The Velcro Factor

Learning to communicate in the language another can hear is a major key to our individual and collective evolution — and to business success. Our wisdom and resources can only serve others to the degree another is able to receive. It's about fine-tuning the frequency. Otherwise our information, no matter how valuable, may literally fall on deaf ears.

When my brother was deep in the throes of his awakening, I was eager to help. I sent him READ MORE

The Velcro Factor: How to Speak in the Language Others Can Hear

You know how to talk. You've been doing it for decades. But are your listeners hearing your intended message?

Learning to speak in the language others can hear is a critical task many of us never master, because it requires putting yourself in the receiver's role and asking if the way you're presenting your information makes sense to this particular audience.

For example: if I began a talk on personal growth by saying, "When I emerged from the womb after my dark night of the soul, I felt reborn, and ready to give my gift to the world," many people might completely comprehend what I was trying to say — but there are many, many more whose eyes would glaze over in confusion.

But what if I started with, "After a long illness during which I began to question the purpose of my life, I began anew with a deeper understanding of who I am and what I'm here to do." Is this clearer? I'm expressing the same thoughts, but for two distinct audiences. Sharing the second introduction with a group more attuned to the first message would be as ineffective as the reverse.

I grew into this awareness of learning to speak in the language others can hear slowly. One terrific though unwitting resource was my brother. When he was deep in the throes of his awakening, I eagerly sent him a book that had been given to me at a pivotal time in my own growth: Louise Hay's classic, You Can Heal Your Life. I've read it hundreds of times over the years and integrated her teachings into my life in numerous ways.

My brother added my offering to "the pile": books he'd already been given by well-meaning friends. Clearly, it didn't speak to him.

Not long afterward, I attended a weekend workshop on personal mastery. The trainer highly recommended a book that imparted spiritual principles through the lens of basketball, Sacred Hoops. I made a mental note to check it out.

As I held the book in my hands and glanced through its pages, I couldn't imagine why I'd want to read it. Basketball doesn't interest me in the slightest. Plus, I was already familiar with much of the content from other sources. Then I realized with a grin and an "Oh, duh!" that I was supposed to send the book to my brother, who loves basketball and, in his forties, continued to play at every opportunity. I bought the book and mailed it special delivery, without a note.

Less than a week later I received a four-page letter (this man is not a letter-writer! And this was before we were all on daily email), saying the package had been waiting when he'd come home from work that Monday evening, "after the worst weekend of my life." He wrote, "I can't put it down, I'm already halfway through it and I wish it was 1,000 pages long." I nearly wept with joy and gratitude that I'd been guided to send him exactly what he needed, at exactly the right time. All I had to do was get my own preconceptions out of the way, and speak in his language — in this case, basketball.

Actress and playwright Elizabeth Fuller calls this awareness, "The Velcro Factor": being so specific with her examples in a performance that audience members can recognize themselves in what she and partner Conrad Bishop share. Thus, the message "sticks."

Sending my brother Sacred Hoops was a Velcro Factor experience for me. Choose what you use, learn to discern. Communicate in the language your audience can hear.

Say What?

Does it feel as if we're living in "perpetual retro"? That is, life simulating Mercury in ongoing retrograde, which frequently scrambles communication? Mercury is NOT Rx now (that happens next on November 6) but/and, it can sure seem that way, as we navigate the dreamwalk towards galactic synchronization. Here are a few personal verbal snafus from this past week: 

• Called a health clinic to speak with a doctor referred by an acquaintance. Reception said he wasn't accepting new patients. I acknowledged that I knew this, and simply wanted a 3-5 minute phone consult to ask for an appropriate referral. I left my name, phone number and email. Later that day I received an email from the physician saying he had been told I wanted an appointment, and he wasn't taking new patients at this time.
• I scheduled a mobile locksmith (who WAS accepting new clients :-) to change my vehicle's door lock. On his initial visit he inspected the lock and key to determine the right lock to purchase, and made note of the year, make and model. When he arrived to install the new lock, he had purchased the wrong kind, and we needed to reschedule.
• A local bakery makes gluten-free, fermented breads that are for sale at natural foods stores. Since the bakery is local, I called and asked the owner/baker whether I could buy from him directly. Certainly, he replied. Which of the breads did I wish him to hold for me? I described the one I preferred. When I arrived that afternoon, my preferred bread had all been delivered to the health food stores
• To be fair, I did this, too: went to buy Kleenex and a writing tablet, and was frustrated to find the store out of the large size tissues I wanted for the second visit in a row. Picked up a packet of Post-it notes, paid for them and left. A few days later I realized, um, that it wasn't Post-it notes I'd meant to purchase ...

Clearly, walking this evolutionary road with one foot in 3D and the other wavering between dimensions can frazzle even those whose model equanimity. A handful of excellent resources for remaining grounded on Earth when our head's in the clouds:

• Mastering Alchemy with Jim Self;
• Barbara Hand Clow, whose books, especially The Mind Chronicles: A Visionary Guide Into Past Lives and The Mayan Code: Time Acceleration and Awakening the World Mind transfigured my consciousness;
• Starchild Global, whose creator, Celia Fenn, travels continuously from her home in South Africa, stewarding awakening rituals and events worldwide. If you're near New York City in December, her 12/12/12 and Winter Solstice events are highly recommended;
• Gillian Macbeth-Louthan's Quantum Awakening site and monthly newsletter, bringing through visionary guidance since 1986!
• The Reconnections through Daniel Jacob, always amusing, timely, penetrating in their insights.

And of course, my monthly enewsletter, What Shines, which quotes frequently from these and other superb sources, is your one-stop destination for practical inspiration and information.

Please let me know how else I may serve you! I'll have some warm bread waiting, right after I get off the phone with the doctor.

"I'll Have the Scrambled Communication On Toast…"

In The Restaurant at the End of the Universe (with apologies to Douglas Adams), Scrambled Communication might well be on the menu along with eggs over easy. Our personal filters are in overdrive as planetary energies accelerate past Warp 9, fueling glitches that are cosmically comic (and Mercury doesn't even go retrograde until Thanksgiving Day!).

This week alone, I've had two clients hear something very different from what I actually said, and two other people interpret my words with an exact opposite meaning. By the time I'd experienced the second such encounter I was beginning to pay attention; unless I'm suddenly speaking Choctaw, this isn't a language issue.

What's happening? We're in the midst of a dimensional merge, which can render once-ordinary communication quirky in ways that are sometimes humorous, sometimes hurtful, occasionally bizarre. Even when we think we're being abundantly clear — or that our meaning is blatantly obvious — it now pays to spell everything out very carefully, whether in person, by email, by phone or text message. Social media posts can also be misconstrued with greater ease now, not from intent, but from disparate frequency. Think of it as a global Doppler effect.

The answer, as always, is Love. Coming from a heartspace, there is no misinterpretation because everything sounds like yes, like being bathed in warmth, like nourishment. Unfortunately, except for the saintly among us, most of us still drop into and out of this high place, as we endeavor to dwell here. Yet we are forging heretofore-unimagined pathways of community and connection, from Occupy Global, which became a worldwide happening virtually overnight in October, to the imminent 11-11-11 ceremonies and celebrations slated for this Friday and weekend.

We're ushering in a new era, stepping into "a vision of life as play and possibility," as the subtitle of James P. Carse's seminal work, Finite and Infinite Games (which I'm now savoring, sentence by sentence) proposes. There is nothing to win, because there is nothing to lose. It's all theatre, a grand design of our minds, which are slowly surrendering to our hearts. We just need to keep reminding one another to order the Inspiration Salad, an all-inclusive meal that keeps us well fed forever — and Scrambled Communication may soon disappear from the menu for lack of interest.

Blessings!