 All of me and myself are going to be talking about the art of communication, which is really a skill that everyone will can help in developing in terms of their relationship with their spouses, their partners, and any relationship really with parents with children. What we will discuss today can be implemented in any relationship, but particularly we're focused on spousal relationship and communication and marriage, but it can be used in any of our close relationships. As we go through this, we will, we like to keep it interactive and so we will have some reflection kind of pauses and times where we would like you to introspect and really look at what your life is bringing in in terms of communication. So we really appreciate if you keep it interactive and both of us are like for others to talk and we don't like to talk that much, but inshallah we can keep this interactive. So we like to start off with kind of grounding and setting intention. A lot of times we're coming into these talks and these events from all over the place and you know rushing or something and really starting out with setting the next hour. So we're grounding ourselves and taking a deep breath, doing some mascara and you know looking at our five senses and kind of grounding ourselves and bringing us to where we are right now and being present and then setting intention so for what we hope to gain and learn and take with us for the next hour. So I'd like to invite everyone to whoever's joining or whoever's starting this to just take a minute and pause and you know take a deep breath or set your intention for this next time. This is our roadmap for today we're going to go over what exactly is communication, why is it so important and what we need to do to learn about it. We'll go over different types and styles that there are communication, different research and also kind of talking about what we've learned from you know there are stories with from the prophets from the Quran. So now what it takes to have effective communication and what it takes to break communication or barriers and obstacles communication and then we'll leave a part at the end where there can be questions and discussion inshallah. With that I'd like to pass the two notes so that we can start with what is communication. So what is communication and I think Faiza and Sabrina have already covered this communication really is the basic building block of our relationships. It's how we communicate our thoughts and feelings and connection and most importantly connection to one another. So we're talking a little bit beyond the can you pick up dinner or can you pick up the kids right we're talking about a deeper level of communication in which we are actually connecting with one another and having good communication skills is really critical for sex the successful relationships whether it be with your spouse siblings children or your coworkers. So let's start by looking at types of communication there is verbal and non-verbal verbal is basically the language that we use right what we say non-verbal includes facial expression posture eye contact gestures tone of voice body language and so forth so far and so forth. So let's take an example right now. Suppose a family member has come home from from a long day they walk through the door and they shut the door a little louder than they normally do walk into the living room throw their backpack or perhaps their briefcase onto the ground and plop really loudly down onto the sofa and they have their eyebrows are furrowed and you know seem very tense and you walk up to them and say how is your day how are you and they look at you and just say I'm fine right so there is verbal communication going on and there's also non-verbal and are you really going to believe that they're fine even though they verbally have said they're fine their body language has communicated something entirely differently and so various studies have been done on communication and one that is often cited is Dr. Mehrab Mahrabians which he concludes that communication is comprised seven percent of verbal you know verbally what's said and 55 percent is body language and 38 percent is your tone of voice and even you know even if we're not watching someone looking at pictures we also do infer things right like so take a look at these birds when you look at them what are thoughts that come to your mind about what is maybe being said or what they're thinking I know when I look at it I'm thinking the front bird bird is not wanting to share whatever he's eating in the one in the back it's like hey did you you know did you save some for me those are thoughts that come up and we all make inferences daily on what we see so we can move to styles of communication there are three styles passive aggressive and assertive so passive communicators often they devalue their own needs to the point that they allow others they'll meet other people's needs at the expense of their own they might keep what they're really thinking and feeling to themselves unless they know that the other person's thinking the same way generally people who have a dominant passive personality sometimes they a lot have a low self-esteem and often they let others people's needs come before their own so aggressive the aggressive communicator will try to get their needs met regardless how it affects the feelings or goals of the other person they may take over a conversation not seek input and constantly challenge any ideas or feelings that don't align with our own aggressive behavior taken in extreme can look like violence insults and threats and a third form of communication style of communication is the assertive communicator assertive communicators they value their own needs and are able to express their needs to others and at the same time respecting the needs of others assertive communication often indicates high self-esteem and self-confidence and the effects of assertive communicators the fact they have on others is that they elevate others as well and they have strong relationships I want to also just kind of mention sometimes we might have a dominant way of communicating perhaps we're an assertive communicator but there will be times when we decide to be passive and that's okay so one style is not necessarily better than the others I mean we hope that we are more assertive in the way we speak and that we value what other people are saying but there are times and perhaps if your rights are being violated we might get a little aggressive there might be times where we take a passive stance just for the sake of a relationship or keeping a relationship that we're in right now as long as we do these things with purpose and intention it's okay all right so sorry I mean a little faster than I was planning so examples of communication let's think of a scenario there's a couple who have who have accepted a dinner invitation and spouse A really wants to go and is looking forward to this invitation this dinner this social gathering that's going to happen and the day of the event spouse B comes home and says that they're really really tired and they just don't want to go so look at let's look at these different styles and what the conversation might look like so if spouse A was a passive communicator they might just not go um they won't say anything they'll keep their disappointment to themselves and they just won't communicate their needs if spouse A was an aggressive communicator they might say something like I've been waiting all week to go to this and I'm going you can do whatever you want right if spouse A is an assertive communicator they might say something like I understand that you're really tired right now I'd like to figure out a way that both of our needs can be met so right now we want to take a minute so we've learned about different styles and different types of communication and to really internalize this we let's take a moment and think about our own upbringing let's reflect on our childhood what kind of communication patterns did you see in your family of origin okay I'm just going to pause for maybe a minute just for you to reflect how are things said as you're thinking think about how are things said did people have different styles of communication what need how were needs communicated what were phrases that you might have heard so as you were reflecting on this kind of how was it for you and did you notice anything about yourself very often we subconsciously repeat patterns of behavior that we saw growing up and so we hope that one of the things that you walk away with is being more conscious and intentional in the way we communicate and not just automatically maybe use those unhealthy patterns that we've self-consciously adopted so I'm going to hand it over to Sabrina who's going to talk a little bit more about effective communication thank you so um from your reflection exercise I was just thinking of was reminding of one scenario that I remember someone talked about of how their mother used to give them silent treatment when they were upset and they hated that but when they got married they kind of repeated the same pattern when they were upset with their husband but they and they were they were upset with themselves for repeating the pattern but they didn't know how to break the pattern but it was just like a cycle that so it's interesting with how family of virgins can really impact the messages that we receive and how we still communicate them so Sabine I just wanted to chime in and um I guess I'm one of those people who also goes kind of silent and quiet um how I hopefully think I've gotten better about it but sometimes I just find it's sometimes easier to deal with the situation if I just go completely quiet but I know that irritates my family so how do we how could we possibly break that or what is what are the best things to do to um you know like I said to break that cycle and and be better about communicating and not going quiet right we're actually going to talk more about right we are going to talk about that's a great question because it's it's not necessarily like you know and as I've mentioned that there's no good or bad and to really read the situation and respond so it's not necessarily bad when we go silent it's just the intention and the purpose behind it and so really quickly dive into it probably later too but really quickly to answer what you're saying is that um why are we going silent like sometimes when we're going silent is it to just take the time to process how we're feeling and how we're upset and then to communicate that to our partner and not having a really long period of silence but just to you communicate to our partner and say you know right now I just need time for myself to just process I'm really upset right now and I just need to take this time and you know I'll let's talk in an hour in two hours and you know we'll come back together but just so they know that you know this is what you're doing this is how you're processing and that this is what you need right now and it's not it's not harming them as such but it's just helping them understand you better in terms of what your need is at that time so it's okay to take that silent retreat for yourself so it's kind of changing and reframing how to approach the action and the behavior but also not making it like three going three days with silent treatment and unless you do what I say then I'm going to talk to you I don't know if that's helpful yes very helpful Sabine thank you yeah and I have actually just sorry I have in the Facebook chat said if anybody would like to pose any questions I should go ahead and do that I'll be checking that um and so I'll let you know if there are any questions that come up and I can and I can communicate those over to you absolutely absolutely we love to have this interactive so anything that comes up any anything that people have from Mizzett's reflection as well introspection kind of exercise is free to share and stop me or pause me perfect we'll do it so we learn Mizzett described beautifully kind of the the types and styles of communication that different people have and different personalities may have and how our personal histories can impact those things so as you really described how you take the silent treatment how that can impact your family and how they can get upset they're having effective communication there's a lot to understand ourselves and understand how our personal history can really impact the way that we're perceiving information and the way that we are giving information so like with the silent treatment example say someone has been treated has been you know raised with silent treatment as a form of punishment for doing something wrong as a child or something when they are faced they're in a marriage and they have you know the husband goes silent for a while and not respond and the husband might be stressed at work or something but but might be silent and not responding for them that might be triggering some really hard emotions thinking that they're upset you know the wife or you know it could be reversed I'm using example of wife and husband but it could be reversed where the wife might be giving silent treatment the husband might have been raised as that might be something that was troublesome as a child but really to use those as a guide and following what what our world and our communication might look like I think you can move to the next slide so we'll go more into depth with each of these kind of factors and aspects that what it takes to really have effective communication and I think we talk about understanding communication style and different types of styles but we'll go a little bit more in depth about communication styles and how that might be different for different people and different circumstances so the first part I think we move to the next slide the next part is really understanding ourselves and it might be strange to start with this because a lot of times especially in our community sometimes we're like looking for answers and how you know really tell someone what we're trying to say but really understanding ourselves with the foundation of communicating effectively what are our triggers our personal triggers how is it we are perceiving information and that's why when we started this presentation as I've talked about introspecting and understanding the styles and having the different styles and types of communication so really being aware of how we personally are responding to situations or perceiving situations a really interesting example I just came to but once I was meeting a friend for coffee and I was holding a lot of stuff in my hand and the my friend just texted me and said but I'll be there I'll five minutes late and I had a lot of things in my hand so I just texted back and said okay instead of okay or you know okay I just said okay and I respond and then her response was are you okay are you mad and I was like yeah I'm okay and then when she came she was worried that you know are you okay are you mad at me or something I was like no I'm fine and then when we talked about it for her that K was like you know someone's really upset and they're just not taking the time to respond okay but that K was just like a okay like you're late and something so for me it was just that I had a lot of things in my hand and I just had to like get the message across as best as I could and so even while we're verbally communicating a thing in this world we have you know communicating via text via email via social media we have a lot of factors but just being aware of what's happening in ourselves and how we can respond to the triggers that we personally have and not projecting them I think in this social media world we have a lot of a lot of images that keep coming and a lot of comparisons that we might make to other people other marriages other couples other friendships and other what others have you know and and that art of comparison is taking over the art of communication which really impacts our personal relationships what we need to understand is that that is not reality what what we see on social media that is not a reality and that people are posting just like a little snippet a little window it's like you know right now the three of us are visible probably on screen but we only have a window into where we are in our space and comparing that to someone's whole home and someone's whole life is really unfair so and comparisons lead to expectations which really is one of the silent killers of relationships because we start to expect and then we start to get disappointed when our expectations are not met and then that leads to anxiety that leads to just anger that leads to resentment that leads to bitterness and it's just a cycle so one of the things of breaking that is to really find happiness and contentment within ourselves and the fuller that we are the happier that we are and have the more contemporary we find with ourselves and gratitude the more we're able to give that and you know as our cup is full we are able to give that to our partner and express that to our partner looking for external validation and looking for that validation from our partner can also impact our way of communicating to our partner so if we feel content we can nourish ourselves and then also give to our partner nourishing words and nourishing understanding and then in that the communication kind of flows and and it becomes more of a you know we versus I and again you know living an individual by society there is a lot of you know this is this is what I deserve it becomes a lot of like a me kind of idea like you know me myself and I and it becomes focused on what is it that I need there's a whole lot of self-care but there's not a lot of couple care and so there's a balance that Arlene teaches us in all aspects you know humblah for having the teachings of Islam because Allah really teaches us how to be with ourselves as individuals not to take abuse not to take let people take advantage of you but also to give kindly to respond generously to speak with each other in you know the verses that come to mine or something you know even we're talking to parents Allah says you know talk to them in a noble way and you know those are relationships that are intimate and that are very close and and it's easy to get frustrated it's easy to get really upset with each other but Allah reminds us again and again to really take into account and be generous with our our words and be kind with our words and be merciful he is Ar-Rahman and so he is forgiving to us I think and just the the way that Allah teaches Musa al-Islam to when he's going to fed on and how to communicate with fed on with respect and that is one thing that really we miss out on relationships is to have respect for each other and to see each other as humans that you know we make mistakes our husband can make a mistake the wife can make a mistake our children can make a mistake and to allow that we can be human in terms of that um and so in as a couple having a team attitude you know this is what our needs are as a couple this is what my needs are for myself as an individual if they don't match how do we work together to make sure that our needs as a couple are matched and our needs as individuals are matched and how do we understand that for each other so one of the tools to understanding each other and I love this tool because it comes up so much in terms of how grounding it can be for people to understand themselves as well as each other and that's the five love languages that was developed by Gary Chapman I love the little image too because it's like the bird is like shocked that oh my god I'm getting but these five love languages are really they're they describe how a person can perceive love and how a person can give out love so for example you know words of affirmation if a husband keeps saying to his wife I love you I love you and and that's you know him expressing his love but the wife doesn't feel love because she's there doing the dishes while her husband's watching tv and being very stereotypical it could be the other way around it could be the wife is watching tv and the husband's doing dishes but you know the wife is like okay you say you love me but you're just sitting there while I'm doing the dishes and so for her acts of service where the husband gets up and helps her with the dishes or helps her with the kitchen might be her way of you know knowing love or feeling loved and so recognizing where our spouse or a partner you know the relationship around her how they feel love and receive love is important but also how we ourselves are feeling love because oftentimes we're not in touch with that and I know when I there's a website if you search the five love languages you go to a website and you can take a quiz where it would you know answer you can answer different questions and I'll show you what your primary love language is and then your secondary love language so that you can recognize it first of all and that actually can change over time too so at different points in different situations there might be different love languages that you need so you know receiving gifts might be like having especially it doesn't have to be expensive it doesn't have to be I'm forgetting all the top friends yeah yeah it doesn't have to be prior but it could be something small right like if you went out and you know you see a really cute little pen I love pens so you know you can you can bring that or if you know that your spouse or someone loves pens or you know love something they're really small you can bring something like that for them and just for no occasion or something like that but having that time with each other and having to understand the love languages I think the Prophet Salaam was really good at understanding people and understanding how they feel noticed and they feel like seen and that is basically what this is is when we're looking at the love language the need that people have is to be feel to feel seen and to feel noticed and to feel like you know oh this is this is something that my spouse noticed about me this is something that they really are communicating to me that they love me like if someone is upset and what they need or is a hug or you know holding a hand that's physical touch that's their love language and so just giving them that and it's it's about understanding the other and not making sure of the other like feels understood so so it's about a give and take right we we work both ways and that's that's how relationships work it's it's coming together and working together for both so this might bring out some um some questions and some some some feelings um amongst people but research has shown that men and women have different ways of communicating and different ways of really experiencing um how to communicate and and different things that work so for example for men they um and again I'm I'm going to preface this with saying this might not be all men and this might not be all women it might be switched around um but this is just what the research has brought about and and so to really look at yourself and say like okay you know I this this is not me I guess as a man for example the shoulder shoulder communication a lot of times men they prefer to be side by side when they're opening up or having intimate conversations or really expressing themselves for them having that shoulder to shoulder even teenagers I look for everyone who has teenagers that research has shown that teenagers prefer so when you pick them up from school and you're driving side by side or you know with your spouse where you're driving side by side those might be good opportunities to have conversations um because that's where they can feel more open and can express more versus women like to have face to face where they feel like that's more sincere that's more relational and intimate and you know you have your full attention um and it can be reversed too so it might be that you know sometimes women prefer to have that side by side and and not probably open up but um what generally what research has shown is that women are more relational they'll they'll like to have those intimate conversations and and be able to sit and have deep conversations face to face versus um shoulder to shoulder and that woman like to go into feelings more they will they'll try to tell the story and a lot of times men will get frustrated and they just get to the point what is the point to this um and you know they'll go through the whole nine yards and then get to the point but that is an important tool for for women that is how they are expressing themselves and you know for men to understand that can be very liberating because for them they feel like oh what what was the whole point of that and then you're just telling me that you need to get gas you know that's that's the whole point but men will just come in and say you know the facts and they'll just um be focused on that there's there's a really interesting and funny video online of um how the men and women's brains are structured and um he talks about how men have boxes and they they can retrieve one box or one tab at a time and that's that's what they're focused on and there there's I I still don't get this because I'm a woman but there's a nothing box and and they can sit there and be talking be thinking about nothing and I I don't get that because I can never think about nothing but um it is true they do think about nothing and um and masha'Allah that's that's a really good skill to have to be able to do that versus women have multiple tabs open and they're wired and you know subhanAllah that's how Allah created us and Allah created us this way to compliment each other not to compete with each other and not to um you know to to make those comparisons that you need to be more like this or you need to be more like that it's just understanding each other and then um having to face the the the challenges of communication that helping each other to overcome that together I think we can do this is sorry just yeah this is just so interesting just um that the previous slide with regards to the style of communication and and and of course how their brain is made up and how our brains are made up and um you know it's it's um I think if we were to look more into it and try to grasp that I think communication I well could could get better I guess right um I've heard about the side to side whereas I as you were saying as women we'd like to be face to face so I contact right and and so I've noticed that when I've had tried to have those conversations I contact you know I'm kind of focused but like you said my husband or my my teenager will just kind of look away or um so I guess I need to do more shoulder to shoulder um communication with them but um that that's really interesting just just kind of just breaking it down and um just kind of visualizing and seeing that um that that's very very helpful I think yeah I think just understanding the differences it takes away the judgment aspect of it because a lot of times you walk away going oh they're not interested in what I have to say they're not looking at me because that's right yeah yeah and so it alleviates a lot of hurt if if we can move to understanding sorry so let me get it back to you no no absolutely I think that's important I think um you know what you're both saying is understanding like you know if if if you were to have a conversation with your husband you wanted to have a serious conversation to implement the side to side um and you know if he wanted to have a conversation with you or you prefer face to face for him to notice that and you know have face to face so also to understand that and then to come together and yeah yeah um and I think oftentimes we just get caught up in the heat of the situation and don't understand it and it gets frustrating but to know that you know there is a biological component to it there is um there's a personality component to it and and that's it's nothing against the other person it's nothing personal it's just a way of coming together um and to give it a positive spin I think uh makes it better sometimes involving humor can help um that's why I love that video of the differences now like you know sometimes when I'll ask my husband what are you thinking you'll say nothing and we'll laugh at it because and I still don't get how that happens I know I'm I'm still trying to work my way around that but I'm definitely going to ask my husband that question it is and I've asked him to teach me that skill because I I feel like it's a helpful one absolutely it's nice not to be able to have to think about anything right like you said we're always multitasking there's always something that we're thinking about it's just never a moment where we're not thinking about something yeah um but let us know what the magic answer is to that Sabrina well keep it posted on it I will I will if I find out I will if anyone else finds out I know at least there well some of that is functional we have kids and you know any parent who's at home with like kids running around you are thinking about what what each child is doing and then you have to do your home you know you're you're doing your cooking and your cleaning and your multitasking right and women tend to do that generally not always you know um tend to do that a lot so it makes more sense that we can keep all these boxes open because we are attending to so many different things right I'm not sure I mean that like my husband appreciates that he's like I don't understand how I how you can keep tabs with all of these different things that are going on and you know still show up to all of them so they're all skills um so probably like a lot of what we're discovering and like learning is you know the different components to how each person and each individual is and as a couple how communication can be and so being intentional in our communication is the key aspect of you know bringing it all together it's kind of like the big overarching thing of of how to bring all of this communication together is to really be intentional and mindful in our communication considering what the appropriate style might be you know in some occasions I think those have mentioned that being passive might be better than being assertive and that might be more helpful in the relationship at that moment you know for example if one spouse is really upset really upset really heated up and you know the other spouse also starts matching that with being heated up it's going to miss miss the whole point one of the basic needs I think those that mentioned this earlier is you know having connection with the other and one of the basic needs for being connected is feeling safe so feeling safe to be able to express yourself feeling safe to be able to communicate and it goes back to the brain where our nervous system actually when we are heated over we're triggered our brains are not I think people have heard of a fight flight response to trauma mostly but it is a way where if someone's triggered their brain is literally like you know if it's like this it's flip the lid and so they're not in a safe zone to really comprehend what you might be trying to communicate and trying to say even if you're saying the right thing it might not be registering as such because they don't feel safe to communicate and you know that safety is something that is intentional and built into a relationship between a husband and a wife and I always feel like it's you know the example of the Prophet's house along where when he was given the first revelation and the first thing he felt scared he felt like you know what is this he didn't know it was a big unknown and the first thing he did was he ran home to his wife and he was very vulnerable at that point and you know he didn't know what had happened he didn't know how she was right but he felt safe to communicate to her that this is what I just experienced and this is I don't know what it is and that safety is built over time and that trust to be able to come in and know that you know your spouse is not going to judge you your spouse is your safe zone and that your spouse will be able to hold you in those times where you feel vulnerable or feel like I you know need to really communicate something that's so you know such a such an experience that you might have and you know I think our families need to learn how to have that holding spaces and homes and and being intentional and mindful of that because we're looking at it again more and more we're seeing how you know people are going out to friends and to other members and communicating to them what they're feeling versus coming home and expressing that to their own family members with whom they might feel something or want to work something out and you know nine times out of ten when I work on these situations and I work with families a lot of it is like assumptions that are built up and we'll go into assumptions that you know if I tell my mom this or if I tell my husband is they're going to react this way and a lot of times when it actually comes down to a situation gets worse and then when they actually sit down and communicate you know the reception is actually really well and and they say well why didn't you tell me before why wouldn't you communicate and so the family unit it's actually called triangulation when I think when the person goes out and expresses to the other person versus coming to the same person but what's happening at the family unit is there are a lot of other voices that are filtering in and that communication then gets lost because there's a lot of noise there's a social media noise there's like you're going to your friend and asking for advice but having proper trusted spaces and holding spaces and then going to the proper resources to really you know figure out what's going on and and making that safe place to be able to talk to each other to be able to express and to be able to be your own individual self but also help your spouse be their own individual self and then come together as a couple and define yourself in that way so considering appropriate style considering the different layers of what's the right time what's the right space or what's the right language to use like there might be times where you know the husband is really stressed at work and the wife is like you know he's not paying me any attention and usually men when they're stressed at work they don't really communicate because they don't they might not communicate about feelings but also like it matters on how safe they feel to communicate the feeling so it might not be the time to bring up you know something that the wife has been wanting something but to really notice what's going on and tune into that you know one of the things I like to say is that for husband and wife and for families we want to create spaces where we provide ease for each other and not difficulty and so being sources of ease and sources of you know safe zones and and holding each other and being mindful of that and and all of that can really be centered on Allah and in hanlah we have a really a really rich religion that that when we center ourselves with Allah and center our relationships with Allah it's actually very liberating in terms of you know what would Allah want me to do in the situation I really feel like I need my husband to do this and I need to tell him that I need him to know that this is not right and that's right it might not be right said how would Allah want me to address him how would Allah want me to tell him this and the same thing for a husband I don't want my wife to be doing this and you know a lot of times these things come up with financial things and different arguments but you know how would Allah want me to address my wife and knowing that and being mindful of Allah we're and centering our relationship in that can make it more intentional make it more effective make it more impactful and make it full of barakah and mercy you know we we heard the verse the verse in Surah al-Jawam where it talks about how there's mawadah and rahmah between the Allah made you know pariahs with each other I won't quote exactly I'm forgetting this out but I thought there's mawadah and rahmah and you know oftentimes we just take that for granted okay we're getting married and Allah is going to give us mawadah and rahmah but it takes work to maintain that mawadah and rahmah and it takes both people in the marriage and then the couple unit to really work on that mawadah and rahmah and that's that's what the communication that we're having with each other in our presence. Sabreen just just kind of backtracking with a couple of things that you've said you know just as men I think the generalization is that men don't tend to communicate as much or don't express their feelings as much and if they're having a really stressful time at work you know they're not really expressing it or they're expressing it in different ways I mean how do we you know provide those tools for them or how how can they become I guess better at expressing their feelings or communicating and of course I'm you know I have a teenage son Masha Allah he's getting older and I want him to be able to you know empathize and and be able to you know eventually when he has his own relationship that he should be able to talk about things if he stressed about things he should how do we kind of empower them or how do we teach them I know a lot of what we said before it's kind of part of your nature how man is made up or how woman is made up it's the makeup of of them but I'm just wondering how how can we how can we help in that area to make them better communicators or for them to be able to be more expressive with their feelings it's a great question and and I think the person that comes to mind is really looking at the person in front of you and seeing what would work you know for your son it might be different for your husband might be different for my brother it might be different for you know my husband might be different for my cousin it might be different but literally looking at the person in front of you and seeing that and and one of the the the things that I a great tool that we have you know all this western psychology in office it's brilliant and it really helps and it but Islam has given us a lot of diverse information in terms of that too with the different companions and you know the different prophets and the sunnah and the Quran and and you know there is such a diversity of personalities with the companions with the prophets and and what they were given and so helping them relate to those power figures really and seeing how they manage and how they express their emotions you know in the Quran Allah talks about like even the prophets saying you know um one will the help of Allah come you know so that is really expressing emotion that they're they're really reaching a point where they're desperate and they we need help uh the companions you know the difference between Abu Bakr's personality and Omar's personality and both are good both are okay both are needed and so looking at the personality of the person and you know giving them that acceptance and validating them in that way and then when it comes to teaching about feeling and expressing I think really modeling is a lot of what we can do in terms of showing that you know this is normal it's normal to express feelings and when they do to really take it in to sit and then take it in and it could be a little thing like uh you know mama I really want to have french toast today and you know just being like oh I'm really glad you expressed that and not not making it a big deal out of it too but also like uh appreciating that you know oh you really want to have a french toast and it starts young um and that's helpful but it can at any age if you give someone that validation and that you know normalization of expressing feelings I think that we are wired to learn and incorporate that I don't know if that helps and through absolutely I know I've put my marshala what can I say they're very expressive over my family but um but I do hear this a lot like my I think I speak about my father my father wasn't very expressive you know with his feelings and so and and I hear this across the board that you know men generally tend to keep their feelings in or don't tend to express themselves or if they are going through something at work they don't tend to say it could be honestly just to protect their own families just so that they don't worry them in a way right but then some of them just kind of internalize so much that it can lead to other things and so I was just wondering I just like how you said it like just start modeling it start saying that it's okay to be express yourself just tell me how you're feeling you know and sometimes it comes to some more naturally than others and it's good to hear that so thank you I think generally in society we need to normalize um men like you know when when boys are younger they're taught don't cry boys don't cry you know things like that I think generally in the bigger community we have to normalizing the Prophet Salaam cried and he he named crying as a mercy you know from Allah so it's it's normalizing those emotions normalizing that this happens and this is just part of being human and in different times there might be different ways if they're even anger you know anger to a certain degree anger at injustice is a normal emotion and how we channel that is just how it is and that's that's the beauty of Islam is that Allah teaches us about emotions grief anger and and they're all talked about in the Quran grief fair anger all of these emotions are talked about and they're normal it's just how we channel them and how we cope with them and how we communicate them to each other perfect thank you so rain and and I and I think you've mentioned it creating those moments of opportunities to communicate and something that is dying that I keep finding out as I speak to more and more kids is that people don't have dinner together you know just that sitting around a table having a conversation modeling for your children what it's like to talk about your day you know how it went highs and lows and it's just really saddens me because the more I speak to kids I'm finding out that everyone needs at different times with have screens in front of you and all of that and so providing these moments intentional moments of connection you know people think oh you know we all are living our lives and we're all busy and we all have all these things on our mind and of course we're talking we're communicating with our spouses we're asking who's picking up the kids and you know you know what do you want for dinner and whatever but that's not intentional meaningful communication that promotes connection and I think we just really really need to be conscientious of doing that more with our kids and not not only providing that opportunity but really monitoring our reactions a lot of times kids bottle up because as parents we react to what they're saying right instead of like like just keeping our own emotions in tune we react in such a way that we create an environment with the kids all of a sudden don't feel safe and we do it with our spouses and we do it with our children so just being really mindful of that and we're going to talk about reflective listening in just a moment and maybe look at some skills to do that more intentionally. Okay thank you for sharing this very very important point thank you. So we had a lot of information on this little first a while ago so we're going to go back to our reflection exercise and we've all had moments in which we felt understood or not understood so take a moment and think about a conversation in which you felt heard and a conversation which you didn't feel heard and if you could as you're thinking about that moment recalling that moment think about what did the other person do or say that made you feel heard or what did the other person do or say that maybe didn't make you feel heard and made you shut down and how did you react to each and what were feelings that were coming up for you so I'm just going to give you around 30 seconds to think about it. I'm going to check in on the Facebook chat and see if there are any questions and any reflections from what you've just asked as well. So I know things that I've heard or that I've come up for other people is they'll say you know I bring something up and we all do this in which someone tells us about a hardship they're having and then we recall a time that we've had the same thing and our intent sometimes is to show empathy but what we ended up we ended up doing is making it all about ourselves it's oh I'm you know when that happened to me this is what I did and we might do it with the best of intentions but what we've done is just invalidated what the other person was saying right sometimes we just kind of and so people sometimes walk away from that conversation and I know I've had that experience where I felt well okay it's not about me anymore it's about you and and I've you know just gone silent and listened to what they have had to say. How about either of you have any experiences in which you maybe did feel heard or didn't feel heard? I mean just coming back to what you're saying this is about certain people making it about themselves sometimes I've noticed that a lot and yeah when you're trying to express something about what you're going through and suddenly like you said it's just and I had it 10 times worse you know and it won't be like okay I'm yeah I'm just not getting what I was hoping for the support that I was hoping for over here um so yeah just thinking about that yeah but there are of course there are multiple incidents where I'm trying to think of some but I let Sabrina chime in while I think of while I think of some. I just remember I recently did a training for new therapists that were starting at the school district and you know went off and shared a time where she did feel heard and it was interesting because she said that she just lost a friend one of her friends had just passed away and she was in high school and she went to the school counselor and all she did was cry and the counselor just let her cry and so it's not even saying anything but allowing that space to just be heard and cry and she said that you know now she's in grad school and she's going to serve for that and that was a high school experience but she still remembered it and so I think that impact of just caring someone in their pain and just sitting with their pain is a really powerful way of you know as a therapist as you were saying it reminds me of when I was in school was in grad school and I was one of the most powerful lessons I learned you know we were role playing and my partner was telling you know something really personal that happened and I chimed in right or I had something to say and the instructor really as a therapist was one of the hardest skills to learn to to not you know sometimes we chime in we want to make the other person feel better and it's you know it was let the person sit in whatever they're feeling and more will come out if you allow that and it really it's difficult it's an it's easier said than done but it's more into build that mindfulness and give people their space my professor used to say walk the path of pain yeah yeah you're with with here and you just choose to walk the path of pain and and I think that is our our thing is we want to fix it we want to make it all better and put a bandaid on it but you know so we could feel good right yeah all of a sudden it becomes about us and not that they maybe just need to emote and just get it all out but we need to feel better so we we want to just put a bandaid on it and and move on and yes that's what the professor said he walked the path of pain with people right and just just coming back to like when I did the domestic violence training a few months ago and have interacted with sisters since um just meet them where they're at you know and and that that was really important to to hear that although it I don't know though it may sound simple but it it really is like as I was saying it's very very difficult like I also want to get you know just kind of meet them where they're at listen to them and you know try not to chime in and give all this advice and um because sometimes it's just so easy to give all this advice and and think you've you've made it better for them but in some ways you may have made it worse so you know don't be judgmental um meet them where they're at and yeah just lend a good listening ear I guess so that's something that I've definitely learned with the training and and just speaking to martial experts like yourselves I think it's really really important it's a very it's a very it's a very important skill to have right and um and to learn so um thank you for those reminders so this is a great segue into our next slide which is really about reflectives listening and you know as we're talking it just reminds me that's a comma we have two ears in one mouth right so perhaps we should be doing twice the amount of listening then we do talking but somehow talking is just so much easier to do and I remember a friend saying that you know so we talk and say things so easily yet we have two gates we have our teeth and our lips right and those those should prompt us to keep that and keep our ears open however we do a lot more talking sometimes than we do listen wow I love that yeah very true and it really is a skill that we want everyone to walk away with today simply put reflective listening is paraphrasing and restating both the words and feelings of the speaker and reflecting in reflective listening we attempt to reconstruct what the other person is thinking and feeling and to relay this understanding back to the speaker and then checking for accuracy making sure that you've understood what they're saying correctly um and the effect of the strategy often is that the speaker feels that you're really trying to understand them and understand what it's like to be in their shoes it also encourages the speaker to commute to me to talk and to share their thoughts and sometimes when we do that reflection piece it also allows to speak to reflect on their own words having it you know they hearing what they said helps them to kind of process it a little more and may perhaps sometimes in a different way so what are the components of reflective listening one is presence our very presence needs to communicate attentiveness and you know subhan Allah um when you hear stories from you know all these speakers about the prophet in the sahabas when they were talking to him they all felt like they were the most well they were talking to him that they felt they were the most important person in the world to to him right he made them feel so heard and and um and with our bodies especially these days we need to try and do that as well which might mean putting away our phones right putting them in another room hopefully turning our bodies and our eyes and our faces towards the person that we're speaking to and with our very presence and body and being making them feel that what they are saying is important so the next component of reflective listening is kind of paraphrasing and we talked about this just a bit ago it's reflecting back to the speaker what you just heard and checking for accuracy it builds openness and empathy and acceptance um next what we want to do is we want to clarify the implicit and I think we've we've spent a lot of time talking about how a lot of times that nonverbal communication um we make inferences we have judgments and you know all of us our reality is really our perception right and and so we look at things through our own lens and we want to make sure that we have made uh that we haven't projected our own thoughts and ideas onto the person we want to check for clarity like if we're reading into some nonverbal behavior you want to just you know kind of check in with you know I've just noticed that you seem your expression seems a little angry you're angry right now we're just checking in we're not just assuming so we want to clarify those things that are implicit the last thing we want to do is reflect back those core feelings it's really important to kind of restate important thoughts and feelings um and we when we do that we just want to be cautious that we're not overreaching and maybe projecting that you know you maybe you you should what you we think they should be feeling that we want to really just limit ourselves to what we heard them say and what um you know and just really what they have said that they are feeling or thinking so those are some um reflective listening skills that we wanted to leave you with oh goodness I sorry I just all right so um there's some principles of effective communication um so we talked about listening which is definitely more important and so of course actually when communicating there are some principles that um really help and um and this is taken from Marshall Rosenberg's nonviolent communication and there are four things that you want to take into consideration one is that you want to observe um when we're communicating if there is a problem you want to just observe and state facts information related to the communication what is the info that's being presented looking you know looking at it just objectively just presenting the facts and then we want to move to feelings and first foremost um we want to look at our own feelings what's coming up for for me in this conversation and I think Sabrina talked a lot about the importance of seeing um looking internally and being introspective and knowing what you're thinking and feeling because very often when we don't do that we end up being very reactionary and we end up speaking from our emotions and our feelings rather than really responding in a way that um that promotes understanding so we want to understand our own feelings and the feelings of the person that we are speaking to and third we want to communicate our needs what needs are coming up for both parties what do I need and what is that person need and then finally taking those three things into consideration we want to make a request so let's go back to the example of the couple that we talked about early on when there was this party that the couple was invited to and one one person was really looking forward to going the other party was just tired that day and so stating observations is just you know we have a party tonight and it seems like we have two different you know we're having um we're not on the same page on this um I really want to go when you don't you're stating your feelings and um acknowledging perhaps that one person um what are the needs coming up one person needs to stay home because they're really really tired the other person really needs to go because they were looking forward to it and they had all these plans for going to this party and connecting with people so based on that you want to put in your request so maybe the request is um you know I acknowledge that you're really tired and really not up to going but I really have wanted to go and been looking forward to this for quite a while so is it possible that perhaps um I go and make apologies or can we go you will go and you come back early and I'll get a ride from somewhere else and stay longer right so you want to state the facts state your feelings needs and then put it in your request so what we're going to do next is look at some examples of this just some tips and reminders so when we're talking about look describing things objectively and just presenting the problem as information um saying something like you were 20 minutes late for picking me up this morning that's just objective information but saying that you were really unreliable well now we're assassinating someone's character right we're questioning their character so we want to be really when some problem arises we want to be really cautious of how we state things stick to the facts what happened right let's not project um our feelings or um you know or like question someone's character and then next we want to be genuine not only do want to be genuine but we want to show empathy and right and be compassionate and merciful some of the things that um sabreen had mentioned earlier and I really have uh recently realized the importance of showing empathy so and I work in the school district and I work with middle school kids and one of the lessons we try to teach is effective communication right and anyone who's taken um marital counseling or what have you one thing that they teach is making eye statements and so we put these concepts the four concepts of nonviolent communication we give them a sentence then it's usually like I um I feel when I need right so we're we're we're kind of encouraging them to state what they feel um uh when you know what happened that made them feel that way and their needs and so you know middle school kids you know they can put you in your it's very humbling to work with kids because they will find the loopholes in everything that you say and so one statement that a student came up with was I feel really angry when you act like an idiot I need you to go away and so um I think it's really important that we first of all I no longer teach eye statements because for several reasons one is that and sabreen mentioned this early then we need to go from an eye to a we right very often in conversations we are really um we're focused on getting our point across right and we need to focus on understanding rather than being understood so when we phrase our when we phrase our sentences be very conscientious like be genuine this kid was being really really genuine but he wasn't being very empathetic so that part of being merciful well this is your family member this is you know we're talking about spices spouses so this is the person you're going to be living the rest of your life with so be kind and gentle and and quite honestly you want the other person you know wanting the other person to win an argument is probably a really good way to um it's something to remind yourself to be humble and even though very often we think that we're right I think it's really important to have that place in your heart that you question that and and remain curious and even though you think it's right keep your heart and mind open to the possibility that perhaps there is something this other person has that I'm just not seeing right now so communicating equality and that is you know making sure that you're recognizing the other person might have a different opinion than your own right in that I understand that you have a concern right so you're you're putting them on equal footing instead of saying how dare you question what I did or this is what I said we're going to do keeping an open mind in heart and I think I just spoke to this is that be sure to keep your mind and heart open we need to be humble for our own for our own betterment and keep that possibility always open so with that I am going to hand it over to Sabrina to look at barriers to communication before I start that I actually was reminded of some things from what you were talking about you know that the other person might um have something significant to say or something there's actually a flaw and I'm forgetting the exact words there's a flaw that you know if truth um it's not like if I am speaking the truth then let it flow to the other person or let the other person but if the other person is speaking the truth then let it flow to me and open my heart to it and I think that I thought I was really I love that thought because it really shows it really humbles you and it really says that you know the other person might be speaking the truth and it might be me that's not understanding where you know and if it is me that's speaking the truth and to um you know take that tool of law and really expand it and and even if we don't need that thought what I really what I really find powerful is when you are disagreeing with someone and you're in that moment when you're feeling really angry to make the law for the other person right right and and and just it just opens hearts yeah with your own heart I think profanum says why that why I just say so much all the time it's such a beautiful it's like on my chest so the shirt and it's it's about communication I'm trying to not for my tongue so that they may understand what I'm saying and it just opens those doors and I think that it's actually nice I went to barriers because it just aligns your thought process it's just amazing and once again you've referred to the Quran and Sunnah and Dua's Mashallah are so powerful right but just in that moment right you know I know we want to be mindful and we want to say the right things like you have the you know the crosses and the tics and it just you know it's all about how you phrase things right absolutely how it comes out does it come out wrong does it come out right and you intend to to say it right but it comes out wrong you know and so we rely on Dua's as such but how do we and I'm assuming we're coming on to the barriers to communication now because as much as we are well intentioned I speak for myself there are times when you know I'm like okay I'm going in I've read the Dua and it's gonna it's gonna be fine and I can I can say this is gonna come out right but you get caught in the emotion and the moment you think okay you know what yeah it's just it didn't come out right it you know it's just all gone to part you know so I mean what I know there's no magic answer to this but just preventing that from happening how do we do that I I mean I say one of the magic answers to that is that we cannot always prevent that from happening and that we will make mistakes and that angel mark well you know this is right now a presentation we're going through it but you know when it comes to the reality of it and we're all human and there will be those moments where you know even with me I've learned all this sometimes you know all that goes out the door and I'm just like you know I I will make mistakes and recognizing that human that that will happen but then how we recover and how we repair from that right well I think I'll talk about conflict a little bit but a lot of times we think conflict is you know it will make the relationship worse but it can actually transform your relationship into a healthier relationship because conflict cannot avoid it I'm very conflict avoidant but you know increasingly a lot keeps telling me that you cannot avoid conflict and you're gonna be to disagree right I think right yeah and I think what you said earlier about being well intentioned to recognize that all of us are well intentioned that you know when we're coming together and speaking to our spouse that there is always that well intention and that not to think the other person is really out to get you or wants to harm you but but knowing that they're they're coming from a good place and that meeting together in that point and meeting them where they're at like yeah so barriers we can move on to and that will move on to you know some of the challenges that we do face in terms of barriers and these are just some that this is John Gottman and I think Gottman is a lot of people have heard about the Gottman's and they did a lot of research for several years and their research actually provided with 90 percent accuracy on how they could predict divorce and how relationships could end and these are the four they call them the the four horsemen to the apocalypse because this would really predict the end of a relationship and the four categories were contempt criticism defensiveness and stonewalling and these are behaviors that a person might practice and and again you know we've we've heard where we come from and all the recognizing that you know where a person comes from and how these behaviors can be in a relationship and the point is that if someone is practicing these behaviors are present in a relationship recognizing them acknowledging them and then working on making them better to have a healthy relationship so there are antidotes to these relations so that's not if someone is practicing criticism that that's it that's that's the end of the relationship it's just knowing okay this is a barrier this is an obstacle it's something I need to stop doing this is something I need to communicate to my husband or my wife or you know my in-laws or my mother that you know I this is something they need to stop doing then how do we work through that so criticism is more attacking the personality of a person or attacking the person and contempt is more attacking the entire self and and doing it in a more like uh like being superior to that person or feeling like you know you're superior to the person like you know how how do you think you can do that or like you know just demeaning the person mocking them or really looking at them like that's why I like the image of the bird because it's kind of like you know I am high and mighty and like you know how do you do that and criticism is something that I think we see a lot in terms of like you know how could you do something like that like are you stupid are you this and just saying those kind of things that really attack someone personally and one of the ways of really combating that and we talked about words of affirmation is really to look and appreciate a person for things they cannot control like their personality or the way that they look and you know Allah gave us these looks and personality and so you know saying something sweet or loving to yourself and creating that environment of affection and love and you know that that helps to kind of kick criticism out of the way and if it is present in the relationship then to really monitor and and look at ourselves in that defensiveness is kind of victimizing yourself so if someone says you know an example like oh did you pay the bills and the you know the husband might just be asking the wife you know just casually did you pay the bills and she might be like oh my god like why didn't you pay the bills you know I was busy and you know it's your fault you didn't pay the bills in this theorem but just acknowledging it and sometimes saying you know oh I'm sorry it was my fault I'll be more careful and just um helping that along and then stonewalling is I'm trying to kind of go through these facets to become aware of the time um and stonewalling is literally shutting down and um it's like talking to a wall and oftentimes I think if you go to the next uh like oftentimes that occurs as well the flooding which is where you throw all of this information you're having this kind of nervous system breakdown where you're flooded with all of this information you're just going to shut out off mode and you start to stonewall and with a lot of flooding that can actually become like second nature so whenever someone brings something up it's just like a wall and and you just kind of ignore it and that that kind of leads to a very unhealthy environment in terms of being able to communicate and being able to work through things reactivity is one like walking around eggshells around a person and you know um being afraid that if I say something they're going to react and so just keeping that in um oftentimes flooding occurs with that too like when you keep something in you keep following it and you keep stopping it and then the dam just opens and and you flood someone with that and then you know they don't start begin to start stonewalling and then you feel dismissed and it just escalates into more and more and then assumptions and mistreating is a really poignant worse in the crown that says uh I think it's a tsuda hajrat where it says um avoid suspicion um suspicions you know it can be a sin and and that you know in in terms of our relationship to we we need to stop assuming that this is what our husband went this is what my wife meant you know and mistreating situations um there is this concept I meant to talk about earlier but you know having emotional bids that you know a husband and wife can make into uh really listen into that and and not um and and like engage in that so not turn away from it and to turn to words your husband wife and and oftentimes when someone might say something might assume that they're acting on this uh because of this but to clarify and to understand where the person is coming from so that we avoid mistreating the situation and mistreating what they're implying and really aware of the time I'm sorry I rushed through that but that's kind of um what we wanted to cover you know it's uh there's a lot that goes between there's a lot that we need to practice and uh you know there are obstacles and challenges but how much we have the tools the bases and the biggest thing is a lot has given us an internal compass that you know if we do nourish that and nurture that and focus on the good a lot of times our defense mechanisms will always focus on what's wrong and what's not and that's a that's a human thing we want to protect ourselves from hurt but actually opening ourselves up to infocusing on the good and and increasing that and nourishing that will actually help with the communication. Do we have any questions or anything? I'm just going to check but thank you so much um for your you know your final remarks as well Sabreen so important so so much insight into um communication and barriers and and and I you know all these things these emotions that we feel like you know the terms are so relatable right like all the terminology that you're bringing up um you you behave in these ways but you don't know that there's a term given to it you know and um it's it's it's it's it's quite amazing um just to like it's a changing that that mindset being more mindful empathetic um but um it's it's very interesting I mean I've learned a lot and I and I share I'm getting text messages and I'm seeing on Facebook because all people are really appreciating what you've had to share today with us um Mizzat do you have any um kind of closing remarks or I think Masha you've been sharing gems throughout both of you have but kind of that that that final gem where I think um I just want to remind everyone that sometimes we hear all this information and we go into this I should be doing this I should be doing that and we can't all show up and I know I work on this constantly we we don't always show up in our best selves right although we we wish that we lived our best selves every moment of every day we don't the reality is so be show yourself some grace but put forth that intention to bring forth your best self right and we can even when a communication goes awry um it's not that we made a mistake put you know it's important to be able to come back to it and create that kind of relationship an environment that you can come back to your partner and say you know listen I wasn't my best self back then so can we do a redo and have that conversation I kind of speak to when you go silent right understanding that your silence really bugs people and they take it a different way so it's important for us to just come forth and say you know what this is what I need in this moment and I know you need to discuss it let's just give it some time right give and and closing that loop and communicating even if you can't communicate your thoughts and feelings at least you're communicating that I'm not ignoring you I'm not trying to hurt you I'm trying to take care of myself and then we'll come back to this and I think that's my one of the most important things is to really check in with your feelings know you know and and take care of them and once you have then communicate with the other person okay thank you Nizith we have a question um how do you remember and I think we've just we've mentioned this I mean how do you remember all of this when you um are in that moment of of anger right you just how do you step back and really put these things into perspective in that moment when you are just so mad and so angry um what what are what tools what could you what can you share with us um I you know it's really good but um you know that is first recognizing I am really angry and I'm not going to be in my best self right and removing yourself whether it is saying I need to step away whether go I I remember when my boys are a little I actually walked into the bathroom and said I need to lock myself in the bathroom and take care of myself before I come in out and deal with this and so acknowledging yeah when you're really really angry you're not going to be able to remember any of this your lift you know your your prefrontal cortex is totally disconnected from from um your brainstem right and and so you're not going to have clear and coherent thought and I think the most important thing you can do is to walk away and get to the point of calming down and very often hear from teachers and parents that well no we need to address the situation right then and it's like no you really don't right you're not going to be benefiting you're probably going to do more harm than good so go away take care of your emotions see if you can get to the and it doesn't mean that you're calm down and make the anger go away but you if you can get to the place of all right I'm really angry um it doesn't mean that you're not to say that you know whatever happened uh you shouldn't get angry you can get angry but just get to a place of okay what am I going to do to address this anger sorry no that was great I think just what you said that you know acknowledging that there's anger and it's hard it's hard to remember all of this stuff when we're angry like you said the prefrontal cortex is disconnecting it and to allow ourselves that grace um and then recognize tools that we can practice um when we're angry and you know a lot in a song we have this you know if you're standing sit down if you're sitting down lie down drink a glass of water or something um take time away walk away make wudu for me um when I'm angry I like to go make wudu and you know just take time away and just process um process what's making me angry what what is it about the situation that I am angry about is that I feel like my feelings were dismissed is that I feel like I'm not being heard I'm not being seen is that I felt disrespected what what is it exactly that is making me angry and then um processing that and then coming back to it and and giving yourself that time um you know different things and help different people journaling can help sometimes I journal like this is what I'm feeling I'm angry about this thing and I don't know how to do it and you know you know just when you when you start to process it really goes down to that deep feeling of okay this this is actually what is making me angry and this is this is what I felt happened and then when coming back to it with your partner your spouse or whoever you're angry with it can it can be a more meaningful conversation and a more impactful conversation perfect thank you so much both of us at the Sabrine much out of for this amazing presentation