Communication
In our world today, communication is key to success in all things. It may not be obvious at first, but I assure you, without communication life loses all meaning. The funny thing about communication is that we are engaging in it constantly, even sometimes without knowing. Yet there are very few people today that are masters of communication. It is, in fact, rather difficult to master communication. When you consider that every facial expression, every eye movement, every shift in pitch and tone while speaking, every hand gesture and every detail of your posture is a form of communication it starts to become more clear how important this skill is in our lives. Even silence is a powerful tool for communication. Timing, accenting certain words, leaving out certain words, laughter, tears. All of it communication.
But why is communication so important to life and Love? Communication is most literally sharing. It is the sharing of an idea, an opinion or a feeling. Now let us consider quickly what it means to have a personality. What is it that makes us feel unique? What do we base our personality upon? It seems to me that our personality is composed of our ideas, opinions and feelings. These three aspects are what define us as… us. Without our ideas, opinions and feelings we are truly nothing. And this is why communication is so important. Communication allows us to express ourselves and truly live our personality. But this is also an opportunity for confusion to enter. If communication is nothing more than sharing our ideas, opinions and feelings then why is it so few people are masters of communication?
In our world today there is an overwhelming sense of competition between humans. In competition it is wise to withhold information from your competitor, in order to maintain an edge. Withholding information is actually rather difficult. It does not come naturally. Through our facial expressions and eye movements alone we generally betray almost all of our opinions and feelings. Unless of course we practice deception. Unless we teach ourselves to lie. If we can learn to restrain our reactions in certain situations where we do not trust the other person completely, then we can keep them guessing as to our true intentions.
This has become incredibly important in our world of suffering. It is cyclical however, and is caused by an overall lack of trust. And the end result may not be quite what you expect. We learn to mask our emotion at a young age, through the judgments received by those who came before us. Those who are already wounded. In time we come to realize that when we express our feelings and opinions and ideas honestly we are faced with judgment, rejection and pain. So we stop doing so. We become masters of un-communication. But in order to truly mask our communication, we must not only control the words we use. We must also control our facial expressions. We must control our eyes and our hands. But in order to do this, we must literally change our thought patterns. We must lie to ourselves about our feelings. It is the only way to effectively mask yourself. Otherwise some truth may slip out. If we acknowledge our ideas, opinions and feelings then some evidence of it will appear in our overall demeanor. And a perceptive person will pick up on it. And we know that. So we don’t acknowledge the idea. We don’t acknowledge the opinion. We don’t acknowledge the feeling. And we are safe from judgment. Safe from rejection. Safe from the pain.
But we are living a lie. By refusing to acknowledge how we truly feel in a given situation, we instead choose to act “as expected”. But this category of “as expected” varies as widely as the person describing it. The funny thing about “as expected” is that it is simply a compilation of the judgments that you have received previously. As we lie to ourselves about our true feelings, we instead adopt the feelings of those around us. Those around us have done the same, adopting their feelings from wounded individuals that have judged them. A cycle of un-communication and a recipe for disaster. There is no room for Love in this scenario. When we adopt our ideas, opinions and feelings from those around us, for fear that our true feelings will betray us, we lose our personality. We lose what makes us unique. That which makes us special. When we lie to ourselves in order to mask our intentions we begin to lose sight of our original goals. Our new goal is to avoid suffering, and it takes precedence over all others. The more we withhold information for fear of rejection and isolation, the more we lose our sense of self. The less we communicate, the less we are able to experience Love.
So what is to be done? How do we avoid this cycle of un-communication?
Honesty.
Impeccable honesty. There is no other way. Allow yourself to have ideas. Allow yourself to have opinions. Allow yourself to have feelings. And then share them. Share them with everyone you meet. Make eye contact with the people you want to make eye contact with. Smile. Laugh. Ask questions if you don’t understand. Make mistakes. Say stupid things. Apologize a lot. Mean it when you apologize. Realize you aren’t perfect. But say what you are thinking anyway. Just share. Share with your eyes, your hands, your face and your voice. Share all that you are and all that you could be. There is really no other way.
And soon enough you will come to a realization. Ideas can’t be wrong, only strange. Opinions can’t be wrong either, only misinformed. And feelings can most certainly never be wrong, only brutally honest. If you can never be wrong, then what is there to hide?
Communication is key to Love, and all things for that matter, because it is the key to our understanding of ourselves. If we cannot allow ourselves to communicate honestly at all times, then we are hiding something not just from others, but from our self as well. Love relies on honesty and true sharing. Love is communication. They are not different things. If we can master one, we have mastered the other.
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Something else I have thought of, communication with people who don’t have the best communication skills. I know a few. Sometimes not giving up is key to getting to know what the other person is thinking. It takes extra effort but it is usually worth it. Just like your effort with the fellow at work who was not a great communicator.
I had never considered this: that those who teach us how to communicate or not, are wounded people themselves ……….. so they pass down their own wounds into us. Good insight!
“Our new goal is to avoid suffering, and it takes precedence over all others. ”
and that right there is probably the truest thing you’ve said on this blog. It’s why even the easiest of the Challenges were difficult sometimes. The problem is, too few people recognize this as “avoiding suffering”, but convince themselves that they’re “securing acceptance”. The question is, though, who are these other people really accepting? Me, or the made up version of me who will receive the least judgment? Sometimes it’s hard for even me to tell the difference.
I don’t know how the cycle can ever be broken either. As long as we’re all seeking out Love and acceptance, but also fear rejection, our true selves will nearly always remain safely tucked away where the world can’t hurt them.
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