Karen Restivo
In Other Words....
It’s a new year and time to dust off the old communication toolbox to size up and reinforce our understanding of when and where each tool is best utilized in our growth and development.
Humans fall into a paradoxical rut when they become fully identified with their thoughts, feelings, opinions, and actions, losing sight of the significance of each tool.
According to David Kasneci, founder of www.369project.com, thoughts are simply thoughts unless we choose to label them.
Kasneci writes, “Many say thoughts are bad. Thoughts are not inherently bad, as thoughts are needed to create.
“Thoughts become bad when you let your thoughts control you, and you forget that you are the controller of your thoughts.
“Many believe our thoughts alone cause suffering, but it is not our thoughts that cause suffering; it is our identification with our thoughts that do.”
Feelings on the other hand are an emotional state or reaction that can come and go.
Author Mel Robbin’s believes we give too much leverage on decision making to how we’re feeling.
In a recent Instagram podcast, she said, “We make decisions on how we’re feeling. 95% of our decisions are made on how we’re feeling in the moment, and that is the problem, Do I feel like getting up? No. Do you feel like making that cold call? No, you don’t. Do you feel like doing that 3rd set of reps, no you don’t.
“We make decisions based on our feelings and that is robbing you of joy and opportunity.
“If you accept the fact that you may never feel ready and never feel motivated and you may never feel confident and you may never feel courageous, that’s ok, but you can still push yourself forward as you start to see yourself becoming the person that takes actions.
“Guess what happens? You grow the skills of confidence and courage.”
Next, we find ourselves believing that our opinions are indeed facts.
Author Bull Bullard sums it up perfectly, “Opinion is really the lowest form of human knowledge. It requires no accountability, no understanding. The highest form of knowledge…is empathy, for it requires us to suspend our egos and live in another’s world. It requires profound purpose larger than the self-kind of understanding.”
Lastly, we focus on our actions.
According to TherapistAid.com, “Actions are the things you do, or the way you behave. Your thoughts and feelings have a big impact on how you act. If you feel happy, you are likely to do nice things.
“But if you feel angry, you might want to act mean. This belief coincides with what Robbins was saying previously when we give our decision-making control over to our feelings.”
Considering all the tools we’ve evaluated, maybe one additional tool would bring clarification to the communication toolkit, that being the tool of discernment. Discernment describes a wise way of judging between things, or a particularly perceptive way of seeing things.
Mindful discernment allows you to pause for a moment to consider whether what you are about to say or what you are about to do is based on sound knowledge and judgment.
In other words, remember these quotes, “Open your mind before you engage your mouth,” and, “Actions speak louder than words.”
Karenrestivo57@gmail.com