[Starry Night Coaching] May Newsletter
Shannon Friedman
How to Maximize Your Communication Potential!
Communication is great, but what are you communicating about? When you say “I want you to understand me,” what do you mean by “me”?
“Me” is a very complex concept. What is it about “you” that you want people to understand? You might say “my feelings.” I counter “your feelings about what”?
It would take a master of the human mind to understand you, if you don’t even know what you want to be understood about yourself! First they’d have to answer the question of what it is you want to be understood for, before they could even get to the question of how to understand you, let alone do it.
So how do you understand yourself? Say you want to understand why you are feeling upset. First, start by really feeling your upsetness when the state hits you. Are you carrying your shoulders uptight? Is your jaw clenched? Do you feel like you want to tuck your body up into fetal position? Really feel it. How is your breathing, is it rapid and shallow? Make an effort to slow it down if that helps you take your inventory of the rest of your body.
Once you get a feel for what upset is like for you, notice the next time it happens. Pay attention to the clenching of your jaw, the shallowness of your breath, and so on.
Eventually you will get to a point where you notice the physical signs of upset in the moment when you are upset. It’ll take a lot of work, time, and observation, to get there, but once you do, this physical self-understanding will give you a big leg up on mental understanding. When you realize in the moment that you are upset, then you can in the moment look at what is triggering you! You don’t need to try to explain it in retrospect, instead you will know. This trigger is what is igniting your inner conflict. It is a key to what you want to be understood for.
Once you know what it is that triggered you, you can communicate to your partners with clarity. You can communicate with them not only that you are upset, but also what triggered you, which can be the difference between giving them a problem that causes them to feel helpless, and giving them something concrete that they can work with you in partnership, together, to find a solution for.