Communication is only 7
percent about the words that you actually use according to McKay et al. (McKay, Davis, & Fanning, 2009). The other 38 percent is vocal and 55 percent
is body movement. Therefore, in order to
communicate honestly and congruently, you have to make sure that you are using
the body movements and vocals (pitch, volume, etc.) that match with the words
you are choosing to use or vice versa.
It can be extremely confusing to speak with someone who is telling you
one thing but “showing” you another. A
very good example is my mother. My
mother likes to play the role of martyr or damsel in distress. Over the years my family has learned to
understand her conflicting messages, in fact, it is a language that we have
come to decipher perfectly. But it still upsets me when I have to go along and
play the game. I feel that she is not
respecting me and her lack of sincerity makes me feel that she does not trust
me with her real emotions. Here is a
typical conversation with her over the phone:
Mom:
Are you coming over for lunch today?
Me:
Not today mom, I’ve got a lot of things to do.
Mom:
(long pause) oh, what do you have
going on? (Emphasis on oh)
Me:
Just a lot of homework.
Mom: (long pause) well….
You know your nephew’s coming, right?
(Emphasis on the word right)
Me:
I know, but I just can’t today.
Mom: (tense sigh). Well
you know I don’t care (emphasis on
the “I”) but you really haven’t seen much of your nephew
lately.
Me: Are you upset that
I’m not coming?
Mom: Me? (Emphasis on Me said with a higher pitch). Well of course not, you know I don’t
give a fig if you come or not, that’s your business (hostile tone). I just thought you would want to see your
nephew (manipulative tone).
Here are a few things I
notice in terms of what McKay and colleagues talk about in their book in
regards to paralanguage (vocal component of speech such as pitch, articulation,
volume, etc.) and metamessages (how we communicate attitudes and feelings
through paralanguage and other nonverbal cues) (McKay et al., 2009). When I
have these conversations with my mom, where she is trying to have her way, her
pitch rises as she pretends to be happy and okay with things. The overall volume goes up and she tries to
present herself as joyful when indeed I can hear the tenseness in her voice,
holding back the anger. And I notice the
rhythm in her sentences when emphasizing certain words which give away her real
emotions. Lastly, she uses verbal
modifiers such as “just”, “really”, and “well” while accentuating these words which
in the end make her sound almost condescending.
My mother also has many
hidden agendas (McKay et al., 2009).
Her favorite combination of hidden
agendas are the “I’m helpless, I suffer” and the “I’m tough”. My mother at her core wants us to be
concerned for her and wants the pity and attention but she does not want to ask
for it. She wants people to come to
these conclusions on their own without her verbally conveying the message. For example, if she has a doctor’s
appointment and wants someone to go with her, the conversation might go
something like this:
Mom: I have a doctor’s
appointment today.
Me: For what? Are you
feeling okay?
Mom: Oh yeah, I feel
fine it’s just to check my asthma.
Me: Oh, are you having
trouble breathing?
Mom: Oh I’m okay now, I
just had a slight episode the other day and I wanted to get it checked out.
Me: Well, would you like
for me to go with you? Maybe you
shouldn’t drive.
Mom: Oh no, I’m sure
I’ll be fine. I always have my inhaler.
Me: Well, maybe I should
go with you.
Mom: Oh no, if anything
happens, I’m sure I’ll notice it before I have a full fledge attack…
This type of
conversation can go on forever. Instead
of just saying “yes” when I first offered to take her, she fights me off until
I finally just tell her I’m going with her, end of story. Her words are telling me “she’s fine”, but
her real agenda is telling me that she is vulnerable, scared and wants someone
to take care of her.
I began to notice as I
got older that I inherited or learned my mother’s communication
techniques. The only difference was that
I noticed my own incongruences because I had already noticed them in my
mother. This made me want to change the
way I communicated with people because I didn’t want to fall into the same
patterns. I knew that my mother’s tactics were negative and manipulative but I
also noticed that she got what she wanted most of her life. It made it easy for me to fall into these same
tendencies. After reading the chapters
in Messages I can now not only
identify these communicative problems but they now also have a technical name
and also a solution.
I believe I personally
use many hidden agendas. I never
realized that this is what they were called.
I knew I used them as a defense mechanism to cover up my self-esteem
issues but I didn’t realize to what extent or depth I was using them until I
read about them. Mckay and others
explain that hidden agendas “protect you from rejection by creating a desired
impression. Over and over, they help you
make a case for your essential value as a person” (McKay et al., 2009, p. 80). First, I have to make it clear, that I don’t
think improving on my paralanguage or identifying incongruences in my
metamessages will fix my self-esteem issues.
I think good communication starts first with feeling good about
yourself, but that is a whole different story.
I believe I can start to improve on my communication skills by first
identifying my hidden agendas which are “I’m helpless, I suffer”, “you’re Good
(But I’m Not)” and “I’m Tough”. I know
that last one might seem like a contradiction, but I really am a walking
contradiction. I have a hard time
accepting compliments from people and tend to devaluate myself, but I think
what I really want to hear is “your great”.
This again is my way of manipulating people into telling me things that
I can’t say about myself. Maybe I feel
like its bragging. In the same manner, I
play the tough card when people want to help me, because I don’t want to seem
weak, but honestly, I do want people to help me. Again, I do feel vulnerable, but I don’t want
to appear it because I don’t want to come across as a fragile victim but in the
same way I feel fragile and weak and therefore end up putting myself down when
people find value in me. The complexity
of my self-esteem issues are so deep, sometimes I myself don’t understand what
I’m feeling. But now, by actually having
a name for each hidden agenda, it’s easier for me to identify when I’m playing
that role, and I can change it. Once I recognize
the pattern, I can dissect my actions and become aware of the nonverbal cues
I’m giving out. Mckay et al. tell us
that “as you become aware of your own nonverbal cues, you will discover that
your body language provides a wealth of information about your unconscious feelings
and attitudes” (McKay et al., 2009,
p. 60). I feel that this new understanding of body language works like an
emotion detector, letting me know what emotions I am feeling even if I’m not
aware of them.
I can also now use what
I’ve learned from our readings in Messages
to assist me in my presentations at work.
I have a terrible habit of talking in a standing position in the middle
of the room with my hands clasped in front of my face. I realize that this is also a protection
mechanism that somehow separates me from the crowd. I now understand that I am giving out the
wrong messages. I’m not coming across as
someone who is confident and knows what they are talking about. Instead, I come across as a rigid and
insecure individual who has a nervous tic that makes her constantly rub her
hands in front of her face. Seeing
myself now in my mind’s eye and the messages I must be sending makes me think
how much time I’ve wasted giving these types of presentations with mixed
communications. I think the first step
to conquering your demons is identifying the demon and giving it a name. Once you name the demon, it’s not as
frightening anymore and solutions come easy.
References
No comments:
Post a Comment