The Irony of Communication

Often the question shows up in workshop seminars “Do I have to communicate my feelings and needs to my partner/friend/colleague?” and my response is “It depends”.

The first thing I want to clear up is that as far as I’m concerned there is nothing anyone has to do, ever. We do things because we want to do them. Even those things that are really hard, we want to do them for some reason, to meet some needs (for example maybe we want to express and show care by cooking dinner and cleaning dishes) .

In the “old” realm of thinking and living, where there are doing things we “must” do and there are rules to follow, we might think we “have to” communicate our feelings and needs to others. In this “new” realm of living a needs connected life, we have an awareness of our feelings and needs and an awareness of what we want to communicate. We don’t just blatantly share our feelings and needs. We’re clear of our intentions.

So, it depends. When we’re aware of our needs, connected to them and aware of the needs of others, we can make very life-connected choices. Communication is critical and the most important communication to have is with oneself. We can only be as clear in our communication with others as we are with ourselves.