Am I right, that you want to have even more joy in your life and spread joy around you? A life with more fulfillment in it? You want to have a life free of regret? Is that correct? Great...keep reading. I want to give you inspiration about your communication and how this can change your world! This blog is a bit longer than usual, maybe an indicator that I deeply care about this powerful topic..:-) Take your time, maybe read it twice, and please forward to others on social media, I would love more people to enhance their communication skills.
I know for sure that every word spoken, leaves a mark, it creates reality for the speaker and the listener. How can I be so certain, well I discovered in my early 20's that WORDS CREATE REALITY. Ever since it stays true for me and now I live by it and I want everybody around me to feel empowered too. Afterall, you heard me say: HAPPINESS IS HOMEMADE. And Communication is part of this yummy homemade recipe.
Do you understand what that means? Let me give you a bit of context. Many believe, language is the bridge to the world. Even the way we learn language implies that first there is a world. Then in order to connect and deal with it, we learn language. We very rarely, consider that language may in fact be what brings that world into being.
When we contemplate this idea, we can gain a new perspective of language. Our communication now becomes an act of creation. The elements of communication are Speaking and Listening, and those become instruments of creation.
What you say matters! It matters, because you are thinking and saying and as you do you are creating your reality. Let me give you an example which I experienced a lot when my children were younger and playing excitedly on playgrounds or in the woods. 'Don't climb that tree, you will fall off and break your leg!' I heard a mum shout desperately at her little child. The girl stopped her actions and returned to the ground disappointedly. The look in her face told me that she would have liked to find out for herself, as she had belief in her ability to climb, she was not afraid, but instead, and especially when this overly-cautious mum is repeatedly communicating in this way with her, the child starts to believe that her mum has better reasoning than she for herself, so she is building an external point of reference, rather than an internal compass. The child creates the belief that climbing is not her thing and her little body will not cope. And maybe most importantly, now she is afraid. In understanding that the consequence of having fun and adventure is going to become physical pain, well of course now she would rather stop her exploration and stop her drive to take on big obstacles.
Let's just imagine for a moment what other sentences this child is going to hear from her mum: 'Put sun lotion on otherwise you have to stay in the shade or you burn your skin and get cancer.' 'Knives and scissors are not for you, you will cut yourself.'
'Hold my hand, cars are dangerous.'
'Take a coat, or you'll fetch a cold.'
'Learn your spellings, or the teacher thinks you stay stupid.'
'Are you stupid?'
'That does not hurt, come on, be brave.'
'Be more sensible, don't be such a child.'
I also heard mums call out: 'You can do it, trust your own judgement!', 'Put some sun lotion on, that's good and protective for your skin especially as you want to play and have fun in the beautiful sunshine.' 'Pay attention when you use knives and scissors, be calm.'
'When we cross the road, let's make sure we see the cars and the cars see us. Then we are safe.'
'Check for yourself, do you want to take a coat, in case you feel cold, you want to stay healthy.'
'When you learn your spellings, how much more ready and prepared will you feel for the test?'
'How come you did that. What was your intention?'
'It obviously hurts, let me see. How can we make it better? All will be good. You are a fast healer, aren't you?
'It is great to be a child, isn't it. Enjoy yourself.'
So in which camp do you fall, how do you raise your children? Time to rethink!
If you do not have children and are an adult now, how did you grow up. What messages did you absorb, and still have influence on your behaviour and level of engagement or limitation.
Over the years of childhood, all messages children repeatedly hear from parents, grandparents, teachers, etc. create belief systems. This is deeply ingrained and shapes and forms the way the young person looks into the world, and how they feel as part of it. It shapes their 'Already Always Listening' (Landmark Education). This explains why even if we think we are open-minded and objective, we are in fact filtering, deleting and distorting reality based on pre-existing notions and ideas, by our upbringing, our values, our past experiences.
Three indicators of communicating with power and intention
1. Awareness Through active listening and speaking you gain awareness.
2. Choice Awareness opens your mind for Choice.
You are the person talking, aren't you. So you can choose what you say!
3. Legacy
What will you be remembered for.
Let me go into more detail:
1. Awareness
As a child I spent more time listening than speaking, absorbing all the words, sentences, beliefs, values, jokes, viewpoints, tone of voices, and can remember at times to wonder, why people would say the things they said. I was observing others as they spoke, looked at their body language, their gestures, their mimics. The incongruence of people nodding whilst saying NO, the smiles and saying yes, 'my day is fine' when really they felt miserable. I might have sharpened my listening skills early, this is a benefit these days, when I listen actively to my clients (and family and friends obviously), who explore their issues. As we decipher, what they are saying, how they are wording it, we find out how they might be limiting themselves with their talking. And you know, when we speak out loud, a lot of the time, the same words have been spinning in our mind for a long time, forming neural pathways. Which make you believe your thoughts? But are the thoughts really you? Or are you simply repeating stuff from your parents. Awareness is the gateway.
2. Choice
Let me repeat! You can choose what you say!
As an adult, you are in control of your thinking and speaking. You decide what you are going to say to eg your friend, are you giving advise, what advice is it going to be, are you winding her up, are you supporting her. How are you doing it. Your spoken words will have an effect on the other person no matter what, because they usually attach meaning to it. Every word counts.
Let's look at YOU. How effectively and positively are you talking to yourself? You might have noticed that your thinking is inwardly turned communication. With approx. 60.000 thoughts a day, (majority are the same than yesterday) you are constantly thinking and your brain is 24/7 in action. It is a myth that through meditation you can stop your thinking. That is as if you ask your heart to stop beating or your lungs to stop breathing. With meditation you can extend the time between thoughts, meaning you can slow down your thinking.
How you think, shapes your experience of reality. You choose your thoughts. You are not your thoughts.
How does this make you feel. I read those lines, and they excite me, they empower me. Choice is power! In his book 'The untethered soul', Michael A. Singer describes this thinking voice being like 'a roommate'. Someone who always lives with us, someone who always has a 'wise' comment ready to throw at us, like: 'The guy over there is surely not interested in you, stay here, you only embarrass yourself.', 'You better park that big dream to write a book, remember even your teacher told you that you are rubbish as a writer.' 'You, going on an adventure, stop it, remember you were not even able to climb a tree, and you can't afford it anyway!' Those thoughts are not you, they are just from your roommate, your inner voice, which is cultivated over years, the conditioned mind which picked up messages about you and life. I think I would start to feel depressed, if I had to live with such a party-pooper next to my side all day everyday, wouldn't you. The importance now lies in the following, you have choice. You create your thoughts, you have choice to believe your thought. I choose to believe the thoughts which are supporting me, exciting me, empowering me to be a better person than yesterday.
Am I free from doubt and worry? No. But if I become aware of my thinking, I have trained myself to easily step into choice, and with that comes freedom and possibility. I choose to live in those states. What do you choose?
3. Legacy What are the sentences you remember from your parents. Let me guess, you hear their words even in the tone of the parents voice. What did they say to you? How did they influence you? When you pay attention to it, how does it still influence your motivation, your view of life, your potential to dream big? If you are stuck here, therapy and coaching can bring this to your awareness and you can free yourself from old patterns, which you slipped on like a worn t-shirt. What are your words, what are you saying, what do you want your children, friends or colleagues remember you for? What are your power words? What do you want to be remembered for? What is your legacy?
Wouldn't it be wonderful if you choose language which creates expansion rather then limitation?
Wouldn't it be wonderful, if you portrayed with your body language congruent to your spoken word a message which inspires, educates, teaches or even transforms the listener. What other intention would you have to speak, if not up-lifting the other person or yourself? What is your intention?
You might think, not everything is rosy-cheeks. Okay, sometimes we want to give feedback because we have a different opinion, or the way a work project was dealt with is not running smoothly. Well, you have choice over your thinking and choice over your spoken word. When you give feedback, make it valuable and powerful. Lisa Nichols' (The Secret, Motivating the Masses) lasersharp feedback session was an eye-opening moment for me at the Mindvalley Reunion in San Diego earlier this year. I adopted her feedback strategy: Always leave the other person on a high, never just dump your 'I know better'. If you have two points of critic, give three positive things first, and follow up with the two points of improvement. This certainly makes the listener feel valued and cared for.
Practise Affirmations, which give your mind a destination setpoint. Your unconscious mind is loyal and loves direction. If you give your mind instructions on where to go, it will turn its energy on that, it wants to get there. Affirmations might at first feel like an undiscovered path, not really certain of where you are going with this. A path less walked, soon becomes a bridal walkway, and with more thinking along those lines, it turns into a clearly marked footpath, and maybe even a country lane, or depending on your liking you might want to imagine a highway with superfast cars. With practise of affirmations, your mind reshapes its neural pathways. This happens through repetition. Where we focus on, put energy, our mind expands. Use positively worded affirmations, to enhance your thinking or to turn limiting thinking around.
Let me tell you, what I did, with a coach when I needed help:
As I am giving and receiving effortlessly I am thriving. This sentence helped me out of stuckness. My desired feeling was 'thriving'. I wanted to grow my coaching and therapy business. On the other hand I wanted to feel at ease with it and in harmony with my family life which always has priority. Come on, I am mum! My coach helped me to elicit this area in which I am feeling at ease which is thriving already. Family life, is best described as 'giving and receiving effortlessly'. The chosen affirmation combines both for me. I love it. It works for me. For everyone familiar with EFT...I tapped this affirmation onto my karate chop point over a few weeks. Result! Simpler affirmations are just as valuable: - I am feeling supported.
- I am lovable
- I am whole
- I am unique
etc.
Watch your language. Every statement with 'I am...' is an identity statement. Your subconscious mind is on high alert, when you say 'I AM..' It is ready to accept your next command and will support your thinking and outer dialogue. As everything is energy I believe, it has magnetic effect, and will create situations in your life to support that sentence. If the sentence is not supporting you, your life situations might feel challenging.
Do you feel life is a struggle?
Do you have arguments with your family?
Do you feel the universe is conspiring against you? When you say I am tired. Your body will support that idea. Internal mind dialogue: "You are tired. Okay, all machines into gear, we are going to show her how tired she is, Muscles: please make them soft and soggy. Brain functions: Slow down. Let's cancel that dinner tonight, she is too tired. No exercise today, she is too tired!! Appetite: Let her eat some comfort food, that's what she needs right now!"
When you say I am unfit, too thick to even start exercising, your body will point out to you the next 'greasy sugar-loaden donut in the patisserie', and it might even appear tempting.
I am not good enough....Guess what your mind and body will present to you. Everything and every situation in which you are inadequate and why you are not good enough. Your focus is on all those things, and thinking outside this box seems hard work and impossible.
Let me invite you to raising your awareness, stepping into choice.
Begin to consciously communicate!! Start today by writing down sentences for which you want to be remembered for.
example My legacy truth list:
There is always a way.
All is good.
It is what it is.
I am a fast healer.
I can do it.
I am really good at what I do.
I am growing and learning every day.
Today I am striving to be a better person than yesterday.
I am kinder than necessary.
Seeing possibility.
I am giving my best.
etc
(Here are a few I remember from my parents: No news is good news. If you can't be good be careful, you can wish for anything)
Keep saying the things on your list to yourself and to others. What a joy when your children, start repeating your words as their truth. Magical moment! Guess what is happening when you keep repeating your legacy trust list! I tell you what happened to me: I started to believe my own words! Do you want that too! Repeat sentences of your list to everyone around you and to yourself! Let this list evolve, fine-tune and amend as you wish, and as it is relevant making sure that your legacy is clear and intentional. This way we all become powerful and intentional communicators.
Feedback please Please let me know, three things you liked about this blog, and send me one or two areas of improvement. Thank you.
Share Let me know how this resonates with you and how you have put the above into practise! Tell me, when you had to pause and take a deep breath. Also let me know, what else you would like me to talk about. I want to spend time writing these blogs, about stuff which are important to you!!
Much love,
Julia