If you've met me or listened to me on a podcast you know that I like to talk! All night long, sipping copious amounts of coffee, laughing and making funny movements to emphasize a joke, touching your hand and bringing down the tone while we get serious and deep, looking off into the world beyond our world while we imagine and describe endless and infinite possibilities...
I love to talk! I love to write about it! I love to share and listen and hear words and words and words! But...
I also respond to a more real communication. Energy, intentions, actions; less easily expressed with words but far more deeply felt and understood.
I like to believe that I would have learned to value and recognize this type of connecting simply by growing older and becoming wise. But I'm old enough and wise enough now to know that learning some things happens only with the intention and desire to do so.
Quieting the mind, knowing words to be imperfect symbols attempting to express or hide or distract from true communication, this is something I learned because I was in a unique position to want to know it.
My brother, Dar, struggles with words. They don't come easily and when they do come they are often a simple request for something to nourish him from the hard work of communicating silently with a world that doesn't seem inclined to understand his meaning.
My brother, Rye, struggles with words. They slip easily out of his mouth as a representation of what he thinks he's supposed to say or words he's heard from others. People he assumes know the appropriate response. "You've hurt my feelings, you're talking to me like you think I'm an annoyance rather than a workmate," comes out of his mouth in words like, "You're an asshole."
I struggle with words. I pile the nicest ones I know on my sons when they are hurting, burying them deeply in my nice, nice words. I know better and I want to do better but while I communicate quietly with soft touches, an allowing of space, and an unsolicited cup of hot chocolate, I muffle the meaning behind these moments by spilling more words and making a mess.
Words are wonderful!
I love words!!
Yet they are hardly the truest form of communication.
When we listen with our energy, we don't need to understand exactly how it is we're able to communicate so clearly. It's not necessary to put it into words.
We're all intelligent enough and able to communicate deeply; even if some of us have almost forgotten how, we can remember.
This doesn't mean we won't misread the intentions, energy, or actions of our loved ones! Goodness, no! We absolutely will! And in those moments words can be a wonderful tool for exploration and clarification. But they aren't necessary. We can simply shift our assumptions and try again.
When we communicate from our deeper meaning, from our intentions and hopes and energy and actions, we're already in the truth. Sadly, we've become inclined to misunderstand it.
We've almost forgotten the language, we don't focus on it enough.
So, let's focus on it!
Let's remember it!
Let's communicate honestly.
Let's highlight our intentions, our actions, our energy!
Let's communicate deeply.
Let's discover and tweak what we're really saying!
Let's communicate thoughtfully.
Let's be so comfortable and in tune with our intentions and actions that the words we choose to use closely represent them.
Hugs, smiles, and love!!
Autism Answers with Tsara Shelton (Facebook)
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| Holding my husbands hand while he drives. Communication, loud and clear. |
