Affirm and Assert Yourself

This topic is what I believe is what everyone should learn. You can't just let people talk to you like you're any less of a person. I've lived my life before just letting things go because of not wanting to get into an argument, but there is a difference between trying to avoid an argument and trying to assert yourself so that people don't walk all over you. Of course we can't always please everyone, you have to let people know your feelings and opinions also. We can't grow as communicators if we don't assert ourselves tell people what we're thinking. Assertion means in the book, is a matter of clearly and non-judgmentally stating what you feel, need, or want. I never realized before that not saying anything and just letting things be was a bad thing. But now after realizing this from people and learning it in class, it has taught me to become a better communicator. If you're communicating with someone and they're talking all over you, you have to assert yourself and let them know what you think. It is just a one way communication and it won't help people grow as a person and communicators.

Defensives

An example of me feeling disconfirmed or defensive was when I was at work. It was my first few days at work so everything was new to me. I was working at Safeway as a deli/ sandwich maker. I felt that I was going at a fairly reasonable speed when a customer came up and started complaining. There was already a long line and I'm still trying to learn how to make the different types of sandwiches. I started to explain my situation with him and he just gave me a scuff, a sigh, and rolled his eyes at me. I felt defensive about everything people were saying, fearful of messing up on my new job, I tried to defend myself from not just customers, but from workers. My boss explained to me that it's okay and to take my time. She also told me to not listen to them and that I'll pick it up very quick. It has eventually helped me out a lot that even with my new jobs, I don't worry about customers being rude about things. It taught me to just smile to them and explain to them. I have done all the defensive listening that are talked about in the book. There has been a situation where I have used each of defensive communication barriers when something happens. We all have and we can't avoid it. It is if we realize and try to avoid doing it that will make us into better communicators.

difficulty confirming with others

Sometimes it is hard to confirm with others especially if you don't trust someone. But when you have a personal relationship with someone, it's easier to accept their ideas and opinions. Of course there are moments where we both don't agree to the same thing, but we have to learn to at least listen and try to understand where they are coming from. I use to somewhat think closed minded where I thought I listened to someone but eventually as I grew up, I realized that I don't analyze what they say. I've met a few people in my life who has changed my life for the better. I now can say that I try to look from a 3rd person perspective and look at both my thoughts and the other persons thoughts and see where they are coming from. There are moments where I don't think from both sides especially if what they say just sounds ludicrous. This chapter helped me a little bit more on distinguishing between confirming with what people say and endorsing their ideas. I believe that sometimes especially with friends and family, you can't always agree with what they say because sometimes you need to help people open up their eyes and realize the bigger picture. You can try all you want to explain both sides but in the end, it's up to the person to accept the help or not. This is what helps grow and strengthen a relationship. The difference between confirming and endorsing ideas is that confirming is that you accept it, doesn't mean that you have to agree with the person and endorsing means that you accept it, and you're agreeing with the person. Both play a role in communication with people. Sometimes you confirm and sometimes you endorse. Everyone has done this at some point, sometimes you accept the idea with someone and support them even though you don't believe it, but sometimes you accept it with them and support them. They are two totally different things that revolves around our relationship with people

Choose How to Express Emotions

Choosing how to express your emotions is a good thing. We need to vent ourselves from time to time. If you like someone, it's sometimes better if you let them know how you feel. Who knows, maybe they'll like you back. You'll never know until you let it out, remember, the other person isn't a mind reader. We communicate better and reach a better understanding of a person if we express our feelings to them. Of course there are times where some of us don't like to express our emotions for fear of being rejected, put down, or just want to keep private. Communicating about your feelings could help because you get different people to help you out for whatever feelings you're encountering. If you're feeling really angry, the book suggest that you should wait before you express your feelings because communication is irreversible. Sometimes, people say things they don't mean when they're angry. I also suggest that too. If you're feeling angry, let out your emotions in a way that you don't do harm to anyone or yourself. Look for people who can relate to the subject you want to talk about. I find myself talking to certain people about a certain subject and someone else for another subject, sometimes someone can understand how you might feel in multiple ways, but it's also good to get other points of views. Expressing your feelings might be difficult in person and they might do it online, while some others express it better face to face than online. Expressing your emotions takes part confidence, comfort, a person to listen to and understand. Sometimes people keep it to themselves, that's fine also, they might just need another way of expressing their feelings, like I said previously, do something so that you can get it out somehow whether it be drawing, working on a project, work, etc. There are many ways to express your emotions and you should take advantage of it.

Fallacy

The fallacies in the end of the section are Perfectionism, Obsession with shoulds, Over-generalization, Taking responsibility for others, Helplessness, Fear of catastrophic failure. Perfectionism would make a person never feel satisfied because no one can be perfect but one will always strive to be anywhere close to it. One would feel dissatisfied at ones self and jealousy towards others. We all try to be the perfect looking, speak perfectly, etc, which if we worry too much over. Obsession with shoulds makes a person living in the past in a way, because they're always so worried/ thinking of what they SHOULD have done, they don't think about the present or future. Their standards are always unrealistic which will always lead up to future failure. There are moments where we think, I should have done my homework before I go out, or I should have gone to the fair instead of stay home. Eventually it will make us think too much into things. Over-generalization makes one think too much into it which makes the person miss some important bits and pieces of it. Lets face it, we've all had that happen to us where we think too much into things. Taking responsibility for others will never let the person who made the mistake learn from it and makes the person who took the blame really think they are truly responsible for whatever actions they made. I'm not sure how many of us really do that, an example of this might be where you're in a argument and you just want to end it, you take the blame and say you're wrong. Helplessness makes someone depressed overtime because they think that things will never get better. They have no hope that things will better or that their feelings will change. It has happened to all of us at one point. We've all felt this before, eventually one will get over the feeling at their own pace. Fear of catastrophic failure makes someone never put themselves up for a task because they will be scared to mess up and think of the extreme negative things that can happen. All of these fallacies comes up in intrapersonal communication. We face them with others, with ourselves, and see others face it. These are what holds most of us back, whether it's one of them or a few of them. We just need to learn to work with ourselves and others to get over this. We can't let these take over our lives because it won't lead to good communication skills which everyone should have.

Different Perspectives On Emotions

Out of all the perspectives of emotions, the one that caught my attention and really made sense to me would be the Social Influences on Emotions. We determine our emotions by the way we were taught and by the people around us. We all have different ways of showing or not showing emotions. In the text, the example they use are how many Irish Americans holds wakes when someone passes away while being joyous and festive, but at the same time Jewish people practices sitting Shiva, where no one talks because it means to them of disrespect and inappropriateness. This one stands out to me and I understand it the most because I feel that in my culture, we're not suppose to act/ show emotions in the open. We're suppose to be modest, kind, thoughtful, and be respectful. If we're bad, our parents would punish and yell at us in order to set us straight. The book states that how Western cultures places emphasis on feeling pride in their personal accomplishments reinforces the values, while in non- Western cultures teaches people to regard accomplishments as communal, not individual. I've always felt that the emotions and the way I act wasn't exactly the same as everyone else. I didn't really know exactly what it was til I read that section and it made sense to me a lot more. It made me think of how much it really affects us to have the kind of people you're always around influence you on not just your emotions, but the way you act, the way you think, and the way you're going to influence everyone else around you.

Message Overload

Message overload is when there is so much information that's given to you in a amount of time that it's difficult to process and remember all of it. It is especially difficult for students because when we go to school, we have so many classes and in the short amount of time, we're expected to remember and comprehend all the information. There are so many other things that we have to do also. When we're at work, sometimes new information comes very fast and you're suppose to know it. We also have a social/ personal life that we still have to go home to. The human mind is a very complex, but it can be overwhelmed. We cannot process all the information either fast enough or maybe even at all. If we are overwhelmed from all the information to us, it causes us problems because we're trying to remember all the past information that we miss the information still being given to us. Our world is a very fast paced in today's day and age, it makes us more efficient. It is natural for us to be overloaded because we are still human, not machines and we cannot process all the information fast enough sometimes. We just need to practice and try harder.