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THE ART OF EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION

It's not what you say. It's who you are.
The importance of non-verbal communication
Actions speak louder than words

By Jack Allis
July 2003

Effective communication is one of our most powerful tools to achieve success and happiness in every aspect of our lives. Like so many other things, people often make communication far more complicated and complex than necessary. This does not have to do with any shortcomings with technique. It is primarily because they don't understand themselves.

Before we go any farther, let's utilize a very important technique of effective communication. This consists of providing a definition. So often, communication breaks down, and people don't understand each other because they don't define what they're talking about. Words mean different things to different people. The definition of communication is quite simple. Communication means to transmit information from person to person. As we will discuss shortly, when people talk, or throw words around, they often have other motives. Examples of this are to draw attention to themselves, to feel important, or to exert power over others. Many people talk, or blabber, because they're nervous, and it calms them down.

There are two types of communication: verbal and non-verbal. For many years, I believed that they were equally important, but I have reached a point in my own personal evolution where I believe non-verbal communication is far more powerful. Verbal communication, of course, is talking in words. Non-verbal communication is the broad array of ways in which we communicate without words. Some forms of non-verbal communication are tangible and others are more intangible. Examples of the tangible forms are our tone of voice, facial expressions, eye contact, our posture, or the way we carry ourselves, and anything else that can be categorized as body language. The intangible forms are, by definition, more difficult to describe in words. They are also something we don't understand as well on the basis of our current level of knowledge. Let it suffice to say there are forms of communication that are beyond our five senses, which are called extrasensory. An example of this is telepathy, and a specific type of telepathy is when there is contact between the energy fields of people, which quantum physics have proven everything consists of. Most people know about these sorts of things, though they might not be aware of it. Two examples are the invisible bond that exists between a mother and her infant, and the way we can sense the power, either positively or negatively, of another person's presence.

For many years in my counseling work and in the workshops I presented, I taught a system of communication that emphasized the fundamentals of effective verbal communication. It was a step-by-step, cookbook approach, which used specific, concrete techniques. It was primarily a model to help people resolve conflict in relationships, but it is a good basic guide for verbal communication in all areas of life. When it is followed, it is highly effective.

The first step consists of keeping it simple. This means identifying the issues that need to be discussed, and focusing on them, one at a time, in the order of importance. You don't discuss two issues at once, and you don't go to the next issue until you resolve the one that precedes it. Listening is an essential feature of this step. Each person takes their turn, and one person doesn't talk until the other has finished. The next step is emotion management. Communication invariably breaks down when people are angry or upset. This doesn't mean it's not OK to feel that way. It's just better not to communicate it in the heat of the moment. It's better to calm down, and think the matter through, before proceeding. The next step is diplomacy. Disagreements are to be expected, and they are OK. If the relationship is to continue, it's also necessary to accept these differences, and compromise. If you don't know how to do this, you can learn. The final step is letting go. This means knowing when to stop. Even when all the issues haven't been resolved, the time comes to take a break, and enjoy the relationship, or do something else. The mistake people make here is they refuse to stop until they win, which pushes them farther apart. If relationships and communication only consist of conflict, they aren't worth keeping.

After many years of using this apparently simple system of calm and rational communication, I began to see that there was one ingredient that was far more essential, and which had little to do with technique. This was the person's state of mind or state of being. With couples and with parents and their children, I observed that when people truly cared about each other, when they admired and respected each other as separate individuals, and when they sincerely wanted to make the relationship work, it was easy for them to connect, and the communication flowed effortlessly, regardless of technique. These people also didn't need my help for very long.

People with self-awareness and self-confidence were invariably the best communicators, and quite often it wasn't necessary for them to talk a lot. A person can often say a lot more by affectionately touching another and looking intently into their eyes than they ever could in words. Self-awareness doesn't mean that a person is perfect. It means they know who they are, which includes both the positive and the negative, and they are comfortable with themselves. They are complete in the sense that they are capable of satisfying their emotional needs primarily from within, and they don't need to look to external sources, such as their relationships or material things, to provide this validation. When they communicate, their primary objective is exchanging information. They don't have separate, personal agendas, such as being liked, feeling important, controlling others, or filling the emptiness inside them.

So, communicating effectively depends upon a lot more than the words we speak. It is more a function of our totality as people. This includes our mind, body and spirit - our thoughts, feelings and actions. Actions do indeed speak louder than words. It is also very true that what we say is not as important as how we say it. Many of our heroes personify this. In his films in the 1940's and 50's, Gary Cooper often played the soft-spoken, yet strong willed and virtuous man. He spoke little, but everybody understood him perfectly.

One of the most vivid examples of these principles is in the parent-child relationship. Parents often ask me how they can teach their children self-esteem. Many modern parents have lost the connection with their children because they treat them like objects to be controlled, and they talk too much. They have forgotten that the best way to teach a child anything is by setting an example of the thing you want to teach. The best way to teach self-esteem to a child is to have self-esteem, and to live a life that embodies it. The child will soak it up like a sponge, and you don't have to teach them anything. The most effective way to communicate with a child is with our actions, and the best technique doesn't involve talking, as in lecturing, preaching and badgering. It is listening. And these same principles of non-verbal communication apply throughout our lives.

Non-verbal communication becomes even more relevant when we realize that many of the most important things in life cannot be described in words. The only way we can truly understand them is by experiencing them. Many people today rely upon understanding things exclusively with left-brain thinking. This means understanding them with words and with their logical reason. This type of thinking may even create barriers to our true understanding of that part of life I refer to as spiritual. This is that aspect of the world, which we don't understand, and may never understand, because it is either beyond the scope of our current knowledge, or because it is unfathomable to our reason entirely. It is beyond the scope of our five senses. We cannot see it with our eyes. In our attempt to understand this we also must use our right brain. This is the sub-conscious part of our mind, and it includes our feelings, intuition, creativity and imagination. This is the artist in us, and it communicates in images and symbols, not words. To understand this unfathomable aspect of the world we must use the totality of ourselves, or our higher awareness. We can also only communicate our understanding of it with the totality of ourselves. The words we say are only a small part of it. It's more what we do, and who we are.


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