Speak Honest Podcast: Real Talk on Relationships, Attachment Styles & the Work of Healing Childhood Trauma

68. Fixing the Fight Before It Starts: The SHIT Method That Actually Works

• Jennifer Noble, ACC | Certified Relationship, Dating, NLP, & IAT Coach • Episode 68

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Ever walked away from a conversation thinking, “How did that go so wrong so fast?”
In this episode, I’m breaking down my go-to tool for untangling communication breakdowns before they blow up into full-on fights. It’s called the SHIT Method—Said, Heard, Intention, Try Again—and no, it’s not just a cheeky name. This is the exact process I teach my clients to slow down the spiral, make sense of what actually happened in the conversation, and get to the root of the disconnect without blame or shame.

We’ll go through real-life examples (like the text that came off too cold or the “Can you slow down?” that turned into a trust issue), and I’ll show you how to clean up the mess in a way that brings you closer—not further apart.

You might want to listen if:

  • You find yourself saying “That’s not what I meant!” more than you’d like
  • You or your partner tend to get defensive (fast)
  • You replay arguments in your head, trying to figure out where it went wrong
  • You shut down or lash out instead of saying what you really feel
  • You want a clear, compassionate way to repair miscommunication in real time

FIND OUT MORE!


DISCLAIMER: Speak Honest podcast content is informational, not professional or medical advice. Jenn is an ICF relationship coach, not a licensed therapist. Consult health ...

Jenn:

Hello and welcome to Speak Honest. I am your host and certified relationship coach, jennifer Noble. It has been my passion for over a decade to help women like you heal what's been holding you back from having the relationships you deserve. Are you struggling with a relationship where you can't seem to voice your emotions, needs and boundaries without having it blow up in your face? Then you have found the right podcast, my friend. Get ready for practical tips, empowering truths and honest conversations. Now let's dive in.

Jenn:

Hello everyone and welcome back to another episode of Speak Honest. I am Jen Noble, your go-to relationship coach, and on today's episode I want to talk to you about what it's like to try to communicate with someone and you think you said maybe something neutral or something, when you're trying to make it better and then it blows up in your face. And this is when we need to clean up our shits. And what I mean by that is we have a shit method of communication here at Speak Honest where we utilize this ability to be able to hear what someone else is saying and be able to understand their intention. So shit communication stands for said, heard, intention and try again. So you hear that. So, before we get started, I wanted to reach out to you and say, if you are looking to get more coaching on this shit level of communication, then I want to invite you to be on the podcast right now. So if, as you're listening to today's episode, you're thinking, jen, that sounds really great, but my situation is different. My situation is more nuanced. You can't possibly understand this. Awesome, I love those types of clients. I want to be able to talk to you. If you have said something in your relationship and it has blown up in your face, then I want to invite you to apply to come and be on the podcast. We are currently looking for more people in the summer to come on and get coached for the podcast, and the way that this works is you're going to come on, you and I are going to have about 30 minutes of conversation together where we get to dive deep into your personal situation.

Jenn:

This isn't just theory or happenstance, or hey, jen, I have this question and I answer based on my assumptions of your issues. What's actually going to happen here is you're going to explain. So, jen, I said this thing to my husband and now I created a fight and we haven't talked in three days. Okay, great, let's go through that. What did you say? What happened? Is this a pattern? Has this happened before? Where is this going? What is your attachment pattern? What's his attachment pattern? And that's what we do with the live coaching in the Speak Honest podcast. So if that sounds like something that you want, please scroll on down to the show notes and you're going to see a link that says apply for free coaching with Jen, and that is going to get you in application form, like a Google form, and you're going to be able to fill that out and I look through every single one of them. My team sends them to me. I look through them all and I see, okay, this right here is something that we can definitely do and if it works out, we will have you on the podcast and that is how we not only help you, but we help a community of women who are listening. So if you've ever listened to this podcast and you've heard some of my coaching calls and they've inspired you to try different things in your relationships or to level up your own healing, that is what you would be offering to other women in the community. So if that sounds like something you want to be doing, please come and apply to be on the podcast with me.

Jenn:

With all of that said, let's jump into today's episode. All right, if you have ever walked away from a conversation thinking shit, that is not what I meant to say. Or worse, maybe they said something to you and you completely misinterpreted it and now everything is blowing up in your face and everything has gone to shit. That is what I want to talk to you today and now. I gave you a little bit in the intro, but let's go through it again. It stands for S said what you said, what you exactly said, and then H heard what they heard. You say no, these do not always match up. What you said and what they heard oftentimes do not match up because we are going at conversations with our own lived experience, our own perceptions. So we need to get clear on those two things.

Jenn:

Three intention what were you trying to say when you said it over here? So you said it, he heard it, but what was your intention? That's important. Intention does matter. I feel like there's a lot of rhetoric out there right now that says, oh, it's not about the intention, it's about how it made you feel and like no, intention is incredibly important because you don't mean to hurt someone's feelings. Oftentimes it just comes out wrong. And then, lastly, t try again. So this is where we try to say it again, maybe in the moment, maybe later on down the road. It's where we can understand what they heard and we can understand that that wasn't our intention, and so we're going to try again. So let's talk about how this actually looks in practice.

Jenn:

Okay, so let's say you are driving in a car with your husband and he's just going really fast and you've had a lot on your mind and you just say can you please slow down? Simple, you didn't mean anything by it. You just said can you please slow down? But then he starts scoffing and getting angry. And next thing, you know, you guys get home and he's not talking to you and he slams his door to his office and you're like what the fuck just happened here? All I asked him was to slow down. It wasn't that big of a deal. And so now you guys are fighting and you go to bed angry and everything just blows up in your face. So here's what happened. You said can you please slow down? But what did he hear? What do you think he heard? He heard you're a bad driver, I don't trust you. You always screw everything up, oof right, that's not what you said and it definitely wasn't your intention. But it might've been what his attachment wounding heard.

Jenn:

So let's go to the I. So we're going to see intention. What your intention was was you were starting to feel anxious and you've been in a car accident before and that brought up some memory for you and you felt a little bit triggered and you've had a really rough day. So your system is already a little bit on overdrive and you needed him to slow down because it would really help you. Your intention wasn't to say he was a bad driver or he screws everything up or that you don't trust him. Of course you trust him. That wasn't your intention.

Jenn:

So what are we gonna do next? We're gonna try again, maybe something like hey babes, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to come off so intense. I trust you and I'm feeling a little bit anxious because of past stuff and I would just feel safer if we slowed down a little bit. So this is how you can try again in the moment. If you notice that uh-oh, something went off, maybe when you guys get home and he's shut down, you can say like hey, babes, can we start over? I think I might've said something in the car and I didn't mean it that way and I'm so sorry. So this is where we can start trying again. And then in the future, let's say you're in the car and you know that this is one of his trigger points and because you love him and you're trying to work with him, you're going to say hey, babes, I'm having that familiar feeling again where I'm really stressed out. Do you fact?

Jenn:

This was something that happened with me and my husband a couple times because I do have driving anxiety. Well, actually, I should say it the other way I have passenger anxiety. I'm a terrible passenger because I prefer being in control and driving. So as a passenger, I'm constantly like twinging and I'm constantly tweaking and I'm constantly just like freaking out and just like, oh my God, it's just, you should see it. It is like I'm in a constant state of fight or flight.

Jenn:

And in the beginning he honestly like took that to heart and he just thought that I didn't trust him and I appreciate where he was coming from with that. But it wasn't about him, it was about me. So we had to kind of find this dynamic and had to have a big conversation about like listen, I can't stop this natural reaction, but I promise I will work on it. But just so you know it's not about you. And now I even tell him that sometimes we're in the car and we're like, apparently I'm just having a very passenger trigger moment, I'm going to close my eyes, I'm not even going to look. I have to do that sometimes when we're driving on freeways and there's a big truck coming next to me, I want to squeal and I hate it so much. But this is the shit method of communicating. Okay, we're going to say the thing. Then they heard the thing what's our actual intention? And let's try again. So let's try one more.

Jenn:

Let's say you and your partner made kind of loose plans to hang out after work. You guys were going to go and get a drink together or something like that, and so now it's 730, but you haven't heard from them. And when they finally text, they say hey, just finishing up, now should I come by. But it's like 9 pm now, and so you text back don't worry about it, I figured you forgot, hmm. But then an argument breaks out and he texts back and he gets a little bit cold and passive, aggressive. And then he says, okay, fine, well, I guess I'll just see you next week then. And you're like wait a second, I thought we were going to like hang out this weekend. And now you're mad at him and he's mad at you and everything is blowing up and it's going to shit.

Jenn:

So let's fix this conversation with the shit method. Said don't worry about it, I figured you forgot. There might've been a little passive aggressiveness in there. Maybe we could have like said that differently. But let's see what he heard in that moment. He heard you're inconsiderate, I've been stewing about this all day and now I'm punishing you. So now in his mind he's like oh great, now she's punishing me, oh, she can punish me. Then I'm going to punish her back. So see what's happening? It's just our attachment toddlers going at each other again, butting heads.

Jenn:

But what was your intention? Your intention when you said I figured you forgot was I was really looking forward to seeing you and I felt a little bit disappointed and unsure of where we stood when I didn't hear from you. See, that's actually vulnerability right there. The thing you said was a little bit passive, aggressive, it's not wrong. Maybe you did. Figure he forgot and maybe he is a little bit right in what he heard, which was there was an undertone of well, you're being inconsiderate and I'm punishing you, but your intention was pure in the moment. Okay, it's not your fault Sometimes things happen but your intention was you felt disappointed and even a little bit confused and unsure about where you stand in the relationship, because maybe you are a little bit anxiously attached and you need that reassurance and that's okay. But we need to work with that. So let's try again. Okay, so again, s-h-i-t-t. Try again.

Jenn:

You say something like I'm sorry, babes, that was a little bit snippy. I was really looking forward to tonight. I just felt a little bit like you left me hanging and I'd still love to see you. If you're up for it, you could try that. But maybe you're not down to see him, maybe you are a little bit upset, and so you could say something like hey, I know I got a little bit snippy there, but I realized now how important it is to me to be caught up on if we make plans. So if we say you're going to come over at 7.30, it's really important to me that you message me by at least 7.30 so I know what's going on, because I spent about 90 minutes worried about where you are or what's going on.

Jenn:

See how now we're kind of communicating what's actually going on in our system. And if we wanted to go back even further, let's say we could go back in time. I give you a magic wand and you want to go back in time. And he says, you know, hey, just finishing up, should I come by now? Maybe you're like, yeah, he should come by. So he comes by, and then you have this conversation. You say, hey, I'm feeling a little bit off right now. I could really use some reassurance. But I realized I didn't like waiting those 90 minutes and I know you didn't mean to, but I realized how important it is for me to be communicated to when our plans are up in the air. There you go, see, that's communicating, that's how we work through the shit.

Jenn:

And you can imagine in this scenario there's a high chance where he says something like oh what, I have to be on my phone all the time texting you. That's a little bit right again, passive, aggressive. Maybe he get a little bit feisty and fussy about that. And so you hear, this is always going to happen. You hear, oh, she's just expecting so much out of me again. You're feeling all of this stuff.

Jenn:

But his intention in that moment was just to protect himself. His intention in that moment was to try to earn back some autonomy, because he was feeling a little bit trapped. And so what he could have said in that moment instead right, if he tried again what he could have said was I understand, it's really important to you and I want to work with you on this. And also, I can't always be on my phone at these times. So how best can we work on this together?

Jenn:

If we can get to that try again stage in the shit communication method, then that is where the real healing happens. It is okay that we mess up, you guys, it really is. Sometimes things come out of my mouth and I didn't mean it. I go wait, I'm so sorry, can I try that again? And this is what life is all about. But we want to get to that vulnerable space. We want to get to that place where we're coming at it from honesty, from integrity and honoring who we are and living in alignment with our values. Because, remember, communication is all about collaborating with someone that you love and working towards a relationship together.

Jenn:

All right, everyone, I hope you enjoyed today's episode. I hope you got a lot out of the shit communication method that we teach here at Speak Honest. Remember again it is what you said, it is what he heard, it was your intention, and then we try again. So if you have any questions about the shit method, go ahead and jump into the Facebook group and ask us there. We always put up a post every week for the podcast, and so we keep conversation flowing in that moment. Even if you heard this two, three, four weeks, months, years later, you can come in, use the search engine, look up which episode number it is and then you can jump in and join the conversation.

Jenn:

But if you are out there right now and you're listening to this episode and you're thinking, jen, I understand what you're saying about shit communication, but I'm not able to get to that try again stage, I just I can't really understand why he heard it that way and I'm struggling to validate him. Well then, in that case, I would love to have you come on the podcast. I would love to be able to break this down with you more. Maybe we could get into a more bodily, somatic experience to see what's holding you back from being able to communicate in a secure way, and we'll work together on that here on the podcast, which helps not only you but the other women in the community to hear that they're not alone, that there's other people out there like this that are struggling, and that we can do this together, because the most important thing I want you to remember is that you do not have to do this alone. You weren't meant to do this alone. You were meant to be in community. You were meant to be in connection, and one of those ways you can do that is by joining the Speak Honest community. So I would love to have you on the podcast.

Jenn:

Scroll on down to the show notes, click on the link to apply for a free podcast coaching. Call with me and I cannot wait to speak with you. All right, everyone, I will speak with you all next week. Take care, as we wrap up today's conversation, always remember that healing is a journey, not a destination, and it is an honor to be a part of your healing journey. If you want to dig deeper into the topics we covered today, be sure to head over to our show notes, where you can find all of the valuable information mentioned in today's episode right there, and please remember to rate, review and subscribe if you enjoyed today's podcast. Your feedback means the world to us and helps others discover our podcast. Until next time, remember to speak up and speak honest.

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