Hear Here (eBook)

Chapter 1

Foundation of Effective Communication

Hear You - Hear Me

“There is no substitute for empathy. It is a foundational relationship between human beings.”

—David Wheeler - Father of Sandy Hook Victim

There is one element that forms the basis of all that we teach and practice in Effective Communication: empathy. Because it is fundamental to this work, it is important to understand exactly what we mean by empathy.

Empathy is the ability to deeply understand another. It’s sensing and then validating what another is experiencing. It’s slowing down and appreciating what it’s like to be in their situation.

Empathy is sometimes used interchangeably with sympathy. Sympathy is different. It means pity or sorrow for someone’s misfortune. Having empathy for others is listening to what they are experiencing. Sympathy is feeling sorry for them.

Having empathy for my own thoughts, needs, and feelings also involves slowing down and appreciating my own inner world. This is validating myself. When I tend toward self-pity, I “feel sorry for myself.” This is disempowering and I look to the outer world for someone to blame. I lose the most vital element of awareness. In this case, self-awareness.

Empathy is at the heart of Effective Communication. So far, the concept of empathy may seem abstract. With Effective Communication practice, empathy is manifest and made concrete.

The title “Hear Here” focuses empathy in two distinct and principal directions. The first path we’ll travel is Hear You. Selwa referred to truly hearing others as “Tracking.” This is not in any way interfering with another’s thoughts or feelings. Quite the opposite; it’s the practice of listening deeply with compassion and love.

The second essential path we’ll learn on this Effective Communication journey is Hear Me. We’ll refer to that as Impact Statements. In order to get to the “I” part of this listening equation, there’s a fair amount of learning practice on the “You” part to do first.

How do we embody empathy for another person or for ourselves? We begin by learning “Tracking.” This is the first and most important skill used throughout Effective Communication. It is listening deeply and empathetically.

A key related idea in learning Hear You is how to validate others – exactly as they are.

Validation is also at the center of Hear Me when I express my wants, needs, thoughts, or feelings.

After working with Tracking, we’ll take a deep dive into Impact Statements. It’s a successful way of clearly stating your needs and wants. All people benefit when both these skills are integrated.

Effective Communication, in all its facets, is a practice. It’s not about “getting it right.” It is more like apprenticing in a fine craft. Start by allowing yourself the opportunity to learn this as a new “art.”

Understanding and practicing putting the skills to use is truly the “hokey pokey.” (That’s what it’s all about.)

Briefly, this is the foundation of Effective Communication.

Ram Dass wrote:

When talking about awareness, most of us identify with our awareness through the ego, through the mind and senses. But the true self is in the middle of our chest, in our spiritual heart. So, to get from ego to the true self I said: “I am loving awareness.” Loving awareness is the soul. I am loving awareness. I am aware of everything, I’m aware of my body and my senses and my mind, I’m aware of all of it, but I notice that I’m loving all of it. I’m loving all of the world. The self that I identify with emanates from the ocean of love. The self that is the ego is the ocean of fear.

When I am loving awareness, I’m aware of everything outside, but pulling into the heart, the spiritual heart brings me to loving awareness. I’m aware of my thoughts, but loving awareness is simply witnessing them. And loving awareness is in the moment. I have thoughts about the past and future, and those are not helpful, so I dive deep into the present and the presence and in this present moment we will find loving awareness.

Many of us were taught to please (or not upset) others. We often did not communicate our own real needs. We hoped that others would intuit them and gleefully fulfill them. Others learned that demanding was the only way to get their needs met. Let’s be honest: these limiting, learned strategies have not been very fulfilling. Still others were taught that hinting about our needs might work.

Understanding and using the skills of Effective Communication make these strategies obsolete. We can integrate our Aware, Loving Hearts to replace old limiting thinking.

You may wonder, “Really? How do I do that?”

Our Aware, Loving Heart

What is meant by Aware, Loving Heart? Our attitude, in Effective Communication, is what makes it unique. Specifically, engaging our Aware, Loving Hearts, as our teacher Selwa did. This attitude holds all involved in “unconditional positive regard,” a term coined by psychologist Carl Rogers.

Being clear about and putting these three words into practice will take some effort. Let’s start with Aware.

What is really being referred to here is self-awareness. Being conscious of your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. This is an easy thing to put into a simple sentence. It is, however an entirely different thing to actualize.

Here is an example from a recent workshop:

A participant was asked to describe a situation that had recently happened with her father. Specifically, she was asked to simply tell the group how the instance began, without any judgement, opinion, or personal point of view, to just start talking about the event as if it were being viewed by a video camera.

“My father, who’s always busting in without even knocking, burst in to my apartment. He was practically foaming at the mouth!”

Arnie gently interrupted, “All right, Susan, try just stating what you saw simply and without any opinions.”

To make a long story short, it took many attempts for Susan to simply get to, “My father came to my apartment.”

The purpose of this little exercise was to allow the group to see how much intensity and “story” we bring to our communication based on the experiences from the past or concerns about the future. When judgements and opinions are our main focus, we are not able to be aware: aware of the moment and what’s happening right now.

What seems to keep us from simply “being” in the moment is reaction. Someone says something or looks at us in a certain way or with a particular tone of voice and we have a “knee-jerk” reaction. Now, this reaction is nearly always defensive, assaultive, arguing or some other unaware reply. It’s as if we’re time bombs primed to go off at the slightest agitation.

This kind of reactive behavior was learned very young and has been repeated and practiced throughout our lives. It is going take some doing (or undoing) to move from a reflexive way of reacting to an Aware and responsive way of being.

Aware responsiveness is the basis of boundaries. When I breathe and notice that a reactive “part” of me has been activated, Awareness is just that.

Often, we are not “seeing” ourselves. We are reacting to feelings, and unawarely expressing thoughts or judgements.

When a breath is taken and I become more conscious of my inner thoughts and feelings, I can be Aware. I can see that another person is expressing a view or doing something that there is absolutely no need for me to take personally.

This is going to take practice. Anticipate things not going smoothly at first. It may feel as if you are “failing” many times. Each time you’ll be more aware and come away with a little more knowledge of yourself and how to allow others to have their own realities without yours being harmed or minimized in any way.

So, it’s helpful to know that feelings will arise in many interactions. It’s normal for people to have problems, to disagree, to have feelings, and to react.

That bears repeating; Problems are normal.

We become mindful when we know that is true; there’s nothing “wrong” or that needs to be fixed. In non-life-threatening situations, breathing, slowing down are essential. Validating and listening are the most effective responses. This is Self-Awareness in action.

Take a moment right now and review your experiences with reactiveness:

• Recall a recent time you reacted to something that was said, done, not said, or not done.
• Remember a time in the past (perhaps the distant past) when you reacted in a similar way.
• Look for the exact moment you snapped out of the present moment and “took it personally.”
• Imagine how that might have gone differently, had you slowed down and breathed through the whole exchange.

Imagine how it might have gone differently if you listened and simply validated instead of reacting.

To communicate from an Aware, Loving Heart, this first step of Self-Awareness will take some work and thought…to say the least

Loving. Okay, what is meant by “Loving” in Effective Communication? As a guide, we’ll use David Richo’s 5As, from his book How To Be An...