Communication Basics: Communicating Well On Relationships

In college, I was introduced to the importance of communicating well.  It came through linguistics, the scientific study of language.  It is part of the larger topic of communication.  Lately, we have been hearing in the United States a lot of communication directed towards its citizens as many candidates try to convince the people to follow their vision for the country.  I want to turn to a very old message to society, found both in the Hebrew Scriptures of Isaiah and in the Greek Scriptures of Luke for what I think needs to be communicated well.  It is a summary statement of objectives in regard to a society or nation.  Let's see how the current leaders are communicating.

I know there exist complex issues in relating Isaiah 61:1-2 and Luke 4:18, since not all the wording is the same.  While I am fully aware of those issues, that is a topic for sometime future.  Time is limited in a blog post, so I am going to look at Jesus' manifesto. Here it is with some modifications in some of the translation:

The Spirit of the LORD is on me, because he has anointed me
to preach the gospel to the empty-handed;
he has sent me ...
to heal the brokenhearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives, and
to give recovery of sight to the blinded,
to offer freedom to the oppressed.

What I find interesting is what Jesus is offering and what is offered in Isaiah to people looking for a break in their lives to return to something healthier than what they are currently experiencing.  It is a time for healthy message to those experiencing lack; a time for change, a time for a break, a time for freedom,  a time for seeing things previously unseen.  We've heard speeches and communication that sound promising like this passage, but that also have failed to deliver.  What is missing?

I think what is missing is these promises without context or proper regard for the situation.  Here is an ideally balanced social manifesto outlined by my linguistics professors, William A. Smalley and Donald N. Larson, at Bethel University in the 80's.  Their strengths as professors of linguistics lay in their ability to look at language from a societal or anthropological perspective. To the best of my knowledge, they are the only ones who bring together this full outline of what I consider healthy or well-rounded communication.  Their outline for language classes were outlined as follows, with some minor changes that I'm quite certain they would approve were they still living by yours truly:

Model and Theory
Continuity and Change
Bond and Break
Rule and Freedom
Sense and New Sense

We've all heard speeches in the United States that proclaim each of the later items - theory, change, break (independence), freedom, and new sense (innovation) as virtues.  It is harder to sell the former items on the list, but that is a paramount tragedy.  If I follow my role model and live well, I hope that is celebrated!  If I am being paid fair wages that continue to rise according to merit, I hope that continues!  If I am married to the right marriage partner, I hope we keep our bond to each other forever!  If the rules I am given for success keep providing success, I hope I keep using those rules for achieving success repeatedly!  Finally, if I have sense to see things, then I don't regret it!

What theory, change, independence, freedom, and new sense are for is when those things aren't happening.  When their is disparity from fair wages, let change happen!  When a bond is violated, let independence be available!  When rules are not enabling, then let freedom reign!  When sense is nonsense, then let a new sense be discovered!   These are the contexts and situations when these all make sense.  They are not one size fits all situations solutions.  They are based on conditions and our responses to them in a society where we are in a relationship to each other.  A society needs to cater to what is healthy and remove what is unhealthy.  A society needs wellness.  We need to welcome what is needed to fill what is lacking.


So I am in favor of a wellness theory and the healthy communication of all that makes us well -
WHEN hands are empty from a model that lacks the particulars that follow.
So I am in favor of healing -
WHEN hearts are broken or breaking by negative amounts in trying to live life.
I am also in favor of liberty or independence -
WHEN people are made captives through barriers rather than bonds f relationship.
I am also in favor of freedom
WHEN the methods employed are not enabling, but disabling or oppressive to workers.
Finally, I am in favor of a new sense for students and teachers
WHEN the current sense can't see things that really exist.

So we in the United States are sometimes only fed part of what makes us whole and healthy.  We are only partly made well through the people fighting it out through a societal message to us.  Sometimes freedom is needed.  Sometimes it is not.  Sometimes independence is needed.  Sometimes staying in a marriage is needed.  To me, my professors ideas are well-communicated.  They made me well!  

Look at the conditions.  What makes us well?  It is the option that fixes what is lacking!  The welcome speech at a welcome time is what occurs in both Isaiah and in Luke.  It was the favored or opportune time in each case, because it made people well through what they needed in order to have their hands full in a healthy way!  Don't ever let our leaders leave you empty handed - that is not a welcome message!!


To You Hearing a Well Communicated Message,

Jon



P.S. This blog post is more about social health than mental health, but it also is based on the insights of the latter or I never would see the things I see in this post.

Communication Basics: What does it Mean to be Healthy versus Unhealthy?

We assume we know the meaning of healthy.  Some psychologists claim that there is no contrast between healthy and unhealthy, there is only a continuum.  In that case, I suppose a bad grade doesn't ever mean failure, but only a grade that is lower than someone else's grade.  The idea of having only a continuum sounds a bit suspicious.  In that case, you can be declared mentally healthy if you are better than schizophrenic.  I hope I grade better than that.  Just because I don't have multiple personalities shouldn't mean that I am healthy.  So what is it to meet the grade of being mentally healthy?  That is a great question we are going to explore and test.  

In October 2015, I finished a book titled, Mental Health for Everyone: For Making Good Choices.  In the title is a summary in seconds of what the book is all about.  All of the words are relatively clear though a person might not know the precision that the title has in it's choice of words.  It is my shortest statement of the point of the book.  

There is one word though that is not real clear as to definition.  It grabs attention, but alludes our grasp.  It is the word - healthy.  It is, according to a dictionary, to be in good health or to be not sick or injured.  How do we measure good health when it comes to the mind - the mental part of ourselves?

I think it is actually fairly clear to me now.  I think the grading system in the school hints at a pretty good way to score mental health.  You can fall into a continuum of healthy to a degree, but there is also a point where we say someone has passed a lowest measure or someone has failed to make that lowest grade.   

I think a person can have a passing grade of health while not being fully healthy.  Likewise one can have a failing grade of unhealthy even while they are not fully unhealthy. In school, I was lucky to make the passing grade a number of times, but that didn't mean I was necessarily as mentally healthy as my grades seemed to indicate.  

Here is the most dramatic example in my life.  While I was getting on the Dean's list in college, my mind was suffering not thriving.  I won't bore people with the details, but if the measure of being on the Dean's List means high intelligence or smarts, then why did it happen that at the very time I reached a pinnacle of smarts that my mind was traveling in the opposite direction at the same time? A smart mind should be a help towards health and not be a hindrance, right?    

Since Sept 2014, I have known what caused my mind to begin to fail the grade even while getting high grades.  I didn't have a way of thinking that fit my mind's natural way of thinking. Some of the way that I had been taught to think, didn't bring peace of mind, but anguish of mind. I was thinking in ways that were too heavy, too restless, too difficult, and too foggy to find peace of mind.  It was too hard.  Or sometimes too things to travel to the opposite extremes.  .   

Then when I sat down to write about mental health for 2 months in August and September of 2014, peace of mind for me came together in 4 diagrams that to this day give me more peace than I ever had previously. The peace of mind I have now matches more with being a cheerful five year old.

The central idea of being mentally healthy is that one has to reach a certain level and column on my 4 x 4 diagrams on page xvi to be healthy.  I call it the rule of 76%.  You have to get past just 3 x 3 (75%).  Likewise I think a passing grade in each level or column could also be the rule of 76%.  

There is one other aspect of my book that is very important.  Martin Luther King once said the first step was more important than being able to see the rest of the staircase, if my memory serves me right.  My book says that is not healthy.  What is healthy is taking that first step knowing at least in a shadowy view where the stairs take you in the end.  In this case the books says we start at square 1 as an interval and end at square 64.  

Now, not all of us are called to lead at or get to interval 64.  We can stop ourselves somewhere before that point.  But what is not optional is the need for respect for those who keep going on to higher and higher heights.  No respect for the higher intervals is not any more healthy than a bench presser not being respectful of another weight lifting who lifts more and with more repetitions.  

So that is my definition of healthy.  Hit 76% to pass as healthy.  75% or less would be unhealthy. Likewise someone who says necessary knowledge all ends at high school (or God forbid in kindergarten) is unhealthy.  Let's communicate clearly through numbers.  

We need real mental health in the United States.  We need to measure it accurately.  In my next entry, I will offer a test of mental health.  Thank you. 

To Your Better Mental Health,

Jon 

  

Communication Basics: Healthy Begins with Fast and Variable

I Have to Last and Not Just be Fast, I Have to Be Fast and Not Just Last

Whenever a person does an activity like writing a book, it is done in the context of time.  There is a first edition and there is a last edition.  From one to the other, improvements can be made, but the first edition remains the first except under one condition.  That condition is that a significant part of the fast first edition will last until the last edition.  Was the book written well enough to avoid a full restart at its core?  Will I need to retract what I said in any major way? 

I wrote the first edition of my book, Mental Health for Everyone, to get out my ideas fast and to make them last.  I felt the need to try to break the cycle of mental illness fast, especially for the sake of the suicidal; but also to make corrections to my work as it progressed to make sure its effect will last.  The finishing part is never completely done for a writer.  For example, I can always continue improving the book.  The only question is whether the start requires a full restart.  I don’t believe my book will require a re-start – that I was too jumpy and was guilty of a false start.  I waited for the gun and I am off and running already with no plans to finish until the race is over!

I don’t need to restart what I did, but that doesn’t mean I can’t add to what it says to explain aspects of the book in a still better way.  My principle in the area of schooling and relationship of “fast and variable” will last.  I will not retract that piece, but I can still further amplify what I mean.  I’m a track athlete and track coach so my analogy from track is routine to me.  Even the complex parts are relatively simple to me. The first edition of has to balance amplify with simplify, but only in the future it can be good to still further amplify it as well.

 

Let’s amplify what I say in my book.  So what do I mean when I suggest that the key to schooling is being fast?  Doesn’t that fly into the face of common sense which according to Aesop’s Fable says that “Slow and steady wins the race”.  Also doesn’t that disagree with psychology’s insights about manic-depression or hyper-activity?  I can clearly answer for myself that it does not fly in the face of common sense or the basic insight of psychology on manic-depression.  Let me assure you though what I mean by adding to what I have said before. 

In my book, Mental Health for Everyone, I emphasize four principles for guiding mental health in the areas of education, schooling, coaching, and teaching.  They are:

         1)   Biggest 
         2)  Fastest  
         3) Strongest 
         4)  Smartest

It is not just the biggest that wins, it is not just the fastest that wins, it is not just the strongest that wins, and not just the smartest that wins.  It requires all four in some winning combination.  All of this may sound a bit controversial.  I can’t amplify on that here in this short space or amplify on every principle individually here, but let me assure you that I am aware of the movement from big (small) to biggest, fast to fastest, strong to strongest, and smart to smartest. 

I am not a proponent of the too big to fail, etc. thinking.  I am a proponent of a healthy movement from all of the least starting points to all of the greatest ending points.  For example, biggest is a virtue, and it is not a harm in the proper understanding.  In the size of this blog entry, I am going to only amplify more what I have said before on fast to fastest, but I can make it even bigger elsewhere or when I am given more time than the average blog reader will give me. 

There are five themes I want to emphasize.  To each I will devote one paragraph.  They are:

1) Fast to Last

2) Fast to Fastest

3) Variable before steady

4) Unhealthy states

5) Healthy states

First, let’s discuss fast to last.  Here is a key thing.  The carpenter’s rule says, “Measure twice, cut once”.  Why don’t they say measure once?  Isn’t that faster?  Doesn’t twice mean we waste time?  Doesn’t that mean there is no end to double-checking, triple-checking, etc.?  You get the point.  I believe the first measure is to get the job done fast.  The second measure to make sure the first measure can last.  If it doesn’t and only if it doesn’t, then  you measure again to make sure it will last.  You keep re-measuring until you get a match, then the measure with high probability will last and now you can move fast to cut the board once.  It is a lot better than starting over again, because you were going too fast.  In the long haul, a house built by measure twice until two agreed is built fast and to last. 

Next, notice that I say it starts from fast and moves to fastest.  I don’t believe that in life we begin from slow.  Even babies are commended for being fast, when they are.  They learn that fast trying to keep up with adults.  We recognize when they are getting fast.  We say, “Look at him (or her) go!” Today, we have the signal speed of electricity moving at trillions of kilometers per hour to power the internet and our cell phones.  The baby’s physical movements are no match for the signal speed of the human brain or the internet, but eventually that baby may become the physically fastest man (or woman) on earth! 

Next, I say variable comes before steady for a very obvious reason.  When I first was a competitive runner in grade school no one said anything about steady.  They didn’t have too.  I never ran far enough for that advice to really apply.  Even when I ran somewhere around 550 meters, I just ran as fast as I could to stay with the leader.  Later in Junior High, I set a record (that didn't last!) in the 200 meters.  It was not until high school, when I went up to the 400 meters, that I realized first that I had to vary my speed from the 200 meter race.  Then I also learned to vary my pace (very slightly) for the 4 parts of 400 meters.  Finally, when I move to the mile, then I learned the lesson of steady.  But steady doesn’t win a single race, if you are slow.  Aesop is wrong.  Someday, I am going to write not a fable called, “The Tortoise and the Hare”, but the true story called, “The Wolf, the Tortoise, and the Hare.  Well, it will be a fable that is in one sense true. You can imagine who wins!

Next, I want to applaud psychology.  The other day, I applauded psychology and a sincere Christian, who met me for the first time, wanted to introduce me to Jesus.  He didn’t know I could applaud both.  Let me applaud psychology for recognizing one unhealthy state – manic depression.  Most of society still doesn’t know what it is, because the diagrams for it are rarely introduced with the theory.  Psychology gets it right that manic-depression is unhealthy.  It shows that too fast is harmful outside the healthy lines.  Please pause for the applause.  Now, there is still one problem.  That is not the only unhealthy state.  It is though the only unhealthy state that colors outside the healthy lines.  So that unhealthy state is fairly obvious.  There is another state that is equally unhealthy.  I call it the too slow version of unhealthy – procrastination regret.  On the upper cycle it lives in the euphoria of its procrastination and in the lower cycle it lives in the despair of regret.  This too is unhealthy!  This set of unhealthy states can happen between the lines as can also too fast unhealthy states within the lines. Psychology needs to finish the job!

Finally, the major problem for psychology in the US at least is, as Japanese leaders in the business world have commented, that they are too negative.  They start with a name that essentially names what is unhealthy, but does not start with what is healthy.  They don’t talk about the four speeds we have in track that are healthy: rest, sprint, run, and walk.  What is the name for all the healthy states together?  In track, we call one combination Fartlek running with unappealing connotations.  So do we call the healthy states fast variable instead?  That is my first guess.  It may not be my very last, but I am sticking to as a start for discussing what is healthy and not just what is unhealthy.  My track coach made me a healthy runner.  He didn’t just teach when I was an unhealthy runner.  I pray that we can all learn to be healthy minders and not just healthy runners, etc. 

Everyone needs to last to a reasonable level and not just be fast.  We also have to be fast to a reasonable level and not just last.  Have a great day running your mind to health and not to stealth – a hidden objective of health.  I have revealed to you some part of what is healthy here.  It is a start.  I will add one last thing.  Smart athletes know that the first step to running fast is recharging your batteries with rest when needed.  That especially applies to your mind.  Take care. May you now have greater peace of mind. 

Be Healthy Everyone,

Jon

Communication Basics: When Excess Means Too Much of a Good Thing

There are many good things that can be destroyed by excess.  An apple is a good thing, but a diet of only apples is not.  Protein is a good thing, but just hamburgers at McDonald's for one's entire diet is not!  You get the point.  Well, I want you to get to point about a set of excesses in the case of mental health and not just physical health.

My book on mental health, Mental Health for Everyone, deals a lot with excesses and how to beat the problem of excess. It deals with it through the principle of intervals.  One gets bigger, faster, stronger, and smarter little by little, moment by moment, step by step, and bit by bit.  The attainments that are every child's dream - to become bigger, faster, stronger, and smarter, don't occur overnight except in fairy tales but they can begin that night.  So my approach in this piece will be to get at the basics of defeating excesses!

Let's bulldoze them down together, shall we?   There are four major sets of excesses.  They are:

1) expert excess or amateur excess

2) manic depression excess or procrastination-sleep excess

3) easy street excess or difficulty street excess

4) know everything excess and know nothing excess

You probably have not heard of some of these under these names, but I would guess everyone has experienced these excesses whether it be at school, at work, at play, or at a religious gathering.

Let's deal with each one, one at a time, starting with the first one.  As I deal with each I will be more specific about each generalized grouping.


Expert excess I call "expertitis".  It has a close cousin, a fellow excess, called "amateuritis".  They both fail to lift a light weight more than previous lifts that is necessary to get bigger.  Excess expertise fastens too heavy a load on people's backs.  Excess amateurism fastens too light of a load on people's backs.  They both look foolish, yet day after day the king doesn't realize he's wearing no clothes!  We want people's minds to grow into a greater understanding - it is just that it has to happen little by light to remain light so that people reach a bigger understanding.  The excesses make understanding smaller.  We need to change this in terms of quantity and quality from both excesses.  

Manic-depression excess is what it sounds like.  It is both too high and too low.  It goes outside actual human limitations.  It has a close cousin, a fellow excess, called procrastination-slowness.  The latter pair is my own creation.  Isn't it ironic that on the internet I can plenty of articles on manic-depression and on bipolar that are sicknesses, but I could not find an article on what is its healthy opposite nor on its close cousin of excess?  I had to go to other sources than psychology for a serious concern about being a procrastinator or being too slow - a slow poke.  You find this in the business world primarily. This is interesting because the success of high technology has led us into a steady diet of fast and steady.  Also interesting is that a child's fairy tale has taken hold in psychological circles.  It is part of Aesop's fables and it is called, The Tortoise and the Hare.  This story's fabled moral is a steady diet of "slow and steady wins the race".  Not according to the internet and the rest of technology!  The excesses of both stories - Aesop's and the internet's - are woven into too much of our thinking.  We are people that should be fast and variable - able to rest, sprint, run, or walk depending on the distance and time.  We aren't doing this!  We need to break free in terms of placement and timing from both excesses.


Easy excess can be called easy street.  Difficult excess, its close cousin, can be called difficult street. When it comes to increments it should be easy, but this should not lead to an avoidance of difficulty.  Eventually in our jobs over time, we can handle more difficult processes than we could at first.  If we try to master everything in the beginning, it all becomes difficult and then some even quit.  In other cases, employees can be with a company for years and never master the harder parts of a job.  It should be that we are moving from easy to easy step by step, but not all in one step and not with the end goal that we cannot master hard things.  The greats make the difficult look easy.  Look at your greatest musical artists and at your best athletes - they make even the difficult look easy - so it is both and not excess!  We need to free ourselves from the popular approaches to methods and purposes where we too one day can make the difficult look easy.


The I know everything mentality and its close cousin, I know nothing mentality are both dangerous.  We have got people who run around claiming to know what they don't know.  I see this a lot with predictions of the future. Some things you can know about tomorrow given that certain conditions remain constant, but you don't know that they necessarily will.  There are people who claim to know the end of the earth.  I thought we we human beings who don't know everything?  Having said that though, we also like to play at knowing nothing.  Really?  You really don't know.  Some of this play borders on pathetic.  If we've had teachers, we ought to know some things as do others, we ought to know things others don't, we ought to not know things others do know, and there ought to be things neither person knows; but this last category is only one of four - not the whole deal.  We need to be learning new things in terms of things and kinds and not just be stuck with two old bad cousins.


It is time to close up this discussion.  The point in all of it is to be healthy by avoiding excess.  This article for example can only be so long.  We need to avoid the excesses of experts and amateurs and step up our understanding little by little.  We need to avoid the excesses of the Manic -Depression and the Procrastination-Slow and step up our inspiring moment by moment.  We need to avoid the excesses of Easy Street and Difficult Street (it might be also called Baker Street with the difficult hero, Sherlock Holmes, in room 212B).  We also need to avoid the excesses of know-it-all and know-it-not at all and develop the captivating bit by bit  If you avoid the communication of this article, then please be sure it is not because of one of these excesses.  Improve your ability to listen and then speak  - to communicate - through excess avoidance.  We need to change excesses, break from excesses, free ourselves from excesses, and discover some new things.    Remember too many apples is not a good thing for your diet.  Your mind has a healthy diet too!  Get mental health and then get happy!


Sincerely,

Jon