Me Speaking Leila Higgins

Tip Two- Oversteps

From the website http://mespeaking.it/tip-2-oversteps/

Hello

Welcome to another episode of Me Speaking- Communicating Consciously. This is Leila. I’m your host, giving you a series of communication tips that I’ve learned ALWAYS work.

My tips come from years of self improvement and dedicated interest in this topic. One of the most important things I’ve learned is that we use more than words when communicating consciously.

We all know what that means… don’t we?

In today’s episode, we will be learning about what I tend to call “oversteps”.

Oversteps are when we say something about the other person that may or may not be true. It’s when you tell the other person what you think he or she thinks, feels, or should do and because of this, you undermine communication.

Would you like it if someone came over to your house, entered without asking and rearranged your furniture? Their intention might have been to please you, but you didn’t want your furniture rearranged. Oversteps are the crossing of non physical boundaries in the same way the person who rearranged your furniture crossed a physical boundary by entering your home without receiving your permission.

A great way to avoid this is to have insight- and focus on the importance of information flow.

Insight is when you take a moment before speaking, so that you can have a better understanding of your thoughts before you decide what to say. This insight can be used on the outside as well, in the form of asking questions.

“Sit here next to me!”….

Something as innocent as telling someone where to sit can become an overstep, if that person had already planned or thought of sitting somewhere else, they would now be in a slightly uncomfortable situation.

Rather than create this type of innocent and unnecessary conflict, you can open the door to information flow and communication.

With a bit of insight you’d be more likely to say something along the lines of “How would you feel about sitting here next to me?”

There’s a big difference in how that conversation can turn out, how each person will end up feeling, and if what each of you desires will actually happen.

The trick to remember here is: Talk about yourself… Ask about the other.

Questions that start with How or What often lead us to the right path when it comes to getting insight from the other person (or people).

So the point here is:

Never assume you know what others are thinking, wanting, feeling or needing, and DEFINITELY try not to tell people what to do. These are oversteps.

Thanks for listening and feel free to check out episodes and articles from the other sections of Me Speaking.

In the next episodes of me speaking-conscious communication we’ll discover some more enlightening techniques and tips that can lead us all in the right direction.

Tip 1- The end goal

From the website http://mespeaking.it/tip-1-the-end-goal/

Hello

Welcome to another episode of Me Speaking- Communicating Consciously. This is Leila. I’m your host, giving you a series of communication tips that I’ve learned ALWAYS work.

My tips come from years of self improvement and dedicated interest in this topic. One of the most important things I’ve learned is that we use more than words when communicating consciously.

We all know what that means… don’t we?

In today’s episode, Tip One,  we’ll talk about "The importance of information flow".

Information flow is when two or more people convey thoughts, feelings, instructions and all kinds of other information in different directions. The goal would be for all parties involved to receive that information and react to it productively while sharing meaningful information in return.

Let me brake that down for you. Have you ever heard the saying "Communication is key for success". I've often heard it in relation to team work.

The continued exchange of information within a team allows them to achieve their end goal in unison. Sports players communicate with their team in various ways during their games. Office staff communicate with each other throughout the work day. Even couples, who I hope consider themselves a team, communicate to achieve mutual goals like buying a home, deciding whats for dinner or anything in their day to day. Friends use information flow to make plans and see each other.

So information flow is important no matter who or whatever reason we're communicating.

Like I said before, the end goal in any communication is to express an idea, to relay important information, to express a thought or emotion, to share an experience, or to deepen your connection with the listener? It could even be used to solve a problem...

In order for information to flow well, all parties must be active participants. If someone isn't fully there and aware, the end goal will almost always be missed.

Participating means a lot of thing whether you are the speaker or the listener. Knowing your intention (whether it's to express a concern or something else), listening, speaking with clarity (assuring that the listener can understand what you're saying), looking for ways to improve the situation and do it, relate to the speaker the best way you can, validate them, notice and understand body language while being aware of your own.

The important tip I'd like for you take away from any of this is that in conscious communication no one is right or wrong, we are all givers and receivers of information that can allow us to achieve mutual goals.

Now, I want to eat chicken with pasta for lunch, let me go ahead and tell Marco.

Thanks for listening and feel free to check out episodes and articles from the other sections of Me Speaking.

In the next episodes of me speaking-conscious communication we’ll discover some more enlightening techniques and tips that can lead us all in the right direction.

Chicken on pasta…

002 Audio- A Natural Conversation with Marco …

http://mespeaking.it/chicken-on-pasta/

Hello

Welcome to the another episode of Me Speaking-Natural Conversations with ESL guests. This is Leila. I’m your host, bringing you real conversations with a mother tongue resident.

In today’s episode I will be chatting with Marco.

Marco and I are in a relationship and live together for a year and a half. As a mixed couple, him being born and raised in Italy and me being Italian-American, we’re bound to find some interesting differences in our daily habits.

One of them is clearly related to food.

Through the years, since I’ve moved here, I’ve learned that Italians RIGHTLY venerate their food. There are certain things you MUST do when cooking Italian and certain things you JUST DON’T DO.

An example of this is putting cheese with fish. It’s unimaginable!

So listen to how a conversation about this VERY FRAGILE topic turned out…

LEILA: Marco, What would you like for lunch today?

MARCO: I don’t know… Pasta?

LEILA: (smirking) I guess that will work. I could make that uhm… Pasta with Chicken dish. What do you think?

MARCO: Leila… we don’t put chicken on pasta.

LEILA: (laughing) oh goodness… here we go… there’s nothing wrong with chicken. It has asparagus…

MARCO: ooh there’s asparagus. Do you really need to add the chicken?

LEILA: (laughing) Yes. Yes, I do. It’s the main part of the dish. I’ll go to the store and get the ground chicken. You’ll like it, trust me.

MARCO: I trust you but… CHICKEN!?

LEILA: Yes, that meat you tend eat roasted… You can eat it in other ways you know…

MARCO: Yea… I make it with breadcrumbs and fry it… But not with pasta.

LEILA: Come on Marco… Just try it. No one’s to die.

MARCO: Are you sure about that?

LEILA: (giggling) Yes I’m sure. It’s a pretty versatile dish. It’s light. It’s filling, It’s healthy. You’ve been telling me you’d like to eat healthier. What do you say? Will you try it?

MARCO: Fine… let’s try it. But this not is Italian food.

LEILA: OK fine… we’re buying the ingredients in Italy. The base of the dish is olive oil and garlic, but we don’t have to call it Italian.

So in the end, he lived to see another day and now we eat our chicken, asparagus and pasta of- pretty often.

One point for me. HA!

Introduction to communicating consciously

001 Audio- 1st Episode of Conscious Communication

From the website http://mespeaking.it/introduction/

Hello

Welcome to the introduction episode of Me Speaking. This is Leila. I’m your host, giving you a series of communication tips that I’ve learned ALWAYS work.

My tips come from years of self improvement and dedicated interest in this topic. One of the most important things I’ve learned is that we use more than words when communicating consciously.

We all know how to talk and listen… don’t we?

In today’s episode we’ll discover what that actually means. What’s the point? Aren’t we always conscious when we’re talking? I’ve learned that that’s not always the case.

When we’re aware of how and what we might be communicating to our listener we can help achieve a desired outcome in that conversation.

That doesn’t mean that we can try and control what the listener might respond, it just means that we can be better aware of the outcome and the experience. It’s a way to understand and be understood on a much higher level.

So how do we do that? Well…Let’s start by focusing on what we can be conscious about. What is it that affects the listener in a conversation? Definitely- your choice of language, your words even your sentence structure.

But that’s not it- the tone of your voice, the speed at which you speak, even the rhythm you choose can all help direct the perception of what you’re communicating. What about body language?

It seems like a lot to be conscious about all at once, doesn’t it? Well, I think that’s OK.

It might not be spontaneaous at first but as we learn to pay attention to ourselves, we also learn to pay attention to others.

In the next episodes of me speaking-conscious communication we’ll discover cool and enlighting techniques and tips that can lead us all in the right direction.

Thanks for listening and feel free to check out episodes and articles from the other sections of Me Speaking.