Communicating on Purpose
Conscious or Unconscious, You’re Still Communicating
One of the most important premises behind Conscious Communication is that on some level, there is actually a point in our communicating. We actually want to convey an idea or share something. We’re not just making noises with our mouths, without a connection to some kind of outcome. Over time, it becomes a kind of auto-pilot activity like walking, and we really don’t think about it. When a problem or misunderstanding comes along, it surprises us, like banging into a coffee table in the middle of the night. Suddenly, we become very conscious of walking and we pay a lot of attention, at least until the next day when our shin isn’t hurting anymore.
Paying attention all the time would be mentally exhausting, so we tend to “coast” whenever we feel comfortable enough to get away with it. Those misunderstandings jar us back to reality like that coffee table, and we’re forced to re-orient ourselves in a hurry. What happened? Where are we? How did this happen? It can be like driving while tired, and suddenly jolting yourself awake; obviously not a pleasant experience.
On the other hand, (and that purpose behind our communication) there are things you actually do want to convey, and when we’re not using conscious communication we’re not putting our best case forward either. Crafting a message is just that; crafting. It requires some thought, some care, and absolutely requires being conscious of the words we choose and the way we put them together. So obviously we have at least two good arguments for conscious communication. One is avoiding the anxiety and misunderstandings that result when we don’t, and the other is aspiring toward communicating what we were aiming for in the first place.
The Push and Pull of Words
Our brains are designed to work with a process called Quantum Computation. We process enormous amounts of information every second, and our brains filter, sort, and find patterns crossing seemingly unrelated areas. Language is just one part of the puzzle. This is why we can say one thing, mean another, and have it interpreted still another way. There are a lot of things going on at once. Conscious Communication enables us to focus and aim our words to be unambiguous and say what we really mean to say. This is called Verbal Accuracy and obviously works well with the top layers of our communication.
But what about the underlying, hidden agendas that we may not even be aware of in our own communication? What are we communicating that we have little or no awareness of, and yet is part of the total package the other person is processing? This is where we can look at two simple motivations behind all communication: pulling people toward us or pushing them away. Yes, I know this is a pretty grand statement, but think about it for a minute. Regardless of all the other reasons for saying whatever you may say, on a very core level you’re either saying “come with me, see my side” or “back off, get away.”
This is where we either succeed in communicating or create confusion and conflict. Our words can be aimed in one direction, yet convey the opposite. This incongruity becomes a red flag in our pattern seeking brain. We get stuck trying to make sense out of the contradicting information we’re getting, and hear a message far from what was intended.
The simplest and most obvious example of this is when someone’s words and tone don’t match. Most cognitive linguists agree that the tone will have more impact, and we’ll simply discount the words. Of course this creates the secondary affect of communicating hypocrisy or “fakeness,” so we can really lose big when we’re not paying attention to our tone being congruent with our words.
Another place we get into trouble is when our defenses get involved, and pull our message way off track. This is where our intention is “come with me and hear my side,” and yet our words end up saying, “back off, get away.” Most of the time people are completely unaware that they’re doing this, which of course means that it’s totally fixable by becoming aware. Yes, Conscious Communication comes in like a caped hero to save our interactions from plunging into an abyss.
The Return of the Empty Cup
The most common defensive verbal posture is called, “I know.” This is based on the belief that what you don’t know will hurt you, (certainly potentially true). The problem is when we take this premise and play a little game of “telephone” in our own heads, shifting the meaning ever so slightly each time, and ending up far from the original statement. If the unknown will hurt you, you’re vulnerable. To not be hurt you must be invulnerable. Thus to be invulnerable you must “know.” The equation is set up now: knowing equals invulnerability. This becomes that verbal posture. Even though it is usually a mostly unconscious process, the result is people taking the position of “knowing” to feel safe, whether they actually “know” or not. This defensive position is using a “back off” strategy, regardless of the actual message we may have wanted to get across, so there’s a good chance we’ll miss our opportunity, and the other person will miss our point.
Furthermore, the strategy is flawed. If we were actually conscious of this equation, we’d see the flaw. We started with actually knowing something to be safe. Go back in time and this could be anything from knowing where the ice is too thin to support us, to knowing where the good berries are. We transform this into trying to feel safe in conversations by using the same premise. We are invulnerable and already know “whatever” (or at least convey this as our defense mechanism.) Ironically, it works exactly backward and makes us far more vulnerable. When we take the stance that we already know, we don’t investigate. This means we miss out on learning something, so that we actually know. When we don’t actually know, we’re far more vulnerable in reality. So this defensive posture actually has us shooting ourselves in the foot to be safe.
By recognizing when we’re using the defensive posture of “knowing already,” we can catch ourselves and become more in the moment and the interaction. By not unconsciously pushing the other person back with our defenses, we can be more engaged with them, and have a two-way learning experience that will enrich both of us. We can avoid the stress of unnecessary conflict by keeping our communication clean and congruent, saying precisely what we mean, without the underlying defensive disconnect.