Words Can Change Your Brain (21 page)

Put down your script and begin to talk with your partner. The conversation should flow quite naturally and easily, and since you’ll each be speaking only one sentence, you’ll be surprised how quickly it moves into areas that you probably would never have thought about discussing. Sometimes the conversation shifts to deep feelings and concerns about work or an incident that happened in the past. Sometimes a salient memory comes to mind. Or perhaps the conversation might focus on the values that matter most to you.

At other times nothing important comes to mind. If that happens, continue to stay relaxed and allow yourself to become comfortable with the “nonconversation.” One of the purposes of this exercise is to interrupt the belief that we have to say something important or meaningful all the time. If we train ourselves to remain neutral, calmness itself will have a beneficial effect on the conversation. In essence you’ll be learning how to be in the present moment with another person, without all the distracting thoughts that pull us away from our deeper nonverbal connection to each other.

Even remaining in silence as you gaze at each other, observing your own inner speech as you stay relaxed, is a powerful experience that has numerous psychological and neurological benefits.

The next time you practice Compassionate Communication you’ll discover that the conversation will again take surprising turns. You can also begin to experiment with speaking longer—say two or three sentences at a time. When you do this, the goal is to make sure that the other person is fully engaged in listening to you. If not, it’s a clear sign to pause and let the other person respond.

If one person has a tendency to talk longer than thirty seconds, you have several choices. You can simply observe to see if the other person realizes that they’ve engaged in a monologue, or you can watch how your inner speech reacts. This training exercise is a learning experience, and each time you practice, you’ll intuitionally recognize layers of communication that you never noticed before.

If the person continues to speak too long, you can bring this issue into the Compassionate Communication dialogue. Tell them how you feel but tell them briefly, with a warm tone of voice. Many people have deeply embedded unconscious habits, and you may have to gently pull them into the Compassionate Communication model many times before their habits begin to change.

Going Deeper

If both parties want to, you can choose to take the conversation to a more intimate level. We suggest that you wait for about five to seven minutes before doing this, but we also suggest that you talk for no more than another five minutes. Close with a compliment and an appreciative comment. Then share your experience with other. What did you learn? What value do you feel the exercise has? What can you take away from it that you can incorporate into your daily conversations?

Now you can decide if you feel ready to discuss more difficult issues in your relationship. Often one person will feel ready to jump in but the other person will hesitate. Our advice: don’t push it. Take more time and practice more rounds of Compassionate Communication. In those rounds talk about the concerns you may have, because this is the ideal state in which to establish the necessary ground rules for working through conflicts and problems. Use Compassionate Communication to create a game plan, and discuss how to handle the conversation if one person gets too upset.

The beauty of this exercise is that it allows you to cooperatively create strategies that are embedded with feelings of mutual trust and respect. If these qualities aren’t present, then the communication process breaks down.

Usually the conversations that emerge are pleasant and constructive, but sometimes they bring up unexpected anxiety. For example, some couples begin to worry about what the other person might say. If you are conscious of this, then we suggest that you use the exercise to share those feelings, following the rule of not saying anything you think would be upsetting to the other person. It may take five, ten, or even twenty rounds of practice, but eventually progress will be made. If not, then a therapist (or, in the case of a business conflict, an executive coach) can probably assist. Continue to practice the strategies of Compassionate Communication, especially when a third party is involved.

Sometimes a person’s inner anxiety or irritability will make them say something that interrupts your flow. If this happens, we suggest that you don’t bring it up in the Compassionate Communication format until you’ve become proficient at it. Table the issue and use the “imaginary fight” exercise described in the following chapter.

Here’s our suggestion for couples who want to make a commitment to this methodology. Decide together how often you want to practice each week. Ideally this would be five to seven times. When the other person isn’t available, you can do steps one through eight in your imagination, and then rehearse what you want to say the next time the two of you talk.

Keeping a diary of your experience enhances the process, but don’t use your diary to vent. Research has shown that this is quite a destructive act and that it will deepen your inner conflicts and anxiety.
¹
Instead use your diary to construct positive solutions and track the positive progress you make.

Compassionate Communication with Strangers?

For most people, the thought of sharing too much intimacy with people they barely know seems unwise. But research shows that speaking intimately to someone you don’t know actually lowers stress and improves cardiovascular health! This was tested at the University of Southern Mississippi, with college students who were arbitrarily paired with one another.
²

Pay It Forward

We hope you’ll experiment with this exercise with as many people as possible. First try it with your friends, then your family members, and don’t be surprised if you find that your kids can follow the directions better than you! That’s what we’ve found with our own children, as we’ll illustrate in a later chapter.

Then try this exercise with a colleague at work. In fact, Compassionate Communication has proven to be very popular in the business community, to the point where many of our academic colleagues are writing articles describing ways to integrate the components into business management, educational training, and executive sales. Brevity, clarity, trust, and cooperation are essential for a company’s financial success, and any strategy that can stimulate these qualities is readily incorporated into company policy.

Compassionate Communication is easy to teach, and in most sections of the community conducting workshops in it requires little formal training. In fact, the CD and mp3 we created work as a self-contained training module, and you can use them to guide an entire group of people. Even a single training session appears to be enough to enhance teamwork and improve conflict resolution in many social and work-related arenas.

One of the benefits of introducing Compassionate Communication in a group or classroom setting is the feedback that is generated. When you discuss what the optimal forms of communication
should
be, everyone comes away with new strategies that can be used to handle future problems and conflicts with greater effectiveness and resolve.

In the educational arena, it turns out that we rarely talk about talking. But it’s essential when it comes to the people we’re closest to, and so we recommend that you try the following experiment with your spouse, your kids, and with your closest friends and colleagues. Ask this question: what would you like me to change about the way I communicate with you that would improve our interaction?

In our experience this is a question that delights the person who is asked it. It gives them an opportunity to suggest ways to improve your interpersonal relationship. After all, don’t we all want to know how to deepen our friendships and love? Yet when we ask rooms full of people how often they’ve even considered asking such a question, hardly any hands are raised. Instead we hear a lot of nervous laughing, a sign that many already suspect what the other person might say. This suggests that we somehow know, deep down inside, that we are not talking and listening as well as we might.

Make this a topic during a formal Compassionate Communication exercise. Ask your partner what you can do to improve the process. We have found that both individuals will bend over backward to comply. Then, at your next compassionate dialogue, ask for feedback about how well you have done.

Once you become accustomed to the training exercise and the twelve strategies of Compassionate Communication, you can loosen up the rules. After all, there are times when it’s really a delight to just sit back and chitchat. But if you do this with a little added awareness, even a superficial dialogue can bring deeper satisfaction and joy.

Finally, we would love to hear from you. Tell us about your experiences: the benefits you’ve gained, the problems you encountered, and any unique variations or new strategies that you have found useful. We’ll try them out and test them, and share them with our growing community online. Our aim, as always, is to help people bring a little more peace into their lives and to bring that peacefulness into their conversations with others. In that way we hope, with your help, to bring a little more peace into the world.

PART 3

The Application

Practicing Effective Communication with Others

C
HAPTER 10

Compassionate Communication with Loved Ones

_I
n this chapter we’ll share with you how different people have used Compassionate Communication to initiate dating, deepen intimacy, build empathy with strangers, and handle conflicts in their personal lives.

Every brain processes language in a different way, and this results in a communication style that is unique to each individual. Thus every conversation has the potential to unfold in a creative and original way. Normally, we try to standardize our language and the way we use our words, but as far as the research is concerned, this is nearly impossible to do. Different people continue to apply different meanings to the same words, and everyone uses a different style of vocalization. Some people like to speak as little as possible; others like to chatter away. Some prefer to talk superficially; others like to delve into the most personally revealing issues. These differences are what cause us to misunderstand one another, and the misunderstandings can lead to hurt, anger, and disappointment.

Compassionate Communication levels the playing field with the primary assumption that every conversation—indeed every sentence we speak—is filled with verbal and nonverbal messages that we frequently overlook. By bringing our awareness into the present moment, we can approach a conversation with an open perspective, the explicit intention to not impose our opinions or judgments on each other, and an honest desire to better understand the other person.

Compassionate Communication is not just about the dialogue. It’s also about the
space
two people create during a conversation. You are practicing how to be
with
another person, in conversation, and in silence. When you honor this shared space, the relationship can take on a numinous quality that brings with it a heightened sense of awareness and aliveness.

A First Date

The best time to apply the twelve core principles of Compassionate Communication is when we first meet someone. They help us to suspend our inner speech and the natural anxiety that occurs when we meet a stranger or someone we don’t know well. And they encourage us to feel open and relaxed enough to avoid putting the other person on guard. This is a moment when we need to be particularly observant so we can see if trust is even a possibility. Here’s how a young man used Compassionate Communication when he began dating after his marriage collapsed.

It was a difficult time for George. He was separated and living alone, and he was about to go out on a date. He hadn’t felt this vulnerable in years. A thousand voices were arguing in his head: “Am I still attractive? Will I like her? And if I do, will she like me or reject me? What should I say? What should I do? Oh God! I feel like a teenager in a middle-aged body.” The voices went on and on.

He cringed at the idea of playing the dating game, but the notion of being alone for yet another weekend was just too much to bear. The woman he was about to meet was also going through a divorce, and they had been introduced through a local dating service.

George drove to the community park, where he and Marcy had decided to meet. He stepped out of the car and braced himself for the initial exchange. The inner voices were raging, and his heart was pounding in his chest. From head to toe, adrenaline filled him with fear.

In the past, dating had never been a problem because George used to be a player. He knew how to tease, and he knew how to seduce. He was good at it, but he always landed in bed with the wrong woman—someone who was as afraid of real intimacy as he was. He married a trophy girl, but the intimacy was never genuine, and so they fought a lot.

George didn’t want to repeat the past, so he decided to use the Compassionate Communication exercise, which he’d been introduced to at a seminar. He deliberately arrived at the park a half hour early and sat on a bench. Then he guided himself through a series of relaxation exercises.

Next he began to watch his thoughts. Each time a feeling of anxiety came up, he took a deep breath and relaxed some more. Then he told the thought to go away. “I don’t believe you!” he said to his critical inner voice. It took about twenty minutes, but he finally calmed down. Then he envisioned staying relaxed as he imagined the person he was going to meet. More doubts popped up, but he pushed them out of his mind, replacing them with a positive affirmation. “I have no need to worry,” he said to himself, “and I have no need to manipulate the date.”