Effective Communication
(TRC)

Whatever conflict we have with a person, lying beneath that discussion is always a Trust, Respect and Confidence (TRC) issue. If someone is late picking you up from somewhere an argument may begin about “being late” b.u.t. the underlying issue, because of their actions, you question how Trustworthy they are, how much Respect they have for your time and how much Confidence you can have in them to be pick you up the next time. Granted there may be legitimate reasons why they were late, yet this situation still diminishes the level of Trust, Respect and Confidence between you; especially if this is a habitual thing. Suppose you don’t do the dishes or clean something up around the house. You and your Companion may get into an argument about “the dishes” or “cleaning up”, yet the underlying issue is how your actions, or lack thereof, has made them question how Trustworthy you are as a Partner, how much Respect you have for the Home you share, and how much Confidence they have in you helping out.

The 21st Letter in our Supreme Alphabet is “U” and this is symbolic to ‘You’ or ‘Universe’. Universe is also U-NI-Verse, You and I Verse or “You and I converse (communicate)”. In other words, this tells us about the importance of Communication and Interrelationships. Communication is the ability to transfer/receive verbal and nonverbal data between People. Within a Culture, the vehicle we use to Communicate is language and body language. The Universe is everything, and everything is Interrelated (connected). Therefore, everything is always communicating, transferring/receiving Data in order to maintain an endless Circle of Life/Death. If is hasn’t been communicated to us that it’s -10° outside and we send our child out with shorts on, what will be the consequences? Suppose we saw a wild animal in our backyard and approached it -b.u.t. the dangers of rabies was never communicated to us? What can happen when the spoilage date on some food isn’t communicated on its packaging? Imagine you got up super early and rushed to get to Class only to get there and find out it was rescheduled it; you didn’t get the email… If Communication is important in these situations, imagine how important Communication is our most intimate bonds; Relationships.

Whenever we find ourselves in a conflict with one another, in a disagreement or a heated debate, find out what Trust, Respect and Confidence issues we are trying to Communicate. It’s not about “the car” someone didn’t put gas in they were allowed to use, it’s a Trust, Respect and Confidence issue of how they handled the situation, regardless what the object was. Lets talk about how the handling of a situation has lessened the Trust, Respect and Confidence we have between eachother and what we need to do in order to restore/increase that Trust, Respect and Confidence! If we are not approaching conflicts, a disagreement or a heated debate from the perspective of You and I Verse or “You and I converse (communicate)”, we will find ourselves expressing ‘You and I “vs/versus”’, where it becomes a battle to prove who deserves the most Trust, Respect and Confidence. An example of this would be an argument starting about “the dishes” going into somebody getting off at 5pm and not coming home until 6:30pm, the Event the other person missed last Spring, the female who’s always smiling up in your face at work, to her single girlfriends you don’t like… ALL of this goes back to Trust, Respect and Confidence issues that are "a fine mist our naked eye can hardly detect" (8/1-40). By approaching our conflicts in this matter, it then becomes a question of how legitimate or illegitimate these Trust, Respect and Confidence issues are. Sometimes a person honestly didn't know or they may be culturally insensitive. This is alot more productive than arguing with someone about leaving one sock in the dryer or why you didn't return somebody's phone call. We may find out that it's not legitimate and they/we have Trust, Respect and Confidence issues "regardless to whom or what" (11/1-14). Communicate!

I once experienced a situation where a person made a selfish decision where I questioned how much I could Trust them, the level of Respect they had for others and my Confidence in them to do the right thing in the future. The irony is that when I was in the same situation before them, I chose to make decisions that they could Trust, Respect and have Confidence in, so I had more Trust, Respect and Confidence in them to reciprocate the care/consideration. We briefly talked about the surface issue yet never addressed the Trust, Respect and Confidence issues that were created based upon how they chose to handle the situation. Maybe if I would have better communicated (21: You and I verse/converse) that it wasn’t about “the car” itself, b.u.t. how they chose to handle the situation about the car, we could have come to a better Understanding (3). 21 being the inverse of the 12th Letter (L; Love), maybe this would have given them an opportunity to be more introspective about how Trust, Respect and Confidence are elements of Love we claimed to have for one another. Maybe if I would have used the actual words ‘Trust’, ‘Respect’ and ‘Confidence’ to describe how their personal actions diminished our Bond, they would have ceen (3) what I was saying and we could have resolved the conflict and disagreement that turned into a heated debate. I use the word “maybe” because sometimes you can tell a person about how their actions diminished the level of Trust, Respect and Confidence between you and they simply can’t cee it. Sometimes we can’t cee it when someone tells us that. It’s possible that they/we can be that Hedonistic or Narcissistic where they/we have a difficult time forming real bonds of Trust, Respect and Confidence with others. If they/we are changing social circles like musical chairs every few years, they/we can never seem to maintain a Relationship for more than a few years, and it’s ALWAYS someone else’s fault why they/we no longer talk to People, this is probably the case…

In conclusion, when I was a child my Parents always coordinated Family Meetings and “Communication” was a buzzword in my household. This is what kept us close, strengthened our bonds and gave us an opportunity to learn how to Trust, Respect and have Confidence in one another. We learned how to get past surface issues and discuss what we’ve done or what was done to us to diminish the level of Trust, Respect and Confidence we had for one another. Most importantly, we learned about what we needed to do in order to restore/increase that Trust, Respect and Confidence! I appreciate my Parents for having the wisdom/foresight to provide me and my siblings with these tools. In any Bond, the highest Value lies within that Relationship, so the willingness/ability to communicate (Word) our Trust, Respect and Confidence issues is an important part of securing that Bond, especially when these are Relationships for Life (11/1-14). Effective Communication is what makes these Relationships not only possible b.u.t. also enduring. On the flip side, Effective Communication also allows you to cee if People are willing/able to be invested in an enduring Relationship. Because it’s impossible to Value a Bond where the actions of one or both People continually diminish the Trust, Respect and Confidence in that Relationship... until there is no, thing, left…

Peace,
Saladin