“We need to talk.”
I once had a friend of mine tell me, “there are only three things guaranteed in life: birth, dealing with people, and death.” No matter who you are, people will be a part of your life. The only question is how you are going to work with them.
While I was serving as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, something that became abundantly important to me was communication. Fun fact about me: I have a really hard time approaching people I don’t know. It takes a lot of internal convincing to get me to talk to strangers. Sometimes I feel pretty alright about talking to people I have come to know, but, even then, I sometimes have a hard time knowing what to say. That is especially true when it comes to having hard conversations. So, going back to my mission: when you serve as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, you’re approaching strangers all day every day to share something that is of utmost importance to you, and are doing so with another individual. That doesn’t seem too bad, but here’s the thing: you are put with someone you’ve typically never met before, you are within sight and sound of them at all times (except when going to the bathroom), and you’re expected to be unified. I learned very quickly that communication is of utmost importance.
During the course of my mission, I served as missionary companions with 12 different Sisters (the title given to female missionaries). Each of them learned, taught, and behaved differently. Some I got along with really well quite quickly, some it took some time for me to open up more, and others brought a roller coaster of emotions the whole time I was with them. I came to love each of them deeply, and I am very grateful to know all of them, but each relationship took work. I found that the way I talked to some wasn’t the way others needed to be talked to. A fair number of my companions hated when I’d sit down with them and ask them to talk about their feelings. It just wasn’t something they were comfortable doing. I feel it is important to talk openly about what is being felt (even if I sometimes have a hard time knowing what to say), so that was difficult. I didn’t ever come to find a magical solution for how to talk with everyone perfectly, but I did find that talking is different from communicating.
Communicating requires more than just one person spouting out words. Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles said: “Perhaps even more important than speaking is listening. … If we listen with love, we won’t need to wonder what to say. It will be given to us—by the Spirit.” Listening to what the other individual has to say is a key part of communication. Then, when it is appropriate to respond, make sure you acknowledge what they said and respond respectfully.
One tool we talked about in class this week was the EAR model (a picture of which is attached to this post). Part of why I think that model has been found to be helpful for so many people is that most of it is focused on other individuals. When we get so caught up in what we’re thinking/feeling or what we want to say, we can miss so much of what is happening. If we get defensive when we’re being accused, often we add fuel to the fire rather than seeing what the source is and putting it out.
Communication is vital to working with other people, and working with other people is one of the few things guaranteed about life, so I believe we ought to find ways to communicate better with the people we’re privileged to work with.
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