Because I am away from my home office this holiday season, and the technical resources I normally rely on are not available, I will be taking a break from the “Chakra Series”, and resume on January 8, 2010.  In the mean time, today I want to look at an area that I believe is responsible for a lot of unnecessary suffering.  The area is communications with family members, especially during the holiday season.

A Time Of Stress And Anxiety

While ideally the holidays are a time when family can come together and spend quality time with one another and express their appreciation and love for one another, the reality is often quite different.  There are a number of reasons why I believe this is so.  First of all, even though the holidays are a time of celebration, for most they are also  a time of stress and anxiety.

Family members who you may love and yet limit contact with throughout the year as a means of survival (and maintaining your sanity) are now sitting across the table from you, waiting for the perfect opportunity to “pounce” and point out your “imperfections to the rest of the family gathered for the “celebration”.  It seems everyone has an agenda which on the surface may simply appear as “I’m right and you’re an idiot”  If we get caught up in the trap/game of trying to defend our position the final outcome can only result in a winner and a loser.

Approaching Family Communications From A Win/Win Mindset

It is for that reason that I suggest you approach communications with family members (and any one of that matter) with a mindset of win/win.  You do this by recognizing that both you and the person you are communicating with have needs that you are hoping to get met.  In spite of what it may sound like on the surface, (especially with family members) the needs will generally have something to do with feeling loved, accepted, heard, and respected. It is also likely that these are your needs as well.

Quite often there is a misunderstanding that has led to you and/or the other person you are communicating with to feel that something that was done or said by the other was in conflict  with what their need is.  In other words you/they felt that it was unloving, unacceptable, weren’t being heard, and/or were disrespected.

Steps You Can Take

I will go into more specifics in my next post, for now simply keep in mind that you want to approach all communications from a win/win perspective where everyone gets their needs met.  Instead of responding directly to attacks or negative expressions, you are going to recognize that these are simply the result of that person feeling that you are not meeting their needs in the way that they would like.  Your goal is to identify the needs of the other person first, then communicate your needs, and together see if their is a way that you can both get your needs met.

In my next post I will go through the steps recommended by Marshall Rosenberg in his book “Non-Violent Communication”.  You may also want to listen to an interview I did earlier in the year with Jeff Brown, who is the Director of Non-Violent Communications of Southern Ohio.  In the interview we discussed the steps one may incorporate in various types of difficult situations.

Click the link below to listen to the Interview with Jeff Brown.

http://thechampionsheart.com/blog/uploaded/Compassionate Communication.wav

I would also love to hear about your experiences, ans any methods that have worked for you in communicating in difficult circumstances.