what we could do right now is we could just spend a little bit of time dipping into "The Five Secrets of Effective Communication". That might make sense first. We'll kind of go through it and then I can kind of summarize. As you explain it to me, I'm like, "Oh, okay. Here are some of the things I'm hearing." Because I don't know much about what you're going to share. This would be a great segue into our second objective for this episode, which is learning the secrets.

[00:25:17] EP: Sure. It's really kind of scary to learn a new communication methodology especially if you already have something that's been working for you well enough and you think, "Why do I need to learn something different?" And you don't.Ê

If there's even one little tidbit of this that you can walk away with that impacts you in some way positively, then great. It can also be scary to learn something new because it might sound a little bit robotic at first when you're learning specific ways to maybe revamp or revise the way that you're communicating with other people. Or you can think, "That's not going to work. That sounds so silly." The dialogues I have on the third page of the handout are a little strange maybe. You might not actually hear a conversation in the workplace go down like that. They're just examples.Ê

But I am a "5 SecretsÓ practitioner. All of the psychologists, psychiatrists, therapists who use this methodology really Ð it doesn't sound robotic. We use it all day, every day in our personal relationships and our work relationships, and do so very effectively. 

Another modification just as we're talking about "The Five Secrets" that I have between "The Five Secrets" that you might read about in David Burns's book Feeling Good TogetherÊand the ones that I have on the handout is that I have modified and revised them just a little bit to be more appropriate for the workplace. The kind of vulnerability that you bring to the conversation might be different in the workplace than the kind of vulnerability that you bring to a conversation with someone like your partner or spouse, for example.

[00:26:49] SMS: And I love that you're sharing about a strategy, because I'm all about strategies when they can be used in your personal and professional life. But you're right. It's just that social register as we would with any other conversation. When we're running home to talk about something versus if we were talking about it in a professional light. Kind of changing some nuances of how we communicate.Ê

I see here you said that these were adapted. And this handout is so lovely. And so, one of the things that you started to say before we backed it up was the difference in some of the terminology. I noticed in the five secrets of communication, right away, it popped out number one to me and number two. Number one is stroking. And this is something Ð find something genuinely positive to say to the other person even in the heat of the battle. Doing so conveys an attitude of respect even though you may feel very angry with or not heard by the other person at the moment. Stroking, that's a new term for me.

[00:27:45] EP: Yes. Stroking. Some psychiatrists who are big practitioners of "Five Secrets" are now calling it affirmations instead of stroking. But the meaning is the same. Essentially, you're getting into a conflictual or a difficult conversation with someone and tensions are running really high. If you have an opportunity to give a genuine, authentic compliment to them in the moment, that can help to de-escalate the situation.Ê

Say that you are getting together with someone and you are running really, really late. Your first impulse is to pick up the phone and say, "I'm so sorry. I'm running late. The traffic is horrible. But I'll see you in 5 minutes." And then hang up. But instead, when you get to the door, they're really upset. All you've done is explain your side of things. Something that you can say to someone when they're saying, "Hey, you were 15 minutes late to picking me up. Or you were 15 minutes late to this meeting." Say, "You know what? I really admire how punctual you are. You are always to these meetings on time. I really appreciate that."Ê

[00:28:42] SMS: I love that. I love the affirmations.

[00:28:45] EP: Yeah. Yeah. And I use them every day with my children, with my husband, with my employees. I make everyone in the company learn "Five Secrets". And they don't have to use it from day to day. If they have training in NVC, that's great. But I want them to have the skill set that they can use at any moment. Because you never know when you're going to need to whip out a compliment and give it to someone to try to de-escalate a situation. 

[00:29:08] SMS: Yes. And, also, what I'm hearing is when you say something like it sounds like you're really punctual or I really admire that you're punctual, it's not even sounding like we're not being genuine. You're not just making up a compliment for compliment's sake. But you're relating it back to maybe what their needs were or how they're feeling. You're using your discernment to say, "Okay. They're upset I'm late because they were here on time." You really value being on time. And we have to make that guess, and then that is the stroking or the affirming of appreciating them in that moment before jumping. If we're on the phone with them, would we say that before we showed up instead of saying I'm running so late? Or it's still okay to say it when we show up?Ê

[00:29:44] EP: I'm going to leave that up to the listener. They'll know the circumstance best. And if it would be appropriate to say, "You were always so punctual. I'm really sorry. I'm just running five minutes late." That's a great way to just incorporate it right away and already disarm just a little bit to try to de-escalate. But I think it's best used in conjunction with the other secrets.

[00:30:06] SMS: You make a really good point. It's going to be you're going to have to kind of fill out each situation. Because I'm sure, with different people, and different circumstances, different cultures, there's so many different dynamics where we have to kind of look at how we are communicating with others and just go with from our heart what feels right.Ê

Now you just brought up another term, which was the next term I was going to ask you about that's a new term for me that I haven't heard. I'm not saying it's not in NVC. I just haven't heard it in my experience. But you said the disarming the disarming. The disarming technique. And on your handout, you say seek and find some truth in what the other person is saying even if it seems totally unreasonable or unfair to you.Ê

[00:30:46] EP: Well, you don't want to say something that is not true. If someone says it was your turn to do crosswalk duty at the school and you didn't show up, jerk. You're not going to say, "You know what? You're right. I'm a jerk." Because that's not true. They said something that was kind of mean and you don't want to just give a blanket statement of you're right. When you are disarming, you are finding the truth in and what the other person is saying even if it's just a small part of what they said.Ê

For instance, in that particular example, if you didn't show up for crosswalk duty when it was your turn to do that at the school that you work at, you didn't show up for crosswalk duty. And it's okay to acknowledge that with something like, "You're right. I didn't show up for crosswalk duty."Ê

What we automatically want to do is defend ourselves and just say, "You know what? I'm so sorry. I was stuck in this IEP meeting and it ran late." But when we do that, it's not helping the other person to feel better at all. It's just trying to explain ourselves away.Ê

You can start with stroking and disarming, "You always show up for crosswalk duty and I did not show up for crosswalk duty. I'm so sorry." That is stroking and disarming. It only took a minute and it helped to de-escalate the situation. How often do we get into a high-conflict conversation where we are not acknowledging anything that the other person has said and finding the truth? People aren't used to that. And it really kind of throws them off guard a little bit when you acknowledge that some of what they said was right.

[BREAK]

[00:32:16] ANNOUNCER: Are you taking advantage of our new amazing feature? The Certificate Tracker. The free CE tracker allows you to keep track of all of your CEUs. Whether they are earned with us at speechtherapypd.com or through another provider. Simply upload your certificate to your registered account and you're all set. Come join the fastest-growing CE provider, speechtherapypd.com.Ê

[INTERVIEW CONTINUED]

[00:32:44] SMS: And I'm hearing that active listening piece that we have in NVC and then in ÒThe Five SecretsÓ is that active listening. Because how many people that are listening, when you're stuck in a conflict or challenge and you're hearing words come at you, are you not really actively present? Because you're already formulating what you're going to say next. Or what your response is going to be. Well, that's not true. You're already judging it or blaming in your mind that you're not fully present to connect with what the speaker is saying. Okay. The disarming technique, I like that.Ê

Now we're moving on to three, which is empathy. I know that empathy, this is a word that definitely comes up in both communication styles. And this is where you're putting Ð put yourself in the other person's shoes and try to see the world through their eyes. And then you have thought empathy and feeling empathy. Are you able to kind of break down Ð I've not seen it broken down that way before. I'd love to hear more about that.

[00:33:39] EP: Yeah. They are two separate secrets because they are so vastly different. And this is something that NVC and "Five Secrets" have in common is this understanding that, paradoxically, when we acknowledge the other person's thoughts and feelings before we start to defend ourselves, they will probably do a better job of responding to us and listening to what we have to share, which is great. When you're able to know that what you want to say is going to be received well, you just have to postpone it a little bit until the other person feels more heard. 

Thought empathy is when you are not paring back verbatim but you are saying back to the other person what they shared with you. When someone says, "Oh, my gosh. Worst morning ever. My shoelace broke going out the door. The heel broke off of my shoe." I don't know why you'd have heels and shoelaces. But that's okay. And my car wouldn't start. And as soon as I got to work, my boss yelled at me because of that IEP meeting that I missed.Ê

And thought empathy would be paring back not the feelings but those specific items, "Whoa. What a morning. Your shoelace broke. The heel broke off of your shoe. Your car wouldn't start. And then on top of it, your boss was yelling at you?" And they go, "Oh, yes. You get it." Because you were pointedly specifically mentioning certain things that they said.Ê

When someone bears their soul to you and you go, "Wow. That sounds hard." And they just look at you like, "I just said so much. Now I don't feel safe anymore because you weren't even listening." You're like, "What do you mean I wasn't listening? I'm sitting right here and I even said, "Wow. That sounds hard," at the end. But you didn't specifically say back to them some of what they shared. And we really want that as people. When we want to be heard, we want others to acknowledge the things that we shared. It doesn't have to be robotic or verbatim. But taking the time to specifically mention some of the items. And more important items that someone shared can go a long way. That's thought empathy, which is different than feeling empathy.

[00:35:45] SMS: I want to put a pin right there for one second. Because I love how, in thought empathy, you just reminded me. Because this happens in my home with my partner and my daughter's dad a lot where I'm doing that. I'm like verbal vomiting and then he just looks at me and he's doing the nod. I mean, he's looking. He's listening but he's just nodding. But I'm like, "That's it? That's all you got for me?"

If anybody else is experiencing that, that sounds like you have needs that aren't met. You're looking for more of a connection. You can always provide script phrases. It would be really helpful for me right now if you could just repeat back some of the things that you heard me say. You can even prompt. If that need isn't being met, instead of holding on to that and maybe forming resentment, or getting upset, or not wanting to continue the conversation, you can also voice up for your needs and learn these little script phrases. You'll find some script phrases in the workbook that you can download from our handout. But letting our listeners know too. Because they're not mind readers all the time either. And they might not know. They might think, "I'm giving you the gift of my attention. I didn't know you needed more. But now that I know, I'm happy to give that to you. Knowing some of those phrases that you can interject can be really helpful too.Ê

I'm loving the thought empathy. And it sounds like we're not putting any of our evaluations into it. We're literally just kind of recasting back simple bullet points to let them know I'm here with you. I'm hearing what you're saying. I'm present.

[00:37:03] EP: Yeah. Exactly.

[00:37:04] SMS: Beautiful. That leads us to feeling empathy. And what's different with that?Ê

[00:37:09] EP: Feeling empathy is more feeling words. You're not saying something like I feel like my life is over. That's not a feeling. That's a thought. This is where the cognitive behavioral therapy piece comes in very clearly of your cognition or your thought is not your feeling. They could be totally dissociated. Because two different people could have the same thought but have very different feelings about it.Ê

You're using feeling words very specifically and only feeling words. I imagine you might have felt really scared in that moment. Or, "Whoa. I bet that's terrifying. I bet you feel super frustrated and annoyed right now."Ê

[00:37:48] SMS: Okay. Yeah. The empathy is trying to hear beneath the words that they're saying or listening for their feeling words if they're using universal feeling words. And, again, in your workbook, Dr. Marshall Rosenberg Ð I'm not sure about David Burns, but he has a very specific word bank, and of course, it goes beyond this, of universal feelings, so that we can start to build that emotional vocabulary. Because like Elizabeth's saying, what's common in NVC or Nonviolent Communication is also learning how to separate our opinions from feelings. And Elizabeth explained why that's important to do so. And it's also important to look at the feeling words that we're using to make sure we're not using words that imply some type of behavior or action of our communication partner. 

I always use this one as the main example because it's one of the first ones that comes up for me in the alphabet, abandon. If I said, "Elizabeth, you abandoned me. You left me all alone with the advocate." Versus if I said, "Elizabeth, when you left the IEP meeting, I felt alone. I was worried." Using words like alone versus abandon, what that does is it helps not put our listener or Elizabeth, if I'm speaking to her, on the defense to close her ears or go into the stress response of like, "I got to fight back." Or, "I'm getting upset by this." Or, "I'm getting reactive." Honing in on being more mindful, more conscious, more intentional with the words or the vocabulary we use for feelings. Does David Burns talk about Universal feeling words or needle into that a little bit more?

[00:39:29] EP: Yeah. The list is definitely not as extensive as the word bank that you might have in NVC. But he does have a list of words that are written out in Ð they're written out in different places, like feeling good, feeling good together. They're on his daily mood log or DML that you can find online. He also discusses this. He has a podcast actually called the Feeling Good Podcast that you can listen to where he goes over in depth all of these different steps of the secrets and more. They do personal therapy sessions on the podcast with people where they take a look at people's thoughts and cognitions. It's a really interesting podcast. But he does discuss some of them and it's just to continually bring more awareness to what a feeling word is versus what our thoughts are and not mislabeling those.

[00:40:19] SMS: Yes. I love that. We're extracting our thoughts and connecting more to our feelings. That requires a lot of self-connection. And that can be Ð sometimes it's easier to understand how others might be feeling and harder for us to understand how we're feeling or vice versa. Or when we're talking about needs, sometimes we know exactly what it is that we need. But it might be harder to discern what someone else is needing.Ê

The last two pieces, let's see here, that come up are inquiry and "I feel" statements. Let's jump into inquiry. In this handout, it says, "Ask gentle probing questions to learn more about what the other person is thinking and feeling." And you have three examples. And I'm just reading these aloud for anybody who's listening and doesn't have a handout so you can follow along. A says, "Am I close?" B says, "What else?" And C says, "What am I missing?" Can you speak on the inquiry piece just a little bit more for our listeners? 

[00:41:20] EP: Typically, when someone is telling you something that is pretty deep, or emotional, or has the potential to be, they're not laying it all out on the line the first time through. Because either they haven't processed through everything that they are thinking and feeling or it may not be a safe enough space to do that.Ê

For instance, if someone says, "You didn't write the report. It was due yesterday. What were you thinking?" Then after you've gone through your sequence of, "You are very punctual with reports. You're right that I did not have it done last night when I told you that I was going to have it done. I imagine you might be feeling super frustrated, and annoyed, and angry right now probably with me. What did I miss? Or am I close?" That's inviting the other person to then go deeper and to share more of what's on their mind. Because we might be misinterpreting what they were intending to say. Then that invites the other person who told you you were late with your report to expand and elaborate. And so, you can understand them better.

They might then come back and say, "Yeah, the parent really needed the draft of the IEP by yesterday because they requested that draft. And we only had that 5-day window legally to get the draft to them. I needed to have it by last night. It makes me look bad as the case manager." Or they could come back and say, "Yeah, I'm really stressed out about this IEP meeting and I wanted just to have all my ducks in a line because I'm type A."Ê

And so, it's just giving them an opportunity to go a little bit deeper because they're feeling heard and because you gave them the opportunity to share, which then, paradoxically, usually lends itself to a feeling of closeness between the two people, the employees, or whether it's a romantic relationship, or personal relationship, rather than conflict.

[00:43:13] SMS: Yes. And I like how you Ð when you were going through that example and you went through now the different steps that we talked about and you said, "I imagine you're feeling frustrated." I like how you said I imagine. Because I think it's really crucial to point out that if we are going to speak on feelings or needs of the other person, or make those guesses intuitively that we either are asking, "Are you feeling frustrated?" Or we are saying, "I imagine." We're taking sole responsibility. Instead of saying, "Oh, you are so mad right now." Or, "You are so frustrated right now." Because if the person's not feeling frustrated, then this can escalate things in the other direction. 

When we use words like, "Oh, I imagine, that must be Ð" or, "I'm sensing that perhaps there's some frustration." And it's just little nuances in our communication style that can start to soften the dialogue. And then as Elizabeth was saying, when it's softened and a person feels heard and they feel validated, or seen, or understood, or they know that you're actively listening, and you're present, and you're there, the conversation continues to grow and expand. And it opens up for more dialogue. It opens up for more vulnerability. It leads to more trust between the communication partners, which then ripples down into deeper relationships in the workplace.

[00:44:40] EP: Exactly.Ê

And, also, we often Ð as listeners, we're not totally hitting the mark. When we use thought and feeling empathy, we are perceiving that person's words in a certain way and we are interpreting it a certain way. We use our thought and feeling empathy to basically retell what they told us the way that we hear it.Ê

Most often, when I use inquiry, I'd say more than half the time someone will come back to me and say, "That's close. But not quite." And then they will correct whatever I was thinking. And it's often a big deal.Ê

I was having a conversation with one of my employees a couple of months ago and she was explaining a really difficult client that she had. And I used thought and feeling empathy. And when I got to inquiry and I said, "Is that close?" She said, "Well, kind of." But actually Ð and it turned out that why she was telling me this was I was totally off the mark. I thought she was telling me just to vent. But she was actually telling me for a very different reason. And I had missed it. And I wouldn't have understood and gotten it and understood what she needed in that moment if I hadn't used inquiry to ask and try to see if there was anything else that I was missing. It also enables the other person to dive in just a little bit deeper and be more authentic and more vulnerable with you that they couldn't have done previously.

[00:46:06] SMS: Yes. And as soon as you were saying that I was, "Okay, this is that mutual understanding." Because you're trying to understand and now you've just have more clarity. You have more clarity about what your employee was actually going through, right? You have more clarity. There's more transparency. And with compassionate communication or NVC, I'm hearing that similar approach of we're really trying to just have mutual understanding. I really want to understand.Ê

And we know how important in our field and there's, thank goodness, more and more professional development in this area of just diverse and unique perspectives and cultural competency and being more competent, understanding different viewpoints and being open, and flexible, and appreciating, and knowing that everybody's viewpoints, everybody's needs matter. All of this matters.Ê

And, really, when we bring all these viewpoints and ideas to the table this is really where innovation flourishes. This is where it's happening, right? Because we're thinking of things we haven't thought of before and now we're all building off of that. If it's a conflict or challenges and we're in a collaboration, now we have the opportunity to come up with that many more strategies. Because I can't speak on ÒThe Five SecretsÓ, but with Nonviolent Communication, we really look at making requests or asking questions to meet our needs but not being held Ð understanding that our needs are separate from strategies. That there could be multiple strategies to meeting a need. And we don't have to be so bent on the fact that I need this to happen on this day for my need to be met. But to know that, "Okay, there's this possibility."Ê

Or this person says, "Hey, it might be possible I can do that." Or this person says, "Well, I can contribute this." And we realize, "Wow. I hadn't thought of those. Those ideas could help me meet my need or meet your needs and make our team all that more successful."Ê

The last piece you have here I really want to touch on is the Ð and I love those questions because those are Ð as a speech therapist, I love sentence starters. I love script phrases. I love those things. When I saw these, I was like, "Yes. Am I close? What else? What am I missing?" It sounds like we're connecting. We are seeking to understand, right? And we always say seek first to understand, not to be understood.Ê

Let's go to number five, which is the "I feel" statements. And it says here on the handout use "I feel" statements such as I feel upset, rather than use statements, love this, such as you're wrong, you're making me furious. And then some notes under that. I'm not sure if you want to just broadstroke that point.

[00:48:53] EP: Yeah. This is the assertiveness piece of this communication method where it is finally time for you to express where you are at. This is a very important part. You can't just stop the conversation after you validated, and listened to the other person so they feel heard. You need to express yourself as well. 

And chances are now the other person is in a better state of mind to be able to hear you better. This is a chance for you to then say, "Phew. When you told me that I was a jerk for not getting the report in, when you told me I was late to the meeting by 15 minutes, I felt really scared, frustrated, annoyed." And you have to be careful. There's a hierarchy of feeling words which in the workplace are going to be received better than others.Ê

If you say I felt really frustrated versus I felt scared Ð and scared is kind of this underlying feeling that we have underneath the anger and the fear. Chances are you were feeling scared of something. Scared of that coworker not respecting you. Scared of you being a bad employee or a bad person in general. I don't know. There's some fear there.

It's important not to be blamey and to use blamey language. When you said that I was 15 minutes late for the meeting, I felt hurt and I felt disappointed. Instead of saying something along the lines of I am a bad employee. Frame it as a thought that you're having. I told myself a story or I had an idea in my head, that. And then tell them what the thought is.Ê

I told myself a story that you don't like me and respect me anymore as a colleague. I had an idea in my head that I must be terrible at my job. And frame like that. Again, we're not aiming to blame the other person. We're not aiming to call out our own thoughts as truth. But we're willing to have a conversation with the other person around it and acknowledging that the thoughts that we have in our head may not be what is 100% true.Ê

[00:50:58] SMS: I'm hearing a lot of like we're taking that self-responsibility, that accountability. That this might have come up but it's because I was thinking this. I created this story. Not you.

[00:51:09] EP: Yes.

[00:51:10] SMS: I'm hearing that non-blaming aspect. And I didn't know about these different Ð I want to investigate this a little bit more. And maybe I haven't come across it in my studies in compassionate communication. but I really like to hear that there's different levels of feeling words. I almost want to Ð I'm a big checklist word bank person. I almost want to go back and take all of my vocabulary and kind of chunk it into maybe the color zones where it's like, "Oh, this word's like Ð that's way harsh. And this word is a little softer." Because I haven't heard that before.Ê

But I've heard about words that perceive an action of another, like abandoned versus just, "I felt alone or lonely." But I haven't heard so much as like some of these words like frustrated, angry can have this higher heat to them. I like that. And that's something that I definitely want to investigate further. 

And I think it's so important for us to do that self-connection. That's kind of why I wanted to start this episode with just a quick little check-in. Like what am I feeling? And we can do a quick little body scan. And sometimes if you don't know the feeling word, that's okay. You're sensing it. Your body is very strongly connected to your thoughts and your emotions. Your emotions are connected to your body. If something's going on for you and it feels right, close your eyes. You can use like a soft downward gaze. You can just make yourself distraction-free and connect to, what am I feeling? 

Right before I started this podcast, I always feel that energy rising. And it's like I literally feel the energy in my body. It's almost like that nervousness just coming. That excitement to get on. And like here we go. It's game time. You might not always have the words for it but there's what we call a felt sense. And you can feel that in your body. Just practice in these moments of challenge and conflict to bring it back to yourself as you're practicing these baby steps of what's going on for me. What do I notice? What's showing up? What is my body trying to tell me right now? What is this tightness? What is this tingling? What is this heart racing? What is this sweat in my palms right now trying to tell me? What am I feeling from this interaction?Ê

And sometimes Ð I don't know if David Burns talks about this, but I know with NVC, after the situation happens, the challenge or the conflict, it's okay to go back and reflect on it and think of if I were Ð let's needle this down. If I were going to do this differently, let's take a look at it. I didn't create that pause or that space to connect to see what my partner might have been feeling or what they might have been thinking. Let me write down for them. Maybe here's something they might have been feeling. Put some feeling words. Here are maybe things they might have been Ð their unmet needs that were driving those feelings. And now let me go to me. What was I feeling? What was I needing?Ê

And now I'm going to look at this handout from Elizabeth and maybe I could just kind of roleplay or practice these steps. Lay it out for myself. And then over time, as I start to get comfortable doing that self-reflection piece, maybe I could practice with a safe communication partner. Maybe it's a loved one at home. Maybe it's my amazing best Ð my work best that I can be like, "Listen, I'm practicing this new skill. Can I just try this out on you before I go have this conversation?" And don't jump into those big battles. Start small. It's baby steps of practicing and learning these communication styles. Adapting them to how they work for you and what feels right.Ê

I'm hearing a lot of similarities and differences. Obviously, we've got the active listening piece in both communication styles. We have the empathy piece. We have the I statements for I feel, I need. In both we kind of talked about Ð Elizabeth, you touched on we're avoiding that criticism, blame, judgment.Ê

Dr. Marshall Rosenberg, I can't quote him exactly right now, but he basically says that every diagnosis, every criticism, every judgment, every time we use blame, it is basically our desperate attempt at trying to get our needs met. It's really kind of taking a look at anytime you are judging, or blaming, or criticizing, it's like, "Okay, what's under those words right now? What's really going on for me? Because there's a need I have that something that's important to me. Something that I value. Something that matters." And I'm sensing that that needs not being met and then connecting to how that makes you feel. Avoiding that criticism, that blame, the judgment.Ê

In compassionate communication, and we talked about this in other episodes, Marshall calls that life-alienating communication. And we know from what he shares and some of the evidence-based research that we talk about is that this creates disconnection, stress, decreased collaboration, ineffective communication on teams, less productivity, relationships start to diminish when we approach things in this nature. A lot of commonalities.

I know we just have a couple minutes, Elizabeth. Just before we end off, I know the last thing I really wanted to touch on was really I think your journey is so unique and beautiful in what was going on for you prior to learning these skills. Now you've opened your practice. You came across this amazing opportunity to learn on hikes and with these different professionals and learn these amazing strategies that you're now incorporating with your team. If you could kind of share what transformation that is made for you. Kind of tie it into people who might be fearful. We touched on this. This is our last objective to really kind of talk about fear and understanding approaches to discussing fear. How could this all kind of play in together? What positive results have you seen from using these strategies in times that can seem really fearful to stand up and advocate, or connect, or communicate in this way?

[00:56:44] EP: Yeah. Yeah. Just to put a pin in and go back. In "Five Secrets", there's definitely no discussion of "I need." Because it's not an expression of need. NVC might be a better communication modality to express those needs than something like "Five Secrets." 

Also, there's no you make me feel or that made me feel because of the blamey aspect of that. It is simply a when you, then I. But to answer your question now about fear component, whatever kind of communication modality you utilize. Whether it is NVC, or circling, or "Five Secrets", or Michael J. Sorensen's I Hear YouÊbook, or whatever you are using, I hope that it strips away some of the fear that you carry with you into a potentially difficult conversation. Because you know in our practice and trust that you are going to do the best job that you can in that space, that difficult space to hear the other person and to give them every opportunity to hear you.Ê

And so, even if it goes poorly, you can still walk away saying, "I did the best job that I could. And I've taken the time to learn methodologies to help me to become a better communicator, to become a better listener." I really utilized all of those methods in this conversation. Now most of the time it's going to go great. Way better than it would have without these kinds of strategies. But it lends a lot more confidence to the moment than you might have had before.Ê

And so, for instance, 12 years ago, I ran away from a high-conflict conversation and burn some bridges and I kept that fear with me for 12 years of not wanting to run into this person. But, finally, when we did reestablish a connection, and I took out some ÒFive SecretsÓ, and I apologized for my behavior in the moment, and I heard her feelings, I validated, went through the sequence. And it doesn't have to be a long process. It can be very short. But she felt heard. She thanked me. She appreciated it. And then that rift was broken.Ê

If I had had these skills back then, I could have just repaired potential riffs and avoided 12 years of fear altogether. It has made me a more compassionate person, a better listener. Part of why we are a concierge practice is because of the listening that we do for our clients when they're going through really stressful times. Like their kid just got diagnosed with autism. That's hard. They need someone to talk to about it. And you are the first line in the house after that diagnosis. And they just need to get out that box of tissues and cry. And having some kind of methodology like this can be really helpful in those moments.

[00:59:25] SMS: Okay. Elizabeth, you gave me chills. I have chills over here as you were just kind of summarizing that. I really appreciate that. You are such an expert in this area. This has been really amazing having you on this podcast. So much gratitude. I'm feeling inspired as I'm checking in.Ê

Let's go to our audience. We are out of time. But one word from all of you, popcorn it in, how you're feeling right now as you've heard these new strategies that have been offered, "The Five Secrets of Effective Communication"? If you're in that chat box, pop a last-minute feeling word in there for us. I am feeling inspired. I'm feeling Ð I'm hopeful. I'm hopeful for everybody. And when we have these skills, we can build our inner resources and we can show up in a new way. 

Yes, Lori is hopeful. Yes, Carl, much better and ready for the next workday. All right, Carl. Get your game face on. Erica, feel ready to tackle stressful IEP meetings. Yes, Erica. Yes. Especially in IEP meetings. There seems to be a consensus with those IEP meetings. And maybe I imagine some fear around those or challenges around those. Very good.Ê

Thank you, everybody. I love your participation. I love that you have been here. So much gratitude to all of you taking this course. Thank you so much. For more information, you can head to my website at goldenstateofmindpd.com. I'm also on LinkedIn, Stephanie Michele Sweigart with one L. Elizabeth, any place that we can send people to find more about your resources?Ê

[01:00:47] EP: Sure. You can find me on LinkedIn. I'm Elizabeth Perry. My company's website isÊwww.stagspeeech.com. You can learn a little bit more about the business. But I'm just so grateful for this opportunity to have been here, and chatted, and learned. And I've been seeing some of the really great comments and chats about feeling more ready for IEP meetings, which are already stressful enough. that's so exciting.

[01:01:14] SMS: Yes. Awesome. Thank you so much. And, yes, Lori, thank you for the thank you and the affirmation of great presentation. We appreciate you. All right. Well, we've shared how you can reach out to us. If those questions pop up along the way or after the fact, you know how to reach us. Thank you, everybody. And have a wonderful night. Take care.

[01:01:34] EP: Thank you.

[OUTRO]

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SLPL S12E5		Transcript

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