Returning to Love

The pure love vibe between them is so palpable! The man has no leash around the dog’s neck and the dog wants to be nowhere else but by his side. They swim together and hang out sunbathing in total synchrony. He talks to the dog quietly transmitting his love through his words and the dog seems to understand him completely.

My heart melts to feel this kind of depth of love and trusting bond between two beings.

Let’s be honest for a moment, though. As much love as this guy and this dog have and as deep a bond as they have, are they ever gonna feel disconnected? Is this guy gonna get upset if the dog runs into the road after a ball? Is he gonna get angry and yell at the dog? You bet ya! Is this dog gonna get upset if the guy has to go away for a few days and take some time to warm up to him again? Probably!

All kinds of hard stuff happens in life that twists us up and breaks the flow of love between us. Things that make us mad or sad, or scared! We can’t stop things from happening that interfere with the love that we feel.

But, we do have control over coming back to the love. We are in charge of how we deal with turning the flow of love back on.

That is what this article is about. It is about coming back to the love and why conversations are an important part of that.

When the flow of love breaks down, we use all kinds of things to come back to it. Some work, some don’t. Some things connect us to ourselves like meditation and some things like drugs, just cover over our pain. We do whatever we can though, to feel the love flow again. That is how important love is to us all.

However earnest these attempts to come back to the flow of love are, they don’t help us to actually be able to talk with one another in a direct way that re-establishes connection and actually helps to resolve what got in the way in the first place, bringing us closer to one another.

That’s because we don’t know how to talk through the pain of our emotions and confused thinking, to get back in loving connection.

Love seems to be the strongest substance in the world. It can rip us apart and put us back together again. It can produce enough strength in a person to lift a car off the ground and the lack of it can fuel the meanest of circumstances.

Love seems to be what heals us and when it is not there, what destroys us. The energetic touch of love is powerful indeed.

We humans touch each other with our bodies, our emotions and our energy.

We also touch one another with our words. We transmit our love and all other emotions through our words.

Words are so important. They are important because words too can rip us apart or bring us together. Just like love.

If our words are not in synch with what is really going on inside of us they can create misunderstanding and conflict and can undermine the success of our relationships, in all areas of life, not just our romantic relationships.

Many of us are at war with words because words often get in our way. Our cognitive thinking gets in our way. That’s not because of the inherent nature of words.

It’s because most of us have not learned how to align our thinking with the deeper waters of our being and our words run amuck in side of our heads and in our conversations with others wrecking havoc.

Another way to say this is we simply do not know how to think inside of ourselves and talk with each other in ways that bring about true understanding, connection, support and the flow of love. Most of us are inarticulate with our words.

I do not think that I am exaggerating.

Think about it? How easy is it for you to really express with honest transparency what is going on inside of you? Or, for that matter how easy is it to actually hear what another is saying without translating through your own experience and projection?

In all honesty, I have often found it a real challenge to translate what I am feeling in my guts even to myself so that I can become more in touch with what is going on inside of me for the sake of my own self knowing and, to be able to share with another.

Others who I speak with about relationship issues have this same experience. Can you relate in some way?

That’s one of the reasons for learning Communication skills. Communication skills can teach us how to use words to create more ease, clarity, connection, understanding and peace, within ourselves and between one another.

A blind spot for many of us is that we think that we are good communicators. Not being able to have conversations that are supportive of true connection, understanding and love is something that is hard to admit and embarrassingly painful. Especially if we are well educated professionals in roles that require interpersonal skills, and think of ourselves as well meaning and caring people. Especially if we are surrounded by loving friends, family, colleagues and children and have a well oiled social life.

That is why I am shining a light on this today and am willing to stand on my little soap box and shout it out.

I am going to be straight with you. It pains me to witness so many relationship dramas and personal sufferings that are caused by a lack of skill in communicating. It is an unneccesary suffering.

The journey that I have been through has shown me the powerfully positive benefits of learning communication skills. I have both experienced this in my own life and have seen the benefits in the lives of the people that I have worked with.

Many people think that I am such a good listener or that I have a natural talent for conversing. I actualy learned how to listen and how to express myself. I have been at it for some time now so it seems natural to others and actually to myself as well. But it is actually a learned skill! I would love for you to have this skill and enjoy the many pleasures that come from it.

It’s all about how we use our words.

The two essential common denominators in all of life’s challenges is the way that we are inside of ourselves and the way that we relate to others in the face of this hard stuff. The way we communicate does make a big difference as to whether we suffer or not.

The flow of love is dependent on how we think within ourselves and how we talk with one another.

Most of you know the walls that go up between you and your loved ones when there is a big disagreement left unresolved, or the bridge that is broken between you and an important person in your life because of a misunderstanding of something that was spoken, or the gap that happens when you just don’t know what to say and leave things hanging unattended.

I personally know the pain that results from not knowing how to walk across the bridge, melt the wall or close the gap.

What I have discovered is that to speak what is in my heart from a place of loving self connection and willingness to be vulnerable with what is going on for me while not blaming another or judging them for how my situation might be their fault, has been the number one most powerful tool in my life that has helped me to have self responsibility, less drama, more choice and more love in the face of the incredible challenges of life.

And the number one thing that has helped me to relate like this is integrating Compassionate Communication Skills in to my life.

Relationships are everywhere. They are the foundation of everything that occurs in life.

Without each other we cannot create life on this earth. The success of our interactions and fulfillment of our endeavors depends on the quality of our inter-relatedness with everything.

One of the most important activities that we do with one another is to talk with each other.

We talk about getting things done, about how we are doing, feeling and what we want. I think that it is pretty safe to say that most of us know the joys of a great conversation where one comes away from it feeling a sense of having been heard, of connection and a satisfying resolution of a problem. I also think that most of us know the moments of conversations gone sour, which can throw a chink in the progress of a project or the love between two people, creating a lot of angst and suffering.

Yet, the majority of us do not learn how to have successful conversations with one another.

We often bumble along in trial, error, frustration and exasperation. I imagine that many of you know, as I do, the great and often debilitating cost of time, energy, love and money due to misunderstanding, hurt feelings and unresolved conflicts.

The suffering that results from lack of skill in communicating can be alleviated by learning how to have conversations that foster genuine understanding, connection and support of all the people involved.

What creates these kinds of conversations?

Ways of being within oneself and of speaking and listening that cultivate empathetic understanding, clarity of feelings, needs and intentions, and expanded perspectives of what might be possible to meet the needs of everyone involved.

How do I know about this?

About 20 years ago, after a lifetime of personal growth and education in the field psychology, spirituality and human relations, I was still suffering inside myself and in my relationships. In my search to alleviate my suffering, I came across a particular perspective on interpersonal communication that changed my life profoundly in the area of being able to create truly fulfilling relationships in all areas of my life, forever. It is called Non Violent Communication also know as NVC and colloquially referred to as Compassionate Communication.

NVC is one of the most powerful approaches to successful interpersonal communication that I have found.

I am passionate about sharing it with you. NVC was initially developed about 50 years ago by world renowned psychologist Marshall Rosenberg and today is actively used world wide in all walks of life.

The principles and tools of NVC, although simple and straight forward, are incredibly comprehensive and far too broad reaching to address in a short article like this one.

However, there are five very important skills that I can share with you today! These skills, when brought to awareness and mastered can increase the flow of love in a persons dramatically!