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Debra Fileta: And oftentimes what we’re told to do in our culture and society is when we’re triggered, we’re told to back away, cut that person out of your life, no contact, isolation, withdraw from them. But what if triggers were actually God’s way of revealing what He wanted to heal inside of us?
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John Fuller: That’s counselor and relationship expert, Debra Fileta, describing ways that you can improve your people skills. And she’s back again today on Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. This is a fascinating conversation, thanks for joining us. I’m John Fuller.
Jim Daly: You know, John, last time, uh, Debra shared several people skills, which are just practical ways to love others through our communication.
You know, again, spiritually speaking, there’s application here. I think the Lord wants us to be good communicators. He’s the model for it, and we talked about that last time when it comes to whether you’re aggressive or passive or passive-aggressive or assertive, which is really the healthiest place to be, which is where you see Jesus communicating. He didn’t back up and leave truth just to be liked. In fact, He would ask good questions and kind of lead people to a conclusion, hopefully, that benefited their eternal soul.
John: Mm.
Jim: I mean, that was amazing. And today we’re gonna continue those discussions to talk about those things that trigger us in our relationships. I think we all know what they are. I certainly know mine. And, uh, you know, I could really mess up with my wife, Jean, if I don’t slow down and try to speak in a way that gets to her heart, not just make a point. And I think it’s gonna be really helpful today.
John: Yeah, and if you missed, uh, the program last time, uh, we’ve got audio copies available online. Certainly, one of the easiest ways is to download our app and, uh, access all the great content anytime you need.
And as was mentioned, Debra Fileta is a counselor, and she’s written a terrific resource for all of us to improve our relationships. We’re built for relationship and for community by God. Uh, so step up stronger, get a copy of the book, People Skills: Your Relationships Are Only as Strong as Your Skills, uh, from our website.
Jim: Debra, let me kick off in a lighter tone here. You’re a counselor. I would assume that what drew you to that profession in part was the interest in other people and helping them to fix their issues. I mean, that kind of is the definition of a counselor.
Debra: (laughs).
Jim: But you have a skillset that is different from, let’s say, the husband that’s a little superficial. In fact, I think in the book, you talk about John being the floating duck-
Debra: Yeah.
Jim: … type of person, news, weather, and sports. (laughs).
Debra: Yes. We talk about relationships kind of like different levels of depth of a pool.
Jim: Mm-hmm.
Debra: If you think about it that way. There’s the shallow end and there’s the deep end. And I always say there’s different levels of interaction and communication. You know, I could talk to you for an hour but not necessarily have a deep conversation.
Um, and I think that’s one of the reasons spouses struggle. The wife might say, “Well, I feel like we’re not really communicating.” And the husband’s like, “What do you mean? We talked for an hour yesterday.” But we’ve got to understand that there’s levels of communication. There’s levels of depth.
And my husband always jokes that when it comes to levels of depth, I’m like the scuba diver swimming in the deep end of emotions, and he’s the duck floaty guy up on top with the facts, the basics. But the truth is you need both in relationships.
Jim: Mm.
Debra: And so, real brief, the levels of conversation: level one is the most superficial. It’s the facts. You can have a facts conversation with anybody. “How’s the weather today? What are you up to? What are your plans?”
Level two is a little bit deeper because it requires more of you. It’s your opinions and ideas. It requires you to share what you think about something, your opinion about the weather or your opinion about your schedule.
Level three takes us a little bit deeper and it’s our feelings. “I’m feeling frustrated. I’m feeling hurt. I’m feeling embarrassed. I’m feeling excited.” It’s a lot more of who you are.
And level four takes us even deeper into our beliefs, what God is teaching us, our faith, something even a little bit more vulnerable.
And so, think about that as you’re engaging in relationships. You cannot swim in the deep end for too long. As my husband says, “We need to come up for air.”
John: (Laughs).
Debra: But if you stay superficial, you’re not going to feel that your relationships are going deeper.
Jim: In that regard, Debra, I’m sure there’s people listening and watching who are saying, “That kind of defines my marriage.” You know, “I’m frustrated…” And again, I’ll just use stereotypical language, it may not always go this direction, “But my husband seems to stay at the top, at the surface.”
Debra: Yeah.
Jim: And therefore, you will say as the wife, “I feel emotionally, you know, bankrupt.”
Debra: Yeah. Disconnected.
Jim: “I don’t feel like we have deep emotional conversations,” while the husband is thinking, “Man, we are connecting.”
Debra: Right.
Jim: “She knows everything about the Broncos.”
Debra: Right.
Jim: “That’s cool.” But that’s not what we’re talking about. How do you intentionally move to something deeper when you’re not… When you’re used to the floaty duck?
Debra: Exactly. This is where we have to remember, it’s not a lack of love, it’s a lack of skill. And even the idea of emotional depth and emotional connection and emotional intelligence is something that many people haven’t learned. Maybe they grew up in a family where level one and two were the dominant levels in the interaction. They don’t even have the language for level three.
And this is where a counselor can be really helpful. If you feel that you are emotionally bankrupt, if you feel that there’s an emotional disconnect and you try to have deeper conversations and you feel like they’re not going anywhere, this is a really great time to consider how could a… the help of a counselor, um, encourage us as a couple-
Jim: Yeah.
Debra: … to go a little bit deeper.
Jim: But again, it’s that assist that really does get you talking in that way. Let me ask this question and again, just looking at stereotypical marriage types.
Also, you can find that one is willing to go there, but the other may get defensive or protective or whatever that might be when you move beyond level one and two, when we’re talking about emotional hurts, et cetera. Kind of those triggers that we, uh, will continue to discuss today. And therefore, that spouse learns to not go there.
Debra: Yeah.
Jim: Because when you go there, you get this, you know, response that trains you to not go there.
Debra: Yeah.
Jim: ‘Cause it’s too private, they don’t wanna go there, et cetera. How… I mean, where do you go with that? And you kind of, in that relationship, you have a learned behavior where, “We don’t go deep” because going deep causes him or her too much pain.
Debra: Oftentimes I find with couples specifically that they only go deep when there is a hurt or offense. “I felt really hurt by this. And so I’m telling you, you know, we need to change this.” Or, “You did something that really hurt my feelings. I don’t like how you…” And we wanna go deeper at the moment of offense.
They are gonna get offensive. They’re gonna feel offended. They’re gonna not want to engage if they feel like the only time you’re coming to them with feelings is when you’re hurt, upset, disapproving, critical.
And so, we have to be careful to actually set aside time to go deeper when there isn’t a hurt and an offense.
Um, one thing I’ve talked about before, but I think it’s worth mentioning is the practice of a 30-minute check-in once a week with your spouse. Setting aside 30 minutes to have level three and four conversation outside of the heat of a moment of offense to just create an opportunity to ask questions. “What’s something you were excited about this week?”
John: Mm-hmm.
Jim: Yeah.
Debra: “What’s something you’re looking forward to? And what’s something God is teaching you?” Conversations outside of hurt can help you practice going deeper in a non-threatening way.
Jim: Yeah. I would think, and in that regard, it creates an environment that hopefully can build trust over time to where you can get there.
Avoidance is partially what I’m talking about. So if you have a spouse that, you know, you wanna go deep, but they continue to respond with avoidance, that will sound like, “Yeah, I don’t wanna talk about that right now.”
Debra: Yeah.
Jim: “We’ll talk about that later,” but later never comes. And so you’re left with asking the question a month later, a year later, whatever it might be, “Can we talk about that?” “Yeah, let’s not talk about that now. Let’s talk about that later.” And that’s the refrain that you end up in years-
Debra: Yeah.
Jim: … in your marriage hearing. What do you do with something like that to kind of pull that in a little bit to say, “No, we need help in this place. Let’s not avoid it.”
Debra: Yeah. I think you start with yourself because you are part of the equation of a relationship. And so often I look at the ingredients my spouse is bringing, and I don’t like the ingredients. I wanna change them. I wanna shift them. I wanna alter them. I see avoidance. I see withdrawal. I see isolation. I need to get rid of that. The problem is you can spend your whole life trying and it might not make a difference.
John: Hmm.
Debra: So what you can do is focus on your ingredients. How am I saying this? What’s the timing? What’s my tone? How do I do this a little bit differently? How can I adjust the ingredients that I bring to this recipe? And believe it or not, when you change your ingredients, when you refine the way that you do it, when you learn to set boundaries, when you learn the right timing and tone, when you learn better communication, when you learn assertiveness, it begins to change the entire recipe.
And so that’s what I would challenge you to do because you can focus on what you’re not getting, or you can focus on what you can do differently to change the equation, to change the recipe.
And honestly, there is help with counseling. I say it, I know I’m a counselor, but I have seen people come into my office who say, “I’m doing everything right.” But when I actually unpack what they’re doing, I can show them many, many things that they can adjust and do differently that will get a different response.
Jim: Well, which strikes right at the heart of self-awareness.
Debra: Yeah.
Jim: Right? That’s the point. And that’s a good statement. Um, Eli, your son, who’s out in the gallery, uh, on a lighter side, you’ve had some exchanges. He’s only 13, right?
Debra: Yeah, he’s only 13.
Jim: But he’s a great conversationalist. What makes him that?
Debra: You know, Eli has actually had to learn how to become a good conversationalist. It does not come naturally to him.
John: Mm.
Debra: I actually dedicated this book to Eli.
Jim: Aw.
Debra: Because I noticed there’s a lot of things that don’t come naturally to him that he has to work hard on.
Jim: Mm.
Debra: And eye contact, having good conversations, asking good questions, to the point where I hear from so many people now who say to me, “I’m kind of, you know, surprised by the fact that your 13-year-old asks such good questions.” All of that is a reminder to us that we don’t have to be born a certain way to show up in relationships healthy. These are skills that we can learn along the way.
Jim: Yeah. You know, we love the, uh, the question, “what’s the shortest scripture in the Bible?
John: Mm-hmm.
Jim: John, I’m gonna put you on the spot. What is it?
John: I think it’s, “Jesus wept,” isn’t it?
Jim: And the point of that, (laughs), it is that.
John: Okay.
Jim: But the point is that Jesus had emotions.
Debra: Yeah.
John: Mm.
Jim: And, you know, Lazarus, the whole story of Lazarus dying, He could’ve prevented it, and Mary wasn’t very happy about that. And yet He was emotional about it. There’s gonna be something that will come that is good from this.
Speak to that idea that Jesus, He’s also, um, experiencing humanity from this side of eternity and this side of the throne room of eternity. Think of that.
John: Mm.
Jim: Um, God becoming man. You can sit for days and meditate on that.
Debra: Yeah.
Jim: And the why of that and the how of that and His sacrifice on the Cross, the Resurrection. It was the way to salvation for us who believe in Christ. But in that context, He does model it for us.
How did you connect, uh, the healthy approach that Jesus would make with, you know, all of us that fall short?
Debra: When we talk about Jesus, He models healthy people skills. He models healthy relationships, and we can learn so much from Him. Uh, biblical scholars have identified over 39 different emotions that Jesus felt and expressed through scripture alone.
Jim: Mm-hmm.
Debra: And when we talk about going deep with people, level three and level four, Jesus was really good at meeting people at that level of depth, but He was also really good at being in tune and expressing that to others. 39 examples where He felt something.
Jim: Mm.
Debra: He allowed himself to experience and then He shared that with the people in His life. He was deeply troubled in the garden, and He shared His feelings with His disciples and asked them for prayer and support. That was a bid for intimacy and connection. He didn’t have to tell anybody how He was feeling. He didn’t have to ask them for support, but He invited them in.
When we’re vulnerable, we’re actually inviting people into our story. We’re saying, “Come on in. I welcome you into my life and into my heart.” And when we block out our feelings and block out our weaknesses and block out our struggles, try to pretend we’re strong, we’re actually also blocking intimacy and connection with people.
So a big people skill is for us to learn how to be vulnerable, to share what we’re feeling, to share what we’re struggling with, to share what we need.
John: Hm. This is Focus on the Family with Jim Daly, and our guest today is Debra Fileta. And, uh, we’re covering some of the content in her excellent book called People Skills: Your Relationships Are Only as Strong as Your Skills. Get a copy of this book, benefit from, uh, the insights, the principles, the suggestions that Debra has and see how your people skills can improve. Uh, we have the book here. Get a copy when you call 800, the letter A, and the word FAMILY, or stop by focusonthefamily.com/broadcast.
Jim: Debra, one of the people skills that you highlight is vulnerability. Um, you identified a study, I think, from the 1960s that highlighted the importance of vulnerability. It’s so true that is an aspect that the church, I would add, before you even give the definition, we fail so often to be authentic.
Debra: Yeah.
Jim: To talk about our own, you know, uh, difficulties that everybody thinks… My sister, Denise, was in this spot where, “I need to clean up my act before I become a Christian.” Because when she would look at the Christian community, she knew they all look so perfect, like, on the outside they all lived a perfect life. But that’s not what we should be communicating, right?
Debra: Right.
Jim: So what is this study on vulnerability?
Debra: It’s called the pratfall effect. And it’s really interesting because they rated speakers on their level of engagement and connection with the audience. And the speakers that actually had some sort of a blunder, and maybe they tripped going up on stage, or maybe they said something by accident or-
Jim: Mm-hmm.
Debra: … the mic fell off or whatever, those were the ones that were rated higher than the ones that were totally polished.
Jim: Interesting.
Debra: And the theme of that was the idea, the conclusion, that we actually like people more when we feel that we can relate to them.
Jim: Mm-hmm.
Debra: It’s like, “Okay, you’re human. You are human.” Which again, goes back to Jesus’ humanity. We can relate to Him because He had needs like we did. He had hunger. He had a need for connection. He was thirsty. He had different needs that He showed us here on this Earth. “I need you to stay with me and pray,” you know? And what does it look like for us to communicate and convey our needs? What’s going on inside of us?
Jim: Mm-hmm.
Debra: Our weaknesses, our struggles, our issues with the world around us and not just with everybody.
Jim: Yeah.
Debra: Uh, but with safe people in our lives to show them who we really are. That’s vulnerability.
Jim: It is. Uh, those triggers, um, it’s so interesting that we’re… Especially in the marital relationship, but also in our parenting relationships, you know, we wanna do our best. I mean I can’t think of anybody. Forget political persuasions, everybody wants a healthy, good, dynamic marriage, I believe.
And then your parenting side, you want, you want to love your children. You want them to do well. You want them to do better than you. You want them to just excel in every way. So then we get to these triggers and these buttons and they’re like massive speed bumps in our desire on the healthy highway of life.
Debra: Yeah.
Jim: Describe what a trigger is and that self-sabotage that we do. And I guess the deepest question is, why do we do that?
Debra: Yeah. The beautiful thing about relationships is they are a mirror to our wounds. And when people get close enough, things are gonna exposed.
Jim: Mm-hmm.
Debra: That were in hibernation, that were hidden before. You know, when you start to get near people-
Jim: Hm.
Debra: … you’re gonna start bumping up against their pain points and the things in their life, the wounds in their life. And that’s exactly what a trigger is. It’s when we have an exaggerated emotional response to something someone says or does that really hurts us.
And oftentimes what we’re told to do in our culture and society is when we’re triggered, we’re told to back away, cut that person out of your life, no contact, isolation, withdraw from them. But what if triggers were actually God’s way of revealing what He wanted to heal inside of us?
Um, I tell a story about when I was leaving the house with the kids and I was in a rush and I hit my shoulder on a coat rack, left a black and blue mark. And later that evening, John came over to give me a hug. He didn’t know that there was a bruise there. And he pushed up against it and I reacted like, “Ow!” you know, pushed him away.
Jim: (Laughs).
Debra: This is what we do with our emotional sore spots, our emotional wounds. You may not have caused the wound, but you get close enough to me to push on it. The wound of rejection, the wound of abandonment, the wound of insecurity, the wound of inadequacy. And when you get close enough to me in relationships or say something or do something that’s gonna push on that wound, I’m gonna react.
But what if the reaction is God revealing something that He wants to heal in me? “I don’t want you to react like that.”
John: Yeah.
Debra: “I want you to lean in. I want you to heal.”
Jim: Hmm.
Debra: So when relationships expose our triggers, it’s an invitation for us to go deeper in our healing so that we can go deeper in our relationships as well.
John: And for the person who is, um, maybe knowingly or unknowingly triggered-
Debra: Yeah.
John: … that individual in our life, uh, how do we have wisdom about saying something? I mean, maybe I’m the person God wants to use to help you deal with that fear of rejection you have or-
Jim: Ooh. That’s dangerous ground, (laughs).
Debra: Right.
John: Well, I mean, it really is hard because-
Jim: But it’s good.
John: Yeah. I could risk a relationship.
Debra: Yeah. Yeah. You know, if I was the person that just pressed on a sore spot and realized it, I would say something to the effect of, “I’m really sorry I hurt you in that way. I hope you know that my intention was this. I had a good intention towards you. This is what I really wanted to communicate. And I just wanna process what that reaction was all about.”
But I would recommend that you not do it in the moment of the trigger. Oftentimes in the height of the moment, we wanna process. “Well, what was that all about?” But your brain is offline during those moments, you know, you’re thinking out of your wounding.
Jim: Yeah.
Debra: And so oftentimes the best thing to do is wait until the emotion dies down and then revisit that conversation a little bit later.
John: Yeah. That’s uncomfortable though, that waiting.
Debra: It is uncomfortable, but it’s important because you’re allowing that person to get back to baseline.
John: Mm-hmm.
Debra: You’re allowing time to pass for your reaction to get back to baseline so you can have a more productive conversation. Think about it with your kids as well. When your kid’s having a temper tantrum, that is not the time to engage in a rational conversation, right?
John: (Laughs). No.
Debra: We wanna wait until the emotion dies down and then we revisit the topic.
Jim: Well, on the other side of that, it’s not the time for you to become irrational as a parent.
Debra: Exactly.
Jim: And that’s… I was guilty of that. “You come over here right now. If you don’t stop…” You know? I mean, it’s just so funny that that’s… We get down to the gutter, right? What do they call that? The lizard brain? In counseling?
Debra: Yeah. I’ve heard that. The lizard brain.
Jim: Yeah. Another skill, and I wanna hit, we’re right at the end here, but I wanna hit as many as possible. And of course, you know, get the app for the phone or whatever or come to Focus on the Family’s website and you can get the full, uh, conversation with Debra.
But another skill that you highlight is forgiveness. We all talk about that. I think the Christian community, we understand that generally.
Debra: Yeah.
Jim: I don’t know that we know the depth in the way that God has constructed us emotionally. The importance of forgiveness, like, at the core. If you can get there, it’s a beautiful place to be.
Debra: Yeah. Forgiveness is really for you to free you from the hurt and the pain, to untether you from the wounding that that person caused you and the power that they have over your life, to unhook yourself. And the only way that we can pursue forgiveness is to have empathy, which is a heart to understand and learn what that person might be going through, feeling, thinking.
Jim: Hmm.
Debra: I think of Jesus on the Cross as He offered forgiveness to those who falsely accused Him and crucified him by saying, “Father, forgive them. They don’t know what they’re doing.” He put himself in their experience, had empathy for them in order to be able to say, “Forgive them, Lord.”
And so many times we’re hurt by people. We’re not considering their trauma. We’re not considering their pain. We’re not considering their wounding that may have led them to the dysfunction that they are in.
Jim: Mm-hmm.
Debra: But I think when we can have a heart of empathy, it leads us down the path of forgiveness, which then offers us closure for us.
Jim: You know, another important attribute, and generally, these are all in Galatians 5:22, the fruit of the Spirit.
John: Hmm.
Jim: This is the character of God. But humility is another one. You can spend so much time thinking about that, that the God of the universe, the one who created everything is a humble spirit. I mean, you’d think in a human context, it’d be exactly the opposite.
John: Mm-hmm.
Jim: “Look what I’ve done,” and… But His character is humility. What do we need to emulate when it comes to the Lord’s expression of humility? “If you are in me, here is what you will be.” And humility’s one of them.
Debra: Yeah. Having an accurate view of our self and others to me is the ultimate definition of humility. Because sometimes we have an inaccurate view of self, we inflate ourselves, we think we’re great and amazing. We have so much grace for ourselves. But an accurate view of who we are, also an accurate view of the person in front of us and their value before God.
John: Hmm.
Debra: When we have a proper view of self and others, it’s so much easier to engage in these difficult things such as forgiveness, such as conflict, such as hard conversations and communication. Humility is truly, um, having a proper perspective of who we are.
Jim: Yeah. It’s so, so good. And you’ve done a wonderful job in this book, People Skills. It has such spiritual depth as well as practical depth from your counseling background. So, well done. Thanks for being with us.
Debra: Thank you. It’s always a pleasure.
Jim: This is so good. And let me turn to the listener. We hope that you’re encouraged by the conversation today. I learned a lot and I know you have as well. And I think Debra’s book is great. People Skills is essential reading. I mean, this is what you wanna know and learn. It’s like a toolbox for your relationships. I think everyone, myself included, needs a copy in their library.
John: Hmm.
Jim: Forget putting it in the library, read it, then put it, or give it away.
John: Mm-hmm.
Jim: And when you give a donation of any amount to Focus on the Family, we’ll send you a copy of Debra’s book as our way of saying thank you for partnering with the ministry and helping others. Last year alone, 110,000 couples were helped through a crisis here at Focus on the Family. That is wonderful. And you’re part of it. So be in ministry with us.
When you contribute to Focus on the Family, you’re contributing to the team of Christian counselors who are helping these folks when they call in. This is a top-notch team. It’s amazing to hear from people across the country who have benefited.
John: Mm-hmm.
Jim: Uh, Sandra wrote to us from Virginia and said this, “Focus on the Family has blessed my family and me for many years. I’m especially thankful for your counseling ministry. They’re professional and provided helpful guidance that had to be from the Lord. Thank you.”
John: Yeah, this team is deeply, uh, spiritual at the core and they offer biblical perspectives and understanding, and they’re just amazing. So if you’re struggling, uh, know that our donor community makes it possible for us to have them give you a call back and talk to you and listen to you and offer some guidance.
And they can even connect you with a trusted Christian counselor in your area. And, uh, and again, thanks to the generosity of those who partner with us to make this available to you.
Jim: I wanna thank you to Sandra for that testimony. That hits right at the target of what we’re trying to do each and every day.
We’re adding a special incentive right now. If you can make a monthly pledge of $30 or more, by July 31st, we’ll send you a Focus on the Family travel mug and four ounces, I always laugh at this, of my special blend.
John: (laughs).
Jim: Which, I’ve been told by John, is not a special blend.
John: It’s a single origin, just to set the record straight.
Jim: You can tell who the coffee drinker is here.
John: (Laughs).
Jim: Single origin Guatemalan. Am I close?
John: You are very close. That’s exactly it.
Jim: All right. I think you get the point.
John: Yeah.
Jim: And we’ll send that to you as our way of saying thank you. And we’ll also send Debra’s great book called People Skills: Your Relationships Are Only as Strong as Your Skills.
John: We’re so grateful for your partnership and now is a terrific time to become a monthly donor and, uh, to sign up and get our special limited time coffee and travel mug offer. And of course, the great resource from Debra Fileta, People Skills. Just call 800, the letter A, and the word FAMILY, or visit focusonthefamily.com/broadcast.
Next time, we’ll hear from Lysa TerKeurst about the importance of trust.
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Lysa TerKeurst: Trust is the oxygen of all human relationships. So you starve a relationship of trust, and you will starve it of vibrancy and potentially you’ll starve it of life. And it’s impossible to repair trust that keeps getting broken.
