On Communication:

You never know when or if, a person is damaged, and how so, – please keep this in mind:

When you tell someone what you think about them, it is vital (if you love them) to phrase everything positively.  For example - the glass is half full, rather than half empty.  By using the uplifting and hopeful type of sentencing, you are telling the person that you care about their welfare. You are sharing love.  By using the more negative phrasing you are telling them that you are condemning them. 

¹neg·a·tive

 adjective \ˈne-gə-tiv\

: harmful or bad : not wanted

: thinking about the bad qualities of someone or something : thinking that a bad result will happen : not hopeful or optimistic

: expressing dislike or disapproval

The negative connotations, (words, tone of voice and posturing), may lock the person receiving the comments into shackles of self-loathing and negative beliefs about themselves.  If the Receiver has been in those shackles long, then you may be reaffirming and justifying their presence.  The positive style of communication works just the opposite, giving the person hope and increasing their awareness of you and what you want from them.  Once they can become truly aware in their soul, in their spirit  - and if they love you – they will try to give love back to you, by listening and perhaps opening a dialogue about changes and needs.

Often, people think that they need to tell another person about the other’s negative “qualities”, to teach the receiver about what and how they are…and how they should be.  As though, the person does not realize that they have faults.  The Teller might love the Receiver and think he is helping them.  Most people know they have faults.  If they have not changed them after many years, they have either accepted them as normal and okay, or they have a problem with them, and they are having difficulty changing.  It is possible that they do not care, but most people I’ve known have mental and/or emotional blocks to changing their bad habits because of these invisible shackles that have them bound into a loathsome identity created and strengthened by the so called well-meaning people who continue to tell them how bad their problem is.

Remember that everyone looks at life through a different lens.  Like theater lights – they can shine white and bright, or you can put a colored film across the light can and get a different colored light on your life’s stage.  You can put a stencil across the can and get shadows of things that are not really there…they are just suggested images…shadows of things that seem larger than life itself.  We do not know what lens a person sees with.  The person telling the “facts” to the receiving person might see things that the receiving person is not capable of seeing, and visa-versa.  Both of their lens’ present life in totally different colors and/or shapes.  This is not to say that either person is ‘wrong’.  They are different.  And communication is difficult, and sometimes impossible.

If one person has a certain pile of trash that has made their filter green – and they are trying to communicate with a person who has rose colored with flower stenciling on his lens…they can say the same words and feel very different things.  They might never truly see ‘eye to eye’.

Don’t beat each other down in the name of love.  Know that each word that comes out of your mouth will be tested and you will be accountable for them; both the letter of the word and the spirit of the word.  Take into consideration the person you are speaking to.  Try to speak to your audience; Try to know their lens; their filters.  Try to share the half full glass and thereby share love with that person.  Do not hate people in the name of love.