do you or someone you love tend to talk too much that's what i'm gonna talk about today three signs and solutions on how to deal with it but first my name's michelle ferris i'm a licensed marriage and family therapist and i love helping people create relationships that work so first is people talk too much often because they miss the social cues this could be not paying attention to what the other person is how they're responding social cues are something where you have to be paying attention to
what feedback you're getting and some common signs that people might miss is if you notice that the person can no longer maintain eye contact or they're getting fidgety and look disinterested that's a telltale sign that you may need to take a pause and check in with who you're talking with but people who talk too much may not recognize those signs what i would have you do is to jump in and say hey you know what let's take turns i want to hear about you and then maybe you can hear about me and s
ometimes that can break the ice some people who talk too much have social anxiety they don't know what to do in a social situation they don't have really good conversational skills so what they do is they rely on their own stories to kind of carry them through a social situation but the problem with that is is that your end up dominating the conversation and the and you're not really having a back and forth conversation you're just talking and they don't realize that because they're really nervo
us so with these folks what i want you to do is take a breath and remember that their feelings are not your feelings and if they're anxious that doesn't mean you have to be anxious now the third type of person that talks too much is the most challenging this is the person that tends to be more self-centered they may or may not have narcissistic traits narcissistic traits are more about someone who tends to lack empathy which means they don't really care much about what the other person feels and
thinks they're more interested in themselves and getting their own needs met so they tend to dominate relationships they have a big energy and they don't have a lot of tolerance for other people's pain or other people's needs okay that doesn't make them bad or wrong what's challenging is that with these folks what i would really recommend is reassess the relationship because if i know that someone is naturally self-centered and they don't really have a tolerance for hearing about my stuff i'm g
onna have much lower expectations of them i'm not gonna ask them to listen when i'm really upset now this does get harder when it's your mate or a family member that you're living with so in those situations i really want to make sure you get outside support from other friends from therapists from people that can hear about you because being in a relationship with somebody who tends to be more self-focused is naturally going to be more challenging now let's talk about the three solutions the fir
st one i want you to do is interject into the conversation if the person who's talking too much just interject your own comment about what they're already saying part of what you're gonna need to do is you're gonna need to interrupt them to do it and i know for me i had a hard time because i didn't want to interrupt somebody but with these folks you tend to have to you have to just jump in and say something and see if you can get your point across now the next tool you can do is share a story sa
y hey you know what something really interesting happened to me or i'm really having this struggle and i really would like to tell you about it and just launch into it don't wait for permission if the person is unaware socially or anxious or self-centered they may not know to ask how are you so you're just gonna have to volunteer your own story the third solution you can do is bring it up as an issue you can say something like you know i notice that when we get together we tend to talk a lot abo
ut you but not a lot about me and i would really like to change that that's a really kind way to bring them up to speed on what the issue is now here's the thing though if you do that and they say oh my gosh i didn't realize i was doing that of course i want to hear from you that's a sign of health that's somebody that you're going to probably be able to go deeper in your relationship because they actually care and they want to change that pattern if on the other hand the response is i don't kno
w what you're talking about i think we're doing good or i think you talk all the time and you know inherently wow i really don't then you know that you're probably dealing with that third example of the person who is more self-centered and tends not to be able to tolerate somebody else's needs now again with that type of person you can bring it up as an issue but if they don't acknowledge it as an issue even after bringing it up that's your invitation to reassess the relationship it doesn't mean
you're gonna end the relationship especially if it's a husband or a family member but it is something to be aware of because if i'm gonna hit my head against the wall expecting them to be different i'm gonna be super frustrated but if i know that you know what this one person doesn't really tolerate hearing my stuff i'm going to have much lower expectations of them i'm not going to get into a lot of hope that they're going to be different or if they love me they would be different because that
doesn't work so those are my signs and solutions i really hope it's been helpful i would love it if you click like on this video so more people can see it and i also have a free relationships checklist to help you assess the health of your relationships because you don't always have to go to therapy to do that this worksheet is very thorough it's going to show you qualities in your relationship and your own relationship behaviors that are really going to help you see what the next steps are for
you in the relationships and who are keepers and who are the ones you may need to distance yourself from so i hope this has been helpful thanks so much for being here bye you
Comments