168. How Non-aggressive Is Your Communication? Part 2
Most of us don’t mean to hurt the people we care about. So why do certain conversations leave others feeling unseen, dismissed, or blamed?
In this episode, Alejandra Siroka continues her series on aggressive communication by shining a light on four patterns that often go unnoticed: dismissing, derogatory criticism, blame shifting, and bringing up the past. These habits show up in everyday moments, during a disagreement with a partner, a comment at work, or a response to a child’s frustration, and they quietly chip away at connection.
Alejandra shares examples that make these habits easy to recognize, even if you didn’t realize you were using them. She offers a thoughtful shift: acknowledging someone’s experience without needing to agree with it. From there, she walks through what it looks like to express hurt without attacking, to take responsibility without spiraling into shame, and to stay present rather than reaching for old grievances as ammunition.
What would change if your hardest conversations felt safer? If you’ve ever walked away from a conversation wondering what just went wrong, this episode will help you understand why and give you tools to start communicating in a way that creates more trust, not less.
Quotes
- “Dismissing is an aggressive habit that creates distance rather than understanding.” (05:56 | Alejandra Siroka)
- “Acknowledgement is not the same as agreement. When you acknowledge, you communicate to the other person that their experience is so. It is their experience.” (06:54 | Alejandra Siroka)
- “If you don’t know how to express your internal experience and share it with others, resentment will build and it will come out later as derogatory criticism.” (11:17 | Alejandra Siroka)
- “The conscious alternative is to take ownership of your mistakes, your interpretations, your projections, etc.” (14:19 | Alejandra Siroka)
- “In 99% of cases, there is no need to bring up the past, especially if you are doing it to hurt or to elicit guilt or to make someone wrong, which by the way, is violent communication.” (18:26 | Alejandra Siroka)
Links
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Podcast Music composed by Gary Lapow: open.spotify.com/artist/1HlMhcNfKIELxYil5mVqD
