Conscious Communication - A Key to Happy Relationships

Being understood by your loved ones while trying or without trying to express your thoughts and feelings to them can surely be the best feeling in the world. Every one of us has this knack of being understood by the people we love, especially the ones we rely on emotionally.

As a psychologist, I see a problem with basic communication not only in couples but also among the family members. We’ve always learned to read and write but we weren’t always given the freedom to express ourselves freely or taught how to communicate without hurting someone’s sentiments by choosing the right words. Well, not all of us but definitely the majority of the population didn’t get the privilege to a right to expression. It is something we all learned with our experiences with life.

We often complain that we feel misunderstood by people within our inner circle and then there are a few individuals who find it extremely difficult to express themselves verbally. They just cannot find the right words to convey their heart’s emotions and sentiments and are often scared of being misunderstood or of hurting their loved ones.

In my practice so far, I’ve noticed that there are two things couples expect from each other, one is to be understood by their partners, and the other having the freedom to describe their desires to their partner without being judged by them. When one of the following expectations go missing, that’s when all hell breaks loose.

Conscious Communication Defined In Simplest Words

Conscious Communication is an act of communicating with mindfulness. It is when you are fully present to an individual and you give your 100% undivided attention. Usually, such communication requires a lot of time and patience by both the people involved. So make sure you have a lot of time in hand.

Few Questions and Things to Be Mindful of While Communicating:

-   What is the reason for communication? Is it resolve a conflict? Or maybe develop intimacy and connection with someone? Or an expression of your own thoughts and feelings towards a behavior, situation, or person?

-   Your body language needs to be open and approachable. If you are rigid or too uptight, you might have the best interest in your mind but the message perceived could be negative.

-   The tone of your voice needs to be soft, gentle, and respectful towards the other person. This also goes for the bosses or employees working on higher posts in an organizational setup.

    When you are careful about all these factors while communication, your message is sure to be perceived much more positively.

Here are a few things that we usually say but what we actually mean and could practice to say and do in our daily lives to improve our relationships or interpersonal relationships –

When we communicate the way the responses are shown on the right column of the above table, the bond or the connection between you and the individual deepens immensely.

When we focus directly on the behavior of the person rather than showing that the problem is the person, the whole frequency in the relationship changes positively. That is because the person is never the problem but their behavior or situation is.

For example, if someone is lazy, you would dislike their laziness not them completely as a person. We as human beings do not take feedbacks and criticisms well. It makes us feel that we aren’t good enough. We all have our flaws and each one of us knows them well irrespective of the fact whether we agree about them with others or not. Human being's innate need is to be loved and appreciated.

Negative feedbacks and criticisms are all residues of anger that leave scars for life on people. Avoid confrontations when you are angry. Take time-outs. Also, take out some time to clear off and rule out any space for misunderstandings. If the other person doesn’t agree to give you space, in such cases, it is smart and conventionally good for you to remain silent. When that doesn’t happen, the relationship tends to spiral out of control. Our anger and ego have the strength to destroy relationships completely. Such relationships become really difficult to mend.

Also, conscious communication is not only about communicating mindfully but also about communicating at the right time. Let me explain this with an example.

A friend of mine had a huge argument with her father about something they both disagreed upon. In the whole conversation, they both said a few things in the heat they both regretted telling each other. She really wanted to apologize to her father for yelling at him and being disrespectful towards him but thought of doing so the next morning. If only she knew that she wouldn’t get that opportunity, she would have done it sooner. That night, her father passed away due to cardiac arrest. Years passed by, but the nagging feeling still remains.

It is something that she will have to carry the burden for, for the rest of her life. We experience similar things with other relationships. Maybe we are not separated by the death of our loved ones, but we are separated by them because of our ego. A lot of times we have wanted to confess something to someone but let it go because of the fear of losing them. But my dear friend, we lose them anyway. Live with absolutely no regrets in life, live your life as it was the last day of your life.

Life is unpredictable. Things can change within a millisecond. Life doesn’t always give us second chances to fix your relationships. Sometimes, it can be unfair and brutal. So why not ace our first chances by communicating rightly.

Can one’s ego and anger be more than their love for the individual? Can we always risk it on second chances? But, what if all of us weren’t lucky enough to be presented with such opportunities? Life is too short to waste our time with such petty situations and things when we could rather celebrate it with our loved ones by our side.

Therefore, in closing, conscious communication will always make you say the right things in sync with the right emotions. There will always be a congruence between your words and feelings. This will lead to a happier relationship not only in your work life but also in your interpersonal relationships and you’ll miraculously attract loving, respectful, and empathetic friendships and relationships in your life!