I am an observer of life, of people, of systems and organizations, of what is working and what is not working. I have spent many years perfecting this observation which for me began with the deep belief that I needed to “people-please” and “do the right thing” in whatever situation or social group I was in at the moment. Out of my observation has come some interesting discoveries, and today I am feeling the passionate desire to express what I have uncovered about communication.

We all communicate every day. We communicate verbally, non-verbally, with tone of voice, or refusal to speak, speaking from our love or from our fear. We communicate in writing through text, email and social media; our celebrations and our disgust is evident in our written statements, videos we share, memes we “like”, movements we promote. We communicate physically through a hug or a shove, offering a gift or pointing a gun, wiping a tear or slapping a face, touching a shoulder or grabbing an arm. We communicate whether we are aware of what we are saying or not.

Think for a moment about how you learned to communicate. Who taught you? What did you learn? Was it a direct teaching, or something you picked up through watching and hearing other people’s communication around you? For me, I remember directly learning about communication in college through my Master of Social Work clinical program for counseling at Florida State University. So around the age of 20 I had my introduction to the difference between aggressive, passive, passive-aggressive, and assertive communication.

This was good information, and I studiously took it in so I could teach it to my clients. I practiced with peers in my program through role play, and then took it out into the world through my first job at Charter Behavioral Health, a crisis center in Seminole, FL back in 1997. Back then I ran therapeutic and social skills groups, and one of the key social skills groups was to educate about, and facilitate group discussion on communication. We helped individuals to identify how they communicated and offer strategies to shift that communication, and that was definitely a good start.

Later I would go on to teach those same skills to youth at SandyPines Residential Treatment Center in Jupiter, FL, Memorial Hospital of Tampa in Tampa, FL, Pinellas County Schools in Pinellas County, FL, and in my own individual practice with families and individuals of all ages from 2001 on to now.

In those early years,  once I left my work world, all that great information seemed to slip away. You see I had developed patterns through my own life experiences, and I had mostly developed the pattern of being passive and morphing into whatever I thought others desired of me. This led to huge issues in communication, living life pretty disassociated, and to ever-increasing traumatic experiences and more than one abusive situation.

About 20 years ago I stumbled upon yoga and meditation and slowly began learning to listen to my body, my feelings and my Inner Voice Within, which led to letting go of perspectives, and choosing new ways to look at others and situations. Over the past decade of life I dedicated myself to a more intentional and conscious approach to looking at the patterns I had developed with curiosity; just saying “oh, interesting; that is where that came from“, and then intentionally forgiving, releasing, and choosing a new way of living that was more congruent with my understanding of who I truly am.

Out of this dedication to paying attention to my Whole Self, I have been consciously unraveling old patterns. I found this led to uncovering nuances of self-cruelty, criticism, self-sabotage, and judgment that were an epidemic in my mental chatter. So I began to choose more compassionate speech towards myself, even saying it aloud sometimes. “I used to believe I was not good enough, now I am learning that I Am Worth.” “My body is a miraculous creation and I am so grateful for it.” “I choose peace, I choose joy.” “Sat Nam-I Am Truth“. Repeat, repeat, repeat.

This new way of talking to and about myself began to spark my awareness of the communication that I heard around me. It was like I was in a dream walk before, and now I was awake. What I became aware of was how much pain and brutality is in the communication of our society. It is across all walks of life; all races, all colors, all socio-economic situations, all ages, all types of couples and family systems, all organizations, all neighborhoods, in classrooms and locker rooms, social media and media personalities, in moms’ groups and spiritual study groups. Of course I know that there are also many people who are choosing compassionate ways of speaking, today I am just highlighting that there is much room to grow, and that we can do this.

One of the experiences that is present not just in the society that I live in, but our whole world is the experience of domestic violence and intimate partner violence. This includes child abuse, spousal abuse, elder abuse, intimate partner abuse of all sexes and orientations, and things we would term “date rape”. It includes physical, emotional, sexual, financial control, intimidation, parental alienation, and verbal cruelty. This is all communication. Communication that is not coming from our empathy and compassion, but instead from our hurt, our pain, our patterns, our disassociation from our feelings, our societal training and socialization, our guilt, our shame, our stress and anxiety, our deep fears and insecurities.

I am touching on this not to judge others or point the finger, rather I am speaking from the depths of my love for the Earth and all its inhabitants, and my desire to see people live free from the effects of abuse and enjoy the lightness that comes with communicating from compassion. It may be hard to believe if you don’t personally know me… I absolutely love people, and I always remember having loved people. I also see so much beauty in people, even those who don’t see it or know it in themselves yet. I see too that we have come a long way towards bringing these experiences to light, now I am positive we can take the steps to see new types of relationships and experiences among humans develop.

What if we could remember how to communicate our needs, wants and desires compassionately? What if we could just express that we felt scared that we were inadequate instead of berating another individual to show that we are powerful? What if we actually knew that we are not inadequate, but actually inherently talented and amazing and worth, just because we exist? What if we felt so empowered and strong that we sought to encourage that same recognition in others in our lives? What if we stopped laughing at so called “jokes” about proper discipline being “slapping the s— out of a mouthy child”? What if we knew that it was not ok to push a woman or child or another man down the stairs? What if we stopped screaming at coaches and referees and our own children at sporting events? What if we listened as much as we talked, or maybe even more? What if we knew we could drop our defenses, and let someone know that we don’t have the answer yet, rather than insisting that we are right? What if we knew that “right” was different for everyone and every situation, and that choosing what is correct gives space for everyone to choose for themselves? What if we knew that encouraging groups of individuals to rise up to their very best, doesn’t mean we have to fall down?

I believe that  compassionate communication can be taught, and I believe it can be taught without judging those we call the “abuser” or those we call the “abused”. I believe that compassionate communication can start with how I talk to me, or how I talk to others. There is no wrong direction that this can travel. I believe that at the core of this teaching is to remind people of what Maya Angelou says best: “I did then what I knew how to do, now that I know better, I do better”. For this violence, abuse and judgment that we have perpetuated has just been passed down; over and over and over. Many people are just doing what they know. I just also believe that those of us who now know better can educate, can model, can actively perpetuate compassion and appreciation of others in all the places we go and with all the people we meet.

I know that I can only be responsible for how I show up and communicate with the world around me, and I also know that my world starts right here in my home, my community, my relationships, and myself. What I am currently realizing is that I have the capacity, with the way our world of technology is today, to share these ideas way beyond my local community, even though I will always lead by example to the best of my ability every moment I can remember to right here in my little corner of planet Earth. And as more is revealed to me, I am committed to sharing it with those who are ready to hear it.

So if you are interested in learning more about Compassionate Communication, and what that means, or how to use it, or how to teach it to others in your corner of the world; please reach out to me and send me a note. You can contact me through the website here- www.wingedtreasures.com.

The time is now for compassionate communication, and we are the ones. Let’s do this together.