Intentional Communication

Powerful Communication from the Heart

We are going to be exploring and learning how to assertively deliver I-Messages in the rest of this chapter. Thomas Gordon (1970) introduced the concepts of “You-Messages” and “I-Messages”, two contrasting ways of expressing concerns, emotions, and needs. Like Rosenberg, Gordon saw that our standard way of communicating with others was blaming, judgmental, and accusatory, often triggering defensiveness. He called this kind of communication “You-Messages”. The focus was on judging the other. He suggested that “I-Messages” were constructive, non-blaming, and focused on personal feelings and needs, leading to more productive conversations.

Again, intention is key. We are used to Jackal language, and we can easily use the format of I-Messages to deliver a message that is full of blame and attack. The exact opposite of the goals of I-Messages.

Much like martial arts, the power of I-Messages comes from staying centered in our own being, our feelings and needs, staying grounded. Not off balance by leaning out accusatorially toward the other, judging them, trying to make them responsible for our feelings.

I- Messages have to come from the heart and have heart. The English word “courage” comes from the Old French word “corage”, which itself derives from the Latin word “cor”, meaning “heart.” This connection reflects the historical idea that courage comes from the heart, both metaphorically and literally. It takes courage to deliver I-Messages. The courage to openly and honestly share who we are, what we’re feeling and thinking.

The strength of I-Messages comes from completely opening ourselves to the listener, fearlessly and vulnerably. Brene Brown defines vulnerability as “uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure” (2012). It is the willingness to show up and be seen, even when there are no guarantees of acceptance or success. Many people associate vulnerability with weakness, but Brown’s research reveals that vulnerability is actually the birthplace of courage, innovation, and meaningful connection. Rather than a sign of weakness, Brown argues that vulnerability is the most accurate measure of courage because you cannot be brave without first being vulnerable.

People using I-Messages are seen as courageous and strong. The listener, without the need to protect themselves from any possible attack from the speaker, perceives this strength. When they see the speaker as confident, powerful, and not a risk to them, they are powerfully invited to see the message and the needs of the speaker. They are enticed to care about those needs and to do what’s needed to accomplish the speaker’s requests. This kind of communication creates strong, useful connections between the speaker and the listener.

Our communication to children about their behavior needs to come from the wisdom in our hearts, needs to be firmly grounded in our true goals for their growth, needs to be honest and strong, and needs to be respectful of them at all times. The goal of all guidance is to help them grow toward those qualities and skills we talked about earlier. The tools of all guidance are not any procedures or programs or methods. They are simply our effective human interactions and communications with them. I-Messages can be a tool that helps us grow into the assertive communicators that ultimately are the source of all productive guidance.

Crafting I-Messages

Now, we get into the nitty-gritty. I-messages look very simple. They really are. What is not simple is shifting our communication from our habitual Jackal or You-message communication to one that exemplifies true Mutual Respect. This requires us to grow out of our defensive, aggressive shell into the heart of who we really are, adults who care deeply about children and want to help them grow into the full humans they can become.

Mutual Respect

Like I-Messages, mutual respect is easy to say and a concept that is easy to acknowledge as the foundation of positive interactions with others. It is very hard to actually live and experience, however. I will suggest that mutual respect has four aspects that are important to understand and to really develop.

Respect for the Other

Respecting children requires us to see them as whole beings, recognizing their intrinsic worth and their independent sovereignty. Martin Buber (1970) argues that true dialogue and meaningful human interactions occur when we engage with others authentically, without imposing our own agendas or seeing them merely in terms of their function or utility. He describes this as an I-Thou relationship rather than an I-It one. This form of respect is not just about politeness or tolerance, it’s about truly seeing and valuing the other person as they are.

This means accepting and honoring each child no matter how much mischief they have gotten into. It means conveying acceptance of them and their feelings when their behavior is not acceptable at all. This acceptance does not in any way condone or tolerate misbehavior, as we will see later, but it is the important foundation for changing that behavior.

Respect for Self

Respect for ourselves involves two important aspects. First of all, it requires us to know ourselves. The wisdom of “knowing yourself” has been a central theme in philosophy, spirituality, and psychology for centuries. The phrase “Know thyself” was inscribed at the Temple of Apollo at Delphi and was a core principle of Socratic philosophy. Socrates believed that self-examination is essential for wisdom and moral integrity (Plato, ca. 399 BCE/2002, 38a). It continued to be extolled by all major world religions and many philosophers.

We have to understand our feelings, our needs, and our values in order to assert them effectively. One of the benefits of the I-Message structure we are going to be exploring in detail is that it can often help us clarify for ourselves what it really is that we feel and need. The entire process of knowing ourselves is a whole lifetime endeavor that we can get closer and closer to but probably never fully reach.

The second aspect or component of implementing self-respect is the actual skill of being able to assertively communicate what it is that we need and want. I-messages are extremely good at doing that.

The Other’s Respect for Us

I don’t know how many times in my private practice as a therapist I have had a parent bring in a child, usually a teenager, and say something like, “This kid has no respect for us as parents.” Their goal was to have me teach this kid some respect.

Respect can never be forced. Power can demand and often gain something that may look like respect on the surface. What may look like “respect”, however, is just behavior and is temporary. If I gave you a million dollars or if I threatened you in a dramatic way, chances are that I could make you give me the most official military salute possible. It would be meaningless, however, and it wouldn’t last.

Decades ago, as I was teaching parenting classes on Camp Pendleton, I was impressed by the training military officers were receiving. They were being taught to not rely on demanding respect from their troops through external power but to authentically earn it.

People’s respect for us comes from two things. It comes from our ability to assertively stand up for our values and needs, to not accept things that are unacceptable to us while at the same time refusing to let go of our respect for the other person, even if they are in opposition to us. This ability to hold respect for the other person and ourselves at the same time is extremely powerful. It is this that elicits and develops respect for us.

The Other’s Respect for Themselves

Just as we don’t have any direct control over making people respect us, we can not make anyone respect themselves. We have two very powerful tools to accomplish this, however. We can show people how to respect themselves by modeling self-respect. Also, when we continue to show that we respect them, no matter how much or badly they mess up, we send powerful messages that they are worthy of respect.

A Simple Format to Move Us to Mutual Respect

Thomas Gordon originally coined the term I-Message in the 1960s (Gordon, 1970). He suggested that they contain 3 parts: “I feel…., when you…., and because….”. He believed that when we convey these three things effectively, the listener hears what they have done to elicit that feeling in us and will be motivated to do something different to help us.

Later, others in the field of communication, including Rosenberg (2003), found that many times, people can’t read our minds and know what it is that we want from them. Thus came the 4th component of an I-Message, “and I would like/need…”.

The Intention or Goal of I-Messages

In the next section, we will get into each of these components of an effective I-Message, but it’s important to point out that this is just a structure to aid us in developing a different language. When we learn a foreign language, we often initially use formats to help us learn this new language. I can still remember repeating, “Estoy, estas, esta, estamos, estais, estan” in learning to conjugate the verb “to be” in Spanish. I now can say, “Estamos listos,” without going through that whole structure to find the correct conjugation.

The structure we are going to be learning is just that, it’s a structure to help us shift into a new language. There are always many creative ways of saying anything in any language. When we become competent in using I-Messages, they don’t always have this exact format. They can start with the “when” part, for example. What they do always have are the components that allow us to honestly, powerfully convey our message in a judgment-free way that allows and encourages the listener to fully understand us and care about our situation.

Before we get into this, I want to share with you a remarkably clear example of how badly this structure for I-Messages can be misused to continue in our harsh, judgmental style of relating to others. Years ago, I was at a state-wide conference for school districts that had received an Early Mental Health Initiative Grant. The purpose was to highlight different ways districts were using this grant.

On a stage, in a ballroom full of attendees, a psychologist was discussing how they were teaching I-Messages as a part of their program. She had a large chart, and she asked an audience member to volunteer an issue where they might use this. A woman raised her hand and said, “My husband doesn’t let me use the remote control while we’re watching tv.” She showed us all how easy I-Messages were by asking the lady to fill in each of the blanks on the chart. After their conversation, this is what was written on that chart in front of all of us.

• I feel “cheated”
• when you “hog the remote control”
• because “you always do that, and it’s not fair”
• and I want “you to be more considerate.”

The presenter then said something like, “See how easy that is?” I was shocked but finally understood why some people doubt the power of I-Messages. Not a single component in that example is part of an I-Message. Of course, it’s not going to work or be at all helpful to that woman in communicating her needs to her partner. The participant had just inserted the usual “jackal” language into the format, and even the presenter was oblivious about it.

The point is that we have to be very careful and diligent in learning to speak this new language. It reminds me of “time outs” which were originally suggested as a positive way of helping children calm down in order to manage their feelings and engage with others productively. They were so widely and badly misused that they are now not allowed in most programs. Something that was designed to respectfully honor the child’s feelings and allow self-control became just another punishment to externally try to control the child. I can still hear a kindergarten teacher I overheard in a stern voice saying “You go sit on the ‘think-about-it chair’ until you can…!” The only thing that child would be thinking about is how mean and stupid the teacher is. They would not be calming down at all but becoming even more upset and less capable of good decisions.

The “I Feel…” Component

The strength of I-Messages comes from our open and honest expression of our feelings. This requires a couple of things. First, we have to have the courage necessary to do this. We also have to have the vocabulary to do this. As we get older and absorb more of the cultural messages that train us to be “jackals”, we often lose what little emotional vocabulary we may have learned as small children if our teachers and parents were good at helping us develop them.

I remember being at a school where I was doing demonstration lessons in different classrooms for teachers who had been through training with us on how to develop emotional and social competence. I did a lesson on emotions with a 1st grade class where they generated a nice long list of different feelings words.

The next lesson was in a 6th grade class where, after just a couple of basic words to describe feelings, they couldn’t come up with more. “Dumb” was a suggestion by a student. I pointed out that “dumb” wasn’t a feeling; it was a judgment, an adjective. I asked them how they would “feel” if someone called them dumb or if they “thought” they were dumb. Another student tried to help out by offering that they might feel “stupid”. After explaining that “stupid” was also a thought or a judgment that they could have emotions about but was not an emotion, they still were stuck.

“Cheated” is not a feeling. It is a judgment about someone else’s behavior. People might feel any one of a number of feelings if they had been cheated. If your spouse cheated on you, you might feel devastated, hurt, sad, or scared. If your business partner had cheated you out of a substantial sum of money, you might feel startled, enraged, or livid. If in a friendly game of cards, if someone cheated, you might feel irritated or annoyed.

Words to indicate what that lady might have felt could be annoyed, irritated, or upset. All of these words own the feeling without blaming the other person. Think how different that would feel for the recipient to hear.

We are so unaccustomed and uncomfortable directly sharing our feelings that people often use one of three words to take them back to the safe experience of thoughts and judgments. I once had a father in my private practice who was working on better communication with his teenage son. He was learning to use an I-Message to allow his son to hear his concerns about his son’s school performance. He thought his son wasn’t keeping up with his homework at all. I asked him to put his feelings into an I-Message.

He started with, “Son, I feel that you’re not going to pass your classes…” When I stopped him and explained that what he said wasn’t a feeling but his thoughts about what could happen, he tried again. “I feel as if you think you are going to be able to pass these classes without doing any of the homework.” After pointing out that this also is a thought or judgment, he tried a third time. “I feel like you don’t care about your grades at all.” As I hope you can clearly see, this is just a negative judgment rather than a disclosure of feelings. He was finally able to come up with “worried”

The words “I feel” should just be followed by a legitimate feeling word. Inserting the words “that”, “as if,” or “like” make it impossible to be followed by a real disclosure of feelings. (Except “like” at least in California, where in some circles it might be followed by a feeling, “I feel like sad, man.”)

When we stick with expressing just our feelings, there’s no way for the listener to disagree. They can only be invited to empathize. That brings up a very relevant topic. What are our feelings? The word “emotion” came directly from old French, tracing back to a Latin word that meant “to move”. Emotions serve the important function of moving us. Our options are to move wisely or reactively. Our emotions are never caused directly by any event or outside perception but are always filtered through our interpretations of those perceptions and events.

Mini Sermon on the Word “Make”

It’s very important to realize that our feelings are created by us. They are our emotional reactions to stimuli based on our interpretations. We ultimately control our feelings, no one else. Language is important. Just like the important but subtle difference between encouragement and praise, it’s important for us not to give our power away by using words that suggest something or someone can MAKE us feel anything. It’s common for us to say something made me happy or that person made me mad. Not only is that not true, it invites us to give up control of our emotional reactions to things. When using this with children, it prevents them from developing the ability to take responsibility for their feelings and, ultimately, their actions. If Michael MADE me angry, then it’s his fault that I punched him in the nose. That’s one of the reasons it is enough to acknowledge just the feeling itself when we are actively listening by reflecting back the person’s feelings. It’s also a very important thing to remember when creating an I-Message.

The “When” Component

Thomas Gordon’s original framework had “when you” and was meant to be the place where you objectively and non-judgmentally described the specific, exact behavior that you have feelings about. You are always speaking directly to the person you have the feelings about, so saying “when you” could work. If you just stay literally, non-judgmentally descriptive of the facts, just the facts. In the example from the conference the woman said, “I feel cheated when you hog the remote control.

The problem here is that it not only is not literally descriptive, but it’s also extremely judgmental in a very negative way. “I feel cheated when you hog the remote control.” Think about how it would feel to hear that. It creates defensiveness, and rather than inviting listening, it can even trigger counter-aggressive attacks. “Hog the remote! You’re the one who’s hogged the remote. You’ve been home doing nothing but watch TV while I worked hard all day for this family!”

Notice how different it feels to hear, “I feel annoyed when you have had the remote all evening while we watched TV together.” There’s no judgment, nothing to disagree with, only an invitation to empathize.

Many of us currently just teach that there’s a “when” part that accomplishes the same things Gordon talked about. The goal is to make clear in objective terms what you are talking about. Not having to follow “when” with “you” allows more creative ways to just be clear. Sometimes, when the word “you” is used, even if strictly objective, the person can feel somewhat defensive. Like the words “that”, “as if”, and “like” discussed above, using the word “you” sometimes unconsciously pulls us back into You-Messages, the opposite of I-Messages.

For example, if you are talking to a specific student about talking while you are giving instructions, you could say, “I feel upset when you talk while I am giving instructions”, but you could also say, ““I feel upset when any student talks while I am giving instructions”. This should not take away any responsibility that this student has, and the request part that we’ll get to later, should be very direct. “And I would like you to make sure when I am giving instructions that you are looking up at me and not talking to any of the other students.”

The “Because” Component

This part of an I-Message allows us to explain to the listener WHY we are experiencing the feelings that we are experiencing. Remember that people can have different feelings about the same experience. It not only helps the listener understand why you feel the way you do, but having to put into words the reason for your feelings often helps you understand why you are having them as well.

This can greatly help you achieve that first component of Mutual Respect, knowing yourself. For example, when the lady from the conference has to explain why she’s annoyed when her partner has the remote all evening, she may realize that it relates to a larger issue in their relationship. In the scenario that seems to be evolving as I use this example, maybe she lost her job 3 months ago and hasn’t been able to find a new one. She may have some feelings about her spouse being the only breadwinner and her equal role in the relationship. His having the remote may just reinforce for her that he seems to have all of the power and control.

“I feel annoyed when you’ve had the remote control all evening because I haven’t been feeling like an equal partner lately for many reasons, but I want us to be equal partners as much as possible and when you’re the only one choosing what we watch, I feel left out.” Or simply, “because I would like both of us to choose what we watch.”

I noticed that I used the word “I” right after “because”. Not only do I recommend thinking of not using the word “you” after “when”, it can also be useful to put the word “I” in this section. The goal is to explain OUR interpretation of reality, how WE perceive it. This is also a great place to share our values that form who we are and how we see the world. For example, in the background that I keep improvising and fabricating for the example that I’m using, this woman in my imagination has some strong feelings about equality in relationships and fairness.

When we can articulate what these are and how they influence our responses to events, it not only can help the listener really understand, but this can be a great way to help teach children how to develop their own values, and those guiding beliefs that shape all of our behavior.

There is interesting research that supports the importance of sharing reasons or why this “because” part can be so important. In her book, Mindfulness, Ellen Langer (1989) cites a study she conducted with colleagues in 1978. The experiment was conducted in a busy college library, where researchers had participants try to cut in line at a copy machine. The participants used three different types of requests:

• Request Only (No Reason): “Excuse me, I have five pages. May I use the Xerox machine?” 60% of the time they were allowed to cut.
• Legitimate Reason (Logical Explanation): “Excuse me, I have five pages. May I use the Xerox machine because I’m in a rush?” The compliance rate for this request was 94%
• Placebic Reason (Nonsense Explanation): “Excuse me, I have five pages. May I use the Xerox machine because I need to make copies?” This last group still got to cut 93% of the time.

Surprisingly, the third request, where the reason was redundant (“because I need to make copies”), was almost as effective as the legitimate reason. This suggests that people often respond automatically to the word “because” without critically evaluating the reason that follows. This study highlights how small tweaks in language can significantly impact human behavior.

The Request or “And I would like/need” Component

This last part is the place to make clear what we need or want. As Thomas Gordon suggested, sometimes, when we have done the first three parts well, this part is self-explanatory. This often is not the case, however, and it can be very useful for the listener to know exactly what we are requesting.

The important thing about this part is that it needs to be a request for specific and doable behavior. I can vividly recall hearing from the backseat as a child as my mother asked my father to slow down while he was driving. “Slow down”. And then, “Slow down!” “I did slow down.” As their voices rose, “Slow down!” “I did slow down!” My father had slowed down twice, but it was not enough to address my mother’s anxiety. The request was NOT specific. “I am nervous and would like you to drive at 55 miles per hour maximum.” This may not have been the speed my father would have chosen, but I’m sure he would have done that for my mother.

Think how often we ask children to be more cautious, more careful, more considerate, respectful, responsible, thoughtful, etc. All of these things are global generalizations that mean different things to different people. For this part to be successful, the request needs to be specific. What does the listener need to do? What is the actual behavior you want to see?

Children are often asked to listen. But what does this mean? What specific behaviors do you want to see? What do you want them to do that will suggest to you that they are listening? “When I am giving directions, I want you to keep your body still, look up at me, and think about what I am saying.”

It’s helpful to use positive language rather than negative language about what you do NOT want them to do. It’s so much easier to say “don’t talk to your neighbors”, but it is more effective to say, “If there is something you want to talk to your neighbor about, you can do that during recess.”

Additional I-Messaging practice can be found in the Appendix.

References

1. Buber, M. (1970). I and Thou (W. Kaufmann, Trans.). Charles Scribner’s Sons. (Original work published 1923)
2. Gibb, J. R. (1961). Defensive communication. Journal of Communication, 11(3), 141-148.
3. Gordon, T. (1970). Parent effectiveness training: The no-lose program for raising responsible children. Wyden Books.
4. Langer, E. J. (1989). Mindfulness. Addison-Wesley.
5. Langer, E. J., Blank, A., & Chanowitz, B. (1978). The mindlessness of ostensibly thoughtful action: The role of “placebic” information in interpersonal interaction. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 36(6), 635–642.
6. Plato. (2002). Apology (G. M. A. Grube, Trans.). In J. M. Cooper (Ed.), Plato: Complete works (pp. 17–36). Hackett Publishing. (Original work published ca. 399 BCE)
7. Rosenberg, M. B. (2003). Nonviolent communication: A language of life. PuddleDancer Press.