COMMON BARRIERS
| I You | |
| ___ ___ | 1. Lack of awareness of or need to address personal issues. Common ones are |
| ___ ___ | 2. Need to be RIGHT |
| ___ ___ | 3. Judging the worth of your own and the others’ feelings. A better way is to RESPECT feelings |
| ___ ___ | 4. Believing that you must AGREE |
| ___ ___ | 5. Desire to change the other |
| ___ ___ | 6. Feeling threatened because the other is changing/has changed |
| ___ ___ | 7. Failure to address issues as they arise |
| ___ ___ | 8. Failure to LISTEN or “listening with your answer running.” Hearing is not listening |
| ___ ___ | 9. QUESTIONING, INTERROGATING, e.g. Why do you feel that way? What’s wrong? Why don’t you.....? |
| ___ ___ | 10. Giving MIXED MESSAGES e.g., I like you the way you are. Then telling the other what is wrong with him/her |
| ___ ___ | 11. Mixing up THOUGHTS AND FEELINGS. If you say, “I feel that...” you are probably describing your thoughts or your judgments rather than getting in touch with you emotions. |
| ___ ___ | 12. WITHDRAWING. Being physically present but preoccupied with work, other activities, the newspaper, TV, computer, etc. |
| ___ ___ | 13. LECTURING. The listener “gets lost” after three sentences. |
| ___ ___ | 14. MANIPULATING |
| ___ ___ | 15. BLAMING |
| ___ ___ | 16. ALWAYS, NEVER, etc. Any absolutes |
| ___ ___ | 17. ONE UPPANCE, My problem is bigger than yours |
| ___ ___ | 18. SARCASM |
| ___ ___ | 19. VERBAL ABUSE |
| ___ ___ | 20. JUSTIFICATION |
| ___ ___ | 21 + OTHERS |
Compare your responses. If your responses are similar, you have isolated those areas which need work. If your responses are dissimilar, explore the possibility that you are not honestly addressing your real issues
