Communication is Everything

Week Nine:

Communication tools are the best!

     Communication: the key to success. That is success in relationships, which is overall the most valuable area to be successful in.

     At the heart of every message conveyed, every close relationship, and every desire to communicate lies an unseen normalcy of communication that is as complex as it is beautiful. When everyone communicates, they use intricate ways of forming a message and use a tool or plethora of tools to convey their message over to a receiving party. These are considered different communication media. These could be texting, body language, talking, etc. After someone formulates the message that they desire to convey, they send it in the best way they can, and then it’s up to the receiving party to actually decode this message and respond in their own way. This is actually how all communication happens in all forms.

     As this came to my mind, I’ve thought that it seems so inefficient and odd. Why were we not built in a way to just read each other’s minds and know exactly what’s going on in another’s life. That would be so much simpler… but maybe that’s the key. Possibly the process of making, preparing, and decoding communication is how we all grow closer to each other to build deeper meaningful relationships. I think these inside relationships and communication pathways make us all have strong reliable intimate groups of people. 

     So great. These communication skills are innate and are God given, we rely on them to live any sort of positive meaningful lives. But sometimes communication can become difficult, stressful, and downright hard. Marriage can become strained, relationships rifted, all because of a disconnect in communication. Communication is told to be 51% non-verbal, 35% tone, and 14% speaking words. All together with so many moving parts, it’s easy to see the difficulties possible in communication. Luckily there are so many beneficial outlets and sources to learn better communication skills and the intricacies of human interaction.

     Dr. David Burnes has been one of the top professionals on human interaction and I learned all about a few of his practice applications. One of which I learned in class actually manifested its usefulness and power this week as I had an opportunity to practice it. 

     Dr. Burnes teaches that people can use a disarming effect which is a form of empathy when there is a miscommunication between two parties. It works a little like this: When people are communicating and having arguments, they often speak what’s on their minds although the message that they are assembling, packaging, and delivering may have some distorted odd issues with it. In this disarming technique, it takes listening and searching through someone’s message to see the real hidden truth and discover their actual feelings. This is obviously harder than it sounds because when someone comes to another in a blaze with no viable form of communication being given, it can be almost unbearable to admit that they are speaking the truth and the truth hurts. 

     I thought this sounded so amazing and I thought of all the ways I could have used this tool back in the past. Hindsight is 20/20. I thought of recent conversations or open dialogs that I could use this but unfortunately, they were void. But I came across a situation where I shared this process and helped someone else learn this priceless tool. 

     A girl I know was trying to convey to a friend that they were really struggling with her parent’s recent divorce. Unbeknownst to her, the friend had a parent pass away in the recent past and found little room to sympathize with something that seemed less dire than her own situation. So, with harshness and callousness her friend fired back at her saying at least you have both your parents. Obviously, this would lead to some confusion and hurt. She was actually shocked and had no idea that she was struggling too. She reverted and became hurt and distanced herself from that person, now both of them are struggling. 

     I felt super bad for her and offered the disarming effect as a possible solution to look for the hidden truth behind her message, which was I am hurt, I wish someone cared about how I feel. She saw what I meant and we actually role played that in a professional setting. I could feel the difference in the way she changed her focus and understood the struggles of her friend instead of turning in. She learned that it’s always better to look out and become aware that there is an underlying issue. 

     All these tools are available to us now, I am super grateful to be in a position to learn them and begin applying them now. I hope you all start too. God bless.