Communication Lessons

by Maria Magdalena Badea

A little girl comes back from school very upset after the first day in school in the first grade and tells her mother:
- I do not want to go to school anymore!
- Why, my dear? asks her mother.
- Because I do not know how to write, I do not know how to read and they do not even let me speak!
Does it sound familiar? Many times we think that if we say something, the one in front of us understands exactly what we have said. But in reality this happens in very few cases. Why?
Because each of us filters the information we receive depending on our experience and what results can resemble what was transmitted to us or it can be very different from it.
The problems that appear in the relationships with the others, most of them, are determined by an unefficient communication. Unfortunately nobody teaches us in school how to communicate.
 We start to communicate by imitating the models we have in family, in our groups of friends or from mass media, but we never ask ourselves whether these models are efficient or not. Thus we come to perpetuate like robots some communication models that are often distorted and bring disadvantages to us and to our relationships. How should we communicate effciently?

Assume an active role in communication
What does this mean? Being active in a relationship means not to limit ourselves to only reacting to what the person in front of us is telling us, but to be ourselves the creators of the relationship, to assume the responsibility to modify what is not beneficial and functional in that relationship.
In other words, it is necessary not to adopt anymore an attitude of the kind ”eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth” and assume a relationship of the type „let us see how we can solve this problem”.

Respect the liberty of being different
The first step that we need to learn if we want to improve significantly the communication in our relationships refers to being attentive that when we debate a subject with somebody, not to identify the subject that we debate with ourselves and with the person who we are speaking with.
Many times we get into very unpleasant situations because each of the two interlocutors who are having a dialogue identify themselves powerfully with their own point of view and also identify the person in front of them with his/her point of view. Thus the dialogue between the two is not anymore a dialogue between two persons, but transforms itself into a dialogue between two persons about their own two personalities.
Coming to this point, in stead of bringing arguments pros and cons for two points of view, it becomes an attack against the person.
Dose it seem familiar? No matter the subject of our discussion, it is important to remember that we should respect the person in front of us. We may not agree with his/her point of view, but still we should respect his/her liberty of being different from us.

Choose to be the saviour of the communication
In order to avoid such a distorsion of the communication, it is necessary to keep our attention awake so that we can notice the moment when we are in danger of being carried away by the wave of identifying ourselves or the moment when our interlocutor is on the breach of being carried away by this wave.
Here should our active role step in and we should execise our capacity of correcting ourselves and making also the other one attentive at his tendency to identify himself with the subject of our discussion.
Good luck with making this step towards an afficient communication !

 

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