Tuesday 3 March 2009

“A friend is one before whom I may think aloud.” R. W. Emerson

Whether we are aware of it or not we communicate twenty-four hours a day, even in our dreams. Even when we don’t say anything… we communicate.
Our relationships are built and destroyed by communication.
The more honestly we communicate, the more we get to know one another and the stronger our relationship gets.
I have seen so many times the destructive power of dishonest communication.
When we lie, we destroy relationships. We destroy the relationship we have with ourselves and also the relationships we have with others. –
Every time we tell a lie or when we do not say what we want to say it erodes the foundation of our relationships and weakens the weak self-esteem of the person who tells a lie.
Lies are negative communications…
The only true foundation of a relationship is trust. If relationships are communication with trust, then honesty is their cornerstone.
Cherish your true friendships and relationships and keep making them stronger with the purity of openness, trust and respect.
Real healing and joy begins when stepping on this path.

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

How true the quote from Emerson is. Thank you for bringing it to our attention. Sourcesense in this, and again, fulfils its aim to “shift the focus” by “widening the lens of observation”.

At a time when “thinking aloud” is more important than ever (when “thinking outside the box” is such a cliché, the writer or speaker often doesn’t even realise how trapped they are inside the very box), then shifting the focus of questions and answers may be vital to the health, well-being, growth and development of organisations as much as human beings.

In my experience, it is often not “dishonest communication” (if I am not being too literal in reading you) that destroys and corrodes. Most people, I find, are struggling, as much as I feel I am myself, to make sense of it all and the ‘intolerable wrestle with words’ to communicate honestly.

The problem I most often find is in talking with those honest-enough people but for whom communication is not an exploration, an uncovering of what might be or an opportunity, in Emerson’s sense, to “think aloud”. For such people, communication is too often merely and solely an argument: an occasion for stating a case, for asserting a prepared position - in fact, for not ‘thinking’ at all, but the mere stating of positions and opinions.

What ‘thinking aloud’ allows and the stating of positions doesn’t is the potential for new beginnings rather than closed finalities.

I very much value those friends with whom I can “think aloud”.

Judit Szathmáry said...

When we step back and let go off all the learned thoughts, learned imitations, ideas, beliefs, and preconceived structures…when we let them go gently, let them wash away… often we find what is ‘real’… we find the self. The self that is… The self which knows what to say, how to meet the person in front… how to really meet the person in front.
When we really meet, and when we really communicate from that point of power and freely and honestly exchange… we realise the power in that vulnerability and honesty… and that is when we really listen to the other… and that is when we really communicate.
And we may realise and find this beauty, this joy, which is so near, but sometimes feels so far…. this joy this love which carries and holds together everything…including our arguments, our needs to be right, our positions, our opinions all our traps…
Once we find this joy, compassion… we feel free to “think aloud”…we drop the need to ‘lie’ to ourselves and to others… we don’t need to protect ourselves and we don’t need to protect the other with our dishonesty…we don’t feel the need for negative communication…
And then… we become open to “the potential for new beginnings” …and enjoy building and nurturing our relationship with our children, with loved ones, with friends, with business partners, with colleagues… and we may find a way to build a new conductive reality………………