Communication

We communicate in so many ways, on so many levels: physical, verbal, non-verbal, speaking from the gut or through the written word…you can probably think of more. But within all these different levels of communication is one very important element: how we communicate with ourselves!

Communication with others is in fact based on how we communicate with ourselves. For very clear communication, first we need to be very clear within our own mind. If our own mind is all over the place, our communication with others also will be all over the place.

If I want to communicate my thoughts or feelings to others in a loving way, if I want to communicate with others in a loving way, I first have to love myself. How can I love others if I do not love myself? Or as I always say, how can I give you tea if I do not have tea?

Of course we all want to be in and to communicate from a place of love. But we might communicate in an angry way or react angrily to what someone says or does because we haven’t made peace within ourselves yet. When we are not communicating within ourselves in a peaceful way, that is reflected in our communication with others.

But what does that look like, communicating within ourselves in a peaceful way?

One of the first elements of this is to love our own physical being, as that is the vehicle for our mind. If we are constantly saying things like – whether in words or our own thoughts – ‘I do not like this aspect of my physicality, I am not happy with the way my body is, I do not like my grey hair, my scar, my long hands.’, then we are constantly communicating ideas to ourselves in a way that is not healthy for our mind or body. This kind of communication within ourselves therefore will be reflected in how and what we communicate to others. Thus, we need to learn how to accept our whole physical being no matter what, and to communicate this acceptance to our own physicality in a loving and caring way.

Just as our physical being is the vehicle for our mind, our mind often is the driver of our feelings. And when we love our own physical body deeply, we can then start to work on our feelings.

Often we do not express our own feelings in an open and kind way to ourselves, let alone to others. We might hide our emotions due to feeling ashamed of what we feel. For example, you watch a movie and feel like crying but you feel ashamed to do this. Maybe you learned as a child that crying was a sign of weakness or was ‘bad’, or that the feeling of wanting to cry was something to push down or to close off in a corner of your mind. Maybe there are other things that you close off in your mind, that you close off from your communications.

The more we open our mind, the more free it will become and the more we will start to communicate with our own feelings in a more open and loving way, with compassion and acceptance. The more we accept our own feelings and communicate clearly with them, the more we can communicate more clearly, freely, and compassionately with others.

But even if our mind is open as wide as can be, we need to look after our body, feelings and emotions as well, as all are connected and all can affect our communication. For example, when we feel tired within ourselves we might get angry more quickly than if we feel well rested. Or when we feel emotionally unstable, we might more easily get angry or worried.

Therefore, clear communication to ourselves and others comes from being stable within our own physical being, which means we are centred and grounded in our own physicality. Then through this centredness we start to communicate more clearly with our own personal feelings and emotions. And this in turn will help us to communicate in a very clear, kind, open minded way to others.

Hence the first step to learn how to communicate in a loving and clear way to others is to learn how to communicate in a loving and clear way to yourself.

Frans Stiene

Based in Holland, Frans Stiene teaches in North America, Europe, UK, Australia and Asia.
Frans is also the author of Reiki Insights, it is the continuation of his previous book The Inner Heart of Reiki, taking your personal practice and understanding of the system of Reiki yet another step deeper.

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