The BEST Communication Skill You Already Have But Probably Barely Use

Addressing our fears and how we really feel is a bit easier than we tend to think…it takes osme gumption and changing things up but if you can learn to actually say what is under all the leaves and branches and really take on the root of the matter, your communication skills are going to be so much better therefore making your relationships better as well. So often in my private practice when my clients are in my chair, they are able to express the root the matter, what I call their “Ick Truth,” so well. But, when I ask them if they have said exactly this to the person who truly needs to hear it, like they just expressed it to me, they report that no, in fact, they have not. Today, we will learn how to find your “Ick Truth” and express it well so you don’t feel vulnerable but actually empowered in speaking your truth.

In this episode we will learn:
~What the “Ick Truth” is and why it’s important.
~How to find your Ick Truth and express it fully to get to the root of the matter
~Throat and Heart Chakra Meditation: Speaking your truth


The Host for this podcast: Cheri Augustine Flake, LCSW The Stress Therapist and Author

Join Cheri Flake on her Next Meditation And Yoga Retreat! In the mountains or At the beach


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Interesting Mentions:
Cheri’s Book addressing the communication patterns in this podcast: Honey Do To Honey DONE! A Simple System For A Productive And Happy Household With Absolutely No More Nagging!

Heartwood Retreat Center : location for Cheri’s Georgia Mountain Retreats

Ethereal Network of Shows Spotlight!
Ronnie Ann Ryan – Business Intuitive, Wise Woman, and Past Life Reader Keen Insights, Practical Advice and Solutions for Business & Life
Host of the Breathe Love & Magic Podcast
Best Selling Author of Is He The One? and 5 other books Award-Winning Blogger https://IntuitiveEdge.biz


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A word from your host, Cheri Flake, LCSW: Feeling good after our Stress Therapy session? Awesome. Check out the show notes to connect with me, The Stress Therapist on social media or go to www.iLoveTherapy.com to find out about meditation classes & meditation and yoga retreats.

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00:00] Hey, beautiful people. So we are trucking along on this communications ride. We are learning new communication skills that really make your life better. And today, I’m gonna give you the very last one, because I saved the best for last. You don’t even have to learn this skill because you already have it. I call it speaking your Ick Truth, but almost no one ever does it, and it changes everything. And today, I’m gonna teach it to you. It’s season six on Stress therapy tips and tricks that this psychotherapist wants you to know. So relax and settle in and listen up, because your stress therapy session is about to begin right now. Hey, beautiful people. It’s time for some Stress Therapy, a podcast about how to meditate and get better at stress for people living in the real world. Finally, a place to park my 25 plus years of experience of working as a psychotherapist in the mental health field. And now, your host, me, the stress therapist, Sherry Flake. Okay, before we get into the thick of it, we’re gonna take a teensy tiny break. Be right back. Hi, beautiful people. What’s up? Okay, so here’s how it goes down. This goes down in my chair all the time, constantly. This is why I’m mentioning it here. This is what this whole podcast is about, what happens in my chair when.

[01:42] It happens over and over and over again.

[01:44] I bring it here so hopefully some of the things that I’ve worked on with my clients that have helped them feel better or resolve an issue or come to some sort of peaceful place, I bring it here so you all can maybe take it and use it.

[01:58] In your own lives and feel better.

[01:59] But here’s how it goes down all the time. This happens. I swear, like, maybe even like once a week, this happens.

[02:06] I will have someone in my chair.

[02:07] Describe exactly how they’re feeling about a situation with someone in their life that they love. And it’s usually their significant other or spouse or partner. And they will tell me so eloquently exactly how they feel about something. I mean, it is stellar communication coming at me. And then I say, have you said that to insert person? And they say, well, not exactly like that. And I’m just saying, what if you did? What if you said exactly what your ick truth is? So here’s how it goes down. We get wrapped up in the leaves and the branches of a tree. We forget the roots. And the root of the matter is where resolution lies. It’s where things get fixed and better and expressed and just. It’s where all happiness lies. And what we end up doing is talking about something that’s true, like the leaves and the branches, rather than the ick truth, the real truth, the real thing that’s going on. And so we want someone to figure out the ick truth. So I’m going to give you some examples. Okay? So before I launch in with a couple of examples, I just want you to understand why I’m calling it the Ick Truth. The Ick truth is the real truth, right? I described it as the root of the tree, right? What is actually going on? You can name a lot of true things about any situation, but the real truth is why you keep coming to it if it’s an argument that you’re having over and over, or why it bothers you, like the real reason it bothers you. And so we get wrapped up in all these other little teensy tiny truths that may be true, but they’re not really guiding the behavior. They’re not causing the argument. They’re not really asking for resolution or love to come in, because you can’t really get that if you’re not speaking your real truth. The real Ick Truth, which can leave you feeling a little bit vulnerable and a little bit icky. And so it takes a second to do that. And it’s a lot easier sometimes to tell me or a friend or someone else exactly how you feel because you’re risking a lot by telling a loved one. But really, I think that is a little delusion that we create of ourselves. We do much better when we actually tell our Ick truth. It goes really well. People worry about being vulnerable. But when you actually open your heart and open yourself up to really exposing exactly how you feel about something, people are hip to that. And most people are not going to be stomping all over you. They’re going to recognize it and they’re going to want to be there for you, and they’re going to want to help you. And that might resolve the actual problem that you’re having, if that makes any sense at all. So that is what the Ick truth is. Now, I’m going to give you a couple of examples and here’s how it goes down. So let’s say that a lot of my clients come in and they’ll say, my partner isn’t kind of like carrying their weight or doing enough around the house, or I’m doing everything, or something like that. And so they’ll have an argument with their partner, and it will go something like, listen, you never helped me run the house. I’m doing everything. And they use all of these all or nothings. And that can get you lost in some places. When you use an always or never, it kind of shuts off any truth finding, right? Because no one ever does anything. Always or never, right? And those are traps. And whoever you’re talking to is going to get stuck on that, right, and not really hear the other part, which is probably the Ick truth, right? And so how do you find the Ick truth? Well, you ask yourself if I’m telling my partner over and over, I’m doing everything, you’re not helping out around the house. I feel like I’m in charge of everything. You ask yourself, if that’s true, then what does that mean to me? Well, it could mean that you’re overwhelmed and you need help. I’m overwhelmed. I need help. It could mean that at the root of the matter, I don’t feel appreciated as your partner. It could mean I don’t feel like I can count on you. And that scares me a little bit. Usually the Ick Truth, frankly, is fear, because fear is the opposite of love. And if you can’t share that really true bottom root fear, you’re not going to find any resolution there. And if you can actually express that fear, love steps in. So if you started having an argument that said, listen, you don’t help around the house, you’re always doing this when I’m doing that, or you don’t help me with this, or I feel like I have to do it all on my own. And then you come to me and you say, I feel like I do everything around the house. It’s not fair. We’ll start to talk about it, and it just starts to surface. That. Ick truth. I don’t know if I can count on him. I don’t know if he can help me. I feel overwhelmed. I’m scared. I don’t know how much I can handle, right? And when I ask them to say that to their partner, they’re like, no, I’ve never said that to my partner. But what if you went to your partner and said something like, I’m scared. I feel overwhelmed. I don’t think I can do this all by myself anymore. I feel like I might get sick from it. I’m worried about my health. Whatever it is, whatever that Ick Truth is. And that’s how you find it. You keep asking yourself if that’s true, this leaf or this branch is true. What does that mean to me? What would that actually mean? It would mean that I don’t feel like I can count on you, and I don’t feel like we’re equals in this relationship or whatever it is.

[07:51] Okay.

[07:51] You’ll be able to figure it out by asking yourself that question. I hope that’s clear. So let’s say that you’re having the same argument over and over and over. And often a partner will say, we’re having the same argument over and over and over. Why do we keep having the same argument over and over? I want to stop having this argument over and over. Well, if that’s true, what does that mean? Well, it probably means that you don’t feel heard, that your comments, suggestions, opinions, ideas are falling on deaf ears. That’s what it feels like when you have the same argument over and over. You feel like your side has not been heard.

[08:27] And maybe there’s another Ick Truth there for you.

[08:29] It just depends, right? You got to keep asking yourself, if that’s true, what does that mean for me? And a lot of times when we work in cognitive behavioral therapy, we’ll ask people, if that were true, what would that mean to you? If that were true, what would that mean to you to get to a core belief? So it’s a lot like finding a core belief, but instead it’s an Ick truth. And it’s usually around a relationship, an argument, a conversation. And I absolutely love exploring the Ick truth with my clients because it always works out well when you finally just express your fear, when you express your anxiety, your worries, your concerns. When you actually get down to the nitty gritty, the Ick, the truth, salvation is there. It’s amazing. And so it takes a little courage, it takes a little bravery, but you can do this. You can totally do this. What do you have to lose, right? Chances are that you’re going to be talking to someone that you love and that wants to resolve this and wants to know your real truth and loves you. So finding that way can be great. And even doing this with your parents, I’ve seen unbelievably wonderful of results doing this with your parents or anyone in your family of origin. So I would say give it a try. Let me know how it goes for you. And we’re going to take a quick break, and then we’re going to come back and we’re going to meditate together, and we’re going to go over our throat chakra so we can speak our Ick truth, speak our real truth, and really bring your true voice to all of your relationships, to everyday living, to everything. Okay? We’ll be right back.

[10:15] Find a space sitting up, allowing your spine to be relatively straight with your chin level to the ground. Allow your head to settle in. Allow all the muscles around your eyes and in your face and around your jaw and even around your ears to just find a place of stillness. Allow your neck to settle in and your shoulders, your biceps and triceps and elbows, forearms, wrists and hands. And today, bring your hands into a gyan mudra, which is making the okay signal with your hand, with your first finger and thumb touching, making a circle and then allowing your palms to rest on your knees. Allow your heart center to settle, and your belly and your guts. And from the base of your skull all the way down your spine to your sacrum, settle in. Your bottom, your thighs, your knees, your calves and shins and ankles and feet and all of your toes. Settle in. Today we’re going to do a breath meditation. Breathing in your nose, follow this beautiful breath to your throat. Notice how breath moves past your throat, in and out. You may imagine this breath as a beautiful blue color coding this particular communication throat chakra with beautiful blue breath. Just watch it go in and out, in and out. Now follow the breath even further as this breath comes into your lovely heart. Chakra through this place of love filled to the top with bliss forgiveness, peace, unconditional love. So as the breath passes your throat, it comes down into your heart center. Maybe you see it turning the color green, lighting up your heart, chakra from breastplate to spine, from shoulder to shoulder begin to breathe in your nose, past your throat chakra into your heart chakra and shooting out from your heart. So the breath comes in your nose, down your throat. And now imagine that your breath doesn’t come from your nose, really that you’re able to actually breathe it through the space between your eyebrows, this place of wisdom and knowing breathing in to that space past your throat chakra into your heart chakra and shooting out of your beaming heart, your beaming chest filled with love. Breathe in through your third eye down and out of your heart center I’m going to leave you with this visual meditation, this chakra meditation. Breathe in through your third eye coming to your throat coming to your heart and breathe out of your heart space. I’ll be back in a few minutes to guide you out, your mind’s eye to all away from your throat, from your heart and just watch your breath as it finds its normal rhythm and space and place again in your body remembering that we don’t really breathe anyway. We’re kind of being breathed. It’s being handled so you can watch it without changing it or manipulating it or taking it over. It goes great without any interference on our part. So take a moment here to just watch it how it is without direction, without judging you take a long, slow, deep breath in your nose let it all go out of your mouth and take another long, slow, deep breath in your nose. Let it all go out of your mouth. Just noticing when you take control of your breath how different that is. One last breath in your nose, cleansing and clearing and awakening and out of your mouth. And when you’re ready, you can open your beautiful eyes.

[24:53] Hope that your throat chakra is wide awake and open and you’re ready to speak your truth. You can do this. Let me know how it goes with your ick truth. I would love to hear from you. Certainly. Jump on my website ilovetherapy.com, and sign up for a retreat with me and learn how to make meditation habitual. Learn how to make it a part of your everyday living without stress, without procrastination, without excuses. And when we come back, we’re going to do a gratitude meditation for Thanksgiving. And then I’m going to take a little bit of a time off, and then we’ll be back in the new year to do all of my favorite things, which is how to get those beautiful, healthy habits into your life with regularity and spend your precious, precious time in your beautiful, beautiful life doing exactly what brings you joy and how to do that. Okay? I love you. Have a lovely, lovely day. Before I go, I want to tell you about another Ethereal Network shows podcast that I think you’re going to love.

[26:07] Hi, I’m Ronnie Ann Ryan, your go to intuitive coach bringing real talk to the mystical realm on the Breathe Love and Magic podcast. Feel like the universe or your spirit guides aren’t delivering? Maybe you’re confused by esoteric lingo or which healing method to try. Well, you’re in the right place, because who has time for confusion when you’re trying to build a business? Find love, heal, and recover, or leave your partner or job. I’ll turn that mumbo jumbo into clear actionable steps that fit easily into your life. So buckle up, open that heart chakra, and let’s cut through the cosmic fluff together, shall we? Good fortune favors the bold and those who aren’t afraid to call. It like they see it right here on the Breathe Loving Magic podcast.

[26:57] How y’all feeling after that stress therapy session? Good. Awesome. Check out the show notes to connect with me, the stress therapist, on social media, at the Stresstherapist, on Instagram, and at stresstherapy on Twitter. You can always go to ilovetherapy.com to find out about meditation and yoga retreats and other offerings that I have there. If you live in Georgia and you’re ready to be one of my clients, go to my website to find out how you can sign up for a free face to face consultation with me. At the very least, jump on my mailers so you don’t stress or miss one thing. Until next time, have a lovely, lovely day.