[COVID Crisis Series 3 of 25] Top Two Communication Tips

The following is a full transcript of a Facebook Live, where Susie is speaking  extemporaneously – she is unscripted and unedited. 

(00:00):

Hi friends. It is, let’s see, Wednesday morning are all the days blending together for you? All the days are blending together for me and I have missed up messed up time zones and days and I feel like I needed a big paper calendar for my wall because things are moving so fast and things are changing so fast. Is that happening for you as well? If so, let me know in the comments. Today I want to talk to you about listening. And the title is let’s talk about communicating with the people that matter most and those are the people in your life and yourself. And I’m going to talk about two ways that communicating we can improve the way we communicate. Hi Jenny. So glad you’re here today. I don’t know about you, but I am struggling. This is tough. And when the information from the president came down about 30 more days of this, I think everybody was like, Oh.

(00:47):

And trying to figure out how they were going to do this. My DMS blew up, my phone blew up with, Oh my gosh, 30 more days of all this together. Time and with these people and with ourselves and with our thoughts, with all the anxiety. And I just think it’s, it’s just tough. Are you having a tough time? If you’re having a tough time, give me a thumbs up in the Hey Michael, give me a thumbs up in the chat box. Okay. And then we’ll all be having a tough time together. Here’s the thing I want to talk about today. Listening. I think in my experience that I think I listened well. In fact, I think most of us think we listen and communicate pretty well until we start realizing we’re having communication issues with the people that matter most. And in my book, listen, learn, love, I talk about this and I’ve been working on a rerelease of that which I’m really excited about and we’ll share more as that kind of unfolds and is is getting closer to launch date.

(01:35):

But this idea of listening, how do we listen? Do you listen? Well, and I think one of the things that I have learned about myself and about my clients and doing this for over I guess almost 30 years now, is that we think we listen well until we realized that we’re not listening. And this is what I mean. How many times are you listening with the thoughts in your head about what you want to say in response? So for example, the other night my husband was talking about something with his work and I of course had the best idea about how to fix it and what he should do. And so in my head, all these thoughts that are going around in my head are all about what I’m going to say when he’s done talking. Well, that’s not me listening. That’s not me. Really pausing and paying attention to what he has to say.

(02:15):

That’s not listening well. And so my first tip that I want to talk about today is listening well requires us to pause and pay attention. Now I want you to stick with me here because I’m going to talk about it with respect to our, the people we love and ourselves. Cause one of the things I think that’s happening is we’re not listening to ourselves either. And so this principle of pausing and paying attention goes both directions. When we pause and pay attention to the person who’s talking to us, we’re able to hear not just their words, but watch their facial expressions, pay attention to their tone, look at their body language. And this is really important because a lot of times people will say something, but there’s a lot of message underneath. You know, he was telling me about work and what he wanted to do in his body language and tone was just dump and vent.

(03:00):

He was just struggling and he wanted to get it out. He didn’t want my help. He didn’t want to fix it. He didn’t really need that. He just needed me to hear him. See if this relates to you. Have you ever had a kid come to you and be like, I’m bored. And they’re cranky and so what? They really are is they’re saying their boardroom hungry, but what they really are is tired. And so when we pause and pay attention, we really do get that underneath message. Has that ever happened to you? If so, give me a thumbs up in the comments. So we’re all in this together where you realize part way through the conversation that you’ve missed the main message because you’ve been so busy thinking about what you want to say to yourself. Say in response. Okay. So one of the things we’ve got to do is pause and pay attention and then we get to choose how we’re going to respond or react.

(03:39):

And then if you’re not sure what is going on you, the second tip is to ask clarifying questions. You know, so for me, when I was listening to John the other day, instead of having this thing in my head about how I was going to fix the world for him and his problems and tell his people that work X, Y, Z I could have asked questions. Something as simple as are you wanting me to help or are you wanting to just vent? That is a great question to ask the people who are coming to you and talking, what do you want for me in this moment? Do you need comfort? Do you need me to listen? Do you need me to go to battle for you? What do you need from me? Ask the clarifying question to go ahead and get that understanding of what they’re looking for.

(04:18):

So pause and pay attention and ask clarifying questions and I guarantee you your communication will get better. It always does when we pause and listen. Well, the other thing I want to do is take the same, the same two tips and ask you if you’re doing it with yourself. I’ve been really angsty and even my face has kind of, I’m talking with my whole face and I noticed that I’ve got this energy about me and John’s like, what’s going on? And I had to pause and listen to myself. I’m angsty, I’m snippy. I’m at some level angry or frustrated or sad or there’s these deeper, bigger feelings going on because they’re coming out angsty and I need to pause and pay attention to myself. We need to pause and pay attention to ourselves is our internal dialogue, is our what words do I want to use nonverbal communication with ourselves and saying, we need something.

(05:08):

I need a break. I need a walk. I need more carbs. I’m sure my body is always telling me I need more carbs. I need I need to listen to music. I need to unplug. I need to go you know, have a conversation with somebody that’s fun and light and, or I want to go play games, need to go, you know, chill with my kiddos. I need to take the pressure off. I need permission. When we listen to ourselves and we pause and pay attention to ourselves, we then can ask those same clarifying questions. What do I need it? Will this help? What’s going on inside? When we do that, we build this muscle, this skill of listening well, and honestly, folks, most of us don’t. I’m really guilty of this with my kiddos growing up with my husbands. I work on it a lot with my, with my clients.

(05:51):

But listening well means we lean in, we engage, we pause and pay attention. We ask clarifying questions. And so today I want to invite you to do that with the people in your life that may be driving you crazy, that may be know getting on your very last nerve. But I also want to invite you to do that with yourself. To pause and pay attention and listen while to yourself. What do you need? And if you would let me know in the comments like, this is something I learned in listening. Well, I learned that my spouse just wanted to vent. When I wanted to fix, I learned that my kid was really tired and hungry when they came into, they were bored. I learned like for me, I’m taking the afternoon off. I needed, I had a snafu in the scheduling and there were two things that got booked.

(06:29):

I moved in both. And then the one that I moved, canceled and I almost filled the slot and I was like, you know what? No, I need a break. And so listening well to ourselves, what are you going to do? So for me, I’m going to take the afternoon and read do some yoga, get myself kind of re-centered because I’m feeling the stress of all this. And so listening well gives us a chance to deepen our relationships deepen our connections and even take better care of ourselves. So I hope that little tip of listening well and talking about communication helps you. I always would love to know what it is that you need help with when it comes to creating better relationships, better communication, better connection with God, yourself and others. And so you are always free to DM or PM me. Pop your questions in the comments below. I will be here tomorrow at noon Eastern nine Pacific. So I guess that’s 11 central. I’m telling you folks, this time zone thing is killing me and I will see you then. Thanks for joining, and I really hope that somewhere today you in pausing and paying attention and listening well, you have a deeper connection with yourself. Your soulmate, your kiddos, and I will see you tomorrow.