Imagine a world where every conversation you have is more connected, insightful, and empathetic. In this thought-provoking episode of The Mindful Coach Podcast, I explore the transformative power of mindful communication and its potential to elevate every aspect of our lives.

The Power of Presence

• • The importance of checking in with yourself
• • Noticing and naming your experiences without judgment
• • Building your "presence muscle" through intentional practice

Seeing Beyond Words

Mindful communication isn't just about what we say—it's about how we listen and perceive others. Learn how to:

• • Connect with others on a deeper level
• • Recognize underlying emotions and stressors
• • Respond with empathy and understanding

The "That Sounds Hard" Technique

Discover a simple yet powerful technique that can instantly improve your connections with others. This approach:

• • Shifts focus from yourself to the other person
• • Validates their experience
• • Opens the door for deeper sharing

Navigating Challenging Relationships

While mindful communication can enhance most interactions, I also address:

• • Recognizing toxic individuals
• • Setting healthy boundaries
• • Protecting yourself from manipulation and gaslighting

The Program

I introduce my comprehensive 8-week program designed to help you:

• • Develop a strong foundation in mindfulness
• • Enhance your communication skills
• • Transform your personal and professional relationships

Are you ready to elevate every conversation and connection in your life? This episode offers a glimpse into the transformative world of mindful communication, providing practical insights and techniques you can start using today.

Takeaways:

• Mindful communication can transform every conversation, enhancing connection, empathy, and effectiveness.
• Investing time in developing mindful communication skills leads to improved relationships and decision-making.
• Being present and aware of your own feelings is essential for effective communication.
• Mindful communication enables deeper connections by focusing on others' experiences rather than our own.
• Practicing mindfulness allows you to notice judgments without being consumed by them.
• Mindful communication is not just about techniques; it emerges from who you are as a person.

Links referenced in this episode:

• themindfulcoach.com

Companies mentioned in this episode:

• Mindful Coach Association
• Mindful Coach

The Mindful Coach Podcast.

Hello, this is Brett Hill.

I'm the Mindful Coach, and this is the Mindful Coach Podcast.

I'm so happy to talk today to you about something that is just really at the core of what I believe.

And my experience and life has been so much improved because I spent some time refining, developing some skills in this area.

What would your life be like if every conversation you would ever have from now on was better?

More connected, more resilient, resourceful, more insight, more empathy, more effective communication and authentic connection to other people?

What if you could turn a dial tomorrow or even right now, and up level all of those things in every conversation you will ever have for the rest of your life?

Would that be something worth doing?

Would that improve the quality of your relationships, of your career, of the communities that you work in, the meetings that you're in?

Wouldn't that up level every conversation, every relationship, every negotiation, every job interview, every relationship dating scenario, every single time you need to connect, communicate on things that mundane or important, I sometimes say, turn ordinary conversations into extraordinary experiences.

Would that be worth doing?

Now, obviously, that's one of those ridiculous leading questions that's like, of course it would be worth doing, right?

So my question then to the world is, well, if the answer to that is such an obvious yes, how much time does humanity as a whole, and you specifically spend on studying and skilling up your mindful communication skills?

Now, the answer for a great many people is not very much time, really.

You know, I'm sometimes aware of when things aren't working.

And yeah, I've made some efforts to kind of, you know, not be super reactive and to kind of listen better.

And blessings be unto thee for having made those efforts because they matter.

But what if you could, with a little more work, dial that in a hundred times more solidly, so much more in your body, so to speak, in your habituated nature, that you just do things better.

You make better decisions even when under stress.

And boy, stop right there, because that's the key, right?

Doing things better under stress.

Because we are all under stress.

We're all going crazy in this world, you know, in terms of the number of insane amount of things that we have to do just to manage an ordinary life.

It's like crazy.

Making insurance, dealing with that medical care, getting your car fixed, dealing with, you know, stocking your refrigerator if you have one.

You know, just the.

If you have a house or you live in a house, you know, maintenance on those kinds of things, negotiating, getting things fixed.

It's crazy.

The Amount of work.

I mean, just trying to find what shoe should I buy?

Let's say it matters because you've got a shoe problem, you've got a foot problem.

Like I'm raising my hand, I have an ankle problem.

I have to buy carefully designed shoes.

It's crazy going to the Internet, trying to find anything, anything is like you go down a, you know, pardon the term, like a rat hole in terms of 50,000 websites that are trying to take your attention away from the information.

And there's one website out there that's actually got what you have.

The man fighting is like a needle in the haystack.

That's the world we live in.

Plus legitimate concerns about politics, geopolitical scenarios, social constructs that are changing right in front of our eyes in ways that are concerning.

You lay all that on to how do I make enough money?

What's my career path?

And it just adds up so quick to a world that is really not designed for the human nervous system to thrive in.

And that's where we're at.

We have a nervous system that was.

Does that mature, that evolved over millions of years?

This is a really important point.

Millions of years it took to develop the nervous system that we have in a completely different world than we have now.

So in a certain way, it's.

It's like when, you know, moving from water to land.

You know, there was a whole big transition there for animals and we've almost kind of made it not quite as severe a transition, but a severe one from a world where we're connected to the elements a lot more.

There's not as many complications, there's not as much information.

You can't travel far, you can't communicate distances.

And so everything, every time you want to get something done, you have to interact with live people and you have to negotiate to make anything happen bigger than you can do yourself.

Nevertheless, cities got built, trees got formed, armies were created, wars were fought for better and for worse.

Hospitals got built, medical care, science advances.

Even without all that technology, things moved along and here we are.

Technology has infused itself.

I'm not anti tech, far from it.

I'm a big technical guy.

Love it.

I'm concerned about it, but I love it.

And I'm concerned about the impact on us in the world that we've created in our nervous systems.

And I believe, I truly believe that the number one thing that can help us as individuals, as organizations, as communities, associations, relationships that can help us up, level all of that into a world that is more sustainable than the One we are living in now is mindful communication.

Because there's two parts to that, mindful and communication.

In order to communicate mindfully, first you have to learn to be mindful.

And that means connecting with yourself.

That means seriously taking the time to check in with yourself and get real about what is my experience now, isn't that such an amazing, beautiful question?

What is my experience right now?

Not what would I like to have what I wish it was, but what is it now?

And then learning, practicing, noticing and naming your experience.

That's such a powerful mindfulness practice in and of itself.

I'm feeling really tense, feeling really sad, feeling overwhelmed.

I'm feeling really great.

I'm feeling excited, I'm feeling exuberant, whatever is.

So remember then the most.

One of the most common definitions of mindfulness is being present in a particular way on purpose.

So you say, what's my experience now?

You're on purpose saying, what's, what's my experience now?

Non judgmentally.

Oh, I wish I felt a different way.

Oh, it's terrible in there.

I'm just terrible.

I should be doing this better.

All those are judgments.

There's nothing wrong with judgments.

You don't want to evict them, you just want to notice.

Oh, there's a judgment.

Oh, there's a.

Rather than just go into it.

So non judgmentally in the present moment right now and on purpose.

So I'm paying attention to my experience right now, what is true for me.

And you can do that in 2 minutes, 1 minute, 30 seconds, 20 minutes, an hour, just do it.

Every time you do that, you wire up your neurology in a way that allows your executive function, which is where this question rises to.

Because when you say on purpose, what's it like for me?

You invoke a part of your brain that's one of the most expensive operations.

And I've used that in air quotes because, I mean, it takes a lot of energy.

And so the brain reserves that capacity for things it really needs.

But we are actually trying to build that capacity so we have to intentionally exert it.

Just like building a muscle.

You lift a 20 pound weight, 100 pound weight, 50, whatever you can bear.

That's a stress for you.

You do it enough times, not very.

Doesn't take much.

Your muscle gets the message and says, okay, we need more muscle here because human being has decided to use this more than they were.

So let's marshal resources to build material that we need to fit the circumstances that we find ourselves in.

Simple, right?

Well, the brain Is no different.

The brain parts that you use get better.

The executive function of the brain is one you need to use intentionally.

And so it requires a decision to be present.

I'm going to choose now to be present.

I'm going to choose now.

I'm working with clients.

I choose to be present with you in a way where I bring all of my resources to bear my entire facility, my senses.

I'm bringing my senses online in a way where I can see who you are beyond the words that you say.

Words that you say are important, but who you are is more important.

The character, the scenario, the situation, the struggles that are thematic in your life, all your problems are going to connect to those.

So I look for those, and I see them pretty quickly these days.

Imagine a world, your world, where every person you meet, you see through the words that they speak into the person that's speaking into the heart of that person.

And you see their stress, their struggles, tension in their world.

Now, it's not like it comes with a name.

Oh, he's worried about his taxes, but you can see the stress.

And so whenever they say, hey, how's it going?

You can.

And you can hear the stress.

You can see it.

You can feel it.

You say, well, things are.

And you check in with yourself, because that's when they're saying, oh, I'm doing fine.

How's it going?

Everything okay?

Because you sense that it may not be.

What does that do to your rapport?

What does that do to your trust?

What does that do to the other person?

Feeling like you are really, truly paying attention to them in a way that most people don't think about that.

Have you ever had that happen?

Have you ever had connected with somebody who's really getting you, who's really focused on you?

They're not making it about themselves every moment.

So if you say, oh, man, I really had a hard time, they don't say, yeah, me too.

You know, I just left the store and they just really ripped me out.

Instead, they just took your statement.

I really had a hard time, and they made it about their hard time.

Now, that's just free association memory.

I'm not blaming that person for doing that.

I'm just saying that it's.

They missed the opportunity to connect with you instead of going, yeah, me too.

Oh, gee, we can both be in our own little worlds of misery in the canoe together.

You know, we're all.

We're in the same boat, literally.

You're miserable, I'm miserable.

I don't want to connect with you about how you're feeling.

I just want to tell you about my own suffering.

That's two people in the same kind of scenario in their own little bubble.

But what we need is connection.

And whenever you value that, instead of saying, me too, you go, that sounds hard.

Wow.

Wow, what a different experience for the other person.

Instead of it being about you, now it's about them.

And you are expressing that.

You are paying attention.

You care enough to notice, and you're skillful enough to inquire in a way that just gives them the ability to open up as much as they wish or not at all by just simply saying, I notice that must be hard.

And you're not guessing because they said it was hard.

Now, that very simple thing is a whole.

It's actually a skill set.

It's a technique.

I teach it to coaches in the Mindful Coach method.

I learned it from Hakomi, which is.

I have a Hokomi coaching certificate, and I actually studied it decades ago with Ron Kurtz, the founder.

One skill has changed my life.

Because when your friends, your colleagues, anyone says to you something, and instead of responding with, oh, yeah, me too, you simply name the experience that you are that they're expressing.

Oh, that's.

That must be angry.

That sounds like it.

Really frustrating, huh?

I can't get this to work no matter what.

Yeah, frustrating.

What isn't it?

Yeah, it's frustrating.

Now they're.

You're in alignment with them instead of problem solving.

It's not like, well, let me help you.

There's nothing wrong with helping, but that's also not leading with connection.

It can lead to connection, but that's a whole different discussion.

So these are examples, simple, easy examples of ways that mindful communications can improve directly, easily, quickly, the quality of every conversation you will ever have.

Now, not everyone is suitable for all these, for each of these techniques, but a lot of them are.

And I'm here to tell you, it has made a massive difference in my life.

I can't.

I just can't even begin to tell you.

You take those same skill sets and how do they apply In a group, you're sitting at a table with, you know, 10 people on your team, and every single one of them is different.

And over time, you learn how to navigate and notice those differences in how they play in the group.

It's magnificent experience to be in such a rich dance of connection and collaboration and differences and noticing how those differences play out.

It's fascinating.

Now, to be clear, there are people who you don't want to connect with.

And I'm not trying to suggest this is a magic wand that you can wave and everybody is a connection source.

Clearly there are toxic individuals who are not interested in you and they don't have your best interests in mind.

What this does though, is keeps you from getting engaged with those people any more than is necessary to achieve whatever has brought them into your life.

Sometimes you have to work with people like that.

You don't get to choose your colleagues sometimes or your relatives even, right?

And so what it does, it gives you mindful presence enough to notice when you're checking in with yourself, the impact that person is having on me is I feel like I want to back up and run away.

And you're noticing that and then you're going, wow, I really can't engage in the way I have been because it's toxic to me.

And that leads you to change.

The way you engage in ways that are more sustainable, healthy and grounding for you now you wind up not getting sucked into gaslighting and all kinds of scenarios where people try to dominate and play games with you.

You just don't play.

So if you, if any of you.

Are you on social media, look up Jefferson Fisher.

His communication guidance is amazing.

I love it.

It's so great.

So he's.

I'm a big fan of his.

He has a lot of guidance around how to avoid being gaslit, how to deal with a narcissist, how to deal with people who are trying to undermine you.

A lot of fabulous.

And all of his practices are actually mindful communication skills.

He just doesn't call it that.

And he focuses on what to say rather than who do you need to be to say it.

So before we wrap up, that's the, that's the thing.

It's like mindful communications emerges from who you are and not so much what you do.

The what you do won't work so well if you aren't actually connected to a mindful place.

A mindful place in yourself where you feel who you are, you feel connected to your own in the moment experience.

And from there I see someone else, I engage someone else and I notice their impact on me and I notice my impact on them.

I take responsibility for the way my words influence others.

That's a whole other thing.

I know some people are going, wait, I can't be responsible for how people feel.

And that's true.

But if you walk around, tell everybody they're a jerk and they get pissed off at you, there's a reason they're pissed off at you.

So if you and at the same times, if you're considered a leader in the world and you're helping and uplifting all the people around you, there's a reason that that's happening.

It's because of the words you're speaking.

And those words that you're speaking are coming from who you are.

And so we begin this work by focusing on how you walk through your day.

What are you connected with in yourself?

And from there, we engage the world.

And that's what I'm teaching at the Mindful Coach, the mindfulcoach.com A presence, mindfulness and presence and communication sequence that will take you from wherever you are to a incredibly resourced place in a period of eight weeks.

So I'm really excited about this.

It's the first time I've put this together in this way.

So if you're interested in that, check it out@themindfulcoach.com and God, there's so much to say about this.

I've even got a book like 11 3/4 the way written.

I say 11 3/4 because I went through it once.

Now I have to go through and edit it again.

And whenever I get that out, that'll be great.

Sign up on my mailing list@themindfulcoach.com to get a notification about that and maybe I'll even put out a sample chapter you can check out.

So once again, this is Brett Hill, the Mindful Coach, and blessings to you.

Take care.

The Mindful Coach podcast is a service of the Mindful Coach Association.