The art of being heard, being known the right way
On one of the webinars the topic was “Not being heard… Being misunderstood”
Every person on the call had at least one painful childhood incident where their speaking wasn’t getting for them what they intended to get, instead their speaking was earning them grief and heart ache.
They wanted appreciation, understanding, equality, or love, validation, significance, or at least agreement.
When something doesn’t work, one would expect, next time you’ll try something different. But no… in real life it seems that the more something doesn’t work, the more you, humans are trying to fit a square peg into a round hole.
When we looked, each and every one of us were repeating and repeating and repeating the incident in our lives, the same way, expecting a different result. Insanity, right?
I have had the same experience with clients before: until the “original” incident is drained of all the pain and charge, they were repeating it. More than that: they have proven unwilling to learn the way to be always heard, to be always known, to be never hurt again, to be effective… the art of communication anything to anyone.
This is one of the underpinnings of upset: we call it undelivered communication… but often it should be called miscommunication.
Communication happens, not in the speaking, but in the results. No results: no communication. You telling someone something is not communication, it is you talking.
Communication is an art… no kidding.
I remember when I first “learned” the art, back in 1985. I had no idea what I learned, so it quickly went away. But while it stuck around, the art… results were happening when I spoke…
…in sharp contrast with the past where I could never say anything, where I could ever ask of anyone that produced the result I wanted: success, cooperation, support, etc.
Then I “learned” the art again, in 1987, and the experience was as if I had a six foot pole that was doing my bidding “over there.”
I still didn’t know what made the difference, so it quickly disappeared again.
It didn’t stick around until a few years later where finally I got the piece that made speaking work, speaking become communication.
It was in the invisible. It was unconscious. I consciously didn’t realize that something happened in all those courses in the invisible
What? This is what I teach in the Instant Coherence workshop.
We reveal there what you are unconsciously conveying when you speak, but really often before I even say hello.
We all know the cartoons where someone unwittingly walks around with a sign on their back: “kick me” or something like that… Well, it is real. You have a sign on your back and on your forehead, and unless you get conscious of it, you can’t change it.
What is it that you are saying that makes them treat you badly?
If you watch yourself, you do either of two things when you start to talk to someone:
- Small talk… weather, how are you doing, and bs. like that. You are doing it to establish something, but you don’t… you ask the questions, but you don’t care about the answers. or you don’t say why you are asking it.The natural consequence is suspicion, or indifference, a “space” where you can’t say anything that matters to you… or if you do, it will be rejected, or not heard at all.
- You assume that you have a relationship with the other… After all you know them, maybe you are even married to them, or have given birth to them.But there is nothing to assume: if you watch, intimacy, good will, harmony doesn’t live in that relationship 24/7… it is an occasional phenomenon, and you have no real idea what created it. It is out of your control, and you pray for it, because those are the moments MOMENTS! it is worth having those relationships.You have lost friends, even husbands due to this assumption. Painful? Yeah, very. After all, you loved them… but they didn’t know it.
In the Instant Coherence workshop, we do the digging for what it is you have been saying, and what could you say instead: the formats, the essence of communication that can alter your relationships, that can make you successful, get heard, be appreciated, get more effective, and ultimately a happier person.
Why I don’t use this platform, these articles, for that? Because you read the articles with your mind, and your mind only wants tricks. In fact that is the first barrier we need to pass in the workshops…
The problem with tricks that they don’t alter your being.
I don’t know any single course that effectively teaches you to alter your being… If you go back to the beginning of this article, I have done the Landmark Education
- communication workshop,
- the communication course,
- the advanced communication course,
- the year long training in communication… (Team, management, leadership)
- and then did them again, and again and again. Finally, after about 5 years I got it… I went from trickery to beingness, to authentic communication.
Authentic communication is as rare as diamonds. We know salespeople, coaches, etc. that learn how to “communicate” with clients, but at home they are jerks…
It begins with knowing how you are now… what it is that you don’t say but yet communicate.
Then we’ll look how it’s done… So you have can a choice. Those publicly effective communicators don’t really have a choice, they have “public” and “private” options… they just know tricks.
Why? First off, no one really teaches it effectively, because mind training doesn’t effect your beingness. Secondly: there is a price you need to pay.
What is the price? In addition to money, you need to give up something, something that is near and dear to your heart…
…and that is the second reason it’s rare to find a program that can produce results: unless you are willing to see, willing to tell the truth about who you are being in the many situations of life (warning: there is nothing pretty there!) you can’t alter your being…
…and you cannot learn effective authentic communication, that is win-win, nurturing, life affirming, and causes a life worth living.
Find out really who you are being, in every instance of your life
The “course” where you learn how to do it, going from area to area, incident from incident, is the Playground… but if you want something instant… I have a workshop series.
You cannot hide in the Playground: all you hide will come out loud and clear… It’s probably not for you if you want continue to live in an illusion about yourself. But if you are ready to pay the piper for a better you, a better life, then it is for you…
The faster way is the Instant Coherence workshop. It deals with the most fundamental issue: Who do you want to be in the matter of your life? And start building the capacity of BEING… the capacity of the kind of speaking that results in the alteration of your being… your attitude, your perspective, your frame, your context.
I know. It’s getting obvious
Sophie, this would be a great coaching webinar. For the past few days I’ve been observing myself and noticing how I have no idea how to communicate. I am ready to work at it. Thank you.