Read Online Words Can Change Your Brain by Andrew Newberg - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Andrew Newberg
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shown that this is quite a destructive act and that it will deepen your inner conflicts and anxiety. 1 Instead use your diary to construct positive solutions and track the positive progress you make.
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Compassionate Communication with Strangers?
For most people, the thought of sharing too much intimacy with people they barely know seems unwise. But research shows that speaking intimately to someone you don’t know actually lowers stress and improves cardiovascular health! This was tested at the University of Southern Mississippi, with college students who were arbitrarily paired with one another. 2
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Pay It Forward
We hope you’ll experiment with this exercise with as many people as possible. First try it with your friends, then your family members, and don’t be surprised if you find that your kids can follow the directions better than you! That’s what we’ve found with our own children, as we’ll illustrate in a later chapter.
Then try this exercise with a colleague at work. In fact, Compassionate Communication has proven to be very popular in the business community, to the point where many of our academic colleagues are writing articles describing ways to integrate the components into business management, educational training, and executive sales. Brevity, clarity, trust, and cooperation are essential for a company’s financial success, and any strategy that can stimulate these qualities is readily incorporated into company policy.
Compassionate Communication is easy to teach, and in most sections of the community conducting workshops in it requires little formal training. In fact, the CD and mp3 we created work as a self-contained training module, and you can use them to guide an entire group of people. Even a single training session appears to be enough to enhance teamwork and improve conflict resolution in many social and work-related arenas.
One of the benefits of introducing Compassionate Communication in a group or classroom setting is the feedback that is generated. When you discuss what the optimal forms of communication should be, everyone comes away with new strategies that can be used to handle future problems and conflicts with greater effectiveness and resolve.
In the educational arena, it turns out that we rarely talk about talking. But it’s essential when it comes to the people we’re closest to, and so we recommend that you try the following experiment with your spouse, your kids, and with your closest friends and colleagues. Ask this question: what would you like me to change about the way I communicate with you that would improve our interaction?
In our experience this is a question that delights the person who is asked it. It gives them an opportunity to suggest ways to improve your interpersonal relationship. After all, don’t we all want to know how to deepen our friendships and love? Yet when we ask rooms full of people how often they’ve even considered asking such a question, hardly any hands are raised. Instead we hear a lot of nervous laughing, a sign that many already suspect what the other person might say. This suggests that we somehow know, deep down inside, that we are not talking and listening as well as we might.
Make this a topic during a formal Compassionate Communication exercise. Ask your partner what you can do to improve the process. We have found that both individuals will bend over backward to comply. Then, at your next compassionate dialogue, ask for feedback about how well you have done.
Once you become accustomed to the training exercise and the twelve strategies of Compassionate Communication, you can loosen up the rules. After all, there are times when it’s really a delight to just sit back and chitchat. But if you do this with a little added awareness, even a superficial dialogue can bring deeper satisfaction and joy.
Finally, we would love to hear from you. Tell us about your experiences: the benefits you’ve gained, the problems you
----
Compassionate Communication with Strangers?
For most people, the thought of sharing too much intimacy with people they barely know seems unwise. But research shows that speaking intimately to someone you don’t know actually lowers stress and improves cardiovascular health! This was tested at the University of Southern Mississippi, with college students who were arbitrarily paired with one another. 2
----
Pay It Forward
We hope you’ll experiment with this exercise with as many people as possible. First try it with your friends, then your family members, and don’t be surprised if you find that your kids can follow the directions better than you! That’s what we’ve found with our own children, as we’ll illustrate in a later chapter.
Then try this exercise with a colleague at work. In fact, Compassionate Communication has proven to be very popular in the business community, to the point where many of our academic colleagues are writing articles describing ways to integrate the components into business management, educational training, and executive sales. Brevity, clarity, trust, and cooperation are essential for a company’s financial success, and any strategy that can stimulate these qualities is readily incorporated into company policy.
Compassionate Communication is easy to teach, and in most sections of the community conducting workshops in it requires little formal training. In fact, the CD and mp3 we created work as a self-contained training module, and you can use them to guide an entire group of people. Even a single training session appears to be enough to enhance teamwork and improve conflict resolution in many social and work-related arenas.
One of the benefits of introducing Compassionate Communication in a group or classroom setting is the feedback that is generated. When you discuss what the optimal forms of communication should be, everyone comes away with new strategies that can be used to handle future problems and conflicts with greater effectiveness and resolve.
In the educational arena, it turns out that we rarely talk about talking. But it’s essential when it comes to the people we’re closest to, and so we recommend that you try the following experiment with your spouse, your kids, and with your closest friends and colleagues. Ask this question: what would you like me to change about the way I communicate with you that would improve our interaction?
In our experience this is a question that delights the person who is asked it. It gives them an opportunity to suggest ways to improve your interpersonal relationship. After all, don’t we all want to know how to deepen our friendships and love? Yet when we ask rooms full of people how often they’ve even considered asking such a question, hardly any hands are raised. Instead we hear a lot of nervous laughing, a sign that many already suspect what the other person might say. This suggests that we somehow know, deep down inside, that we are not talking and listening as well as we might.
Make this a topic during a formal Compassionate Communication exercise. Ask your partner what you can do to improve the process. We have found that both individuals will bend over backward to comply. Then, at your next compassionate dialogue, ask for feedback about how well you have done.
Once you become accustomed to the training exercise and the twelve strategies of Compassionate Communication, you can loosen up the rules. After all, there are times when it’s really a delight to just sit back and chitchat. But if you do this with a little added awareness, even a superficial dialogue can bring deeper satisfaction and joy.
Finally, we would love to hear from you. Tell us about your experiences: the benefits you’ve gained, the problems you
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