In The Beginning

I was talking to my friend Carolyn last night about this blog, and she’s like, “You need to do the blog. You need to do the blog,” and I’m like, “You’re not the boss of me,” because I’m mature for sure! 

But my resistance has always been in part because it’s hard to find a place to start talking about communication. I did some earlier episodes for my site, but mostly for my own entertainment. This is the time when I need to be a little more serious about this and make sure that people are getting an opportunity to understand just how amazing communication can be, and how powerful it can be.

And last night Carolyn said, “Well, why don’t you just start at the beginning?” I guess that makes this is the beginning of the beginning for my blog about communication, its impact on us and how we can turn it to our advantage. 

One analogy that I like to use is that communication is much like breathing. Think back to the first time that a person breathes and that first wail after coming out of the womb, that is our first communication. That cry says, “I need something. I’m uncomfortable. I’m hungry. Put me back. I don’t like it out here.” And the breathing that we do as we emerge from the womb, that first breath, is sufficient to our needs. It is adequate. And after that first shaky respiration, and we take another breath, and then another, and eventually we’ve strung together millions and millions of breaths and we can say with some confidence, “I’m a pretty good breather, because I’m still alive,” but we’re really only breathing at a very nominal level. 

However, most people think they’re pretty good at breathing until they go and we study singing, or hatha a yoga, or maybe free-diving. Then suddenly, we are aware of our intent in breathing and we become more conscious of the act. We begin to be analyze the processes of respiration and we become conscious of the diaphragm and the lungs and the bloodstream, and suddenly we get a different perspective and breathing takes on a whole new meeting. It means that we can do it better because we get it, and we didn’t get it before; we simply did it.

Learning to communicate follows a very similar path. As soon as we take that first breath and shriek, “I’m here. Look after me. I’ve arrived and I’m gonna command all your attention for the next 12 or 18 or 24 years,” we set out on our path to learn to communicate.

We look at those early experiences and we think, “I must be communicating effectively. I’m fed. I’m burped, changed and I got rock to sleep. I am communicating effectively. My needs have been met at a basic level, which is good enough.” And it is, until we get to the point where we’ve become self-aware and self-actuated and want to start controlling our lives and start managing the changes that go on around us and within us. It’s at that point where communication becomes truly critical, yet we have no greater understanding of the act of communication than we did when we drew that first breath.

This blog is my attempt to help people understand what communication is, how it works and why we do it, so that we might do it better. Ultimately, that’s going to make for a better world, which I think is a pretty worthwhile endeavor.

That’s why you should come back and keep checking in. See what we’re discussing and how we’re looking at communication, because it is the world’s most important subject. That’s why it’s so important for us to go on this communication journey, together; because there are two sides to every communication. Even this one. So, send us your questions or comments. Let us know what communication issues you want us to focus on, and we’ll see if we can’t take some important steps to fostering some important changes.