COMMUNICATION Publishing 2 October 2012
A very important LIFE SKILL would be to learn how to LISTEN – do you really hear what the person is saying? Mostly we simply stay tuned into our own frequency and hear what we THINK the person is saying…… and mostly we prefer to do the talking!
To repeat the slogan of last week and embroider a little bit more – with the thoughts from Dr Ernest Frost’s couch:
“The meaning of communication is the response you get”
If the response you get is not what you want, change how and what you are communicating; it is up to YOU to change your message until you get the reaction/response that you want. There is much more embedded in this belief than meets the ear or eye at first glance. It is not only about the physical language or words but also the intention that it carries on a deeper level.
If something is not the way you want it to be, it can be really worth looking at your way of communicating and the message you are sending out. I have quite often heard a parent angrily say to a child: “How many times must I tell you not to do this and to listen?”
I find the concept of a chronic illness seen from the perspective very interesting. Illness can be seen as a form of communication breakdown, the body’s way of saying the same message, (how many time must I tell you?) just with ‘pain’(illness) as a way of communicating and trying to get the message over to you. Our bodies respond to our thoughts and emotions and show us through illness what we seem to be ignoring. How anxious are you? How stressed are you? Are you simply pushing aside that which you know you have to change? How long will you be able to ignore what your body is telling you loud and clear? The most precious gift we can offer anyone (ourselves) is our attention.
Dr Ernest Frost writes: “As a child I watched a programme ‘Maya the Bee’ a typical children’s television programme about the happy life and adventures of Maya, a honey bee. Now, 40 years later while watching a programme about the disappearance of bees all over the earth because of pesticides, a different reality struck me. Bees are so successful because of their very effective way of communicating. One bee will communicate where a new food source is through dance movements, and the whole bee community then responds by working as an interconnected whole to go out and find it. The effect that the pesticides have on the bees is a breakdown of their delicate nervous systems, which cause them to become disorientated. By not being able to communicate properly anymore, their messages get scrambled; they can’t find the new food source and they also can’t find their way back (home) to the hive, dying somewhere on their own. Using this as a parallel on different levels to humankind can be quite revealing. Not only regarding the communication breakdown in our interpersonal relationships (marriage, friendships); diseases and illness can be linked to a communication breakdown on an intrapersonal level. Our cells respond to our messages (thoughts) of emotions like fear and anger or attacking our own bodies (auto immune diseases) with emotions like guilt, blame and shame. Our cells become disorientated and the ‘meaning’ (illness/disease) we get as a result, is most often not what we intended as a message, in the first place. “
We need to pay attention to what our physical bodies are trying to tell us.
“Silent” and “Listen” are spelled with the same letters – are you listening?
Karin Engman,
Life Coach and Motivational Speaker
Ermelo, 072 189 6951,
comments: thehummingbird@vodamail.co.za
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