“A is for …” During the change-over in a recent tennis game, one of my buddies reached in his bag and offered his partner some pills, saying “We really need our vitamin A today.” Wanting to join in, I quipped: “A for attitude?” They laughed, “No. A for Advil. Otherwise, we’ll seize up!” It got me thinking.
What vitamin could we take for those times when our conversations seize up and words get stuck in our throats?
You know… those times when you have something important to say, but don’t know how to say it so you swallow your words. Those times when you want to ask a question, but don’t. Those times when you overhear someone being verbally abused and rather than step in, as you wish you would, you quickly move out of the area to avoid being seen by the parties involved.
Here’s what I experience as I help people regain their voice and learn how to deliver and receive difficult messages. When we go silent when we don’t want to, we are listening to a flurry of internal conversations that sound something like this: “Be quiet … it’s too risky to speak up … it’s not my place to say something … he/she/they won’t understand … I’ll speak up next time.” Not only do we listen to the flurry, we believe it’s true and absolutely going to happen.
What’s driving this internal snowstorm that freezes us? Many of us believe that being silent is better than risking saying something that might damage the relationship. Here’s the cosmic joke: The silence we invoke to protect the relationship often does more damage than a conversation that’s rough around the edges but wrapped in partnership. Our silence does not salvage the relationship, it sinks it. Our fear that we’ll lose the relationship actually is realized. Sad, isn’t it? Sometimes people have told me one of the myths they have believed is: It’s better to have a bad relationship that no relationship at all.
While there isn’t a pill for this kind of laryngitis, there is a cure. Rather than putting something in us, we need to generate something out from us. We need to generate a commitment to who we want to be and how we want to show up. From there, we can then generate a way of communicating that’s summed up by this mantra offered by Susan Scott in Fierce Conversations: Model what I want.
Learn the communication Heimlich maneuver: 
- Stand behind yourself. Take a stand for the kind of communicator you want to be.
- Squeeze yourself. If you want openness and honesty from others, be open and honest when you speak. If you want others to reveal their secret agendas, share your hidden agenda first.
- Dislodge myths. As you model the way you want to be communicated with, the myths which have kept you silent will be dislodged. Waiting will not dislodge them. Taking new actions will.
- Use your words. Recognize the phrase? Yeah, that’s what we say to children who are throwing a tantrum. Maybe being silent, out of spite and not reflection, is an adult tantrum. As we’ve all experienced, the “silent treatment” punishes both parties.
Removing the blockage to communication begins with you. I know it may be annoying to keep hearing that it’s up to you. Too bad. You are that powerful.
Modeling the behavior you desire from others is risky and rewarding. Risky because you don’t know exactly how the conversation will turn out. That’s uncomfortable. Rewarding because once you experience communicating in the manner you want to be communicated with, you’ll feel a new sense of power (not force), purpose and partnership. That’s addictive.
It’s either a tough or sweet pill to swallow when we get that it’s up to us to go first. We all have the cure inside us, we just need to cough it up. Give yourself a Heimlich for what sticks in your throat. Be mindful that what comes out models the behavior you want to receive. You’ll stop chocking and breathe a lot easier, I promise.
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