4 - 2022 - Grace SOULutions

Uncovering Misunderstanding | Sensitive Communication Tips

April 29, 2022 // by Preston Test

Hi, Grace here and welcome to Sensitive Communication Tips!

So today’s tips has to do with misunderstanding or uncovering misunderstanding in a conversation, also known as communication breakdown. So every single one of us has had some encounter of communication breakdown or misunderstanding and a communication. It has happened to me. And it has happened to some of the best business people such as Richard Branson, and Oprah Winfrey, and Jack Canfield. You name it, we’ve all have had that problem. I’m sure you have, I have, everybody.

So why there’s communication breakdown happening, why are there sometimes misunderstanding in a communication? Well, one has to deal with perception. And I like to use this example as the word service. Now we all know the basic meaning of the word service. However, the feeling behind that word, or how we feel about that word, we– it’s our own our own perception of it. So some people might view the word service, as serving, as you know, I work hard, I give you what you want, so that you can pay me for it. And so it becomes more of a work relationship where I’m working, I’m serving you, so I can get some income. So it becomes more of a work labor kind of feeling. Where some people use the word service, as in, I’m sharing my experience, I’m sharing my excitement, or I’m sharing my joy, or I’m sharing my education with you, in a way to serve you in a way as a service. So that we can both enjoy. So we’re learning from each other, where I am sharing with you my experience, you’re sharing some of your experience, you’re sharing some of your enjoyment, or whatever it is with me as I am with you. So as a service becomes more of a sharing experience, to create some of the joy hopefully, and some of the experience could be just an educational experience where you’re learning from one another. And so that perception, or that feeling of that word, then is different. Because now you’re feeling like, you know, even if it’s not a great experience, but I learned something from it, or the other person learned something from me. So that’s a different perception, or a different feeling of the word service, from somebody who feels it’s more work labor intensive. So just that word itself, again, we know the basic meaning, but the perception, the feeling, the how we– how each person feels about that work can be different. And so when we hear somebody says– say, oh, you know, you know, it’s important to provide customer service, it can present a different perception to that person on how one person hears that sentence of, we need to provide customer service, great customer service, one person might say, Yeah, I believe in that. And one person might say, I already do a lot of work, how much more do I need to give? So again, that has to deal with perception.

The second reason or might be a communication breakdown or misunderstanding is that it just happens. You know, not everything we do is always going to work out that in that includes communication, not everything we say, will make sense to the other person. And vice versa. Not everything that person says to us is going to make sense and creating some of that misunderstanding. And that’s okay and realize that it’s okay. And take that as a learning opportunity of what you can do or will– for what that person can do to best repair misunderstandings or when communication breakdown happens. Take it as a learning opportunity, the best way to deal with it, and what you can or what the other person can do to help to move the conversation forward.

And then the third is, listen. A lot of the times many people you know, including myself, sometimes we don’t actually listen, we listen to reply or to respond to the other person, rather than just to Listen, and just process what the person is saying. And then if there’s something we want– want to reply to just take a moment just to process, you know, if I say this, how would the person take it? Would the person understand? Am I leading to more more understanding? Or if, if I’m processing and I want to reply, respond quickly, then perhaps I’m missing out. And I’m maybe jumping to conclusion, which could lead to more misunderstanding. So sometimes it’s just okay, just to listen, and not feel that you have to listen in a way that you have to reply or respond or reply quickly.

So hopefully, you found these tips to be helpful. So again, just a quick review, so three things have– three tips to help you to uncover or repair some of those communication misunderstanding is one just realize perception, two acknowledge that sometimes communication breakdown can happen, misunderstandings can happen and just make sure that you understand that, you know, it’s not a complete failure, that this is an opportunity to learn. And then three, the third is listen.

Alright, so I hope you found these tips to be helpful in uncovering misunderstandings or to repair misunderstandings, repair the communication breakdown. So if you found these tips to be helpful, and you would like to learn more about me how you can work with me how you can book that FREE communication breakthrough session with me, then please visit my website, Gracesoulutions.com. That’s GRACESOULUTIONS.com. And I look forward to seeing you here next time at Sensitive Communication Tips, we will– where we will take a deeper dive into misunderstandings and communication where I’ll provide a really quick, hopefully a quick story about it. So that way, you can see how misunderstandings can happen at any time. And sometimes, you know, how to best move forward either with some humor or you know, acknowledgement of some sort.

So, anyway, I look forward to seeing you here again next time. Thank you for being here. And take care. Bye for now!

Deep Dive on Monitoring Feelings | Sensitive Communication Tips

April 20, 2022 // by Preston Test

Hi there, this is Grace, and welcome to Sensitive Communication Tips.

So in the last video, I talked about how to monitor feelings. And I provided four tips of how to monitor the feelings. I used the acronym MOOD, M for Movement, O for Oh, the look, O for Oh, the face, and D – Declaration, the tone of voice. So today, in this video, we’re going to just do a little bit of a deep dive of MOOD to monitor feelings.

So, again, we’re pretty good about perhaps looking at a general picture of looking at the body movement, or perhaps the eye contact, the facial expressions and the tone of voice. But there could be like minor details that we might miss, like the subtle movement of the body of changing. Like, perhaps the arms were open, and now they’re crossed. Perhaps the eye contact, you know, in some cultures, you know, it’s not good to make eye contact, it’s disrespectful in some cultures to make eye contact, say, with the elders, because of the line of the superiority or the authority figure. And there’s a, an understood, meaning or an understood, what do I want to say, rules of how to interact with our elders.

And then, of course, the facial expression is a little bit hard to see, perhaps that tension in the neck, you know, unless you’re looking really carefully and you see a bit of a tension in the jaw line or in the neck area, if somebody is now displeased with the information that is being shared, or they’re feeling a little bit discomfort with it. And then the tone of voice. Some people even though they may be upset with what is being said, or what they hear, they are still able to keep their tone of voice in a neutral position, they don’t necessarily show their displeasure.

So it’s these little minor details that can kind of make it a little bit challenging to decide if the person all of a sudden is reacting to what is being said. And now, because of what they’ve heard. Now the mood has shifted for them, as far as, you know, how they’re now engaging, in the conversation. So some of this takes practice, and also knowing who you are speaking to. So, you know, the more you know that person who you are speaking to, then you perhaps can read their body language a little bit easier, you can tell a little bit more about how they’re looking at you, or the subtle tone of voice. You– Because you know that person, well, you may be able to pick up some of these minor details better because of having all the experience with that person. So it might be easier to detect the mood of the person when you know them well.

And then you know, the person that you are– who you’re speaking to who don’t know, you, or the person who’s speaking to you may not know you, well, may might not be able to pick up some of these subtle changes in order to monitor the mood or monitor the feelings in the conversation. However, we have instinct, you know, we are very good at sometimes at picking up instinct. And we might have some intuition, like something may not be right. So if your gut is telling you something where you have that instinct, like, you know, I feel like something might be off, you’re probably right. I’m going to say 99 Perhaps 100% of the time you are— you’re probably right if you suspect or you have that gut feeling like something has changed.

So if something you feel is off, you know, don’t be afraid to address it. Say, you know, I feel like all of a sudden if something is not quite right, did I say something wrong? Or, you know, can– you know, something is just different. So, you know, sometimes if you just point it out like, you know, I feel like something has changed, you know, was it something I said or, you know, has something been picked up wrong, you know, and the person might feel okay to share it and they might just say no, everything is fine. But you can sense that something is not. So you can either try to pursue it if you want, or if it’s not that important, you can just drop it and then perhaps just move on to a different topic. Right?

So with conversation, you know, the tricky part of it is sometimes when the mood changes, and it could be changed for the positive, right, if you’re having a serious discussion and everything, and somebody always has some say– says something, and it makes it light hearted, where maybe you laugh, or the group laughs or something, and then everybody starts to relax. And all of a sudden, what became really serious, rigid, now becomes more relaxed, more friendly. And then the other way, it can also happen where everybody was relaxed, and somebody said something, and now all of a sudden, it changed. And now the dynamic of the group, or the dynamic of the conversation with that person now has altered to something perhaps more rigid.

And again, it just depends on how well you know the person how comfortable you are, and just addressing it, and trying then to move on, or is it better sometimes just to say it, but it’s not that important that we can drop it, and then, you know, move on to something else, so that we can always try to have that effective and effortless communication. So that’s my take on monitoring feelings in the conversation. However, you might have your own strategies. And if you do, I would love for you to share what you do, and what helps you to monitor your feelings. Because, again, you know, it’d be great if all of us worked together, and working on having more effective and effortless communication. So that way, we all can have a more positive experience in conversation and communication. It’d be great if we can create a more positive and effortless communication and effective communication and conversations in our lives. And so that we are creating a more positive outcome, rather than having a conflict and also having ways to resolve the conflicts.

So again, if you found this to be helpful, please feel free to visit my website at GraceSOULutions.com That’s GraceSOULutions.com. To see about how you can book a FREE Communication Breakthrough Session with me. Again, I’m here to help all the introverted, sensitive, conflict-phobic women to be able to communicate effortlessly and effectively in their communication so that you are more confident in sharing your message so that you are heard, seen and recognized and be able to repair any communication breakdown.

Thank you for being here. Take care, and I’ll see you here next time. Bye for now!

If you are driven to communicate with confidence, have your messages, be heard and understood, and repair any communication breakdown in your personal communication relationship, then Contact me here and I’ll get you started on the right path.

Warm regards,
Grace CW Liu
Communication Navigator
W: GraceSOULutions.com

ABOUT GRACE

Grace CW Liu believes there is a solution to every problem including communication and conversation problems. Everyone can find the solution they seek by using the guidance of grace that is in you, with the grace of spiritual support, and Grace –me– as your Communication Navigator and support system.

My passion is to help sensitive, conflict-phobic, and introverted women have effective communication so they feel valued and heard in any conversation.

Through studying and observations, I’ve realized why communication breakdown occurs and the solutions to solving those problems. I’ve presented these solutions so that communicative partners can achieve effective communication!

Monitoring Feelings | Sensitive Communication Tips

April 5, 2022 // by Preston Test

Hi there, this is Grace, and welcome to Sensitive Communication Tips.

So today, it’s all about Monitoring Feelings. So the tips I’m going to provide to you today is all about monitoring feelings. Have you ever encountered a situation where you might be talking to a person or to a group of people, and all of a sudden, somebody had said something, or you said something, or the person said something and all of a sudden the communication, the situation shifted from maybe perhaps a happy, pleasant, relaxed mood, all of a sudden, something has been said, and the person, either you or the other person or group of people, are reacting? And that has now shifted the conversation, the mood of the conversation.

So today, what I would like to do is provide you four tips on how to monitor feelings, because after all, some of us are really good at monitoring feelings, right? In a conversation, where we see something has shifted, and we can sense the feeling, perhaps that the mood of the conversation has now changed. And some of us are, might not be really good at looking at the mood or monitoring feelings of this conversation, we might just continue on, we might sense something but we just continue on as, while the person or a group of people might be reacting. And so the mood is now getting more perhaps deeper into that negative feeling. And the person is not quite aware of it. And so it just continues on into a more snowball effect until things maybe perhaps blow up.

So four tips on how to monitor feelings, and actually, I put it into the acronym MOOD, because after all, when we are monitoring feelings, we are talking about the mood of the conversation. So that’s why I thought well, we can use the acronym MOOD to help us to monitor feelings.

Alright, so starting with the letter M, which stands for movement. So perhaps if you become observe it you can look at the person’s body, or perhaps whoever you’re speaking to, you know, is it a person or to a group, look at the body movements, you know, was it relaxed, and everything, and all of a sudden, somehow, some people’s body movement now are becoming more rigid? Or was that somebody, it was a very serious conversation, everybody was really rigid, and somebody made a comment that made everybody laugh, to help everybody to relax. So we can change the mood. And we can sense the mood changing by looking at the body movement, either from relaxed to rigid, or perhaps in a situation rigid to relaxed. Alright, so that’s M.

Now with the letter O, one of the letters for O is , Oh, the look. So that would be eye contact. So perhaps, you know, everybody was really engaged in what the topic was, the person is speaking there, you know, and you’re engaged with them. So eye contact is great. All of a sudden, somebody says something. And either the eye contact could be from relaxed to a glare. Or it could be that they’re now withdrawing. And so now they’re going to look away, because now they may, perhaps they’re reacting or not comfortable anymore of what was being said. So now instead of looking and staying engaged, perhaps now they’re looking away. So eye contact can also be an indicator, perhaps of a mood change.

The second O: Oh, the face. Again, facial expression. You know, perhaps a person had a relaxed look on their face. And now all of a sudden, they might react to what was being said, and now they would have a stern look. And perhaps, it could be the other way around. The person said something and you reacting to it, you might go from a smile relaxed face, all of a sudden to a very stern, straight face. So looking at the facial expression, the muscles on the face, can be an indicator of a shift in the mood of the conversation of the feeling and the conversation of what is being discussed.

What is being shared, and then D: declaration of the tone of the voice. So perhaps a person had a light tone had a pleasant tone had a calming tone. And now all of a sudden, their tone of voice might be a little bit more serious. Or they might say, Okay, this is what I think so or perhaps it was very serious. And again, to lighten up the mood, the person might kind of jokingly say something like, “Well, you know, it could be like this.” And then that helps to bring other people to be in a more lighthearted moment in that conversation as well.

So, again, somehow, sometimes when we’re engaging in conversation, the mood of the conversation can change, depending upon how the person is reacting, or perhaps how you are reacting to the information that’s being shared.

And sometimes we can detect the mood of the conversation being changed by using these four tips to monitor feelings, and that is Movement, Oh the eyes, Oh the face for the facial expression, and then D, the Declaration of tone of voice that’s being used. And then we can, once we are aware of the mood of the conversation, how it’s being changed, we can try and we can attempt to redirect it so that it doesn’t snowball into something that gets worse, that we can adjust so that the conversation can still continue to flow in an effortless and effective way.

So I hope this helped. If you found the tips to be helpful, please feel free to visit my website gracesoulutions.com that’s gracesoulutions.com to see how you can book a Communication Breakthrough Session with me so I can help you to have more of a– an effective and effortless communication with whoever you’re speaking to and whatever situation you are speaking and thank you for being here. I look forward to seeing her again next time.

Take care, bye for now!

Warm regards,
Grace CW Liu
Communication Navigator
W: GraceSOULutions.com

ABOUT GRACE

My passion is to help sensitive, conflict-phobic, and introverted women have effective communication so they feel valued and heard in any conversation.

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