“The biggest challenge in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.”
~ George Bernard Shaw
Have you ever heard anyone say to you, “That’s not what I meant,” or the more popular, “You misunderstood me”?
Yet you heard their words exactly as they were expressed. Maybe once you reacted, they wanted to change their delivery or choice or words or describe what they were really trying to say to you.
Many people I know and work with are experiencing miscommunications and are not creating a life they desire, yet they are not actively working to learn better ways to communicate at work, in the world, or with their loved ones.
I believe they are just not aware of the fact that there are many techniques and tools we can learn to successfully communicate with love and kindness.
I LOVE learning about communication and one of my biggest passions is Mindful Language. I am passionate about language that adds to one’s well-being and creates conversations that feel good to both parties. One of our family’s core values is peace and nonviolence also known as Ahimsa.
Ahimsa, which is a Sanskrit word meaning not to injure, describes language that does not harm someone while speaking it. Gandhi believed in Ahimsa and taught that it applies to all living beings including all animals.
Ahimsa is rooted in the belief that all living beings have the spark of the divine spiritual energy; therefore, to hurt another being is to hurt oneself.
Often times when we are not mindful of our language, we do know it and we may later feel bad that we spoke a certain way or said something that we really didn’t mean.
I have been speaking every day of my life, since I was a little girl. Okay, some would say, including my hubby and kids (who I talk to all day everyday), that I may even speak more than most people!
I have also been studying communication for the last 25 years. I even majored in it. I mean, I have a degree in communication. So basically, my four-year university gave me a piece of paper saying I am an expert in communication.
Recently, on my journey to discovering the Magical Power of Mindful Language even further, I had the pleasure of attending an event lead by a beautiful transformational leader, Niurka, during her one-day Supreme Influence event in Los Angeles. Amazingly, I learned more about the power of communication and language in my one-day training event with Niurka’s Supreme Influence teachings than in my entire foyr years of expensive education.
In my family and in my work, I inspire myself and other people to raise their vibration in order to create a life of joy and peace. One of the most important steps in doing this is becoming mindful of your communication.
You can do this by raising your awareness and paying attention to how you think & how you speak to yourself and others.
Being mindful of your language is life-altering.
English is my native language. Divinely and ironically, I married someone whose native language was NOT English.
I used to wonder how if you are talking to someone and both people are speaking the same language, how can you possibly have a misunderstanding. I thought that our miscommunications were all due to us speaking different native languages, but the truth is we had never been taught the true power of our words.
We have now been together for almost 21 years and communication is one of the key components to our loving relationship. It was not always easy, we had to really put the effort in and learn how to communicate in loving ways and also have the patience with each other as we raised our awareness.
If we miscommunicate now, we understand how to handle it and how to clarify our conversations, communicate our needs and desires and speak with love. If we forget or say something now that doesn’t feel good or is not going the way we planned, we can quickly catch ourselves and find a better feeling way to talk with each other.
Remember the popular movie, Airplane? This comedy is filled with perfect examples of miscommunication at it’s best even though both parties were supposedly both speaking the same language:
Doctor: “She is going to need a hospital.”
Woman: “Oh my, what is it doctor?”
Doctor: “It’s a big building where they help sick people, but that’s not important now.”
Or:
Man 1: “When can we land?”
Man 2: “I don’t know.”
Man 1: “Take your best guess.”
Man 2: “Okay, in about 2 hours.”
Man 1: “In 2 hours you can take your guess?”
You can see how easy it is to miscommunicate. These make us giggle, yet it shows how easily it happens all day long in everyone’s lives.
Niurka, author of the book, Supreme Influence: Change Your Life with the Power of the Language You Use, teaches about communication and states that the success of your communication is the direct result of how well you communicate. The quality of the answers you receive is based on the quality of your questions.
In our home, our intention is practice Conscious Communication daily. In fact our youngest even has her own saying from all her “education” of mindful language:
“SAY what you want, THINK what you want, SING what you want, EXPECT what you want.” ~ Gabrielle Alexa, Age 8
Niurka speaks of this in a similar way, she states: “Your words matter. Literally. Meaning: Whatever you say materializes itself. When you open your mouth to speak, there are limitless possibilities of what you could say. There are limitless ways to describe the experience you’re having. But beware… language is like clay in a sculptor’s hands: words will shape your life, for better or for worse.”
In our family, we are mindful of how we speak and how we feel at all times. We are not perfect, but we have elevated our awareness so we notice when our energy is not aligned. We can notice if our communication is not going well or if we are not aligned with someone as we speak.
Because one of my specific areas of focus is Mindful Parenting, I teach parents about the language they use.
I guide parents how to go beyond behavior and dig deeper to get to the emotions. Rather than focusing solely on their child’s or loved ones behavior and tone of voice in order to react or determine if they are speaking respectfully, they can use their child’s behavior as clues and insight into their child’s needs and current energy state.
So if their child is speaking to them in a way that doesn’t feel good, they can see there is a question there.
Instead of reacting or taking their behavior personally and saying why is he or she speaking in this way, the question becomes why is he or she FEELING this way.
Instead of being offended a parent or family member can see the situation for what it really is and help others through their emotions instead of labeling and being angry or punishing them for being human or not communicating properly.
Niurka says, “seek to understand others by asking questions. When someone tells you something, do not always assume you know what he or she means. Instead ask them to clarify in order to help you understand: You can ask: How so? How do you mean?”
You can also decide to change your life by shifting statements you often speak out of habit that do not add to your well-being.
As Deepak Chopra states, “Your cells are eavesdropping on your internal dialogue,” so you must be aware that your body can hear what you say.
Repetitive negative language can lead to negative interactions with others, injury, disease or illness in one’s body as a direct manifestation of your own linguistic programming.
So instead of saying, “Why does this always happen to me all the time?” You might say, “What can I learn from this?”
Instead of saying, “I always get sick in the winter, you can simply say, “I take extra care of myself as the seasons change,” so your focus is on wellbeing.
Instead of saying, “My child or loved one never listens,” you can say, “It feels so great when my family and I can communicate in a way that feels good to us both.”
Most people want to create change, and upgrade their lives, yet do not make any changes in their thoughts or their actions or their language.
Niurka says, “Every moment contains a seed of enormous potential. But if someone chooses today as he did yesterday, without awareness, he can re-create the past and project it into the present. Of course it’s ok to choose the same thing. The question is, are we choosing from a space of unconscious habit, or are we choosing consciously in alignment with our purpose? When we choose with awareness we are empowered.”
So, if you are looking to change your life or create new habits, you can be sure that learning how to speak and communicate and think in an empowered Ahimsa/Prana Boost/Supreme Influence way may be the best place to start to upgrade your life.
Here are some wonderful questions to ask yourself about your own communication:
How can I communicate with more clarity?
How can I be even more kind with my words?
How can I experience even more peace with my loved ones, or my boss, or my friends?
Tina Louise Balodi, a.k.a. Prana Boost Momma, is an author, Life & Soul Coach, Transformational Leader, Researcher, Parenting Mentor, Mommapreneur, & humble student who is raising her family to follow their intuition and always remember they are a spirit having a human experience. She is the Co-Creator/Founder of Prana Boost and she has been co-creating everything in life for 20 years with her best friend, business partner, Soulmate/Twin Flame husband, Alan.
