Productive and Unproductive Communication | Steve Beckow

By Steve Beckow, September 5, 2023

(Golden Age of Gaia)

No or Unproductive Communication

When we won’t communicate at all or communicate with blame and shame or other unproductive strategies, the other person tends to clam up. Then the issues and withholds (undelivered communications) start to build up.

If nothing changes or gets better ever, the person may just one day up and leave.

Someone told me the other day of a man who left for soccer practice one day and then suddenly needed to return to get his cellphone. There he saw his wife’s brother moving all her stuff out. This was the first the husband knew about it.

It’s my belief that people who go round and round this unfortunate loop, comforting themselves that them getting back together is the main thing, one day just eventually quit, like the player’s wife. Or find that their partner has just quit, like the player.

Going round and round is wearing and dull. One day we stop caring. Past that, we just want out.

Good/Bad, Right/Wrong

I’d like to focus on one type of unproductive discussion we have which I call good/bad, right/wrong.

One reason why I don’t advise discussing matters from the intellectual level is because they so often devolve into good/bad, right/wrong. And that can become like quicksand, into which we sink … and disappear.

We argue incessantly about factors that aren’t even what motivate us into action.

In right/wrong, you say A and I say B. And we both defend our positions.

But if we switched places, dollars to donuts I’d be saying A and you’d be saying B. All seems to depend on our point of view, our vantage point, where we sit, and not on the truth of the matter.

Again, in our zero sum thinking, if we’re right, someone else has to be wrong. That leaves a lot of bruises and other residue, often festering and contributing in turn to another turn of the carousel.

Discussion seldom gets above good/bad, right/wrong and thus proves fruitless and stultifying. It leads nowhere and simply exhausts everyone. We need to up-level it to the experiential level and focus on how we feel.

Communicating How We Feel

Communicating how we feel is the information the other needs to know regarding whether to act or not. (1) “I’m concerned.” No action. “I’m helpless. Please! Somebody!” Concerted action! Our feelings are the factor that motivate us to action.

Communicating how we feel has other advantages. First, it’s verifiable by me. Only I feel what I feel. And only I know how I feel. It isn’t something that can be messed with. I’m the expert on the subject.

But many people, if I asked them how they’re feeling, might not know what to answer. How would I know what I’m feeling? Where would I look? I don’t know how I feel.

Our ability to maneuver in this territory may be limited at the moment, but I’m certain our emotional IQ will rise dramatically in the weeks and months ahead.

Feedback

Sincerely trying on feedback is also needed. Without our partner being able to deliver feedback, again, the situation might never change.

The ordinary tendency is to rebuff feedback, deny it, contest it, and in other ways resist it. That ultimately leads to lethargy in us and resistance in our partner.

What is lethargy? I’m asleep and I’m asleep to the fact that I’m asleep. In Hinduism, this condition is called the guna or cosmic force of thamas.

If you really observe thamas or lethargy, you’ll see it’s like a blanket that smothers everything but the most basic of actions and interactions.

How do we “receive” feedback? Try it on. Test it out. See if it fits. If it does, own it.

Tomorrow we look at true reconciliation.

Footnotes

(1) On the value of listening, see:Are You Listening? at https://goldenageofgaia.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/Are-You-Listening-R5.pdf
A Manual for Listeners at https://goldenageofgaia.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/A-Manual-for-Listeners-R3.pdf
The Value of Listening at https://goldenageofgaia.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/The-Value-of-Listening-3.pdf