Mindful Communication
Healthy communication is like a garden. It is only going to grow as fast as grows. There are things we can do to help our garden and there are things we do that harm our garden. I have simplified this down to 3 poisons and 4 fertilizers.
Our three poisons to avoid: mind-reading, intent-assigning, and tone-policing. In mind-reading we assume we know what the other person “really meant.” We stop listening to the things the other person is saying and instead we listen to our own beliefs about it. Intent-assigning is a slightly different variation of mind-reading where we assume why a person says or does things. For example, “I know you’re only doing that to placate me.” Tone-policing becomes the red herring of communication in which we focus more on delivery and less on the content. I often tell my clients that as the receiver of communication, their only job is to believe the words that the giver is saying.
Our three fertilizers to encourage a healthy communication garden are radical honesty, the ability to be concise, the ability to validate or, at the very least, repeat what the giver has said, and curiosity. Radical honesty is the ability to identify to the self and others our personal experiences. In classic therapy, they are the “I” statement. Radical honesty always begins first with the self. Through increasing the mind-body connection, a person increases their ability to identify their thoughts and emotions. Through radical honesty we share that with others and engage in authenticity and vulnerability. Radical honesty also identifies that our memories, our thoughts, and our feelings may not be true – what they are is important. The ability to be concise helps the receiver of the communication to better understand and focus on the important parts. I ask clients to have conversations 2 sentences at a time. They can think of it as the one tweet to get their point across or two bullet points. Now, some people do better when they process out loud. That’s important to know and understand about yourself or the other person in the communication. It is always ok to ask the giver for the tweet or two bullet points they would like to receiver to focus on. That is then when validation and repeating happen. The receiver takes a moment to validate what the giver has said. For example, “I can understand why you would feel that way,” or “I can see this is upsetting for you.” And if the receiver is unable to understand or validate the other person, simply repeating can be just as effective: “What I heard you say is…” (Note that with a statement like this the receiver is also using radical honesty or an “I” statement.) Another part of validation is curiosity. With curiosity, we can convey to the giver of communication that we are invested and interested in what they have to say and what is going on in their experience of reality. By asking questions like, “What is that like for you?” or, “What does that mean to you?” we show our care more deeply.
Clients will often tell me that communicating like this is awkward and weird. Yes, it is. Just like common core math, which is difficult to understand and remember to do the steps in the right order, this is common core communication. By going back to the basics of communication a person relearns healthy habits so that someday they can do communication calculus in their heads.
Some more resources to help:
I Don’t Have to Make Everything All Better by Gary and Joy Lundberg
Radical Honesty by Brad Blanton
