The Language of Expression

© by Eric S. Meyer

 In one's life, there are beseemingly endless opportunities to interact. However, unless one is prepared and desires full duplex communication, the channel of expression may get clouded and obscured. Towards the goal of clarity is this essay written, with the hope being to shed some light on alternative, but often effective, means and processes of connecting with others in a more emotional and intellectual form.

 Communication involves an interaction, but such interaction may vary wildly due to quality, which is linked to the experience, motivation and sincerity of the two parties: the speaker and the audience. If such elements as purpose and requested action are not carefully presented and heard, a breakdown may occur, resulting in such a range of manifestations including confusion, anger and sadness.

 The advantages for effective communication include enhanced interpersonal relationships, more productive business dealings, and more robust friendships. Clearly, communication is of importance to anyone wishing to share thoughts and dreams, to convey feelings and pain, to give compassion and affection, to just simply be human.

 Humans are not alone on the Earth as communicators: dolphins are believed to convey entire stories from generation to generation, much like human poets like Homer did centuries ago. Even insects can be social; bees communicate a large amount of information during their lifespan. Apes have been observed to maintain a social structure with Alpha and Beta males, which surely reinforces the point that they, too, much communicate effectively to retain such a social order.

 To communicate well may be goal you share, so towards that goal the following is a set of tips meant to improve and build up your communication proficiencies. Of course, only you can decide which suggestions are right for you, and if you conclude that your present communication system works for you just fine, then you might be tempted to skip or skim this essay. However, you are urged by the author to keep reading, if for no reason more than to be better able to argue your case that this essay is either irrelevant or incorrect in its suggestions and tips.

 Here is a rundown of the steps towards achieving effective communication: know your needs, know your boundaries, know the needs of your audience, know the boundaries of your audience, determine how your needs can be met without compromising either your or your audience's boundaries, and while supporting your audience's needs. Of course, if you have one person you are communicating with, or a room of four hundred people, you most likely will want to compose your communication differently.

 Know your needs. To do this, you will need to identify your feelings, using a larger vocabulary of feeling words than you might expect. Try substituting the words hurt, sad, lonely, frightened, disappointed, confused, unfocused, distracted, happy, motivated, inclined, energized, reflective, introspective, weary, sleepy, tired, enthusiastic, exhausted, disappointed and disorientated for the words angry, mad, upset, bad and good.

 We all have needs which tend to vary in intensity but overall are consistent among all people. They include the needs for shelter, food/water, affection, integration, exploration, sexual intimacy and expression, security/stability, creativity, opportunity, meaning and value. Let's explore each of these needs in detail, but first read through this above list, and try to see if any of the universal needs gets your attention. Ok, now proceed below when ready.

 Shelter is important to avoid damage from the elements, like wind, sun, rain, snow and from animals. This is a more well-know need, but is no more and no less important than the other needs.

 Food and water are absolutely required for life to be sustained. The human body is designed to take in food and water to keep power for the cells, which in turn sustain the internal organs and skin.

 Affection is about spontaneously giving attention as hugs, kissing and other body contact, as well as flirting and otherwise showing another person they mean something and matter. Unlike love, affection is about giving linked to the sense of wanting to give to see someone else happy. Love, however, is linked to the sense of investing energy towards gaining security and feeding the need for predictability. Affection is about the moment here and now, while love is about trying to get something from someone in the future.

 Integration is all about fitting into the community, no matter the scale, to give of one's experience, skill and interests to help it stay able to both meet needs and to meet wants and desires. This essay will only mention wants and desires as being a bit step below needs in importance, but are nonetheless real and deserve the be examined to some exhaustive study and analysis.

 Exploration is all about learning. Humans, like other animals, will tend to die rather quickly if they both can't learn very fast and don't have a caring relative, friend or government step to protect them and give them resources. Exploration is also about sensing boundaries, both of others and from within. Without this learning process, culture would not progress, and technology would, for the most part, remain unchanged from century to century, and millennium to millennium.  To feed this need, one may wish to have fun by watching a movie, or better yet, make up a story with a friend and take turns visualizing it within the mind.

 Sexual intimacy is attained through trust and emotional connection. Trust is linked to knowing the partner will not deliberately do harm at any time for any reason, including physical and emotional. When trust is gained, the second element, emotional connection, can provide for a mutually empowering and creativity boosting mind set. Emotional connection is defined as partners being able to talk with each other, speaking about experiences that were painful, scary, confusing, happy and motivating. Such a connection is built up by “quality time” or, in other words, setting aside time to not be focused on other things but instead on the partner's needs, wants and desires.  Sexual expression is about communicating the ability, drive and interest in having a new sex partner, usually towards the possible creation of a new life.

 Stability relates to the human need of being able to use past knowledge to create some sort of ideas of what the next day, week, month and year will be likely to provide, both in challenges that are favorable and unfavorable. Without stability, past knowledge and experience will appear, and usually be, less useful or able to improve the chances of one getting what they want.

 Creativity is necessary for proper immune system function. Albert Einstein said: "Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited..." Imagination and creativity are nearly synonyms, and Einstein points out a very valid perspective: that dreams build more quality relationships than CD-ROMs which one thousand plans for construction of bridges, especially if the CD-ROMs cannot be read due to a damaged computer.

 Opportunity is necessary for skills to be worth acquiring. If a talent will never have a day when it can be availed, then what use is it? Every experience is a potential source of new talents and skills, to better empower a person to deal with future obstacles that block, for however much time, what one wants or thinks they need. Therefore, when life has more opportunities to apply what is learned, and more importantly, to apply what is learning to better those who matter, like family and friends, a person can be energized and apply themselves to reality because of the opportunities that await them.

 Meaning is actualized when it links up with another event, place or idea. In other words, meaning relates to a chain connecting two or more abstractions, as a cause and effect relationship. If meaningful is absent, then one will be at high risk to not believe in a God or god, and may live more in the moment here and now, being propelled towards acknowledging emotions and less inclined to pray.

 Value is what is important, and this need is all about what one looks to see or find, or what they expect to find for some reason. Values are what help define our personalty and character. Values tend to be cherished and looked at as though they are beauty, yet they are very abstract.

 After identifying your own feelings, you may wish to express them. To do this most effectively, you can use the form of “I feel happy when I am near you” or “I feel disappointed when you don't return my calls” or “I feel secure when you hold me close.” When you begin with the phrase, “I feel ..... when you .....” you are speaking to what you indisputably own: your emotions.

 Feelings are the building blocks of relationships, as logic is the foundation of business dealings. Relationships are the how two or more people interact and share; business dealings are about how two or more people can get the most from each other while giving to the other the least possible they can get by providing. In other words, feelings and logic are a part of life, but the proportion you use to each individual will ultimately play a very strong role in defining the future of your interactions with that person or group.

 Now that you have expressed your feelings, it is time to state your boundaries. To do this, use a statement like, “I cannot help you right now, perhaps I will have some time at supper time.” Notice the components used here: 1) an “I” statement, 2) action that is being asked of you (“cannot help you right now'), 3) “perhaps” is a conditional, in that it indicates a likelihood of accommodation but not a guarantee of it, 4) “I will have some time” states what can be offered as a response to the original request, and finally 5) “at supper time” gives the time at which additional check-ins are acceptable.

 When the above format is followed, the interaction will tend to be more healthy for both participants. In addition, the conversation may consume twice as much time as shouting out orders and by being aggressive, but the trade off is more than worth it: you get to build up a relationship with the other person, instead of establishing a pecking order of authority and domination.

 The next step is to let the other person do the same thing you did earlier with expressing feelings. With this, you should try to be quite until two seconds have passed of silence, then speak for no more than a few sentences maximum, the shorter the better. Try to really focus without seeking solutions, but instead to just validate the experiences of the other person.

 After your communication buddy is done speaking, and you waited two seconds, try to summarize what they just said using different words but as close to as possible the meaning you inferred. This will, if done effectively, help build a sense of comfort and security in the other person, by them feeling listened to and feelings validated, and you will gain a sense of better understanding of no just them but of yourself as well.

 Next, try to ask a few questions to learn boundaries of the other person. Observation of boundaries means, quite simply, “Respect.” When your buddy speaks, try to do the above step to understand and repeat as a paraphrase, then notice the limits the other person is setting and don't try to change the boundaries, or even inquire, unless you do so very briefly and in a polite way. After asking once, try to refrain from questioning your buddy's boundaries unless you truly don't understand the boundaries, or if one of your needs is being violated by the other person's boundaries. If you are hungry and the person has a boundary against having a candy bar in your cabin at a camp, you may want to express that “I feel pain because I am hungry. I need to eat.” What you probably don't want to do is something like, “You make me starve, so I will not follow your rules anymore.” The way you word something can mean getting what you want and what you very much want to avoid.

 The purpose of life is to experience pain, and to remember it as an asset more valuable than money or gold. Painful experiences are the result of deciding you want something based on a need, want or desire, pursuing it, not attaining it as expected or in a satisfactory manner, and then acquiring a set of feelings. Such feelings may include sadness, depression, frustration, hopelessness, loneliness and many other feelings. Pain is a reflex that is important for growth and maturity.

 With pain comes the opportunity to share something. A problem shared may result the buddy misconstruing the situation to mean you are asking the buddy to do something. Generally, this is not the case, except in instances of physical, sexual and emotional abuse, or in instances of suicidal thoughts or homicidal thoughts. Too often in our culture, listeners misinterpret their role from being a listener to instead being a virtual extension of their buddy. Your buddy must solve their own problems, and if you try to sole all your buddies problems, your buddy with either stop telling your his or her problems lest you intertwine yourself, or they may involve and expect you to solve every problem that may arise in their life. Either way, and you get a co-dependent relationship.

 Ideally, you would be able to share issues that cause pain or other emotional responses as a means to connect with the other person, and to better understand yourself while helping your mood improve by feeling connected and heard, while your buddy will most likely feel important and valued. This shows that pain, when caused by natural means, is no something to fear, but something to embrace.

 In summary, communication is about using symbols and sounds, besides body language, towards a common goal: to be understood to gain peace and understanding. Those who assert that communication is all about getting one's own way as often as possible are neglecting the beautiful opportunities that rest with being able to say what one is feeling, what one is needing, and by listening in a non-judgmental but instead validating approach. Life becomes deadened when the focus is placed on business without the proper balance on humane interaction and relationships. Without adequate attention being spent on community as a place to give resources to, the world becomes a giant machine where everything is reduce to a quantitative business equation. Which is more important: making money that cannot buy happiness and live in some degree of dissatisfaction, or 2) share resources so that relationships fill your life with joy?