Communication?

What is it? Is it the way we speak, the body language we use, the minute facial expressions that say a thousand words? Is communication simply what we say and how we say it? How does a simple conflict play into how we communicate?

I am aware that I have a long ways to go when it comes to communicating. I have a problem with expressing myself, especially when I am upset. The words are no longer there, and my thoughts are almost incoherent. I clam up, and pull into myself, and just want to run away. I am always afraid of hurting the other person’s feelings, even when mine have been crushed. I struggle with being sorry for someone else’s behaviour, and this causes me to be over run and taken advantage of.

Every now and then, I surprise myself and take control of a situation and come out ahead and with more respect than when I went in. However, these occasions have called for a cool down period before I can calmly and rationally approach the person I am in conflict with.

One instance of late stands out. I was in a bad mood to start, and had sent an email at work asking for some clarification from my supervisor. I had cc’d my coworker who I was trying to help, and she was also cc’d with the response. This coworker took something I said very literally and because of a communication error, her response to me was quite threatening. I am not going into details because really, they aren’t important. What is important is how I handled the situation. I got very angry, and defensive and was careful to avoid this person because I didn’t trust how I might handle it. A few people suggested I let it go, but I couldn’t. So with my supervisor’s ok, I took this person to task. I told her that what she said was offensive and that I felt threatened. I explained that I was simply trying to get some clarification and save her a ton of unnecessary work. I stayed calm,we came to a resolution, and in the end, she thanked me for being open and honest. She has no idea how hard this was.

I would like to be able to handle conflicts in this calm, open and honest manner all the time. I had a thing with my best friend recently. But because this person is so important to me, I had a hard time keeping my thoughts clear. All I know is that in the instant when things started going in a downward direction, all I wanted was to open my heart and let it speak for itself. I wanted to say the one thing that would make everything better. But it doesn’t work that way, and so I will continue to struggle to put my thoughts into words. And putting them on paper doesn’t count. I feel things more than I think about them. I tend to just accept what I feel, and not question why I feel that way.

If you were to ask me why I had so many issues with sparring, I am not sure if I could give you a straight answer. I could tell you, how the anxiety attacks would start when I took a hit that I should have been able to block. Or how the anxiety attacks progressed by beginning before I had a chance to spar. I could tell you how much I hate feeling that weak. Or how much better I should have done. I accepted that sparring scared me, and I didn’t ask myself why I felt that way.

I can tell you now, that I have very high standards for myself and am hard on myself when I don’t meet that standard. I can also tell you now, how I have begun to look at it differently, in that I can learn so much my mistakes. I am still hard on myself, but am learning to accept that I am not perfect, nor will I ever be. I learned just 2 weeks ago, that a person much bigger than me, can easily intimidate me, but that I can get inside their guard and kick them in the head. I can do this.

I need to ask myself why more. I need to think about why I do things the way I do, why I react the way I do, and what effect that has on the people I am close to. I need to take more ownership in how I communicate.