After talking about behavior flexibility and how there are no resistant listeners, only inflexible communicators, it's time to take it a bit further. Consider that a person's reaction to your communication could actually be a function of your communication.

So, last week I had a huge misunderstanding with a good friend of mine. I was speaking with her about an agreement between us and I made a suggestion that she interpreted as me telling her to go and ask a third party for help. Two days later, I found out that this third party was upset with me because I had pulled them into the agreement between me and said friend of mine.

When we finally got to the bottom of it, we discovered that I said something that she interpreted in a different way, and then took an action consistent with that. It all got worked out, and we clarified what I actually meant.

Is it possible to say that it was my fault? Probably not directly, but I do have to be responsible for the way I communicated. 

The resistance to communication is actually a sign of a lack of rapport.

I remember one time I was driving into a parking deck and I bumped into this grumpy parking attendant. I got my ticket and paid him. He sort of shoved the parking ticket in my hand and we just went our separate ways.

I thought to myself "What is wrong with him? I didn't do anything!" I could've continued down that line of thinking, but thanks to my NLP training and some practices I know of, I was able to recognize my internal dialogue before going down that rabbit hole.

My mind then went on to wonder what this guy could have in his life that was making him so angry.

In communication we need to remember that we are doing the best we can with the resources we have. However, we can adapt.

I'm an 80's kid. Back then, the way our parents communicated with us was different. Phrases like "because I said so", "When we go to the store, don't ask for nothing", "Back in the day, when I was your age…" were part of our upbringing. We laugh about it now!

Thing is, parenting has changed a lot since then. Not better, not worse. Just different. Our parents did the best they could we the information and resources they had. Now, with more information, parents have a broader idea of how to guide kids.

A person with the most flexibility controls the system, because flexibility gives you more choices. We're not talking about external influence, but internal influence. We're talking about mental flexibility, behavioral flexibility.

Inflexible people don't like change. What happens when we get stuck in our own behavior or mental inflexibility? We believe we can't change and that we don't have that kind of power on ourselves. In reality, we have more control than we think. 

Back when social media first came out, there was MySpace. I resisted it for so long because I felt it was only for artists, and I was full on my integrative medicine practice.

I wanted to talk about incongruence in communication, and how you can actually improve communication by listening.

Have you ever - while talking to someone - felt like they are saying one thing, but something else is going on down the surface... like something is off?

Do you remember the show "Lie to Me"? Dr. Cal helped the FBI or the police solve cases through interviews. In those interviews he would sit people/suspects down and talk to them. He was able to tell if a person was telling the truth or lying by observing their body language, facial expressions, voice tone, and other subtle cues. The show was created for entertainment purposes, but the message behind it is something that's very real.

Only 7% of our communication is verbal. The other 93% is non-verbal.

Each person has a different model of the world. That personal view is our reference of reality, and not necessarily reality itself. The world based on experience, beliefs, values, and emotional experiences installed by our parents, media, daily life, etc. It's a so-called reality.

Some can go as far as completely disregarding others due to strictly thinking that their reality is the only one. 

Transformation really happens on the unconscious level.

People act the way they do because people learn how to be a certain way on an unconscious level. There can be no change if we don't begin to get at this at the UNCONSCIOUS level when the consciousness has NOT SHIFTED.

It begins by accepting that our view in life isn't the same as others. That if we don't agree with someone else's beliefs, culture, background, etc... it's still possible to respect them and have a basic regard for their life.

It's not possible to just jump from being a complete skeptic to a wholehearted believer. An important step is to be open to seeing what could be possible.