Communication

I thoroughly enjoyed this topic and I learned so much. Communication is something I know is one of my weaknesses and as I learned about it this week I was able to identify ways I could improve and change.

In class we defined communication as the use of language and non verbal sign to create shared meanings between two or more people. The nonverbal things that was brought up was clothing, facial expressions, touch, and tone of voice. The part of this that I had never thought about before was the use of clothing as nonverbal communication but I realized that I use it all the time. The times when I dress up the most are church, when I go to the temple, dates, and when I worked in a gift shop that sold Native American arts and crafts. There are so many reasons why I dress up for church. The main reason is to pay respect for the Lord on His day. But I also want to look nice to maybe catch the attention of the guys. When I was at the gift shop I sold items that were worth a lot of money, some were worth a few thousand dollars, and I dressed up to make myself seems more professional and I wanted to send the message that I really knew what I was talking about when I taught them about the items, I would even wear some of the jewelry in the gift shop to send the message that I valued the items there.

Another thing in class that I really liked was when we talked about the use of emotion in communication. The thing I got from it is that emotion isn't bad, but responding emotionally when we are upset can be damaging. This is a problem that I struggle with. I tend to respond emotionally when I am upset about something and that makes communication very difficult. as we talked about it in class I thought about problems I've had in the past when I've responded to different situations emotionally and how that made the situations worse. I've had a situation the last couple weeks and I've felt very upset, but I've been trying to wait to deal with it until I can get my emotions under control so that I don't respond with anger. I know if I do it could create problems and I don't want to do that because if I respond emotionally then I'm the one with the problem. The thing I wonder is it ever best to just not respond if you think you would respond emotionally?

I also found the reading and discussion about listening extremely valuable. I realized I have been a very bad listener. I am one that interrupts others quite frequently and I get distracted and I will pretend to be listening, but I decided to work on that and I've had several experiences to do that. One person I feel I pretend to listen is one of my roommates so I've made a concentrated effort to pay real attention to her when she is talking to me. A few days ago she was trying to talk to me when the television was on and I was not paying very good attention to her so I turned the television off so that I could listen to her. I also tried really to listen to one of my other roommates and I learned quite a bit about her. I feel that it helped us to become better friends. A few days I was on the other end. My friend had oral surgery that involved breaking and resetting his jaw and cutting through the nerves in his face. He couldn't talk when I talked to him and I talked for about an hour with him only able to listen. I told him a lot about the things that have been going on in the last several months, it made me wonder if that is how others feel when they are listened to without interruption and if I would learn more about people and make more intimate relationships if I would only spend more time listening.

I had hoped to find more of this Phineas and Ferb episode to show because I like that they don't only create a new verbal language, but some nonverbal communication as well.