Communication in the Family

  Have you ever been to a different country or in a situation where no one spoke your language? I had a cool opportunity to serve a mission for my church in Southern Brasil and had a lot of experience struggling to learn a different language and to be understood. I said a lot of things that didn't quite make sense. Once I told someone that I like there cookies that they were wearing. Another time I told someone that a lot of people where I lived like to merry deer. Yeah when you have trouble communicating it can be very frustrating and even cause a lot of problems. In marriage it can be just as vital to learn how to communicate, and a lot of grief and pain can be avoided by using good communication.
  One unique word that I learned in Brasil that I will never forget is the word Bah. This word really is only used in Southern Brasil and it doesn't really have a specific definition. It can be used to express surprise, frustration, sympathy, sorrow, and much more.What makes the difference is how the context and the tone that you use. The same thing can be said about how we communicate with others and especially in how we communicate in our marriage. It isn't really the words that we say but how we say it. In fact we talked of how communication is made up of 3 parts. Words, tone, and other none verbal expressions. Words make up roughly 14% of communication, tone 35%, and none verbal 51 5. If this does not make sense think about these two examples. Imagine if you ask someone how they are feeling and they respond to you by yelling "I'm fine". Meanwhile there face is red and there eye brows are furrowed and they seem very agitated. Would you feel that there answer matches the message that they expressed? Or imagine if there was a person who was crying and seemed to be agitated and a person who didn't speak there language. Imagine if the one came up to the other and put there arms around them and gave them a hug. Even if they did not speak the same language they still would be able to send messages and communicate with each other. In our marriage there are a lot of messages that we can give to people without using words that we need to be mindful of.
   It is natural that in a marriage or in any other relationship that we will have miscommunications. IT is very important for people to know what to do when there is miscommunication in our marriages. There was a guy named David Burns that gave 5 secrets of good communication that are very effective especially when there is miscommunications. The first principle is to find a kernel of truth in what your spouse says. So for example if your wife says this is horrible you never listen to me and Im so mad. The kernel of truth is not that you are a horrible person or maybe not even that you never listen to your spouse but that your spouse is mad and feels that they are not listened to. The second principle is to express empathy. This is basically trying to feel what the other person is feeling and trying to understand what they are communicating to you. The third secret is to use inquiry, or basically to try to ask questions to understand what the other people are feeling. The fourth principle is to use assertiveness. A lot of time when we think of being assertive we may think that this means to be rued or even mean. However it is more being direct and expressing your feelings directly. This principle reminds me of what they taught in my elementary school when using "I messages". When you use assertiveness you tell a person how you feel and why you feel that way and what you would hope for or like others to do. For example you may say that when someone yells at you you feel sad because you feel inadequate and unloved and in the future you would prefer that a person try to not yell at you. The last secret of Burns is to express sincere gratitude and respect. Doing this is important because it helps a person to feel loved even when the couple has a misunderstanding or a miscommunication.
   It is not something easy to have good communication. In fact it can be a lot more natural to get mad and to use poor communication. However if we practice the principles that were discussed today it will help us to avoid a lot of problems and communicate our feelings in a healthy way.