Under any circumstances, human beings are in need of communication. If you think that it exists only in verbal scale, you are unaware of the benefits of the unlimited world it will provide you with.

From the moment you read these lines, your opinion on communication will completely change; believe me!

Communication

Communication is basically the only way an individual can fully express him/ herself, socialize, and understand the people in front of him/ her. To evaluate it in another way, it is a qualitative and elaborate action that removes the individual from a being that merely exists living on consumption, and turns him/ her into a socially active being.

Communication plays a pivotal role in ensuring harmony particularly between individuals and societies and in making sure that the interactions are of quality.

It is extremely important for you to know that; as long as communication exists and the level of reciprocity increases, it actually makes you more of who you are, allows you to express yourself and makes you a part of the social formation. Like everyone else, you will need it very much for a mentally and spiritually healthy life.

With communication, the individual does not only express him/ herself, but beyond that, he/ she also gets clear on what the world around him/ her is made of. This clarity can bring people closer, or it can also cause them to move away from each other.

But the main issue of importance is that, as a result of existence of healthy communication, individuals have the chance to understand one another more accurately. At a time when understanding and listening are of utmost importance, but are so neglected, you should know that your communication skills and your focus not only on yourself but also on the people around you will have many benefits. Because listening while communicating, as much as talking, will be a good guide for you to build valuable relationships with the people around you.

Remember that in communication people are just as valuable as you.

All kinds of elements in the communication processes provide an opportunity to further increase the interaction between the parties in communication. Words, symbols, gestures and facial expressions all determine the direction of the discourse in the communication process.

All individuals have a unique communication style; and the quality of this communication is undoubtedly fueled by individuals’ identities, cultures and standarts of judgment. However, it is valuable for an individual to be in tune with the conditions of their time and place in the name of expressing him/ herself, feeling understood and feeling like a part of a moment, place or a community. That is why the time that is slipping by right in front of you, the space you are in, your understanding of communication that is accordant with the faces you know, that adds value to them and thus attains it in return, will make you a substantial individual in society.

You are capable of expressing yourself clearly and being properly understood by people; believe in this, trust in your words, knowledge and words reflected on time from the depths of your soul!

Although the current communication that takes place in the physical sense is the basic vital function of people, the digital platforms it is carried onto points to a radical change in the form of communication.

Communication processes that are performed without seeing one another and that are mostly based on written texts, seem to be the new way for people to express themselves. Will this new digital communication process replace the common communication methods? Undoubtedly, traditional communication will not just lose its everlasting place in our lives.

Nevertheless, you will have to keep up with all the changes and transformations that communication has gone through regardless of work, school or private life. You have to make sure that the more you can adapt to the transforming nature of it, the easier it will be for you to understand the rest of society, express yourself according to new standards and land on your feet in communication processes.

Times are changing; it’s up to you to make the choice to seize it and not get lost in its gears.

Regardless of physical or digital, what you should keep in mind is that communication does not only involve instant interaction processes; in fact, it is the embodiment of content of the information transferred from today to tomorrow that ensures that today’s individuals and societies pass down something valuable to the next. For this reason, in order to understand, to be understood and to remembered forever, you also have to better yourself and the people around you in the communication processes.

Sharing the values that make you who you are with people in the right way, will one day help you to be remembered as a nice, authentic and successful person in their minds.

Feelings in your mind, words in your tongue, now is the time to say something nice.

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“Eric Berne“

As we grow old, expanding from our individual relationships, we begin to build relationships based on our environments. This satisfies both of our areas of physiological and emotional need, forms, and shapes our personality. In the content that improves our communicative language, we have feelings, experiences, life positions of our lives, ego states, and accordingly changing behaviors. This process, which begins in childhood, develops level by level into adulthood and then, into parenthood.

In this article, I will separately mention the theory of Transactional Analysis and the mastery of communication.

According to Berne, the founder of the Transactional Analysis theory, the need for strokes lies at the heart of human behavior. Observing the vitality of touch on humans, Berne defines stroke as a “any message that serves to recognize/ acknowledge the existence of a person,” being in the opinion that this fundamentally meets the need for recognition of existence. Strokes can be verbal, nonverbal, positive, negative, conditional, and unconditional. While physical contact is essential for life in infancy, over time, the need for psychological approval and stimulation from the external environment come into sight.

A quote I like to use by Berne, which describes the basic understanding of the Transactional Analysis theory is;

We are born princes and the civilizing process makes us frogs.

We are born princes and the civilizing process makes us frogs.

The objective of the Transactional Analysis theory is to help people become princes and princesses again. This theory is based on the teaching of TA Coaching sessions to ensure that the advisees reach the princes and princesses within them. In the teaching of this theory along with the philosophy of the coach, people are always OK and harmonious, everyone has the capacity to think and decide what will happen in their lives.

The difference of Transactional Analysis theory, a method of psychological change and analysis applied to solve interpersonal communication problems, from all other theories is that it deals with social psychology and individuals. Everyone is inherently good, valuable, equal, and worthy of respect.

In coaching based on Transactional Analysis, the advisee is here and now and recognizes his/ her own feelings and emotions in response to the reality of the moment that took place along with setting aside his/ her feelings of the past.

As an individual who feels free to choose between different options in terms of his/ her behaviors, he/ she takes control of his/ her communication with the awareness that there can always be more than one behavior.

In his/ her communication with other people, she/ he can show his/ her true feelings, share, live and ensure others to live in an open, safe, understanding, and respectful relationship in which he/ she is accepted as he/ she is. Knowing life script theory, he/ she understands his/ her thoughts and behaviors in the victim mentality; he/ she analyzes the attitudes, deliberately decides to leave the unconscious space and create a new life script in which he/ she will be happy to live as a prince or princess.

As we gain knowledge and awareness of our emotional hunger and needs, we learn to work on our triggers and the validation theme of our existence, as well as construct it together with our life script. We can transform these roots that reflect our view of the world with our existential positions and ego states. We can rearrange our communication according to the structural and functional distinctions of our ego states.

The functional archetypes in our Ego states are critical parental ego state, nurturing parent ego state, functional adult ego state, natural child ego state, and adaptive child ego state. Regardless of our age, in our relationships, we can have all ego states and the behaviors they reflect. Definitions and analyses we will do together while Coaching on these allow us to gain control over the types of transactions.

Think of your troubled communication with someone you are in a relationship with right now.

What is your prominent root feeling?
Describe this feeling to me and return to it. Where did you first experience this feeling in your life?
Was this feeling experienced by someone or members of your family as a child?
Does this feeling help you solve your problems today?
How big are the memories consisting of these feelings in your life?  
How would you feel better about the incident, situation, and communication at the relevant moment?
What is the reality you are ignoring there?
What kind of solution would feel good for all parties?

Behaviors like hurtful, resentful, accusing, revengeful, moaning, crying fits, getting offended and running away, excessive shopping, overeating or not eating, intolerance, uncontrollable anger, manipulation are essentially the destructive reflections of these deep-seated emotions.

Communicating with ourselves, it reflects as; I am OK if I do not embrace my feelings and wishes in my communications, I am OK if I force myself, I am OK if I please others, I am OK if I do everything right.

But you are good as you. If you make yourself happy first, not others, you are OK; if you are open and express your wishes, you are OK; if you do as you can, using your time comfortably, you are OK.

Then you will be free, like all birds in nature, able to fly wherever you want and sing in open communication with all living things.

Have you ever thought about how parakeets can talk like us?
If you were to buy a parakeet to your house today, how would you train it to talk?

In these times of change and transformation that life brings, we all go through challenging periods. Especially in this time of physical distances, we were obliged to notice emotional distances even more.

In these processes of difficult situations they encounter, the individuals can be shocking, critical, or confusing in their discourse, with unexpected manners and attitudes in their communication. They can react to the entire history of the emotional wound within that event instead of the current situation they are experiencing.

If they experience a situation that threatens the emotion they have yet to resolve, they can be tougher and more disproportionate in their reaction than ever before. You will notice with a coaching session that when you encounter such a situation, you focus on your entire relationship, not only one moment, and how you can give yourself a healthy position until you reach an equilibration in the triggered emotion.

If you are experiencing a similar trigger of emotion, you can observe what you need to heal yourself. Problems are guides for us, so we see the limitations ahead of our progress, not stop signs.

If the individual you are communicating with is defensive and destructive with a harmful attitude rather than taking responsibility in cycles of being responsive, you may need to get out of this situation until a healthy communication connection is established again.

Getting out of this cycle will give you a new chance of observation. What is this side of you that constantly exposes you to others’ mistreatments? Identifying with the victim mentality, which we call the role of the frog, the increased reactivity of the individuals around you, and the feeling of embarrassment after some time create a much bigger problem than the incident itself.

With the control of the life positions and the ego selves reaching the adult status for all parties, the energy and consciousness change that take place will create the necessary space for healing.

In times when these triggering emotions and past experiences are on the surface, not everyone can find a way of expression with wisdom and grace. With this session, having reached the wisdom within you, you can see what is a temporary situation and what is a permanent or an unacceptable one.

You can manage problematic communication with new perspectives and decide whether you can continue the relationship you are in healthily.  You can remove conscious harms from your life and capture a new harmony with the person with whom you are experiencing a mismatch.

You will know how to approach the field of understanding and awareness for new and healthy communication, without being punitive.

Meanwhile, you can decide whether you want to maintain this connection, or whether you will come together with a new energy.

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