Laura Segura
Comm 2110
Final Report on my Personal Change Project
Date: 12/09/2015
Submitted to Tamra Phillips
Overview:
This paper outlines my personal change project. My goal for this semester was to reduce or
completely avoid invulnerable responses with my family and boyfriend. In order to accomplish
this goal I tried to use some strategies from Beebe and Redmond text. Some of the strategies
were “Direct perception checking” to confirm the information I was interpreting (81). I also
tried to “listen compassionate”, I felt like by doing this I would avoid being defensive and would
express myself more openly. I also tried to paraphrase (142) and apologize (178). I had a harder
time managing my emotions and using I messages when there was a conflict going on. I believe
that overall my invulnerable responses were reduced but not completed avoid. In the future I will
try to keep working on managing my emotions.
Unwanted Communication Pattern:
I have the tendency to use invulnerable responses, ignoring, laughing, or being silent in
response to a hurtful message (295). I choose to work on this because I feel like my family and
boyfriend have to assume my feeling or thoughts, instead of me just communicating with them. I
feel like this can be a negative way of dealing with things. I tend to keep my feelings or thoughts
to myself. This can cause problems because my family and boyfriend do not have the chance to
know of my feelings so there is no way they can change anything to improve or move forward
with our relationship.
Below are two examples:
One time we were with my family looking over at baby pictures. My older sister started telling
my boyfriend about when I was little. She began to tell him that I was a brat and how I used to
cry a lot when I was younger. For me it’s something that I find embarrassing and try to avoid
talking about it with people that I am close to. She spent the rest of the night telling him about
the things I used to do and laughing about the tantrums I would have. I laugh along with them
even though I was uncomfortable talking about it. At the end of the night when my boyfriend left
I was silent. She asked me what was wrong and I just said nothing. Then she began to ask
questions, she wanted to know if it was something she had said. She asked if it was because she
was telling him my kid stories. I did not respond to her, even though I knew that was the reason.
She ended the conversation by saying “well how am I supposed to know you did not want me to
tell him, you did not say anything?” I realized that she was right I never told her that it bothered
me and I was laughing along with her.
Another situation occurred when I was with my boyfriend. I was outside with him while he was
fixing his car. We had been there for about one hour and he seemed to be having some trouble
putting a part together. I asked him if he needed some help because I thought it would be good to
give him a hand. He responded with a simple “no, its fine, I will do it” and got back to working. I
got a little hurt because I felt like he was saying it like if I did have the capacity to help. After he
finished he said that he did not want me to help because I was going to get all greased up and it
was hard to get off. We had a party later that night and he didn’t want to me have black hands. I
felt pretty dumb because had he not said anything I would have probably not asked him why he
said no. I would have been upset with him for no reason, since he was only doing it to be polite.
In both situation I failed to avoid invulnerable responses. I failed to let my sister know why I was
upset. Had I told her right away that I did not like her talking about that she would have probably
stopped. With my boyfriend if I had asked why he didn’t want me helping, then I would not have
been upset with his response. Had I let the people I was with be aware of my thoughts and
feeling I would have probably not been hurt since they would know how I felt.
Strategies:
I wanted to apply many of the theories and strategies described in the Beebe and Redmond text
in order to change the bad habit of invulnerable response. My goal was to let my feelings be
known when I was hurt to those around me. I wanted to give the opportunity to let others know
when I was hurt and hoped that it would help change our communication for the better since I
would let them know how I felt.
The first strategy I felt would help me accomplish my goal was to check my perceptions (81).
This included indirect and direct perception checking. Instead of being quiet and assuming
what the other person meant to say, I wanted to ask to receive confirmation from the observed
person of an interpretation or a perception about him or her (81). I felt that if I was able to check
my perceptions I would get a direct response. This could even avoid me being hurt or upset.
Another strategy that was helpful was direct acknowledgement. I understood that I had to
provide confirming responses in order to receive on back. Instead of being quiet when someone
asks me if something was wrong a direct acknowledgement would help to let the person know
that what they are saying is important (149).
I would work on improving my empathetic listening skills by listening compassionately. This
meant that I would be nonjudgmental, nondenfensive when listening to confirm the worth of
another person (137). I needed to stop, look, and listen more in order to be a more empathetic
listener.
I knew that the hardest part for me would be to manage my emotions, so I knew I had to focus a
lot on being aware when I was becoming angry or upset. I needed to plan my message out more
in situations where my emotions were running high instead of just saying the first thing that ran
into my mind.
Implementation:
I knew that using invulnerable responses was not a good way to communicate with anyone,
especially my family who I am very close to. I realized that if I kept using this way of
communication I was going to have a hard time in the future and it was going to affect me in the
long run. I didn’t want to one day just explode and say all the things that I found hurtful. My goal
was to gradually improve and be able to communicate with my family and any other person
when I found things hurtful.
An example where I feel like I did a good job in avoiding invulnerable response, but not a good
way of handling it was with my boyfriend. We were hanging out with his friends who he used to
drink a lot when he was younger. They were talking about all the times that they had been drunk.
I never really saw my boyfriend like that because when we started to go out he stopped doing
that. So whenever I am with him and they talk about that I feel very uncomfortable. That day I
decided to let him know what I thought since I was already working on my goal. I started by
telling him that I didn’t feel comfortable when he and his friends talked about his drunk times. I
told him that I felt like if he missed those times and that I felt like he wanted to go back to doing
that. He right away got defensive and said that no that was not the case. I feel like I did a good
job in bring up the subject and having the courage to bring it to his attention. What I feel like I
should have change was the way I said it. I imposed consistency of his behavior just because he
used to drink a lot when he was younger (77). By me imposing that he wanted to be like before I
feel like I attacked his ego turning our conversation into an ego conflict (229). What I feel like I
need to work on is not just focusing on the negative but to focus more on the positive so that
conversation has a more positive outcome (78).
A second time where I feel like I did better job on avoiding an invulnerable response and
handled it in a positive way was with my older sister. We were talking about how I tend to be
very aggressive when people tell me what to do. She was pointing out many scenarios that had
happened where she said I had been rude or aggressive. I usually stay quiet and just listen when
she tells me about things I do wrong. This time I decided to let her know I feel without turning
our conversation into an argument. I decided to change my listening style from a relational
listener who focuses on the emotions and feelings communicated verbally and nonverbally to a
more critical listener who listens for the facts and evidence to support key ideas and an
underlying logic (123). The best thing I feel like I did was that I avoided interrupting her while
she was talking, I feel that it help her get her to get her point across before explaining myself
(144). I let her finish then I began to paraphrase her emotions so she knew I had listened to her
and so she knew I was trying to understand how she was feeling (144). We ended the
conversation in a very positive way. I explain to her how I didn’t mean to be rude and I admitted
that sometimes I dot respond in ways that can come off as aggressive. Overall we both had a
very passive conversation.
Constraints:
I had a couple of constraints while trying to change my behavior. The most difficult one for me
was trying to control my emotions. It was hard for me to control myself when I was mad or hurt.
When I was mad I would use “you” messages. By using you messages I was shoving the
problem to the other person. This made the person angry and backfired too because then they
would use you messages too and the conversation would become very negative. When I was hurt
I would just completed stay quiet without even bring up to the other person why I was hurt. This
also made some people angry since some assumed wrong. They would assume that I was angry
and not hurt. Some would be just confused since they had no idea why I was quiet.
An obstacle that I felt was out of my control was being able to find an acceptable time and place
to discuss the conflict. In some conversations it was not the correct place to bring up why I was
upset. I felt that when I was able to be with the person alone I was no longer as angry or upset so
bringing the problem up did not seem as important as when it had happened. Since time had
passed it was hard to remember exactly what had been said so being able to have an accurate
conversation was difficult. Sometimes the person would not even remember what had happened
either. At times when it was the fine to speak about the issue right away, I had my feelings all
over the place so being able to fine the right words without hurting anyone’s feelings was
difficult.
Results:
Using the strategies from above I was able to experience many positive results. I was able to
accomplish my goal not completely but I was able to see a lot of improvement. I feel like I was
able to let my family know when I was upset more than I had ever done before. By doing this, I
was making my family aware of the things I found hurtful. My family and I were able adapt
reactively, to modify or change behavior after an event (112). I would let them know if I found
something hurtful instead of being quiet and then they would adapt to what I had said. We were
both more social decentering, cognitive processes in which we take into account another
person’s thoughts, feelings values, background, and perspective (111). I feel like by working on
my invulnerable response, I was able to notice other people who also used invulnerable
responses and I was able to be more responsiveness. I was able to be sensitive to the needs of
others, including being sympathetic to other’s feelings and placing the feelings of others above
one’s own feeling (56). This also tied with mindfulness, the ability to consciously think about
what I was doing (34). Not only did I take in account what people said to me, but I also tried to
look out for the things I would tell my family, boyfriend, and others. I feel like my willingness
to communicate not only with my family but with others improved. The likeliness of me
initiating a conversation was much higher since I felt more confident to bring something up that I
found hurtful (42). I don’t feel like there were any negative experiences while using the theories
and strategies from above. It was the other way around there were only negative results when I
would not implements this strategies. Since using these strategies I have been overall satisfied
with the changes in my communication.
Recommendations:
I plan to keep implementing these strategies and theories in my communication. I feel that I have
improved so much by simply following these strategies. For me it is important to have good
communication with my family and boyfriend since I am always with them. I feel that in order to
keep improving I need focus more on letting them be aware of my feelings and try as much as
possible to avoid invulnerable responses. If I however do use invulnerable responses, I will try to
go back and speak with the other person about it, so we can come up with a mutual
understanding.
I will try and work on not thin-slicing observing a small sample of someone’s behavior and then
making a generalization (65). I feel like if I work on this I would probably not be so sensitive
about things people say. Sometimes I feel like I generalize what people say when they actually
did not mean anything in negative way. I hope that by implementing this new strategy with
everything else I have been working on I will gradually make it a habit and hopefully I no longer
use invulnerable responses.
Works Cited:
Beebe, S., Beebe S., & Redmond M. (2014). Interpersonal Communication: Relating to Others
(7th ed.). Boston: Pearson Publishers.