How to Master Communication Even if you failed High School Grammar

By Maria Boomhower
Posted Tuesday, February 15, 2005

Does the thought of knowing your verbs from your adjective scare you? Can the word syntax send you running for cover? Or perhaps putting two words together in front of a crowd sends your body into complete melt down. If so, there is help for you.

Have you ever wanted to communicate more effectively with other people, or dreamed of writing a novel. Maybe you just want to write better reports, get your points across more clearly or be able to stand up in front of people and give a talk.

Often people will say to themselves, "I can’t do that, I was never good at English in school." Yet, this feeling of not good enough is where many communication masters began.

I know of people who stuttered as children and were told they’d never be able to read or talk, yet are well known speakers today. One other person that I know, immigrated to the US and had to learn English, yet today he is a speaker and author. These people discovered that it takes more that knowing your nouns and sentence structure to communicate with others.

Part of the challenge is, we were taught that if we can write a proper sentence then we can communicate are thoughts correctly. That is like saying if you can see than you can read or if you can hear you can listen. Unfortunately, this is not true for reading and listening are skills that we need to learn.

There are many people who have grammatically correct sentences with proper punctuation who can not write anything creative or interesting. It takes more than grammar to connect with other people.

Getting your thoughts, feelings, views and values across to another person are skills that you can learn and master.

It is important to understand that connecting with people can be very intensive and emotional whether you are feeling fear; anger, joy or ecstasy and many people shy away from this. Most often people misunderstand one another because people see things differently and can get upset when people do not see eye to eye with them.

There is a lot of fear of being wrong, of making mistakes, of failing or being perceived as being stupid in anyway. Many misunderstandings lead to disagreements and violence in trying to make or force their way of thinking. People can act as though their lives depended on being right as apposed to having a different point of view. These create many barriers to communication which need to be overcome in order to connect with another person and master communication.

When you can release the need to be right, you can discover a whole new world of discoveries and wonders. Marianne Williamson said it well when she said, “Do you want to be right, or do you want to be happy?” It is important to understand, that to make the world work, we need different views, outlooks, likes and desires.

Many problems happen with people who share the same birth language. There seems to be an assumption that if you spoke the same language that the other person should automatically understand you.

What most people do not realize is that on a physiological level, our brains are all wired differently due to the way, environment and culture that we have been raised in. This also helps to create our psychological out look and personalities.

There is also our metaphysical nature which affects whether we are willing to try and connect with other people. We are influenced by Universal laws, even when we are not aware of them. For example, if you did not know that gravity existed, it wouldn’t stop you from falling off of a cliff. On a quantum level our beliefs and attitudes affects the outcome of our ability to interact with each other. For example many people have heard of "Cause and Effect". In this law, as you treat others, so shall you be treated. On a scientific level, we are electromagnetic spectrums of energy. So the energy that we give off, we attract back, because like attracts like. This means, when you give off anger, hatred, judgments or love, kindness, and understanding, you are attracting the very same behaviour back to you. This in turn, affects your ability to communicate and connect with other people.

Your beliefs have an impact on whether you are happy or sad, have abundance or poverty, health or suffering and even of what you can or cannot be, have or do. It is when we are aware of our own beliefs and values we can work on seeing if they work for us, or if we need to change or alter them. So maybe you’re asking yourself, where do I begin? That question is easy to answer, with yourself. So often people have no idea what they want and hope that other people will figure it out for them. I have seen people get mad at other people for not knowing what they want or for misunderstanding them. It is important to realize that we can’t communicate to others before we clearly know what we want and where we are heading. The people that I spoke about earlier; their lives improved when they clearly understood what they wanted, and then were able to ask others for guidance and moved forward in helping others. For communicating is connecting with others. The second area, once you understand yourself, is that it’s important to understand others and their reality. The next step would be to realize that what you think you are seeing and understanding may not be an exact representation of reality. Our brains filter out most information around us so as not to overload us. What it chooses to let through are things that are important to us and things that are a potential danger. Any information that is considered in conflict with our perceived reality and beliefs is filtered away. So you need to be open to learning and discovery.

Now, if you take this information, consider the following. What if you realized that reality is often illusive and personal? What if you where to discover that the main block to your growth and answers are in the way the you perceive yourself, the world around you and of what you believe you can achieve? And what if you were to understand that the answers weren’t out there, but inward and that you already have what you need to communicate clearly to others? What if I told you, that what you had to do was to be willing to look anew, and that it can build from there? See if you can’t realize the possibilities from understanding yourself and others around you in order to master communication. Today, we are asking more questions and wanting more answers. Today more than ever people are asking, what if I can?

About the Author
Maria Boomhower is a professional in communication, media relations and holds a Diploma in the Art of Applied Communication. She has won awards for excellence in her field. Her background in communication management has spanned from supervision and training to productions, photo journalism, running sub-press centres and security videos Her style has been to teach communication in ways that creates a win-win environment for those involved. Maria Boomhower The Master Communicator (http://www.falconfreedom.com) "Command Attention & Confidence" 1-250-389-0551 maria13-89433@autocontactor.com