Danny Silk Monday February 4, 2013

Relationship Month: Successful Communication

• If you don’t do relationships well, your leadership will suffer.
• This is about how you get the information that is inside of you into the heart of another person. This is the area that usually causes trouble.
• People are different, so we can look at exactly the same thing and draw totally different conclusions. You have to understand that people see things differently than you.
• You do not see things the only way possible, so we have to allow other people to input perspective into us.
• It’s not uncommon for us to have anxiety or high level disappointment but we need to remember that we are dealing with another person who is just as “right in their own eyes” as I am and probably just as hurt.
• The goal of the conversation is crucial.
• Sometimes when we communicate our communication it gets confusing and is open to interpretation so we try to communicate wit lots of heat to try to get the point across.
• It is so important for you to give yourself credit for being wrong. It’s important for you to give yourself room to be wrong.
• We are wrong a lot.

The goal of communication is…

• To convince?
• To agree?
• TO UNDERSTAND!

• It’s very common for people to want to communicate so that other people will become like themselves, but as soon as that’s the goal, you’re in big trouble! Because you need control of the other person in order to control them.
• You don’t control me, I don’t control you… so when we have a conversation in order to agree, it’s a bad plan.
• Your parents might try to talk to you until you agree with them, does it work? No. Why? Because the goal of our communication needs to be to understand.
• The goal of communication is to understand.
• The goal is to let someone else see inside of you. This is intimacy.
• When we try to look like the other person, that’s called dating. We want the other person to see themselves because we know they will fall in love with them.
• Having an intimate relationship with someone who is not you is gonna require work. Because you are going to have to change yourself because you will have to do things that are not what you would do.
• Children force you to deal with someone who is not you.
• Love is learning to deal with another person. But if I never show myself to you, if I’m never vulnerable, you’ll never have a chance to love me.
• When you understand each other, you create a safe place where they can be vulnerable, even when they are upset with you. When they are upset with you, you’re going to see someone threatening. And that’s when you need to decide whether you are going to let them be them-self or try to make them be you.
• The goal of relationship is to be courageous enough to let people be themselves even when they are upset with us. That’s why we need a spirit because when we are in fear we focus on ourselves, but we have to choose courage to point our attention to meet someone else’s needs even when you need something else.
• The exchange of intimacy is so vital because it helps us to build the deepest soul ties ever.
• Facing a sheer threat with a common goal ties people together for their entire life.
• Worship is this absolute place of vulnerability because you are laid bare before God and completely known while experiencing God’s presence. Worship is non-verbal communication which is euphoric and required for our deep connection.
• The enemy knows that we need this.
• New relationships are filled with this romantic euphoria because we are in love with what we don’t know about them and we get to fill in all the blanks. We fill them in with perfection. Guess how disappointed we are going to be?
• Building deep relationships is so important because we have to face the disappointments of discovering who human beings really are. So when we get afraid of this, we try to create superficial relationships in order to cover pain and seek pleasure. But that makes us a target for an addictive cycle because they present you with this false euphoria.
• If we aren’t brave enough to do the hard thing and
• Intimacy’s counterfeit is addictions. An attempt to create intimacy through a relationship with an object. This euphoria is generated with something we think we can control.
• The problem with relationships is that we can’t control them so they may not produce this euphoria that you think you need right now.
• Addictions have instant gratification and pretend to be under your control but eventually you realize that it is in control because you realize that you are scared to be without it.
• This is why Jesus said the big deal for us is to learn to love.
• Love doesn’t necessarily mean outreach. It’s easy to be good to people. But building challenging relationships with people who we can plow through the fear with produces diamonds.
• Fear and love are mortal enemies.
• You are not going to get away with wrestling through fear to get to love. If you don’t have to face fears in a relationship, you aren’t very deep because relationships require perfect love.
• It’s not a bad thing that you are wrestling through fear to get to love. You are maturing in your capacity to get to love. Eventually the things that used to scare you, don’t scare you at all, you’ve got a whole new batch of things to be afraid of.
• “there is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. 1 John 4:18
• When you push through those fears it produces hope and beauty. It builds an intensity to love fearlessly.

 

Communication styles that produce fear:

Passive: “you matter. I don’t”

• This is the “don’t mind me, I’m not real” one.
• Some people think that christianity is supposed to look like this.
• The passive communicator is trying to convince someone that they don’t have any needs, but the truth is that they are afraid. They are afraid that they don’t matter.
• When a passive communicator feels fear, they disappear.

Aggressive: “I matter, you don’t”

• Hello, I’m the freight train, I’ll be getting all my needs met.
• The passive communicator and the aggressive communicator get together because they agree. The reason they are experiencing this loop is that they both feel fear.
• When an aggressive communicator feels fear, they take control.

Passive aggressive: “you matter… NOT!”

• They are the ones who manipulate and spin the other person and act like an angel when other people are around.

All of the above styles are eroding relationship and bring pain and anxiety to the table.

The correct style is Assertive: “you matter and so do I”

• They are the ones who communicate their needs and hear others.
• With a passive person, they say “you matter and I will listen to you when you tell me what you need”
• With the aggressive person, they set limits. “you can talk to me when you are ready to wear love”

• You tell me about you and I will tell you about me.
• In bad communication, people try to tell the other person about them.
• It doesn’t matter how gently you judge me, I don’t want to be judged.
• Sadly we’ve chosen a communication style where I tell you about you and then you defend yourself. Then you tell me about me and I defend myself. The goal is agreement. The goal is to make you agree with what is right. This never works.
• We do this over an over but it will always fail!
• Good communication looks like trying to develop understanding by me telling you about me and you telling me about you so that we learn something. The goal is to see what is going on in the other person and adjust, supply you with what you need because I understand you. This is how anxiety drops and connection increases.

Levels of communication:

1. Cliche’
2. Exchange facts.
3. Opinions/Ideas/Perspective
4. Feelings
5. Needs

• Cliche’ is the basic conversation we always have “how are you?” “good”…
• Exchanging facts looks like telling people what is going on and only the information. The reason this level of conversation is where many people stop, because the next level is where all the madness happens.
• Opinions, ideas and perspectives are where we have to value each other and learn about our differences. This is where I discover that you are not me.
• Feelings are where we discover how an event effects the other person’s heart. Feelings are something you have to agree with. Someone can’t say “I’m thirsty” and the other person say “no you’re not”. We are having our own experience and it’s important to understand how other people are feeling. You can be happy when I’m not… all kinds of differences with the same experience. My job is not to agree with you, it’s to understand you.
• Needs are where we share what each other desire and we can fulfill each other’s desires/needs in partnership. This is where we discover that we care about each other.  This cultivates intimacy because we’ve shown each other what’s on the inside and we respond to each other well.
• This is one of the things about Bethel and Redding that is rocking them. We’ve chosen to see inside the city and help them with what they need. Then, after a while they’ve begun to wonder what we need. That’s the key.
• This is not just personal relationships, this is business and politics and …
• The secular world does not have a place for love. You don’t ever hear a politician say “I love you”.
• Job one in communication is to as quickly as possible get to “what is it that you need to feel?”. Not “what is it that you need me to do?” because I want to figure out how to meet your need, not just follow your instructions.
• It’s not about doing what we’ve been told to do, it’s about caring. As soon as you know what each other need and fill each other’s needs, you discover how much you care for each other.