Communication Breakdowns

      . . . supporting mutually satisfying communications.

Whenever there is a breakdown in communication between two, when the results are not mutually satisfying, it reveals that both have been using their home-grown definition of the word responsibility; specifically, it's missing the word "cause."

Other breakdowns can be attributed to:

  • acknowledgments
  • incompletes
  • integrity
  • perpetrations
  • withholds
With a B.A. and an M.A. in speech-communication I know of no university/college/academy speech-communication curriculum for mental-health and education majors (leaders) that address these variables, yet each serve as a barrier to communication, to manifesting ones stated intentions; evidenced by the fact that for the past five decades 25% of our nation's college freshmen have required remedial courses to learn what their K-12 "teachers" failed to communicate.  "Except for veterans who become teachers few education majors have undergone Leadership Training (classes, courses, seminars and workshops about leadership, yes. Training, no)."Kerry

We unconsciously create breakdowns and thwartings (including "accidents") to remind us that we are out-integrity (not whole, not complete), that we are dragging around remnants of prior incidents, interactions or conversations. These leftovers are referred to as incompletes (prior interactions that were not mutually satisfying). Each present-day breakdown, each time someone (or "the universe") thwarts us, it gives us an opportunity to restore our integrity, to complete a prior interaction, one in which someone else is most likely also incomplete because of the way we interacted with them. 

Our mind becomes clouded with incompletes,* —so many that we are no longer sharp, we're not in present-time.  Usually our knee-jerk reaction is to blame the other person for the breakdown; yet we know  it's never ever the other person. Most of us with poor penmanship are still reaping the consequences of conning our penmanship teacher into passing us. "Honestly, I can't do any better." Most of us have not experienced what it takes for a teacher to insist upon standards, ergo, we don't know how to train a child/employee to clean a window. P.S. It can be done and, you probably have never "cleaned" a window.

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Examples of breakdowns:

Supervisor says; "We start work at 8:00 a.m." The employee is late.

Parent says; "Time for homework." The child keeps playing a video game.

Teacher says; "The homework is . . . it's due Friday." Several students don't hand it in on time.

Friend says; "I'll pay you back on . . ." They don't.

A wedding couple vows; "Till death do us part." They end up divorced.

With each of these examples we see that the results were other than envisioned; we see that none meant what they were saying and/or implying. None were telling the truth yet most believed they were. Each agreement-maker had no conscious intention for the agreement-breaker to perform as expected; we know this to be true based upon the results their leadership-communication skills produced.

Note also in the "Examples of breakdowns" the purposeful use of the words "says" and "vows" as opposed to "communicates." When agreements (instructions) are communicated they are co-created.

Notice that Mrs. _ _ _ _  an officer at the DMV licensing dept, did not verbally communicate, "For the first three traffic violations your vehicle will be immediately impounded until you pay the $1000.00 fine. For your forth violation, the car will be electronically disabled (and unsellable) for one year. Do you agree to obey the traffic laws?" You: "Oh, I see, you really really mean no speeding. Yes, I agree. You have my word." We don't think of speeding as breaking an agreement with a specific person. Police have come to believe they are doing us a favor by giving us a "warning;" ironically, such "nice" treatment rewards our in-your-face sneaky disrespectful treatment of one of our high school friends (now serving to protect us). Abuse of another always affects outcomes. 

Clarification: At first glance one might argue that, with the exception of the "employee," none of the others had co-created a verbal or written agreement to perform as expected; however, what they all did have was an implied agreement to be instructed, to do as asked, or to honor their word. I.e. Few married couples are aware that they have dozens of implied agreements between them—one of which is to return home each evening, yet both know that breaking that implied agreement would trigger worry, upset, or anger. Another implied agreement is to acknowledge when you've communicated abusively. You: "Jesus Christ. where the hell were you? Oops, that was abusive. I'm having an upset. Where were you?" It's hard to tell which perpetration an undesrable outcome is for if we are not used to verbally acknowleding our abuses.

With each of the above incidents the agreement-makers and the agreement-breakers mirrored the integrity of each other. All had been dragging around a lifetime of verbally unacknowledged perpetrations into each new conversation. These thwartings and broken agreements (these  abuses) with others, are referred to as incompletes. These incompletes now serve as barriers to the experience of communication, of being in present-time. En route to communication mastery we discover that we need someone to mirror our integrity, specifically, life's unacknowledged good deeds and perpetrations.

Most people think that because they didn't notice an immediate consequence for their first lie, first abuse, first deception (specifically those that have not been acknowledged and cleaned up through to mutual satisfaction) that they got away with it. This is partly due to the fact that karma is not always instant; instead, as one would have it, it's often untimely (it "happens" at the most inopportune time) and it's always perfectly appropriate. Most everyone can recall a significant perpetration after which "God" didn't instantly strike them down; however, there is always an undesirable consequence for an unacknowledged perpetration. We accumulate so many unacknowledged perpetrations we don't associate a malfunctioning car or computer, a headache or a health issue, an accident, or another's abusive broken agreement with us, as a consequence of any single specific out-integrity of our own. People who play the maintaining-ones-integrity-game affirm that life works much smoother "now" with fewer arguments, broken agreements, and accidents; one reason is because I (or the "God" in me) no longer needs to pay myself back for unacknowledged perpetrations; as Kant the philosopher believed, you now deserve to have life work.

The above agreement-makers (the supervisor, parent, teacher, friend, and the fiancé) were so unconscious they couldn't tell that the other was unconscious also; both were doing their imitation of communication.**

Premise—when one is clear about his/her intention they communicate consistent with manifesting their stated intention—as such, the results are always mutually satisfying. Conversely, when one is not clear about an intention they get a result, an unconscious intention, just not the one they envisioned. (see Communicating Instructions)

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It is both irresponsible and unethical to create the illusion of an agreement with a child or someone (such as a parolee) not committed to maintaining their integrity, to keeping agreements; to do so is to set the person up to fail even more in life.***  It's easy to see that agreement-breakers always pay themselves back, they unconsciously intend their own consequence, if only by unconsciously intending that others thwart them. What's not commonly known is that there are undesirable consequences for those who create the illusion of an agreement, ergo, few Parole Board Members or teachers experience joy and happiness throughout the day; in part because they are unaware of their cause of the breakdown in communication with another, such as a student, for not intending that a student turn in his/her homework neatly and on time.

Let's use the above first example of a breakdown, a common one between a parent and child. A parent says, "Time for homework." Later the parent notices that their child is still playing a video game.

First, we see that the parent had no intention for their child to recreate their instruction. We know this based upon the result the parent produced.  The parent had lapsed into doing his/her imitation of communication. Unfortunately, a parent usually gets angry and blames the child for their (the parent's) failure to cause communication to take place. That specific blaming abuse, if it remains unacknowledged, affects all outcomes, for both, for life. Yikes! You mean a single unacknowledged abuse can affect one's outcomes for life? Yup. It was the proverbial fork-in-the-road. Any abuse, when acknowledged responsibly, resets the game back to potential, to deserving to have life and relationships work.

Secondly, unbeknownst to the parent, the child had his/her own intention; the child is/was unconsciously drawing attention to the fact that there is an incomplete in the space. Something other than the video game was occupying the space between the parent and child and so communication couldn't take place until it (the incomplete) is acknowledged and therefore completed. When a child thwarts a parent the child is drawing attention to the fact that there are one or more incompletes between them; usually it's a good deed or a perpetration that needs to be acknowledged. There are no exceptions to this phenomenon. (Read Clearing Process for a Parent and a Young Person/Teen)

It's important to note that this was not the first time the child didn't "behave" —didn't do as they were asked/told. It began with incident number one; an earlier and similar incident, one in which the parent didn't locate the source of (didn't find out what the child's thwarting behavior was communicating non-verbally). Quite often children dramatize disrespects, upsets, perpetrations and observed hypocrisies by misbehaving, thwarting, failing, or even getting sick. When all else fails they enroll a teacher, a counselor, or even the police (Columbine) so as to restore the experience of communication that once was.

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Dramatization of a perpetration:

"Did you brush your teeth?" The child lied and said, "Yup." To this very day the child has yet to be acknowledged (caught) for their first lie. It wasn't by accident that the child used a contraction, the less-than-respectful "Yup," as opposed to the usual, "Yes Mommy" with its built-in communication of loving respect. The unconscious mother, having similar incompletes herself, didn't hear that very first lie; she is ignorant about the effects of verbally unacknowledged perpetrations so her child drags around the guilt, sometimes for life. Most likely, to her, yelling isn't abusive. Misbehaving or failing in life and relationships is a child's attempt at recreating the experience of integrity, of communication, of love.

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Dramatization of an upset:

Earlier the mother had yelled abusively at her child. The abusive communication triggered an upset for the child. The relationship is said to be incomplete because the mother has yet to acknowledge, to herself or her child, that she knows she communicated abusively. The child knows what it's like to be in-communication with his/her mother and it hasn't happened since before the yelling—possibly even earlier. The child, to draw attention to the hurt, the incomplete (the absence of the experience of being in-communication), begins to pout and thwart and to express an attitude. All teen "attitudes" can be traced to a single incomplete; again, there are no exceptions to this phenomenon.

Using this example we see that the child is unconsciously thwarting the parent [more accurately, the parent has set up their child to thwart them]. Given that children who are whole and complete are automatically driven to please parents, we ask, what is now driving the child to thwart their parent? If incompletes are not completed a child will often fail in school or life, or marry someone, of whom his/her parents disapprove. The mind, to be right, and to make a parent wrong, will slowly (just short of suicide) destroy itself by unconsciously resigning itself to a life of mediocrity. It does this with smoking, drugs, unhealthy foods and relationship choices; if the child was successful, both happy and prosperous, the parents might think they did a good job. The greatest gift a parent can give a child (any age) is for the parent to first do The Clearing Process and then do The Clearing Process for Parent and Child with their child each evening.

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Here's a thought-exercise for someone without a child: Can you imagine what must be going on in the mind of a parent who just read the above and they refuse to do The Clearing Process for their child? Such a parent is withholding one or more significant thoughts from their partner and, they are causing their partner to withhold the same number of significant thoughts; the non-verbal vibrations emanating from both parents train the child to be both stubborn and deceitful—again, zero exceptions.

* It takes a person training to become a Communication Workshop/Support Group Facilitator about 60-hours (individual 3-hr sessions, over a period of weeks) to empty his/her mind of life's incompletes—to be acknowledged for all good and bad deeds.

** Here's more about, imitation of communication.

*** Health care professionals often "make" agreements, (appointments) with patients/clients who are not committed to honoring agreements, to being whole and complete.  If a therapist's receptionist dumps the "illusion of an agreement" in a client's space it negatively affects the results of both—as in—the blind leading/conning the blind. When a well-crafted, co-created appointment (agreement) is not kept it creates space for conversations about integrity as a possible cause for undesirable physical and mental health results. Read Conversations in Support Of Health.

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v 10.27

Bewith Test

Notice which sentence
causes you to want to
stop reading—
something about that
subject is your barrier
to consistently
manifesting the results
you say you want.

Bookmark this page
and come back later to 
see if you can be with
each sentence without
it triggering an upset
 or judgment.

Definitions:

Mouseover 
definitions
for elaborations

 responsibility

 breakdowns

 acknowledgments

 incompletes

 integrity

 perpetrations

 withholds

 variables

 barriers

 intentions

 more topics

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