The message sent is not always the message received.
Interpretation
This quote highlights the disparity between what is intended in communication and what is actually understood by the recipient.
Virginia Satir's quote emphasizes the complexities of communication. It suggests that the intentions behind a message can often be lost in translation or misinterpreted by the receiver, leading to misunderstanding and miscommunication. This serves as a reminder to be more aware of how we convey our thoughts and to consider the perceptions of others to enhance effective communication.
In practice
This quote can be used in a workshop on effective communication skills.
Over the years I have developed a picture of what a human being living humanely is like. She is a person who understand, values and develops her body, finding it beautiful and useful; a person who is real and is willing to take risks, to be creative, to manifest competence, to change when the situation calls for it, and to find ways to accommodate to what is new and different, keeping that part of the old that is still useful and discarding what is not.
What lingers from the parent's individual past, unresolved or incomplete, often becomes part of her or his irrational parenting.
The recommended daily requirement for hugs is: four per day for survival, eight per day for maintenance, and twelve per day for growth.
Your responses to the events of life are more important than the events themselves.
Put together all the existing families and you have society. It is as simple as that. Whatever kind of training took place in the individual family will be reflected in the kind of society that these families create.
I feel that adolescence has served its purpose when a person arrives at adulthood with a strong sense of self-esteem, the ability to relate intimately, to communicate congruently, to take responsibility, and to take risks. The end of adolescence is the beginning of adulthood. What hasn't been finished then will have to be finished later.
Good listeners have a huge advantage. For one, when they engage in conversation, they make people 'feel' heard. They 'feel' that someone really understands their wants, needs and desires. And for good reason; a good listener does care to understand.
Your purpose is to make your audience see what you saw, hear what you heard, feel what you felt.
When you forget yourself and your fear, when you get beyond self-consciousness because your mind is thinking about what you are trying to communicate, you become a better communicator
In nonviolent communication, no matter what words others may use to express themselves, we simply listen for their observations, feelings, needs, and requests. Then we may wish to reflect back, paraphrasing what we have understood. We stay with empathy, allowing others the opportunity to fully express themselves before we turn our attention to solutions or requests for relief.
The only thing that guarantees an open-ended collaboration among human beings, the only thing that guarantees that this project is truly open-ended, is a willingness to have our beliefs and behaviors modified by the power of conversation.
If we were meant to talk more than listen, we would have two mouths and one ear.
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