I’m not writing anything new in this post. It is common sense and I argue that what I write is not even particularly interesting, consistent, sound, complete, or more than just pathetic nonsense. So, if you don’t want to read about something you already know, feel free to click away.
Everyone knows it. Everyone experiences it. Bad communication is as universal and automatic as for life the need to inhale air every couple seconds.
I openly admit, I’m frustrated to hell today (and somehow I can’t believe I’m writing this on a blog). Today, I’ll use the space provided by this white text area to write about my frustration, at least partially. This might sound egoistic and is certainly just another negative message out there but some people believe that writing can help to process things. This is my hope.
You feel something. This is usually where it begins. You feel upset. Usually the beginning of the end, a one way path labeled, “follow straight to be trapped in bad communication”. You feel …, fill the dots with a long list of feelings, from unhappiness to hatred, all feelings that typically end in bad communication, at least for me.
I typically feel disconnected. Often I don’t exactly know if I’m unhappy, upset, angry, annoyed, disturbed, etc. I do think, finding the right adjectives to describe a feeling may help, both for a better understanding and communication but I mostly find it difficult to more accurately characterize what I feel.
When I feel disconnected, I somehow act like the immune system. (Though, the immune system seems to get it right more often.) I try to get active and the goal is to heal. The fundamental wish is to reconnect. But I fail. To give you an approximate figure, I fail essentially always.
Let’s think about this for a moment. There is a feeling of disconnectedness, the initial state. This triggers a reaction, fundamentally driven by a wish to reconnect, the desired end state. The realend state: An even stronger feeling of disconnectedness. Along the way something goes wrong.
The question is what goes wrong. I’m sorry, but all I can say is, I don’t know, at least not clearly enough that I feel comfortable to write about it. For now, I’m committed in getting a better grasp for what it could be. There are books out there about the topic. You just have to read, right? Right. Will it help? Hopefully. I have next to me a book that contains a page entitled “The Characteristics of Bad Communication”. There are 15 of them on this particular page. Truth, blame, martyrdom, put-down, etc. I read them and I find myself 15 times agreeing and within a substantial subset of them I recognize myself. Though, that’s not enough. I think, one still needs practical field work, get both hands dirty and practice, which, I suppose, takes a great deal of courage and energy and most likely someone who is committed for the same and willing to pursue a difficult but hopefully rewarding path.
I don’t think there are people out there who can say “I have never personally felt trapped in bad communication”, provided there is a grasp for what bad communication is. If I’m wrong, please raise your hand. You are unique, I believe. I’m sure there are people out there who can say “I know how to avoid bad communication”. If that’s your case, congratulations, and, please, leave a comment. You are unique too, I think.
I promise, if this blog will still be alive and I can tell something more substantial about this in the future, I’ll write. If nothing else, I hope it will help me to get better in something, I believe, is a universal problem and, perhaps more relevant, is my problem.