This is a beautiful Article by Heidi Paavilainen who is a Transformative coach, Yoga teacher and Writer. Enjoy darlings!
The other day we were spending the evening with my partner in our newly met friends’ home. We were only couples there and at some point our conversation moved to love and how often do we express our feelings of affection.
Someone mentioned how in Finland we almost never say the words “I love you”. Since I have been away from my home country for a while I was first puzzled by this statement, but soon recognized how that might be true. In our culture we are simply not used to say those three words.
Even if I believe that we don’t need to limit our expression of love to words, I’m still a big believer in expressing our good feelings to one another.
Not only do we make people around us to feel good and deepen the feeling in our relationships, but also share more of who we really are.
Communication as a tool
Sometimes we believe that communication can somehow improve our relationships. If we just communicate enough we are able to have rapport with others.
However communication itself cannot make any relationship better or worse.
Communication is simply a tool. It’s a tool to transfer our feelings to the other person. When we feel good and content, and communicate from this place, our presence allows other people around us to feel good too.
When we instead are caught up in negative thinking we easily create just more tension around us.
Communication itself cannot make any relationship better or worse — It’s always the feeling behind the conversation that does.
Communication that deepens relationships
There’s a study that shows that couples who say 5 times more positive things to each other (over negative) stay longer together.
When we come from the place of love and understanding other people can feel this. They feel good around us and can relax in our company.
Communicating from this place can further help us to deepen the connection. Not only do we feel good when we express ourselves from the place of love but also allow the other person to become more aware of our appreciation for them.
I personally never get tired telling my closest ones how I appreciate them. When the feeling behind the conversation is good we can begin to enjoy good relationships more effortlessly.
What about our negative emotions?
Is it important to express the negative feelings too?
I want to make clear that I’m not trying to say that from now on all of our communication needs to be positive. We all get caught up in our thinking —I do too — and say things that we regret later. We cannot escape our humanness.
However understanding that communicating from this place has an effect on our relationships can allow us to see if we can handle the situation with more grace.
We can allow our thinking to calm down first and see if we still feel the same. What many times happens is that as soon as our mind calms down we begin to see the situation in a new light.
Sometimes our problems disappear when the thinking shifts. And if they don’t, after allowing our heated emotions to calm down first, we are now in a much better place to solve the situation with love and respect.
There’s nothing we cannot talk about — But the way we express ourselves has an effect on our relationships.
When we communicate from the place of negativity it’s hard for us to come into the meetings of the minds. When we have love and respect present we can begin to find solutions beyond our imagination.
Expressing more of who we are
Communicating from the place of love and understanding allows us to express more of who we really are.
When we experience our positive emotions we become more present and see life more clearly. On the other hand when we experience our negative emotions we are always caught up in our thinking and our perspective has narrowed down.
We see the moment either through our disappointments of the past or fears of the future — That is not how we normally think, nor who we are.
When we see the deeper truth behind this, expressing our negative emotions stops making sense to us anymore.
Not all of the communication need to come from the place of love, but the more our understanding deepens the more easily and effortlessly our communication starts to take that direction.
This way we can begin to express more of our true selves and deepen the feeling in our relationships more effortlessly.
About the Author of this Post:
Heidi Paavilainen is a Transformative coach, Yoga teacher and Writer who loves the ocean, Sundays and everything beautiful and helps people to find that greater sense of well-being and have relationships that feel good. Click here to receive her free audio Stress Free.
What are YOUR thoughts on this article? How has communication helped you in your relationships. Think about it and share your thoughts in the comments below. Heidi & I would love to hear from you.
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With Immense Love & Gratitude,
~Zeenat~
*Positive Provocations* 
Wonderful post Heidi – and I may be in the minority but for me NO negative communication has ever helped our relationship grow in 29 years.
Thank you so much for sharing Mark. I’m glad you enjoyed the post and 29 years, that sounds wonderful.
I believe speaking our truth with love is one of the most empowering and nurturing acts we can engage in. This article beautifully affirms the power of communicating to better connect with ourselves and others and reinforces our choice to do it from love. Thank you so much!
Thank you so much for sharing Kelley. That’s beautifully said!
This is a lovely post and leading from a place of compassion and love is definitely felt by the recipients. I’ve also learned that to truly communicate with someone, you have to listen deeply. To what is said and also to what isn’t being said. To hold a space so the other person feels safe and acknowledged for everything they are…the good and the not so good. It does take practice, but deep communication, for me at least, is the basis of all ‘successful’ relationships.
Thank you so much for sharing Beverley. I’m glad you could feel the feeling behind the words — That’s most of the time far more powerful than the words being used. That’s beautifully said, listening is equally important. When we begin to listen beyond our thinking we get what the other person is really saying and it becomes easy for us to feel connected to them.
Communication is as much about listening as it is about speaking. Great post.
Thank you so much for sharing Barb! That’s true, listening is part of communication and equally important — And when we become more present, and listen, communication begins to take care of itself.
Yes, I like asking myself before I communicate “what is my purpose of saying that?” and that helps me to stay focused on whether it comes from a loving place.
Thank you so much for sharing Rachel! I’m glad you have found something that works well for you. Another good indicator is the feeling we are experiencing. When we come from the place of love we can feel it. We can go beyond the intellect and communicate from the place of love with more ease.
This is really interesting: “There’s a study that shows that couples who say 5 times more positive things to each other (over negative) stay longer together.” Thank you!
Thank you so much for sharing Sandra. That’s something that we often don’t think about — And yet, it makes perfect sense.
Thanks for the informative and inspiring article, Holly. I believe the quote Sandra refers to above whole heartedly. It jumped out at me too. The negative definitely outweighed the positive in my past marriage. I can see where this would have made a BIG difference – among many other things! 😉
Thank you Debbie, I’m glad you enjoyed the post. The beautiful thing is that when our understanding deepens we have the possibility to choose differently in the future, but also begin to see our past with more compassion. 🙂
Hi Holly and Zeenat…I’ve found what you articulate in your post so true in my life. Maybe that’s why I’m so blessed to be in a wonderful, loving, supportive relationship.
Hi Elle, Glad you enjoyed the post and that’s wonderful to hear! Thank you for sharing.
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