In Uncommon Sense with Mel Schwartz 005, the marriage counselor, psychotherapist, and author shares a sixty-second technique employed before the beginning of any difficult conversation to dramatically improve the chance your partner will listen instead of shutting down.

Every important conversation doesn’t have to turn into a fight, or stop before it even starts! Learn all about “foaming the runway,” the simple communication skill that helps you have real, productive conversations, in this episode of Uncommon Sense with Mel Schwartz!

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I’m sure you’ve experienced, just like the rest of us, having been in that awkward, frustrating position, when you’re thinking about sharing something with your partner, something that’s been troubling you, and you need for them to really hear. But you hesitate, because you know from past experience it’s probably not going to go well.

But you begin to open up and talk, and before you’ve even finished your first sentence, you see it happening. Their face tightens up, their body tenses, and they are already preparing their rebuttal. They’re not curious about what you have to say or how you’re feeling. They’re actually not listening. They’re defending. Maybe they’re even counterattacking.

But you may think to yourself, “so what’s the point?” And you either stop talking or you don’t bring it up. You even begin arguing with each other.

I can tell you, this pattern, this cycle of attempting to share, being shut down, or just retreating into silence to begin with, or anger or frustration, this is destructive to harmony and feeling cared for. It ruins relationships.

That’s why I developed a technique. It’s probably just a 60-second technique, and I created this out of my years of couples counseling and noticing what’s happening. This technique, which I call foaming the runway, changes everything, and it really increases the chances that your words won’t fall on deaf ears, that your partner will hear you instead of going on the defense.

I’m Mel Schwartz, and this is Uncommon Sense. I’m going to give you examples of what you can say to your partner, which will greatly improve the chances that they’re open to actually hearing you. This is your best way in, so you might actually be able to be heard and validated.

Let me tell you what brought me to this insight. It was a picture of what happens when an airplane is coming in hot, meaning they can’t get their landing gear down. They notify air traffic control that they’re having a problem, and air traffic control orders the people on the runway to foam the runway.

Why are they applying foam? Obviously, so the friction won’t cause sparks and set the plane on fire. We can learn to do the same thing with our communication in troubling or challenging times in our relationship.

So let’s go back to the impasse, that moment when you feel that they’re not really listening, and you say to yourself, |”What’s the point? They’re just going to blow up on me. Why go there?”

We’ve all had this experience with our words falling on deaf ears, and so we choose not to talk. We don’t want to repeat this agonizing experience of feeling invalidated or worse. But before we jump to the solution, let’s look at the unintended consequences of bottling up your feelings. How can going silent, how can the consequence of going silent be just as impactful as the reaction that you’re trying to avoid?

You see, we focus on the potential consequences of our actions and words. But we need to look at the consequences of our inactions, or the words that never leave our mouths. These are often far more impactful because we suppress them. What does this lead to?

First, resentment. We resent the other person for shutting us down and having to stuff what’s so important. As a result, we may turn away from them. We start to develop an attitude. They don’t know what’s going on with us, so they look at our attitude and they stiffen up and we have a negative spiral down into anger. It can also feel depressing if you feel that you can’t share what you need to share and there’s a futility. You start to turn off to the energy of the relationship, what brought you together. Walls may go up. You become indifferent and uncaring to them. The relationship has a loss of vital energy and it feels like there’s no solution.

So why are they, why are we, acting uncaringly or in anger?

Well, maybe it has something to do with how we’re actually being spoken to. If I say to my partner, “you never,” or “you always” in a negative way, it’s going to assure their defensive reaction. We have set up being rejected. We’ve set up failure. This may be due to remnants of our childhood experiences of being scolded and it has little to do with you in the moment. It’s learned behavior. It’s instinctive and reflexive.

In situations like this, the other person may instinctively be defending their territory and preparing their rebuttal while you’re still in mid-sentence. And so you feel silenced and invalidated or worse. So what can you do?

Introduce what I call the preface. Just as air traffic control foams the runway, you can foam the verbal and relationship runway by prefacing. You can’t simply dive into the conversation.

What is the preface? How does it work? How does devoting a few sentences as a preface really calm the turbulence? How does this improve the chance of being heard and reduce the knee-jerk reaction?

Well, we need to set the stage so our words don’t fall on deaf ears and cause a reaction. This just takes a minute or two. Let’s talk about some examples of what the preface sounds like.

You may say to the other person, “I’m struggling with something I want to share with you, but I’m afraid you’re going to be reactive.”

That’s an excellent preface. It slows down the reactivity. They may say, “Sure, what’s the problem?” You can then say, “I have something to share with you. I’m feeling tentative about it. But I’m anticipating you’re going to shut me down or tell me I’m wrong, so I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to say this.”

You’ve now enrolled them with this preface. There’s a far better chance that they’ll be less reactive and more present. Not to mention being sympathetic to how you’re feeling. You are literally foaming the runway. You’re providing a new way in so you can quiet the defensive reaction.

What does it mean to enroll the other person? How are you slowing down the process by lessening their reaction, by avoiding right versus wrong issues?

You might say, “I need your help with something,” instead of just launching into the attack. Of course, you don’t intend it as an attack, but they’re going to feel it’s an attack. So slow down.

“I need your help with something. There’s something I’m struggling with.” You create a different energy. Why is the struggle to communicate actually more critical than the actual thing we’re trying to talk about? This derails our ability to converse with emotional intelligence.

How does paying homage to the communication challenge first and initiating a peaceful form of communication set the table? Well, think about it. If I’m saying, “|’m having a problem. There’s something I’m struggling with saying. I want you to hear this. I’m afraid you’re not going to take it in,” we have reduced the temperature in the room. Pulses aren’t quickening. There’s no reactivity.

Also, this technique boosts your own confidence and your own self-esteem because you’re actually authentically sharing what you’re feeling, what’s concerning you. This technique, this prefacing, helps you find your authentic voice. It’s informed by vulnerable feelings, not by anger, not by accusation.

Now, let’s talk about getting beneath the anger. If you’re feeling hurt or misunderstood and you become angry, everything is lost. It’s very rare for anyone to be present and remain open to you if there’s a verbal assault. You both go down the drain. You might say, “you are,” “you always,” “you never.” If your words sound angry, if your words sound like an attack, they’re going to fall on deaf ears and they’re going to get you the same in return, a counterattack.

Anger is a mask for fear. Anger is a mask for sadness or pain. Anger comes to the forefront because it’s far more accessible emotion than vulnerable feelings.

Vulnerable feelings are hiding beneath the anger and the fury. What happens when you preface and share your hurt, share your insecurity in a thoughtful way instead of starting with anger? How does it increase the chance of being heard?

Tremendously. If you’re vulnerable, you’re being listened to. We are actually modeling the behavior we want for them to mirror. If we speak vulnerably, openly, without attack, we’re likely going to be heard. It’s a different energy. Our proclamations are typically nullified because of the wrong energy.

You see, acting strong is pointless. Embracing your vulnerability opens the communication. Remember, what you have to say may be compelling and really important to you and the future of your relationship. But if your words are lost to the other person’s defensiveness, what happened to the communication? It stalled out. It went nowhere. You’ve actually assured that they are going to invalidate you.

So slow down your process. Think to yourself, how can prefacing open the door to my actually being heard, to a new dialogue or shared inquiry between us? Two people who are both looking to be understood and appreciate each other’s feelings avoid the right versus wrong impasse, which is ruinous.

So here are the rules.

Don’t begin your sentence with the word you. Begin in the first person, I. The other person might still be listening. Make it subjective. Make it about how you feel. “I feel.” “I think.” Share how you feel, as opposed to making an objective indictment of what they did or didn’t do.

Here’s an example.

“When I brought up that sensitive topic the other day to you, you kind of dismissed it or marginalized it, and I felt really uncared for. Can we go back to that conversation?”

That’s an effective way to communicate. Remember, feelings aren’t right or wrong. If I express my feeling, I can’t be told I’m wrong. Stay away from making statements of fact that lead to argument, and they go nowhere. We all want to be heard and validated. We have to learn to get out of our own way to accomplish this. Our tendency to react rather than respond. When we foam the runway, it quiets and dampens reactivity. It provides an opportunity for a win-win rather than a lose-lose.

So here is your uncommon sense: To be heard and to be validated, you need to foam the runway by preparing a soft landing so your words can actually be heard. They can be contemplated and taken in. This is an easily learned communication skill, but we were never taught it, so it feels counterintuitive. But always, always, growth lies in where we feel counterintuitive. It feels awkward.

Wisdom should make us feel uncomfortable and illogical because you see, common sense, where we’re comfortable, is just plain dumb. So if we open up to something new, something that’s not in our familiar zone, that is where wisdom lies. Invite in the discomfort and open to wisdom.

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