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- Learn how to fill more of your daily needs well
in ways that grow respect, trust, and harmony
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- Premise: effective thinking and communicating are essential for
satisfying relationships
- The next 21 slides introduce…
- effective-communication basics and…
- seven relationship skills your family members and others can use to
fill more of their daily needs in a way that promotes self and mutual
respect and harmony.
- Most adults (like you?) don’t know these skills and their major
benefits. To see what you know now, try this quiz See this for a text
version of these slides
- Some links go to other slides, and others go to more detailed “Project
2” articles in the nonprofit Break the Cycle! Web site. To return to the
prior slide, click
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- About human needs
- What is “communication”?
- Why we all communicate
- What is effective communication?
- Three ways we all communicate
- Four messages we all decode
- Three possible R(espect) messages
- Possible communication outcomes
- Two core communication blocks
- Seven vital communication skills
- Awareness
- Clear (vs. fuzzy) thinking
- Digging down
- Empathic listening
- Respectful assertion
- Metatalk - talking about communicating
- Win-win problem solving
- Recap and resources
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- A need is a physical, psychological, and/or spiritual discomfort
- All human thoughts, emotions, and behavior are caused by current primary
needs
- Needs range from minor to major, and secondary (superficial) to primary.
Most people are unaware of their primary needs, so they keep returning -
e.g. diets that “don’t work.”
- Primary needs are normal and automatic - not “good” or “bad”
- “Communication” is an instinctive reflex which aims to fill current
needs. Adults and kids strive to fill current communication needs in
order to fill other current needs
- Needs vary in priority, depending personalities and situations.
Conflicting priorities cause “problems.”
- Most people have several concurrent, dynamic needs. They can conflict internally
and/or interpersonally. It’s usually best to identify and resolve inner
conflicts first!
- When people’s needs, values, and/or perceptions conflict, they have “a
problem.”
- The learnable skills of awareness and digging down can help you discover
your current primary needs – so you can try to fill them
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- “Communication” is the process that occurs when a perceived behavior in
one person causes a “significant” mental, emotional, physical, or
spiritual reaction in another person – according to someone.
- Since silence, withdrawal, and absence can cause significant mental and
emotional reactions, it is impossible to “not communicate.”
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- to feel respected (in all situations), and…
- to give or get information, and/or…
- to vent (be empathically understood and accepted); and/or…
- to cause change or action; and/or…
- to create excitement and reduce boredom, and/or…
- to avoid something unpleasant, like silence or confrontation
- Can you name another reason you communicate?
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- As people interact, their
communication needs shift dynamically. Some needs comple-ment each other
(I need to vent, and you need to get information) and others clash (You
need to vent, and I need to cause action). The need to feel respected is
a constant in all situations, and is omitted below.
- In the table below, “OK” means
the needs mesh, “X” means they clash, and “?” means your current
communication needs may or may nor clash with your partner’s needs.
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- You’re “1-up” (superior) – you value your current dignity, needs,
feelings, and worth more than mine now; or…
- You’re “1-down” (inferior) - you value your current dignity, needs,
feelings, and worth less than mine now; or…
- You feel we’re equals (“=/=“) in human dignity and importance now,
though we may be in conflict.
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- At the end of any important communication sequence, each person will
un/consciously feel something between…
- 1) “I got enough of what I needed” to “I didn’t;” and…
- 2) “Our communication process was comfortable enough for me” to “It
wasn’t.”
- These two criteria create sixteen possible outcomes to every im-portant
communication exchange:
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- 1) Typical people who survive “low
nurturance” childhoods develop two to six psychological “wounds” which
degrade communication effectiveness:
- a disorganized personality composed of reactive “subselves”
- excessive shame and guilts
- excessive fears of the unknown, failure, conflict, and overwhelm
- excessive reality distortions – like denial, repression, idealizing,
etc
- trusting other people too little or too much
- being unable to feel, bond, and exchange genuine love with others
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- Premise: any motivated person can learn to get more of their daily needs
met and significantly improve their serenity and satisfaction with other
adults and kids by learning to apply seven skills based on these
communication basics. The skills are:
- awareness (of you, me, and our communication process)
- clear (vs. fuzzy, unfocused) thinking
- digging down (to discern current primary needs)
- empathic listening – hearing with your heart
- respectful assertion – stating your needs in a way others can hear you
- metatalk - talking objectively about how you’re communicating, and…
- win-win problem-solving, or conflict resolution
- Each skill uses all the prior skills. The effectiveness of these skills
depends on your true Self steadily guiding your other personality
subselves.
- Can you describe each of these skills to an average high-school student?
Most peo-ple can’t – which means they’re probably not using them – or
teaching them to their kids. Let’s review these skills briefly > >
>
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- The core requisite for all six
other skills is to become habitually aware (con-scious) of key factors
inside you + inside each communication partner + between you partners –
now, and over time. Key factors include:
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- Key dynamics that average people (like you) can learn to be aware of
include…
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- Our “thinking” is the constant
communication among our dynamic subselves. It hap-pens simultaneously on
conscious and unconscious levels. In situations and over time, thinking can
range from “clear and focused” to chaotic and unfocused (fuzzy). The
learnable skill of awareness empowers you to notice the degree of
clarity and focus in yourself and any communication partner.
- Vague, unfocused thinking
indicates that a person’s true Self is disabled now or often by other
personality subselves – a “false self.” Once aware of this, anyone can
learn to em-power their Self (capital “S”) to harmonize and lead their other
subselves. See this for perspective and options on doing this.
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- Adults and kids communicate to
fill their current needs. Most adults aren’t aware of their surface
needs and/or the primary needs that cause them. Attempts to resolve
sur-face problems often fail over time (e.g. New Years’ resolutions),
because the unseen primary needs are still unfilled. The process of
identifying your and your communication partner’s primary needs can be
called “digging down.”
- Example: “I need the car this afternoon” is a surface need. The primary
needs underneath it are: “I need to feel secure that I have a reliable,
safe, affordable way to (a) get to the dentist by 2:00, and (b) to
return home by 6:00.”
- Example: “I need you to stop interrupting me!” really means “I need to
feel that you want to respect my needs, feelings, and opinions as much
as yours.”
- Example: “I wish you’d learn to be more responsible and keep our
checkbook balanced!” really means “I need to regain my respect for you +
feel secure that we won’t write bad checks and lose our credit rating +
feel you want to value my needs as much as your own, without me nagging
or complaining.”
- Do the kids in your life know about primary needs and how to dig down
yet?
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- Empathy is the ability to feel
and think what another person is thinking and feeling without losing
your own boundaries. Empathic listening is the learned art and skill of
wanting to “hear your partner with your heart.” To do this…
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- Assertion is the art and skill
of saying what you need in a way that adults and kids can hear you
clearly. Popular alternatives are submission (allowing others’ needs to
domi-nate yours) and aggression (forcing your needs, values, and
opinions on other people). Effective assertion requires you to want to…
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- “Metatalk” is “talking about
communicating” – i.e. “using our shared awarenesses to improve the way
we communicate as partners, not opponents.” To be effective, this
powerful skill requires each person to want…
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- A problem is one or more unmet
primary needs. A conflict occurs when two or more needs or values clash.
Problems and conflicts can be internal (between sub-selves) and/or
mutual (between people).
- Win-win problem solving is the
process of using all six other skills to (a) in-tentionally identify
unmet and/or conflicting needs or values, and (b) brainstorm a solution
acceptable to all involved. Popular lose-lose alternatives are fighting,
explaining, arguing, avoiding, withdrawing, and changing the subject.
- Requisites for win-win
(effective) problem-solving include all people…
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- Communication aims to fill each person’s current primary needs. “Problems”
are unmet needs, which promotes frustration. Often, relationship
problems occur because of the way we communicate.
- The quality of every human role and relationship is significantly shaped
by the com-munication attitudes, knowledge, awareness, and skills of
each partner.
- Effective communication occurs when (a) each person feels their needs
were met well enough, (b) in a way that felt good enough. When people
are unaware of communica-tion basics and their process, the odds of this
happening are about 25%.
- We send and decode up to four messages at once over three “channels.”
The most important of the four is usually the R(espect) message we
unconsciously decode from out partners moment by moment.
- Each communication partner tries to fill two to six concurrent
communication needs. The need to maintain respect is constant. When
these needs match, communication may be effective.
- Any motivated person can improve their thinking and communication
outcomes by learning and applying these basics and a related series of
seven powerful skills – IF their true Self is steadily guiding their
other personality subselves.
- Modeling and teaching these basics and skills to children is a priceless
life-long gift! Are you doing that now?
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Notes
