Communication — The Ultimate Skill by Nancy Laub The Twelve Great Virtues are, in a way, sub-headings under the general topic, “Communication.” The moment we incarnate we begin to communicate, and the quality of our interactions becomes the measure of our life’s success. Every movement, every vocal intonation, as well as every word we utter, convey messages about ourselves to the people around us. In this most exacting of skills—that of meeting and dealing with others—more than anywhere else, our personal advancement is challenged and honed. In this vital area of interpersonal relationships, we have the opportunity to face and conquer the obstacles to our progress. The Brotherhoods offer the Twelve Great Virtues as the surest pathway to excellence: Charity, Efficiency, Devotion, Humility, Patience, Sincerity, Kindliness, Courage, Tolerance, Precision, Discrimination, Forbearance—each one has meaning only as we relate to others. And relating means communicating. In our notebooks, the Virtues are words—a sketchy list of definitions. We bring deeper meaning to them as we focus upon each individually, investing our day’s activities with the importance rightfully due them—for they are the building blocks of our lifetime; they ultimately describe the meaning of our incarnation. When we have integrated all of the Virtues into our personality in balance, we are capable of perfect love. Ironically, we know that we cannot wait for that happy culmination, but must probe into, become capable of love at the same time that we grapple with Virtue. For without caring deeply for one another, the pursuit of Virtue becomes hollow, not hallowed. Without faith that our ability to communicate will reward us with mental and emotional riches commensurate with the effort of reaching out, why try? We often extend ourselves only to be disappointed. The success rate for risking our self-image in order to communicate with another human being is probably about the same as any other risk-taking activity. We are bound to fail part of the time when we venture into the unknown; but why is it that when we fail in interpersonal things we feel so much more wronged—and wrong—than if we had chosen the wrong path while hiking and got lost in the woods? I’ve never heard anyone say, “hiking is no good,” but countless times I’ve heard that discouraging remark about my fellow human beings. Human beings seem to characteristically draw back when they fail in contacts with others; some even regress into catatonia; some become hermits; some simply become cynical—and unhappy. If we find ourselves clumsy in other areas, we resolve to work harder and discover better ways to succeed. But clumsiness in dealing with other people often leaves us with a bruised ego, and this for most human beings is a very serious matter. We can improve the quality of our communications with others just as we can improve any other skill, and a very important part of our purpose in Stelle is discovering and implementing better ways of communicating. One of the most persistent and least visible of barriers to mutual understanding and a sense of interpersonal safety is the need most people feel, consciously or unconsciously, to “win” or be “right” in every encounter. We’ve all experienced meeting people whose egos depended so desperately on winning that we felt subtly diminished in their presence. They stated things in a way calculated to make all others in their environment appear insignificant when compared with themselves. After encounters like this we felt less inclined to trust ourselves with others—so the net effect is a minus for human interrelatedness. But the person who knowingly and deliberately sets about reducing everyone arouhd him so that he may feel or appear greater is rare compared to the many of us who may unknowingly, through our words and actions, create an environment for others which they can only perceive as unsafe. As members of the human race, we each create an environment around us which, through countless obvious and subliminal cues, invites every person with whom we relate to be a particular sort of person in our presence. If we are to be safe for one another to be around, we had better take responsibility for that environment we create. Once we recognize this responsibility, we can open up excitingly creative avenues for bringing out the very finest human qualities into our environment, just by allowing them the space to surface. One psychologist who is mentioned in The Ultimate Frontier, Harry Overstreet, has very richly established his own personal love affair with humankind through his many books on how to more fully realize our human potential through expanding and improving the quality of our interpersonal linkages. Overstreet says one of our problems is that we often fail to see drama in mutual understanding, but conflict always seems to catch our attention and interest. He invites us to learn to appreciate the drama and wonder of ourselves when we simply go about the business of distributing our human energies healthily—out into the problems we’re working on, the materials we’re shaping, the relationships we’re enjoying. That’s really an incredibly beautiful and dramatic subject—but it’s not very macho. Let’s focus for a moment on the distribution of energy in others and how we can affect it. The moment we put someone on the defensive—whether out of our own ignorance, or exasperation, or in reaction to our own past defeats or fears, or because we ourselves are on the defensive—we force the other individual to redistribute his energies for self-defense. Have you ever been happily occupied about your business and suddenly felt the pit of your stomach grow cold and the blood rush to your extremities because somebody made a carelessly cruel comment about something or someone deeply important to you? You didn’t stop to ask yourself, “Now, should I be angry?” You were trembling with rage before your mind had any opportunity to edit your reaction. You were ready for fight or flight, whether or not you wanted to have that reaction, and it was probably some time before your energies could be productively redirected. Every one of us has that kind of power over every other one of us, and it is vitally important to our effectiveness as individuals and as a group that we learn to be good stewards of this power. We can squander our energies by pushing each other’s buttons and gleefully watching the fireworks, or we can grow up and learn to love the drama of each individual demonstrating through effective use of his energies the special uniqueness that makes him beautifully human. Harry Overstreet has developed eight ways to help ensure understanding and clear away barriers to communication. Briefly paraphrased, they are as follows: 1. Use moderation. This is not weakness, but maturity, “the hardest of human enterprises.” We might also call it forbearance or discrimination. 2. Be sincerely willing to consider the other person’s viewpoint. Be patient enough to ask cordially how they view things, and be willing to listen to the answer. Find out-what-the-other person’s truth is. 3. Take responsibility for communicating your own experience and specialized knowledge into terms that can be understood. 4. Don’t use words that you know will create an emotional response in others when careful and exacting thought is required by everyone. Don’t needlessly put people on the spot or embarrass them in front of others for effect. And don’t use conciliatory or patronizing terms and syrupy rhetoric to gloss over issues which really need addressing. If ideas are to be exchanged and disagreements cleared up, we can’t muffle them with “words that usurp the place of thought.” 5. Credit others with the ability to understand the best ideas you have to offer—give them that much respect—and then go to work to build your own best word-bridge to understanding. 6. Refuse to accept elaborately worded nonsense where honest answers are required. The citizens of a democracy must have facts at their disposal if they are to govern themselves soundly. 7. Establish practical structures for arriving at agreements; this will allow those participating to attach their self-esteem to the ability to understand and agree rather than to winning at all costs. 8. Keep still when it is time to be quiet. Don’t keep a sullen or angry silence, but recognize that sometimes it is best just to let things work themselves out This is particularly important where very explosive mailers are at issue. Dr. Thomas Gordon, author of P.E.T. (Parent Effectiveness Training) gives us valuable techniques to use in communicating with our children-ways that show respect and acceptance of their feelings, help them to clarify their emotions and work through problems, and ways that address their behavior problems without laying blame or making judgements on the children themselves. One technique, which Gordon calls “active listening” works well when someone makes a statement to you about a problem. You identify the feeling behind the statement and reflect it back to the speaker: “It sounds like you feel frustrated about that ...” If you perceived the child’s feeling accurately, the door is now open for him to continue talking about his problem and the feelings involved in it. Another technique is “I messages.” An I‑message consists of three parts. For example, “when you (do not feed the dog) I feel (upset), because (I feel sorry for the dog). These respectful and loving ways to communicate with our children were designed to help eliminate the constant “war” of parental will versus the resistance of a normal, healthy child to the pressures to curtail their own desires and conform to rules. But they are an excellent lesson in tact which can be applied among adults to the benefit of all concerned. We need to be ready and willing to take responsibility for the kind of space we make for our neighbors; space to observe our own and others’ feelings, both positive and negative ones, without having to defend or justify those feelings; space to understand and simply be quiet; and space to change and grow away from old patterns and identifications. The Virtues are ways to grow, not laws to be imposed be upon others. As we grow, we communicate our virtuousness ever more visibly, ever more lovingly. Without communication, Virtue is meaningless.
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