Transforming Your Communication

 

From the time you were born, you could communicate.  Though your communication abilities were nowhere near as developed as they are now, you could still communicate. Your little lungs cried out to communicate your body’s needs.  Over time, you learned how to communicate much more intricately with words, body language, facial expressions and tone. 

Though most of us would agree that our communication skills have improved significantly since birth, I would say that in some ways our communication has also worsened.  It’s pretty spectacular how well younger children communicate.  I think we’ve all had a child tell us something that perhaps seemed unorthodox, but was incredibly genuine and true.  I was talking to a mom once who shared a hilarious story with me.  She had a procedure done at the hospital the day before and had one of those hospital wrist bands with a barcode on her wrist.  Her little son inquired about if it was a price tag. She proceeded to tell him that it wasn’t.  He then reassured her that if it was a price tag, he would buy her for ALL the money in his piggybank.  I thought this was such a tender example of the purity of children’s communication.  You see, kids usually aren’t as fearful of being vulnerable and sharing exactly what they are thinking and feeling.  They aren’t afraid to say things as they truly are.  They don’t easily mask how they truly feel.  As we grow older, we adapt habits and beliefs that mask that sort of child-like genuine communication.  Yes, we learn skills, like how to not scream and cry when things don’t go our way, but we also lose some of the authenticity that children have.   

As we age, we often develop damaging forms of communication in our relationships.  These forms of negative communication can severely impact marriages and other relationships if we don’t learn how to overcome them.  If you want your relationship to improve, you must learn to speak in positive ways that edify and build those around you.  So I want to share five secrets of communication I learned this week that can help improve communication in any relationship. 

The first secret is called the Disarming technique.  This means finding truth in what the other person is saying, even if you think they are wrong.  This can be difficult, because the pride within us usually wants to disagree.  It’s especially difficult when we don’t feel fondly for the person we are talking to, but it teaches us to have the quality of grace. Giving people something, they may not deserve. It is a godly attribute.

The next secret is expressing empathy.  This is key to connecting with people and helping them feel understood and loved.  You don’t have to pretend that you know what they are going through, but you can repeat to them what they shared with you to show that you heard and understood them.  The next secret is Inquiry.  You can ask them questions to show that you want to understand their point of view even better than you already do.  This allows them to feel comfortable with sharing their feelings with you.  Another powerful secret is using “I feel” statements.  This is an art that children seem to possess.  We should not resist sharing our genuine deep-down feelings with people.  It requires being vulnerable, but it humbles us and shows that we are human and have feelings just like them. 

The final secret is called stroking.  This simply means expressing your respect and admiration for the person you are talking to.  The key to stroking is that it must be fully authentic.  It cannot be half-hearted or fake admiration.  There’s a saying I love that says, people don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.  Feeling loved will validate your words to someone more than anything else you can do.

Well now that those five secrets are no longer secrets (because I shared them with you), go share them with friends who may be struggling with relationships or communication.  When you have a difficult conversation to confront, find ways to implement these “secrets” and it will transform your conversation into an edifying experience.  These principles are surely unnatural.  It is more natural to disagree with someone’s opposing opinion than it is to use the disarming technique.  It’s more natural to put up walls and not share your feelings.  But I believe that we are here on earth to learn how to oppose our natural tendencies.  We are here to fight against gravity and become stronger in the process.  It is definitely hard to implement these communication techniques, but in the end, it is so much less painful for both people.