Calm Clear Communication

What does it mean to be assertive? Can you deal with difficult situations effectively, honestly, and with great tact?
Sometimes, we are not clear and assertive because of the fear of displeasing others. Being assertive does not mean being bossy or aggressive. It’s actually to be very gentle and helpful. To be my true self and allow others to be who they are. We are not in competition, and we can communicate very clearly with each other.

Transcript

I'm Shanti and welcome to Solve to Solve and we're going to look at calm clear communication.

So how important calm and clear communication is because I'm not clear and I'm communicating with someone or others and they appear to have understood me but if I'm speaking to a few people and they've all taken it differently and I myself think they all think what I'm thinking on a certain subject and then we go on and we start to do what we have to do and then when we come together we have we've not got it.

It's chaotic.

It's quite important that I learn this art of communication.

So we're going to look at what does it mean to be assertive and can we deal with difficult situations effectively honestly and with great tact.

How am I able to do that?

So sometimes we're not clear and assertive because of the fear of displeasing others.

So we're scared to say what we really think and we go around the subject and nothing really has happened there.

So I think we need to understand what it means to be assertive.

Now to be assertive doesn't mean to be bossy or aggressive.

It's actually to be very gentle and helpful and patient.

I need to add the patience.

I need to take time and try to explain clearly what it is that we're looking at.

If I become this,

That is my true self,

By being very helpful and careful and understanding,

If I become this,

My true self,

I would then allow others to be who they are because we're not in competition.

Assertiveness doesn't mean I have to be the bully and knock people into shape,

Tell them what I want and make sure they know and get them to get on with it.

That's not what we mean by being assertive.

When we have learned that this is assertiveness,

But if I allow people to be who they are,

Then we can communicate very clearly with each other and people will be able to say what it is they haven't quite understood in the subject or what they think might be better or what they're able to do and what they're not able to do and so there'll be a lot of freedom there and a lot of healthy ways of being together and to understand that each one of us,

Each one of us,

Has a huge power of thinking energy that I or we,

We can communicate with each other and not cause damage to either ourselves or other people that are around us that we're in connection with.

And when I can learn to become a little bit assertive with myself,

Then a whole new world will open up.

So it's the self first.

I have to understand what I'm talking about.

If I don't understand and practice it,

How can I try to be it?

I can find new patterns and new opportunities.

When I practice this I can feel the confidence of my own power of assertiveness because I'm being assertive with myself and I'm not bullying myself or forcing myself or others and I realized that in the past I maybe did have to use force on myself and I probably didn't like it and the result is I didn't like myself and I didn't trust myself because our self doesn't like force even if it's coming,

Even if we're doing it ourselves.

And I wouldn't even have felt safe in my own self,

In my own hands.

I wouldn't really have agreed with the things I was coming up with.

Now this is quite a strange way to think but it's very true.

I wouldn't agree with myself so if I'm not agreeing and I'm not feeling comfortable,

How can I say that I'm being communicating clearly in assertiveness and making it clear for others and we're going to do something to put things in some kind of order?

How can I do this if what's coming out my own mouth doesn't make me feel comfortable?

If I can teach myself to manage my own energy and make myself feel safe then others will begin to feel safe around me because I don't want to cause any more discomfort to people around me and when I see chaos and I think I need to stop this chaos then I will fail and chaos will increase because I'll be going to use force to stop the chaos.

So I will fail,

I can't stop this chaos and the chaos will increase.

That's a different way to look at assertiveness,

The old way's out the window at this point.

However if I stay calm and think more accurately about the right things to say or do then I will recognise when others need to be listened to and given that attention,

Given respect actually,

I need to give respect to where others are coming from.

So I can choose constructive words to tell someone off is not the way.

If I'm going to tell them off I have to do it in a really constructive way.

Communicate calmly and clearly and say how you feel,

If you feel positive or negative but say it in a respectful way.

So if you do this you boost your own self-esteem because you're handling a situation but you're handling it in reality and accurately.

It's not that you have to then say I mustn't say a word,

I can't say anything,

This is dreadful,

What can I say,

I'm supposed to be calm and kind and therefore this is not right,

What's happening isn't right but I can't say anything.

You can but it's the way,

It's the attitude.

And so how clear are you about what you want to say?

So it's important that we're clear because if we haven't a clue and we think we'll just leave it to the gathering and I'll sort of check it as people say it and correct it as it comes out,

That isn't the way.

Then you're being smart and people are not going to like it.

So you have to be clear about what you want to say,

What it's all about,

Why are you having this talk,

This meeting,

What is it you want to do.

Think of the benefits of what we are communicating and remember to smile even when you're on the phone.

That's a really good one actually.

I have noticed and some days I have really actually knowingly practiced this and you know sometimes you would get phone calls that were hmm you know quite,

You'd rather be off the phone but I was practicing smiling and I remember getting a message from someone and they said to me I like talking to you on the phone because you're always smiling.

I thought how do they know I'm smiling?

So why would they know I was smiling?

I thought gosh I was practicing that because it comes through your voice.

It comes through your voice.

You can tell from someone's voice if they're sort of grumpy or fed up or hoping to get over and done with and patient or if they're actually feeling quite okay and light-hearted and even smiling.

So even on the phone practice being light and I would get a lot of nuisance phone calls nowadays.

I remember when I thought to myself these people are just doing a job and it must be dreadful for them how they rattle off all the information and I would teach myself how to be respectful to them.

I can't say I put up with them forever because I couldn't have time to listen to all their stuff and I wasn't interested but I would spend time thinking they're doing their job and I would find some nice things to say and then say to them have a good day it's not really my thing but I'm sure you'll be fine you know and thanks for giving me this information and I practiced that quite a lot and so yeah remember to smile even on the phone and to smile nowadays is not easy you actually have to teach yourself to smile and so calm clear communication and assertiveness and sometimes it's because of the fear of displeasing others we think oh gosh I better not say anything because they're gonna get so annoyed and this one's going this one's always bossy and this one always says the wrong thing this one's always not agreeing so you have to teach yourself not to even go into that it's not that you have to go beyond that it's that you have to look at yourself you have to say well that's how they're that's how they are they want me you know be annoyed at what I'm saying then they have to be annoyed at what I'm saying and then I often think well if they're annoyed at what I'm saying and I'm saying it in the most thoughtful way then that's actually their problem so to be assertive is actually to be very helpful and understanding and patient but you see I have to talk to myself to be like that it won't come just like that and I have to maybe look at what happens when others are being assertive they've been assertive with me how would I feel I feel sort of like I'm squirming on my chair and I feel quite like oh hurry and get this over and done with and actually this is a window for me to look at it's an example for me to see how I don't want to be like that I don't want to make people be feeling so much they want to get away and they're squirming on their chair you want it to be feeling sort of light-hearted and enjoyable you think gosh that time passed quickly and here's what we're gonna do and I feel quite uplifted so I want to make what I do feel that it was worthwhile and that we're now going to do something and what we're going to do will actually be something that's very useful to each who were involved and maybe to the world in general so I need to be my true self and I do need to allow others to be who they are and realize I'm not competing I'm not trying to be the smart guy or the one with all the answers because quite often we don't have the answers in other people that we're talking to might have an answer or two there because they may have experienced something we all live a different life and the answers come from experience and so yeah I have to give that respect to others and we're not in competition with each other and we can commute very clearly when we have that respect and our thinking energy the power of that is huge so when a few individuals come together who have huge power of thinking energy and we're in that way of respectfulness it allows everyone's thinking energy not to be held with fear or holding back or scared to say a word it allows people to release that huge power of thinking energy but as if I'm so assertive and clever and bossy they can't use their huge power of thinking energy they'll think about not say that because maybe it's not right or this one knows better than me or this one I'll put me down it's worth thinking about what is assertiveness can I communicate not cause damage to myself and other people when I learn to become a little bit assertive on myself a whole new horizon will open up for me and for others that's quite something to think about again so how do we do all of this we do need the power of silence and I have to underline that the power of silence is your most important your most important focus to realize that this power of silence is the part of strength and our characteristics and we all have many many really really good good qualities good energy patterns but if they don't have power then they just stay quite nice but in fact they're really powerful and I can give myself that extra power through the power of silence and the power of silence is the power to freedom it's like a pathway to another world of thinking it takes me away from my mundane experiences and allows me to think in a more powerful constructive and healthy and friendly respectful way it boosts my energy it makes me more aware of the old ways that I may have been and tells me that through my experience that didn't work and I didn't like the feelings I got from it and if I use those same experiences with other people that won't work for them and they won't like what's happening and they won't like the messenger and I was the messenger so if I want to have a powerful wonderful calm clear communication with others and with firstly with myself the power of silence is critical it comes when I realize I'm the soul in the center of the forehead and I think of the one who's all powerful the divine and through that communication I feel such a world of wonder strength and freshness for myself which then I want to share with others on chanting.

Could you say something about maybe being the one who is more on the receiving end of a communication and what's the best positioning so that I can really hear so there's the giving of information but also the receiving on all levels so if I am the receiver of information what would be some of the main good qualities or positions for a listener?

It's not always easy to listen so listen is quite tricky because you find your own thoughts come in and you start disagreeing or thinking you can say it better or thinking of what you're going to say that's better and will upstage what's being told so I have to teach myself what it's like actually to listen and understand that others are also listening and make my speaking so enjoyable in a way that people against their conscious wish will want to listen and it will help them go beyond their other apprehensions about listening skills and maybe encourage them and definitely would encourage us to be careful how we speak to others I think I don't know if that's answering your question but I'm just talking for a moment experience how it doesn't matter how elevated someone is you can get quite distressed listening to what they're saying because it's touching something I always think that if something is irritating and getting touched it's something that needs healed it's something that's not right in me it's something that needs to be reassured that's what I was thinking of actually was there are situations where I know that the person is very elevated or very wise and yet I can still find it difficult to listen and feel as you're staying irritated or uncomfortable but I always just take as a signal and then I think how can I change my attitude to be a better listener so I can get maximum yeah benefit because I think that habit is always to be gearing up for what you're gonna say yes not really listening ready to serve yeah again to get to know yourself as best you can and to see these things is wonderful actually to see and take on board that you do feel uncomfortable not to suppress that but let yourself see that you feel uncomfortable and then you can feel guilty because the person was a good person and was given good information but you were feeling uncomfortable and so for whatever reason that's how it was so you have to be not too annoyed at yourself but learn from it and decide that you'll watch very carefully whatever you share to do your best to not make people feel uncomfortable and let them be free to do whatever they need to say or do not to put a suppression order on the conversation you know I've also had the experience where some I can really really misunderstand what someone is saying I've heard others say similar things and people say things like it's all in the vibration and all these percentages of how little it is of what comes out your mouth but even when the vibration I know has been really great and benevolent and the words have been designed to uplift or help I can still because of my own little knapsack of backdrop I can still take it the wrong way so again to this back to listening again knowing that I'm a bit more aware of that how do I kind of stay alert and really how do I check that I'm getting the right meaning should I clarify everything as it comes to me okay I would take everything really personally if people are talking I talk out to a crowd of people it's not personally pointed it's like experience of that person what they've experienced and some of what they're saying might be useful and some might not be you might not be ready for some of it and then it's up to you to sort of you know think what's useful for you and do your best to stop the feeling of loss or the fear factor it's a fear factor that someone's kind of try to put something on me here and to try your best not to go there and to take the best from it that you can and the other point we would just say something about the importance of clarity of speech because this is something that is really important and I thinking Glasgow Glasgow is maybe quite renowned for a clear speech some good comedy sketches about the Glaswegian accent wonderful though it is and sometimes not always easy to understand well I think we're lucky because we do understand it and sometimes I would get an interpreter someone it's like a foreign language but I've kind of got used to that and luckily fortunately most of the people that we listen to very clear they're sort of very clear spoken and speak very sensibly but it's not even to do with that even people who speak really clearly and sometimes you don't understand where they're coming from rather than what they're saying it's what they're thinking when they're speaking so if we feel we're coming from the same page then we would understand what people people are at you know so it's like the whole thing about meditation and Raj yoga meditation is to feel that we're coming from the same page even there's bits that from the physical point of view that are not so clear but it's up to us when we become spiritually aware to make ourselves more and more clear it's like my duty to be as clear as I possibly can be and I find in class my one really benefit was that there's so many people that come to us with from other cultures who don't well English is not the first language and I somehow it happens so sort of naturally over the years must have inside taught myself to speak with extreme clarity and a lot of people from other countries would say they came to Glasgow didn't know a word of what was being said out there and it was such a relief when they come and listen to us in inner space because they then could understand the Scottish language they called it because we were speaking in a way they could hear so I think it's our duty to speak clearly use the power of speech and then what's in your mind will come out more clearly I'm shanti I'm shanti this is a meditation where we're going to teach ourselves how to step inside and be wise I become aware of any tensions in my body and allow them to dissolve you and I give my body permission to be still and restful because I have found a safe and quiet space to be still and there is no danger no attack and I do not need to defend in any way so I truly can relax and let go and this body is becoming very relaxed you now I have quality time to pay attention to my real self the soul I am a soul I am light the energy of thought I am the energy that thinks within this body and I sit in the center of the forehead and I look out I am in fact the director of my life and whatever I think feel and say and do is decided by I the soul and when I am calm inside I'm at my most powerful I am most wise when I'm at peace with myself and with the world you simply to be aware of my true self the spiritual self the soul reawaken my natural peace and therefore my original power you power to see and decide on power to observe and interact and the power to make very best choices for myself and for the benefit of others however I need this perspective I need to step inside when I step inside and understand myself as the soul inside then I can become peaceful and wise Oh chanting you you

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