How to Use Conscious Communication to Build Positive Relationships

Have you ever felt the need to be understood? It’s time to learn the art of conscious or intuitive communication. It focuses on engaging with others by remaining attentive to shared interests and sentiments.

A conscious communication definition outlines that it’s committed to concentrating on the present and paying heed to shared emotions and needs. Thus, being a conscious communicator means being intentional in how you express yourself to nurture your connection and the lines of communication.

The way you communicate affects your ability to self-care for your emotional health. Intentional communication allows you to maintain good self-esteem and detach from the critical chatter in your mind.

In contrast to responding, it trains you to react to different circumstances maturely rather than with a flight or fight attitude. It’s a talent that you can develop. Once you master it, you’ll feel better emotionally, improve your connections, and reduce stress.

Advantages of Conscious Communication

Any communication aims to increase the likelihood of being understood by the other party. We’ve prepared a couple of tips to help you develop better connections and increase the chances of others understanding you.

Conscious communication is highly effective when interacting with others. Understanding this will enable you to engage people honestly, leading to empathetic, fruitful, and creative dialogue.

1. Engages Questions and Critical Thinking

Participants in communication have the power to ask you questions. You can have constructive criticism, conversation, reflection, learning, and listening.

The ability to ask questions is crucial to efficient information interchange. You may enhance a wide variety of communication skills by asking the relevant questions in the right setting.

You may develop stronger connections, obtain more information and gain more, supervise teams more successfully, and assist others in learning. Through questions, team members in the workplace can use constructive criticism to show their ideas confidently, as well as parents with their children

2. It Recognizes Everyone’s Uniqueness

Groups in today’s business world naturally consist of individuals who aren’t from the same section or department, unknown to each other, or haven’t previously worked together. The scenario is a factor in the communication, which regards team members as personalities and values their backgrounds and distinctive abilities.

Every one of us has unique skills and life experiences to share, and it’s crucial to acknowledge these differences within the team so that individuals feel valued. You’ll have teams with various backgrounds and skills if you practice diverse consciousness while communicating.

The members will bring to the table varying ideologies, approaches to issues at the workplace, perspectives, and opinions. The multicultural team will be able to understand one another’s paths and identify with others within the group.

3. It Helps You Observe Yourself and Those Around You

When you are aware while communicating, you’ll be in a position to observe yourself. Check out how you are delivering the message without judging. How is your vocal intonation? What body language are you using?

Go further and question yourself. What am I trying to pass across? Is it to manipulate?  You may want some results from your team, so you may focus on swaying their emotions to make them behave in a certain way.

For instance, a colleague may be reluctant to handle a particular task. You could inspire them to gain confidence and perform the job. Or do you seek to inform?

For example, you may want to tell a colleague you’re attending a meeting at your child’s school. You’re not asking for their permission. You are ideally giving them a memo. But if you’re unclear to your co-workers they might not give the response you expected.

When you know the reason for your communication, you’ll adopt clarity into conscious communication.

4. It Ensures Empathy

Conscious communicators can put themselves in the shoes of their peers. The state of mind of the person you are communicating with could disallow mutual understanding. Speaking sternly to a grieving person may lead to conflict rather than what you anticipate.

Imagine yourself in their shoes. How you’d like someone to communicate with you? That is empathy. Incorporating empathy into mindful communication is key to ensuring mutual understanding.

Practicing Conscious Communication

You become a good communicator when you are mindful of your body language, words, and energy in every interaction. Awareness means being careful with how you express yourself and influence other people and society in general.

Research shows that individuals who maturely respond to their partners’ requests significantly improve the quality of their relationships. ^[1]

Of course, it is possible to become a better communicator by engaging in mindfulness practices such as meditation and various breathing techniques. Nevertheless, they may not be enough to overcome a serious challenge in a relationship.

Sometimes, partners may experience intense feelings or intrusive thoughts. This can be overwhelming for them and make it hard to meditate. ^[2]

In such a case, it’s essential to go through all the steps of healthy communication to restore balance. Taking on more responsibility in your relationships and recognizing your part in any dispute will help you overcome the obstacles in your interactions much more quickly.

1. Assess What Happened

Sometimes things can go wrong, contrary to what you had expected. The first step is to calm down and stay grounded by analyzing the scenario with neutrality and asking yourself what transpired. You’ll gain emotional stability that will help you think clearly.

For instance, the event could bring back unpleasant memories, so taking some deep breaths and counting from 1 to 10 will help get you back to the present. Try looking at your natural surroundings, close your eyes, and convince yourself that what happened in the past is not the present.

Looking at the situation as a third party or neutral may not be easy. Start by describing the problem and pointing out the triggers as an outsider. Remove yourself from the case and cultivate an impartial and pure heart.

2. Express How You Feel

Look internally and describe how you feel with words that clearly illustrate your core emotions. Don’t use comments that encourage feelings of victimization. Avoid words like:

• Abandoned
• Cheated
• Manipulated
• Betrayed
• Let Down
• Unappreciated
• Unwanted

The key is to express yourself, not add more fuel to the fire.

3. Address Your Needs

We all have different needs when consciously communicating with others. Look at the four crucial human needs:

• Affection
• Attention
• Appreciation
• Acceptance

Ask yourself if you’re getting these. Then communicate it and express why you think that you feel this way.

4. Ask For More

You need to know what you are asking for from the others. Simultaneously, you should understand that people are not perfect and they could fail to fulfill your needs at times. So, it is crucial to allow yourself to dwell on uncertainty, be vulnerable, and demand what you require. Evaluate the response of the individual you are dealing with it calmly.

For instance, if you want your partner to pay you more attention, asking for demands may not be fruitful. Suggest going for a stroll after lunch or attending a game on the weekend.

What Is Conscious Communication

The clear, accidental, subliminal signs conveying knowledge to others are unconscious communication. It might be verbal, nonverbal, intrapersonal, or face-to-face.

Instead of using emotional cues, some psychologists refer to these as “honest signals.” Unlike body language, they are uncontrollable automatic activities that frequently transmit feelings.

Here we have communication perceived and generated on the right side of the brain that informs many actions. Although it does not primarily concern itself with the unconscious, the right side is dominant in communicating and interpreting body signals, verbal cues, facial expressions, and other indicators of emotion.

1. Creating Personal Space

There is a difference in the space between you and the people you know against strangers or those you dislike. You can use space to show pleasure or lack thereof with other people. In unconscious communication, you may move away from people who are standing very close to you.

You may feel uncomfortable with the small distance and unintentionally move away to create space.

2. Use of Gestures

When we speak verbally, we often use gestures to communicate, which are unintentional and involuntary. We use our hands or arms to greet, bid farewell, point, and do other things. You may defensively cross your arms because you could be anticipating a confrontation with the other individual.

You could unintentionally show impatience by tapping your fingers on the desk or juggling your keys or coins in your pocket.

3. Use of Intonation

When we speak, our voices vary and express different emotions. Some emotions include shock, anger, surprise, happiness, etc. Let’s say you are informing your students that you are leaving for greener pastures.

Your words could focus on the sad part, but your voice may sound happy. And because actions speak louder than words, your students may feel you never loved teaching them.

4. Listen Reflectively

Reflective listening promotes paying attention and builds more meaningful interpersonal linkages. The connections are based on compassion and understanding.

Listening can assist you in deciding on a plan of action, clarifying your ideas on a subject, or delving deeper into your emotions. It is beneficial to both the sender and the recipient.

5. Learn to Co-Listen

Following your conclusion, the recipient gives honest feedback on what they heard. You then have the chance to confirm or clarify anything that the other individual misheard.

The recipient reacts by practicing mindfulness without judgment in the dialogue. Recipients refrain from reacting and pay complete attention to the speaker. It stops the speaker from altering their statements or meaning in response to the recipient’s replies, regardless of how minor. ^[3]

The speaker talks without making conclusions, preparing their words in advance, or feeling inhibited. They then experience what it’s like to talk openly without dealing with scrutiny or criticism.

6. Be Composed and Communicate Slowly

You initiate a dispute if you speak loudly or respond to things your partner says. Stay calm to avoid many conflicts. The safety offered by your tranquility is what keeps the linking space available.

Deep breaths are an excellent way to stay centered in your physique and maintain a peaceful demeanor. Look for the upside and observe with understanding.

Talking fast is typically indicative of being detached and anxious. Pacing yourself allows you to leave space between your phrases, making each one more readily accepted. In the gaps, we not only understand the other individual’s words but also identify with those behind the utterances.

7. Learn to Receive and Give Empowering Feedback

Effective communication is a two-way process, meaning that you and the person you are communicating with feedback. Whether at work or in academics, it’s crucial that you feel motivated and motivate the people you are dealing with when getting feedback.

When responding, don’t intend to criticize but rather to inform and learn. Always give feedback as a lack of it can affect your and others’ self-esteem, create feelings of unworthiness, judgment, etc.

Use “I” expressions to show you talk from personal experience. You can say things like:

• I know what it means
• the time you did something
• I felt belittled

Consciously giving and receiving feedback will help you leave behind what won’t work for you and pick up what will build you.

Conclusion

Every life experience presents an opportunity to learn. You must reflect on the experience and what you may discover, irrespective of the outcome of your communication effort. There are two scenarios for this.

The other person may comprehend your viewpoint and fulfill your expectations, making you both winners. Secondly, mutual understanding may not happen, so you could use the journaling approach to highlight what you gained from the situation.

It will present a chance for your growth as you’ll have learned something from your life experience.

Conscious communication means going beyond just speaking slowly. You should practice intentional communication to become a mindful communicator. Learn to give feedback that is informative and not criticizing.

However, you’ll soon realize that it strongly impacts your relationship in a way that makes the process successful.

TL;DR

Don’t have time for the full article? Read this.

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Being a conscious communicator means being intentional in how you express yourself to nurture your connection and the lines of communication.

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Incorporating empathy into mindful communication is key to ensuring mutual understanding.

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Being conscious in your communication engages critical thinking and helps address problems easily. We become more empathic with others, and this helps us control our behavior when we are angry or full of emotions.

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Research shows that individuals who maturely respond to their partners’ requests significantly improve the quality of their relationships.

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Practicing Tip: Start by assessing the situation. Look at things objectively and neutrally, and try to calm yourself. Then express what you need and what you feel so that the other person can understand why you are feeling this way. Then ask for a change.

Featured photo credit: Jason Goodman via unsplash.com

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