This is a different world. Everything changed: the means of communication, transportation, the family structure. Only one thing remains the same as it was: we ourselves. Our childish attitudes toward our relationships haven’t changed; our selfish attitudes toward our surroundings haven’t changed, and our alienating attitudes toward other people haven’t changed.
Communication is making contact first. Communication is respecting each other first. Communication is listening to the person you are talking to first.
Although we grew up surrounded by science and technology, and many of us naively thought that smartphones and genius computers will make us much happier, not only we did not become happier – these days’ world is much more hostile and depressed, and has much more pressure, anxiety and lack of meaning. And above all, the number of relationships shattered or fading today is bigger than ever.
The time has come for a revolution in interpersonal communication, and the meaning of this revolution is a transition from a disconnecting communication to a connecting communication, from an alienating communication to communication that brings us closer, from a connectionless communication to communication with connection.
Communication to Alienate or to Bring Closer
There’s only one thing that can make your relationship with anyone in the world good or bad: the way you communicate. You lose love and relationship due to disconnecting communication, and gain loving relationships and happiness with connecting communication. So you better make sure your communication will always be a connecting communication, because it will determine whether you are happy or unhappy.
Communication has two roles: either to bring us closer to one another or to keep us away from each other. There is no third role. And any discourse between us leads to one of those two outcomes: closeness or estrangement. There is no third outcome. And if you put this idea to the test in any discourse you have with another person, you will eventually discover that one of the two happened: closeness or estrangement. And if so, why choose the losers deal if we can profit from this business called relationship?
Connecting communication is completely different than the alienating communication we have known until today, and it cannot exist with the force and struggle approach of that model. In order to transit to it we have to know the approach that fits it: a connecting communication.
Not Only Talking – But Also Making a Connection
Communication without a connection is disconnected communication. And you know disconnected communication very well from your arguments, your fights, your angers, your accusations. Communication with a connection is a bonding communication, and you also know that communication from your reconciliations, your forgiveness, your attention, your interest and acknowledging that another opinion is also right.
Yet, communication with a connection is very rare between us, and for one reason: no one taught us how to speak and make a connection. We saw the about same thing from anyone who have affected on our development: concentrating on personal needs, indifference to other people’s needs, and many anger, judgment, criticism and accusations. So here are a few insights that will help you make the transit to a different communication:
Communication is not only talking to each other, communication is making contact with each other first.
Communication is not only treating each other respectfully, communication is respecting each other first.
Communication is not only talking, communication is listening first.
Communication is not only being present in the conversation, communication is first of all feeling relevance toward the person you are talking to.
Communication is not only demanding, communication is to clarify and offer first.
Communication is not only fighting for what we want, communication is assuring response to what everyone wants first.
So, again and again, it all depends on our attitude, because we cannot be happy with a disconnected attitude, and a connecting attitude will always make us feel that we are here together, for better and for worse.
There must be a different way to treat each other, and Granot Center was established to offer us all a key for interpersonal reference in a new way.