The saying goes: We can’t give to others what we don’t have within ourselves. The saying generally refers to self-love and self-care. But what about authentic, effective, connected communication? I’m not talking about standing in front of a mirror and talking to yourself. Though that does have its merits depending on the situation. Ehem!
When we talk about improving our communication skills, the emphasis is placed on how we communicate with other people. That makes sense, because every direction we turn, we’re part of relationships, families, businesses, workplaces, associations, teams, etc. We need to be able to communicate with other people for a large part of what we do in our lives. But when it comes to improving the way we communicate, I believe we have it backwards.
If we first work on how we communicate with ourselves, we develop a deep awareness of our own unique ways of communicating. For example:
listening to our bodies, including our body language in our interactions,
what our deeper wisdom tells us (hello intuition!),
observing the limiting beliefs and stories our minds play over again,
the words the critical voice in our head uses to hold us back.
Notice how the preceding examples all require listening?
Listening develops awareness. Awareness leads to response. The power of response lies solely in our control:
Do we honour what our bodies tell us and give it gratitude for the message, or do we ignore it and dismiss it?
Do we act on the profound whisper of our intuition, or do we pretend we didn’t hear it and go about our business?
Do we allow the limiting belief to hold us back, or do we choose to reframe it into something empowering?
Do we enable the critical voice in our head by supplying it with damaging words or do we call its bluff?
Awareness is the first step for transformation. When we deepen our awareness of how we communicate with ourselves, we can begin to understand how and why others communicate the way they do. We develop empathy. Empathy helps us to communicate in more relatable and authentic ways with other people.
While this may be a radically different way to view communication for you, I challenge you to give it a try. You’ll see how it enhances your relationship with yourself – most importantly, your self-love and self-care. Then notice how it transforms the way you show up in your relationships, in your business or at work, and in your life. Master communication with yourself first, then you’ll have what you need to master communication with others.
Fazeena Haniff is the Branch Director of Happy Healthy Women Brampton and the founder of Beyond Expectations Coaching + Communications. As a Communications Coach + Consultant, Fazeena educates people and businesses about the power of heart-centered communication and provides them with strategies and tools to remove blocks to authentic expression and connection to achieve maximum results.