What Does It Mean to Communicate From the Heart?
The biggest hurdle to many fulfilling relationship is open and heart-centred communication. Somewhere down the line we became afraid to ask for our needs, afraid to hear a no, afraid to be vulnerable or to face criticism. In frustration, we can resort to nagging or shutting down.
I am by now means an expert in successful communication styles, but I am interested in building emotional intimacy in connections, so I am learning and reading, just like you about what might work or not.
Most of the time our earliest teachers of communcation have been our parents. But depending on how they resolved conflict or not, we might not have been given any tools to establish open, honest and fulfilling conversations with others.
When it comes to our bodies and meridians, our hearts, pericardium and the liver and gallbladder are most involved in open communication and difficult conversations.
The gallbladder and liver give us courage and assertiveness in conversation. They also regulate the fight and flight response when we shut down under stress.
The heart meridian opens into the tong, it allows us to speak with compassion and love and the pericardium decides to be open or protected and how vulnerable we want to be.
Years ago, I came across a communication style called Nonviolent communication by Marshaal B. Rosenberg and I recently relooked at the materal. This communication style works directly with the involvement of the heart. It's a heart centred way to open up conversations and create more emotional intimacy.
The aim of this style is to remove any criticism, judgment and belittleling and instead focus on your emotions and needs.
Communication is handled in 4 steps:
Observation
Emotions
Needs
Requests.
Let's do an example. You are trying to talk to your child and they continue to watch a video on the phone. You might get frustrated and say "You never listen to me".
Using non-violent communication, you would instead say the following:
Observation: You are watching a video while I talk to you.
Emotions: I feel frustrated.
Needs: Because I need to feel valued.
Request: When we talk could you please turn off the video and give me your full attention and let me know what you heard from what I said.
This is different than saying: I am frustrated and hurt because you are watching TV while I talk to you.
The emphasis with this style of communication is really around communicating your own feelings and needs.
The hurdle of this communication style is that many of us aren't even fully connected to what we feel, and even less to what we need.
As women we have often learned to fulfill everyone elses needs instead of our own and totally suppress what we might need.
The first step of trying to communicate like this isn't even about communication, it's about listening to ourselves and understanding what we truly feel and what need sits behind it.
I talk more about non-violent commucation and other ways to have more fulfilling conversations in my latest podcast
If you want to explore more ways to connect to your body, listen to your needs and find the safety to express express yourself more freely, I invite you into my new course "Woman who sing themselves home". The course starts 7 October. You can read more below.
Comments