Let’s talk!

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Let’s talk!

– Last time we talked about love – who of you have not seen our episode yet, I invite you to catch up on it. Today’s guest of our episode is Michał Mokrzycki, whom I cordially greet you!

– Hello!

– Michał runs a vlog called ” Controlled conversation ” on the male community channel “Droga dla Odważnych”. Michał also deals with language and communication, so he will surely tell us something nice about it today. But first I have a question for you, my dear: why is the conversation so important and why is it worth listening?

– Because it can advise us a lot in various situations

– To understand his problems

– Because you can learn a lot of things

– Now, the same question I ask to you Michał – why it’s important to listen our interlocutor?

– First of all, we have „information bubbles” that force everyone to be crammed into their own frame of thought; Facebook positions us, Youtube positions us and you know, we constantly listen to content that is adapted to what we watched a moment earlier. And suddenly it turns out that when we talk to someone who is some closer or more distant acquaintance, we have a completely different view of the situation of this man and what his views are at all, and I think that this is the first so big problem – that we don’t listen to each other because we don’t want to listen. It seems to us that the knowledge we have acquired – and we live in a world without authority, where many such statuesque authorities have fallen on the way, and with them even their sound science. And in fact, anyone can be an authority now, even if he is talking nonsense, for a person who listens to certain things, he can be an authority – well, do we see it in some space, what is it called? Conspiracy theories.

– Can be

– People listen to diffrent kinds of movies, which aren’t authenticated any way, after all they follow it and it creates such a big gap, you know.

– Even today in the age of a pandemic, where we don’t really know which information is fake news and which is the truth. And to separate the truth from this untruth now.- Especially in a pandemic, it got much worse and probably did not have the range it has now. I’m good at talking, because I’m working with language – I’m working with people, with clients, and my role is to understand  what their needs are, what they would really like. But you know, the practice of life has this to itself that sometimes this professional space and the space of personal life are something completely different.

– And you just sid about this language practice, because I also have an impression – how you talk about practice and in your profession and in life. When, for example, we look at what is happening even now in the world, i.e. various protests and strikes – not only in our country, but also somewhere abroad – and you see the same people who previously said “okay” and it was fun and nodded at – I don’t know – a specific view, and they leave and – so to speak – present something else. And now – what does it result from? Because we can’t talk to each other, because we don’t want to talk to each other? Is it because we talk about one – so to speak, and we have the other somewhere in our head anyway and we cannot – so to speak – receive the message that is really about. Because even in these strikes, we can actually find several different groups with a different opinion. And now – what does it result from? Due to the inability to listen, speak, and from any blockages that appear in a person?

– I think mostly from beliefs. And I say this as a practitioner, because for me the events that happened recently were also some process that had to happen in me. The beginning, when the strikes started happening, was a very difficult experience for me, in the sense that I had absolutely no problem getting them all together. When the postulates of the Women’s Strike came, which were completely unacceptable from a Christian perspective, and yet people continued to participate in these events, it was easy for me to “cross them”. But in the end, I think it’s all related to beliefs. Well, you know, if you want to get to know the perspective of another person, you have to notice that this is not a person who uttered a sentence, but a person who has several dozen years of experience; has experience of family life, what happened in relations with parents – between themselves, between parents, and between a child or a young person; what happened in the life of such a person, what history he has, what wounds he has; And suddenly it turns out that if you are able to open up to someone and start asking questions, and I think that’s the key, you know, because we have a very great ease in formulating affirmative sentences – will you agree?

– Yes, of course. It’s easy to judge and express the opinion, but it’s difficult to ask „Why do you think so?” or „What made you think so?”

– That’s it!

– But I also have the impression that people don’t always want to talk about it…

– Well, probably yes, but we also rarely give them the opportunity to say why they really think, as they think. You know, I think there’s something about a man that he likes to talk about what he thinks – in principle. If this is not a big taboo topic, and the matter is related to some difficult experiences – but not difficult enough to hide it somewhere – then people are rather asked “why do you think so?” – provided, of course, we ask it in the right tone, it will not be a pretentious tone, because it actually closes us to the interlocutor; if it is really, you know, it resulted from such a sincere and genuine desire to know another person’s point of view – this opens us. And I think from a human faith perspective – I don’t know if you will agree with me – but from a faith human perspective, it’s basically absolutely necessary for us to be able to evangelize anyone.

– Sure. We need to get to know the person we go out to, otherwise it will be hard for us to reach someone, since we do not really know who we are talking to and with whom we want to talk and to whom we want to reach with our gospel and faith, no. So another question comes to my mind, which is: “What can I do to learn to talk? What can we do to make our communication, so to speak, go out and let us really be able in such a non-judgmental way? But before we hear your opinion on this subject, I would like to ask you – what do you think and how you need to do it to be able to communicate with each other?

– Above all, be calm and learn to understand the other person.

– Well! I do not know! XD

– I’m not sure…

– And now I am asking this question again, back to you – what to do, how to communicate with each other?

– I think there are some such universal rules that are worth mentioning. And the first rule should become a habit of probably every human being – first to understand and then be understood. We want to be more and more understood by others, why we think the way we think, but we are often not interested in why others think the way they think, so it is probably a process that must also happen in a person, we must do this mature to be able to understand what the other person has in mind and to be able to “drill down” into them what are the real reasons why certain things happen in them in such a specific way.

– And now, my next question to you- the first thought that comes to you when I say: “golden key to conversation”, your one and only thought – “golden key”?

– Love.

– Understanding the other person.

– Listen!

– Exactly – the “golden key” is it? Can we say about the “golden key”?

– I think not. There is probably not only one recipe for a good conversation – it is a conglomerate of some things that must happen and work on. There are people who are gifted towards conversation. You know that I am a critical person – to some extent – and it is easier for me to see a glass half empty than half full, as is popularly said, and in turn I know people who live in the same value system as me and for something I have an allergic and very critical reaction to it, they don’t pay attention to it at all. And I know this is a lesson for me, so I think we as humans are so different from each other that there is no “golden key”. Something that for me is a necessity to work, to improve, for another person will not be a problem at all; but something that I have developed very well for him will be, you know, some milestone to reach and some challenge for the future. So I think there is no golden prescription, but I have recently been touched by Pope Francis with his theology of mercy, I think especially in relation to people with whom I do not understand, people who are either somewhere on the “fringes” of faith or We disagree with the worldview, because Pope Francis points out that this word misericordia – this is a Latin word consisting of two such conglomerates: miser, i.e. poor, and this is a person who is poor, but not only financially poor, but also poor because of some shortcomings he has, including relationships; and cor, that is the heart, but the heart understood not as the heart, the pump that pumps blood within us, but the heart which is the center of our thoughts, our feelings and is the center of man. Well, Pope Francis says that if we really want to go out to someone with misericordia, i.e. with such a heart open to the poor, we must understand this person first, but “get into her shoes”, not understand on the basis of “okay, okay, he has that ”, learn empathy a little. I learn empathy because I don’t have it, for me empathy is a huge challenge; “Step into another person’s shoes”, see what he really feels, what he thinks, why he thinks so.

– What has he experienced, what is the reason why he thinks so, and not otherwise. And if you were to name a few – I don’t know, 2-3 points – such neutral, so to speak, rules or conditions that could help our listeners, people who watch us, who feel that they have a problem and that “okay , cool, we are talking here, they say go out, with love, with knowledge ”. But if, for example, someone feels that “okay, but I don’t even know how to take the first step.” What was your first advice? As if love, mercy and this relationship, it seems to me that it will accompany us throughout the cycle, which makes me very happy, because I believe that it is extremely important at every stage of life. But are these general rules to take that first step?

– Well, I don’t know if one, but let me say four, because now it occurred to me – when you were talking, I thought about it quickly. I think the first rule is to understand first and then to be understood. That is, if you need some advice, learn to understand. Understanding is absolutely crucial and understanding does not mean accepting or affirming what the other person is thinking, but understanding is accepting that someone thinks differently from me. The second point is continuing the conversation. I personally feel like, you know, a bullfighter, like a bull whose bullfighter is waving a red cloth when someone interrupts me because I’m oversensitive about my words, I like to talk. I mean, not always, but when I have a bad day, I can see that there is some kind of crack in me that I also have to work on. So I think that it is worth not to interrupt others, so that this dialogue be really, I would say, coherent and not to offend anyone; although on the other hand, active listening is also important. So when you talk to someone – just like you are now – it is worth nodding, “yeah”, “I understand you”, “sure”. You know, the interlocutors like it, in the sense that when we talk to someone, it’s such a very external look, but the interlocutors like when someone nods when they say “mhhm, okay”, “yes, yes, and that’s how it happened”, I mean it’s fun to deepen a point, ask additional questions. And I think that presence, listening, returning to the moment now – I can see that my thoughts drifted away somewhere, I think about lunch or about what to do for studies or lessons at school – it’s worth coming back to this moment, here-now, it’s worth it focus on what is happening in a person. We communicate not only with words, but we also communicate with, you know, non-verbal things – sight, gaze, facial expressions, movements – well, it all matters. Sometimes someone says something, and we see from their body that they mean something completely different, and this is also a signal for us that something may be wrong here; so I guess so….

– That this conversation may be uncomfortable for some people, isn’t it? Great, thank you so much for this converstion .

– Thank you too Natalia.

– It seems to me that what you gave, this information for me personally is very valuable, I enjoyed listening to it, so thank you very much.

– Great!

– And I also invite you to the Michał’s channel, so that you should also enter to the Road for the Brave (Droga dla Odważnych) and to the channel if you want to hear more about communication

– If I can, a small correction – the Way of the Brave, although indeed, the way is for the brave, but the channel is called “The Way of the Brave”, this is also the name of our male community. So, “Dear the Courageous”, there is my vlog about communication, but not only – there are a lot of nice vlogs, I recommend you to actually get acquainted with the YouTube and Facebook channel, so forgive me for this short advertisement.

– No problem, but it’s very good that you straighten it, I apologize to you for this mistake, so come and see Michał, come to us and leave your thumbs up, leave your comments, tell me how you like what we do and whether you actually feel that this advice can help you in some way. So, see you in another month, in another cool episode.

This post is also available in: polski (Polish) Español (Spanish)