Feeling stressed while communicating?

Mindful, effective communicationsSure, sending an email is easy. How many of us have not written one while on hold with another call or in those few moments between one meeting and the next? Or how many are not sending text messages or smart phone messages while driving even?

Information can be sent from virtually anywhere nowadays.

Did you know?

Psychological social and emotional conditions (like receiving an unwanted e-mail for example) can have the same impact on you (physiologically speaking) as physical aggressions as they draw on many of the same neural networks.

What does this mean?

Even just anticipating a challenging conversation or event can have as much impact as living through it for real!

Within your brain, the amygdala (associated with emotions, memory, etc.) sounds the alarm, which releases stimulating substances in your body, readying it for the “fight or flee” response. Stress hormones are also released.

This means that simply the act of receiving an email can put you physiologically in a situation where you feel stressed and so emotional that you are not even able to respond adequately to the message sent to you.

Intercultural CommunicationsIn terms of communication, this has a direct impact on the quality and the effectiveness with which we work and interact. Being mindful in interpersonal communication can be learned; you can do so too!

Jenny

The Secret of Interpersonal Communication

Becoming an effective communicatorEffective Communication

I am sure that you have already attended a communications training of some sort in your life; be it to improve your communication skills, your team collaboration or to learn particular tools and methods that were supposed to enable you to become a better, more effective communicator.

As I wrote in an earlier post, communications is much more than its mere verbal aspect let alone a set of tools and measures:

Following a study of Albert Mehrabian, an American Psychologist, who looked into which aspects of communications are relevant to the actual understanding of information thus to effectively communicating:

  • The verbal aspect only accounts for 7 % (hence the content of what you are saying)
  • 38 % come from the paraverbal aspect of communication (intonation, cadence, volume or pace ) and surely not surprising:
  • 55 % from the non-verbal aspects.

BeatenbergOver the last weekend, I have been exploring a technique called “Insight Dialogue” which was recommended to me and really is mindfulness and awareness applied to interpersonal communications. While you pause and relax, you provide yourself with the opportunity to tune into your own feelings and emotions, stepping out of the habitual trigger-response mechanism and opening up, allowing (mutual) space for response rather than reactivity. While you trust what emerges and listen deeply, you finally propose an answer or input, which is truly beneficial to your counterpart or dialogue partners. You remain integer and compassionate not being entangled in emotions or feelings and clinging to words wanting to steer the conversation your way.

What a great way of connecting with each other and having a meaningful conversation. I am now even more passionate about including these techniques into my training, coaching and consulting work. Insight Dialogue certainly offers a wonderful way towards working on Self-Awareness and Management, Social Awareness and Relationship-Management all at the Center of Emotional Intelligence thus at the heart of Mindful Leadership.