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http://sfhelp.org/cx/skills/aware.htm
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This is one of a series of articles
in Lesson 2 - learn communication basics and seven powerful
skills
to get more daily needs met more often. Progress with this Lesson
depends on simultaneous pro-gress on Lesson 1 - empower your
resident true Self to guide your personality in calm and conflictual
times.
The unique guidebook
Satisfactions
(Xlibris.com, 2001) integrates the key Lesson-2
Web articles and resources in this nonprofit Web site, and provides
many practical resources.
This
article overviews the essential communication skill of process
awareness. It is the basis for all six companion skills.
The article assumes you're
familiar with...
the
intro to this nonprofit Web site and the
premises underlying it.
Premise -
awareness
is learnable and is
required for six other effective-communication skills. Most busy adults and all
kids are unaware of
their unawareness and its effect on their relationships, health, and serenity. Is that true of you?
Status Check - see how you feel about these premises - A = "I agree,"
D = " I disagree," and ? = "I'm not sure, or it
depends on (what?)"
Adults, kids, and
infants have three levels of awareness; conscious,
semi-conscious, and uncon-scious. All three combine to
cause current thoughts, perceptions, and emotions. (A D
?)
Anyone (like you) can
intentionally expand their conscious
awareness by learning to become still, meditating, and
journaling
regularly. (A D ?)
Part of
general awareness is communication (or process)
awareness. As people learn to be objec-tively aware of
the moment-by-moment dynamics...
within themselves, and...
between them and any partner, and...
in their partner, and...
in their environment,...
they can intentionally improve their
thinking
and
communication
effectiveness. (A D ?)
Teaching kids to be aware and to want to
expand
and use it is a priceless life-long gift. (A D ?) Do you do
this? Did your childhood caregivers?
Effective
communication occurs when each person feels...
their current needs were satisfied
well enough,...
in a mutually-respectful way. (A
D ?)
Premises - typical
survivors
of low-nurturance childhoods are often unaware of their unawareness; and their
well-meaning
false selves
limit and distort local and chronic personal awareness. These
promote many personal and social
problems. Implication: intentionally
freeing
your true Self to
guide
your person-ality (i.e. working patiently at
Lesson 1) will
clarify and expand your awareness levels. That will help you to fill
more current needs (solve problems) effectively more often ("be
happier and healthier").
Pause and reflect on what you just read. Be aware of
your thoughts and feelings.
This learnable skill helps in
allinterpersonal situations, including
interactions among your dynamic
subselves. "Communication (process)
awareness" is intentionally noticing at least eight of
over
50 fac-tors in and between you and a communication partner.
Are our true Selves
in charge now?
What R(espect) messages
are we each receiving?
Do
our communication needs match or clash now?
Where
are we each focused?
Are
we problem-solving, or doing something else?
Where are our
respective E(motion)-levels?;
What communication
skill/s are called for? and...
Was our communication
effective? If not, why not?
A common reality is that the
way
people try to resolve relationship problems often becomes another
prob-lem.
Habitual
process awareness
raises the odds that
the way you problem-solvewill not amplify your problems
(unmet needs).
Guidelines
For perspective,
invest a few moments in this simple
exercise. Then experiment with
achieving basic(vs.full) awareness by asking
yourself - and optionally any partner - seven or more questions about any
current interpersonal situation:
AWARENESS1)Who's
guiding our personalities
now - our
true Selves or a
false self?
To understand this
question, you need to complete Lesson 1 in this nonprofit Web site,
and then use this and
this.If
any communication partner is ruled by a false self, effective
communication is unlikely.See this
example for more pespective.
AWARENESS2)What
R(espect)-messages are we each receiving from our partner now?
"You're
1-up: you (seem to)
rank your
current needs as superior to mine";
or...
"You're
1-down: you (seem to) rank your current needs as
inferior to
mine"; or...
"We're
equal: you (seem to)
rank your
needs and dignity and mine as equally valid and important now."
Premise - communications work (fill everyone's
current primary needs) only if all subselves and people consistently get ""
R-messages (feel mutually respected) as their process unfolds. Do you agree? If any person doesn't respect
themselves at the moment, effective communication is unlikely.
AWARENESS 3) Do our respective
communication
needs match now?
Humans behave in order to reduce
discomfort (needs) and gain pleasure.
Six needs adults and kids
try to fill by communicating are to...
gain or keep respect
(a
constant); plus the needs to...
give or get
information;
and/or to...
vent - be empathically heard
and accepted; and/or to...
cause action (change) in
your partner/s, including shifting the emotionaldistance between
us. This can also be the need to feel locally powerful, vs. powerless.
And/or people need...
stimulation - i.e. to cause excitement (reduce apathy and
boredom); and/or we communicate...
to
avoid discomforts likesilence,
conflict, loss, overwhelm, guilt, or anxiety.
In any
verbal or nonverbal exchange,
you and each partner seek self and mutual respect and one or more of
these other five needs. If your
communication needsdon't match mine now (e.g. you
need to vent, and I need to cause action) -
we have a communication-
needs conflict.
In
important situations, we need to stay aware of our respective
communication needs, and use
our other six
skills to alignourneeds well enough (e.g. you need to vent, and I need to get information
and to strengthen our relationship).
Can you think of a recent time when
you or a partner tried to force your communication needs to match
["I insist that you (want to) listen to me now!"] without
awareness
of what you were doing?
AWARENESS4) "Where are
we each focused now?"
Four key "focus
zones"
are ...
Who - are we focusing
on me, on you, on us, or none of
these? Important communications work best if each person is
mainly focused on us (a "2-person
awareness bubble")
Time - are we focusing on the
past, the
present,
or the future? Primary needs always exist now;
Topic - are we both focusing
on (a) the same topic, (b) different topics, or (c) do we have
no clear topic? Communications degrade if anyone changes
the topic without being sure everyone feels "done" with the
current topic. See this
research summary for perspective. And a vital focus zone is...
Need level: are we focused on
filling surface needs), primary needs, or something in
be-tween? Unaware people usually focus on resolving surface
discomforts, not the underlying needs that cause them. Dig-down
skill helps reveal current primary needs.
Communications
usually work best if all people involved are steadily focused on (a) the present,
and on (b) a
subject of common interest.If people aren't
aware of their
communication focus in key situations, they risk not filling their
respective needs, and frustration.Do you agree?
Recall - we're reviewing eight key awarenesses for effective
communication between subselves and between people.
AWARENESS 5) Are
we problem-solving, or doing something else?
Personal and social "problems" are unmet needs
(discomforts). "Problem solving" is intentionally (a)
identifying each person's current needs, (b) valuing them
equally (except in some emergencies), and (c) trying to fill each
person's needs "well enough" as mutually-respecting teammates,
regardless of age, rank, role, or gender.
. Unaware people
controlled by false selves often put their energy into arguing, hinting, avoiding, demanding,
interrupting, aggressing, ignoring, discounting, blaming,
manipulating, changing the subject, focusing on the past or
future, pleading, whining, complaining, over-apologizing,
repeating, defocusing, generalizing, exaggerating,
catastrophizing, analyzing, lecturing, moralizing, joking,
bringing up old issues, clamming up, withdrawing, "collapsing,"
doing black/white thinking, pretending, lying, submitting, etc.
etc. None of these fill everyone's needs!
Once aware of your inner and ,mutual communication
processes, you can help each other avoid these unproductive
dynamics, and stay focused on win-win
problem-solving - starting
with any
internal conflicts in either of you.
AWARENESS
6) Where
are our respective E(motion)-levels?
"Emotions" (feelings) are automatic neurochemical responses to
our perceptions and bodily sensa-tions. They affect our
heartbeat, respiration, muscle tone, and blood flow. As
communication occurs, each subself and person feels a dynamic
mix ofemotions. They vary moment by moment, and
range between mild to intense, andhysteria
andagony to joy and ecstasy.
When the intensity of
someone's current emotion-mix is high enough. it can be said
they're "above the ears" because they block the person
from hearing other people. Remember the last time you
exper-ienced that? Infants, kids, and adults learn to
automatically assess other peoples' E-levels by judging their
voice dynamics, skin color, facial expression, and body
language. This assessment becomes in-stinctive and is often
unconscious.
Anyone can learn to identify their own E-level and that of any
communication partner. If they (you) observe someone's level to
be "above the ears, that's a signal to give or ask for a
hearing check.
When we feel well-heard, our E-level usually drops "below our
ears" and we can hear our partner/s again. Mutual hearing is
essential for effective communication.
Reality check: think of the last face-to-face argument you had,
and imagine you were a neutral observer. Where would you say
each person's E-level was - above or below their ears? Do
you think either person was aware of this mutual dynamic?
AWARENESS7) What
communication skill should I use now?
To answer this in important or conflictual social situations, use the awarenesses
above
+
clear thinking +digging down.
Use the other four skills depending on your mix of E-levels and needs:
Which Communication Skill To Use - When?
If My E-level is ...
and your E-level is...
then I should use...
"Below my ears" (i.e. I'm calm enough to really hear
you)
"Above your ears" (you're very emotional and can't hear me well or
at all now - you need to vent;
empathic listening skill until your
E-level drops below your ears and you can hear me.
Above
my ears - I'm "upset" with some-thing and I can't hear you
Below your ears, so you are (probably) able to hear me now;
metatalk (perhaps),
assertion, and empa-thic listening
until my E-level drops "below my ears"
Above
my ears...
Above
your ears ...
Cycle empathic listening and
assertion; then use
digging down, metatalk,
and
problem solving when
our E-levels drop and we can hear each other.
Below my ears ...
Below your ears ...
Normal conversation
The more you practice
these awarenesses and skills, the more automatic selecting the right
communica-tion skills will become.
The final awareness to cultivate is...
AWARENESS8)"Is
or was this effective communication?"
in a way that left us
each feeling good-enough
about each other and our current communi-cation process?
Only one of possible outcomes to any conversation is
fully effective
(win-win). Without your respective true Selves in charge and mutual awareness of
these factors in important conversations, your odds are
just 6%!
A variation of this
awareness
is "What's the
pattern of our communication outcomes over
time?" - e.g. "In the last (x) months, what has our general
conflict-outcome pattern been: lose/win, lose/lose, win/lose, or win/win?"
(or ineffective > effective enough)
+ + +
Pause and reflect: were you aware of these eight factors that
affect the outcome of your communi-cation with other people? Do
you know anyone who is aware of them? Do your kids know when to pay
attention to these vital communication factors yet?
Premise:
You can significantly improve your
communication effectiveness (get more needs met) by using these
eight awarenesses
with your own
subselves and key adults and kids.Professional com-municators
develop awareness
of up to 50 process-awareness factors! Master as many of them as you wish, but teach your kids at least these
eight!
Status check: on a
scale from one (I have no interest in raising my communication awareness
now) to ten (Becoming more aware is among my top five life priorities
now), I'd rate my current motivation to use the information in
this article as a ___. Option
- tailor this two-person awareness practice
to fit you and your situation.
Recap
This article is one of a series on effective
com-munication basics and skills. It focuses on the key-stone skill of
processawareness - a subset of gen-eral awareness.. The
learnable skill notices objec-tively "What's happening in us,
between us, and around us, right now?"
The article hilights eight of over 50 communi-cation variables anyone
can learn to be aware of in important interactions among their dynamic
person-ality subselves, and with other people.
Intentionally developing
this awareness allows identifying and brainstorming communication
blocks and problems.
Process awareness provides input for the
communication skills of
metatalk
and
problem solving.
Pause, breathe, and recall why you read this article on
communication awareness. Did you get what you needed? If
so - what do you want to do now? If not - what
do you need?
Who's
answering
these questions - your resident
true Self
or "some-one else"?
The Web address of this article is
http://sfhelp.org/cx/skills/aware.htm
Status Check - see how you feel about these premises - A = "I agree,"
D = " I disagree," and ? = "I'm not sure, or it
depends on (what?)"
"Below my ears" (i.e. I'm calm enough to really hear
you) 
"Above your ears" (you're very emotional and can't hear me well or
at all now - you need to vent;