Relational Awareness: Conscious Communication Matters

Your life is happening right now.  Will you take the opportunity to connect with those you love and care about? Being able to communicate your thoughts and feelings with those you love and care about can be difficult but when you are able to share and be understood, there is almost no better feeling.  It brings you a sense of place in the world.  It helps you to know that you are cared about and safe.  It can bring you greater intimacy and belonging. Skill is involved and many articles and books will outline the techniques of communication.  Yet, at the heart of worthwhile communication is the desire and willingness to connect with honesty, kindness, well meaning and love.  That can actually be a tall order....

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When I ask couples “what is the biggest challenge with your partner?” the most frequent answers are, “my partner does not understand me,” “she/he doesn’t listen to what I am saying,” “I don’t know how to talk to him/her,” “I can’t get through to him/her” or just “we don’t communicate at all.”  Communication may seem like the simplest of skills and yet misunderstandings are common and can easily escalate from annoyance and frustration into fights.  Without compassionate conscious communication relationships fall apart.
 
Conscious Communication is not just for couples.  It is important for everyone. We are taught how to read and write however, we have not learned the basics of clear communication that expresses not only your thoughts but also the meaning and intention behind the words.  It is a skill and an art to cultivate.  If you want healthy relationships with family, friends and colleagues, it pays to be a conscious communicator.  Conflict and drama lessen.  You experience more understanding, sharing and intimacy with those you care about.  Constructive communication skills will give you confidence to express yourself clearly and give you an advantage in business or work environment.  You will attract friends and have happier long lasting relationships.  

Consciously Communicate with Presence

What does it mean to Consciously Communicate?  Being Conscious is a purposeful act.  It means you are Aware and Present with the other person in an intentional way.  The ones you care most about are the people that you are likely to ignore or take for granted and they most likely do the same with you.  How can communication take place when there is a disconnect? When you are awake to the other person and fully present communication is an enlightened practice.    

Communication is a 2-Way Connection

There is always a speaker sending a message and a listener receiving it.   For a smooth dialogue to take place each person must be conscious of their part and be able to switch between roles.  It takes effort and concentration.  Think of it as a circuit that you are completing.  Both people need to actively and consciously participate.  

Your Role as a Conscious Speaker

Think about Why You are Communicating

Are you communicating to express an idea, to relay important information, to express a thought or emotion, to share an experience, or to deepen your connection?  Are you speaking to solve a problem?

Communicate with the Intention of Connecting

Be aware of the person in front of you.  If this is your partner or someone you care about remember your love for them.  If this is a friend or colleague, speak with kindness no matter what you are asking, talking about or discussing.  Always speak with integrity, honesty and respect.  Do you care about the impact of your words and how your words will be received?  

Speak to Make things Better

When an issue arises between you and another person be honest about your true intention and purpose in speaking.  Are you speaking to clarify, to resolve the issue or dilemma, and to create a harmonious meaningful connection or are you retaliating and attacking?  Being contentious, demanding, resentful, abusive, or manipulative will alienate, disengage and create separation or worse amplify into a battle.  Is your ego involved?  Do you need to win? 

Speak so People Will Understand

Great speakers are interested in the recipient and want to help them understand.  Speak the listener's language.  It is the role of the speaker to convey the message in the clearest most concise form for the listener.  Doing otherwise would be talking just to hear yourself speak and not getting your message across.  Delivery matters.  Keep it simple.  If you go on and on you will lose the listener’s attention.

Relate Your Emotions as Well as Your Thoughts

Whether you realize it or not, your feelings are detected by those in your presence.  Allow yourself to speak the truth about what you are feeling.  Thoughts and ideas are important, yet your emotions reveal your interior dimensions in a way that thoughts cannot.  Sharing your emotions with those closest to you creates intimacy.

Notice the Sound of Your Voice

Pay attention to the tone and volume of your voice. Your personality is reflected in the tone, inflection, volume, and pace of your words and reveals your attitude as well as your mood.  Is your voice even, calm, nurturing, expressive, charismatic, persuasive, and easily understood?  Is your intention clearly expressed?  Shrill, whiny, loud, yelling, pleading, caustic, and piercing words will drive people away.  Contempt, resentment, and anger will distance others and undermine any attempts to persuade, resolve problems or create harmony.    

Notice Body Language

The way a message is expressed helps the listener to receive.  Are you relaxed and engaged?  Is your body position cueing the listener that you are equal to them and not dominating them nor shrinking from them?
 
Pay attention to the listener.  Be present with them.  If possible, look into their eyes and notice their body language.  How are your words being received?  What does their body language say?  Are they bored?  Have they stopped listening?  Are they irritated?  Do their eyes roll as you speak?  Do you sense interest or curiosity about what you are saying?  If you are aware, you can adjust your words to help the person understand or you can stop and inquire about what is happening for them.

Your Role as a Conscious Listener

Listen with Presence

The role of the listener is just as important as that of the speaker.  Be fully attentive and curious about the speaker's perspective.  Listen carefully to their words, take in the details and watch for subtle messages in their tone and body language.  Receive them as a fellow being with ideas, experiences, as well as struggles. 

Listen Without Interrupting

Are you actively listening to the person speaking or are you waiting for your turn to share?  Hold onto your questions and assumptions.  Give them “the floor” and don’t interrupt.  Their perspective may differ from yours.  Difference can be exciting and sometimes turns to a sense of threat.  When you drop your ideas, open and receive their truth and honestly listen to another’s perspective, you don’t become “different.”  Antagonism drops away and a realization of the fundamental “sameness” can enter.  Their struggles don’t look different than your own.  You will reap the benefit as conscious listening soothes your nervous system.      

Watch the Speaker's Body Language

Watching the speaker's body language will tell you a lot.  It will reveal information beyond what the words alone are saying.  Are they sharing a joyful experience?  Do their words match what their body is telling you?  A person may describe being "fine" while their arms are crossed, their body slumped and their eyes gaze downward.  You sense something is off.  If you pay attention, you will notice the incongruence.  Is there more not being said?  Sense the emotions of the speaker with interest and compassion.

Listen to Understand 

Be curious about their perspective instead of making judgments.  When it is your turn to speak, inquire or ask questions for clarity and to help both of you reach deeper into knowing the other. Be open to alternate ideas and viewpoints.  

When Someone has an Issue or Complaint Listen Without Defending  

When issues or problems are brought up let go of defensiveness.  When you are defensive you are not listening to the experience or perspective of the other person.  Long explanations of your intentions give the impression that you are not paying attention to the other’s complaint or request and are only concerned with yourself.  It can sound like an excuse or that you are deflecting or invalidating the other’s experience.

Magical Tips to Improve all Relationships 

Be Compassionate  

Sense what the other person is experiencing.  Have empathy and be supportive.  Help them to feel heard and safe.  If your friend or partner is hurting, they will not be at their best.  Receive their struggle and offer what you can.  

Validate Other’s Emotions and Experiences  

When someone has an emotion, it is what he or she is experiencing.  It is the truth.  Whenever you tell a person not to feel or that they should not be having that feeling, you are invalidating their experience.  It is painful and causes people to question their reality.  It is dismissive and they may react with resentment, anger, and frustration.  They do not feel seen, heard or cared about.

Let go of Criticism, Blame and Retaliation  

Focus on your own issues and growth rather than on the other person’s.  Attacks, diminishment, digs, debasement, passive aggression, condemnation and threats are hurtful, harmful and mean.  It does not cause people to change.  Are you retaliating to punish them?  Resentment is destructive and creates contempt.  If you are hurt and want to understand, you can ask for clarity.  Listen with an open heart rather than assuming the worst.  You will learn more by honest inquiry than with blame.   

Give up Your Compulsion to Be Right

What is the point in being right?  Will your version of what is “right” change their truth?  Are you attempting to dominate or belittle someone with your opinion of what is right?  If you continue to batter someone with your point of view, what happens?  Are they happy that you corrected them?  Notice what it does to your relationship.  It is actually a form of violence.  Realize that there are as many differing worldviews and opinions as there are people on the planet.  Does it really matter that you went to dinner at 6:00pm on Saturday night or Friday night?  Let go of the little things.  Do you have a photographic memory of every word of a conversation?  Better to find out another’s perspective rather than berate them for what you believe is the “truth” about what they meant.  Be flexible and adaptable.  You can disagree without assaulting someone.  A difference of opinion does not make you or them less.  In fact, truly listening to different perspectives opens you up to a wider understanding of the other person.

Acceptance and Kindness create Harmony and Understanding

The more you are able to accept differences in others with kindness, the more harmony will enter your life.  The key to understanding is to relate to others as kin rather than enemies.  Everyone makes mistakes.  You will make mistakes and your loved ones will too.  Everyone has struggles, problems, times when they are up and times when they are down.  Compassion begets compassion.  

Have Appreciation and Gratitude for the People in Your Life

Relationships are the most profound experiences in life.  The people that enter your world offer you a mirror into the innermost depths of you.  In the end your intimate connections with others is what you will cherish.  As you relate to others, you learn more about yourself and humanity.  Treat people as the gift that they are.  As you appreciate them with gratitude, you give yourself the gift of love.