Single Channel Communication
Today’s single-channel conversation is going to be something fun. I was talking to a friend of mine and got this great idea about how we can become better at communication.
Also, to discover if we are missing anything when we are doing what we do. This lockdown is giving us an opportunity to really learn something new if we are willing to come out and play.
So, we’re working here on the idea of single-channel flirting. So, I want you to try this and I’m going to give you an example.
One activity
I’d like you to pick one activity. One activity could be making a cup of coffee or taking a shower.
I want you to think about it as I go through my day. When I get up in the morning, I don’t necessarily turn any lights on. There are grow lights that go on to feed sunshine to my indoor bonsai. So there’s a little bit of light, so I don’t need a whole lot of light to get up and make a cup of coffee; but it kind of goes like this.
My alarm goes off and in a perfect world, I don’t hit snooze. But let’s say it’s a perfect world. I get up and walk out of my bedroom and into the bathroom and do what I normally do. When I come out of there, I’m going to turn right and walk down the hall to my kitchen.
Then I’m going to walk over to my Keurig and I’m going to turn it on, and I’ll hear the Keurig began to heat up, and I reach into the upper cabinet pull out a K cup, and put it in there and close the lid.
As the coffee is brewing. I’ll reach over to my left and bring over my super mega organic granulated sugar thing and put one teaspoon of sugar in my coffee.
About that time, the Keurig is beginning to output coffee into the coffee cup and I’d go to the refrigerator and get some almond milk, shake it up, take the lid off pour in two ounces of almond milk, and then stir that up and then let the coffee.
Now the coffee is finished brewing and I walk back and I walk into my living room to my favorite chair. I sit down and I set my coffee cup down to my left on a table. I’ll turn on the light.
I’ll sit and drink a cup of coffee and go through my email in the morning.
Okay, you can tell that I thought about this.
Your Turn
I want you to pick something that you do on a regular basis, and just kind of think about what the steps are that you would normally do in order to perform that and the thing is it’s generally so automated that we don’t even pay attention.
Blind Folded
Here’s the fun part. I want you to try this, but imagine this time that you’re blindfolded.
I keep my bedroom really really dark it’s completely blacked out I have blackout curtains there’s no available light whatsoever. I have to know where everything is in my bedroom. But if I were blindfolded once I leave my bedroom, everything starts getting dicey my bathroom is across the hall from my bedroom. I’d have to navigate to the bathroom and find “the potty”, and make sure that nothing unfortunate happens… while I’m blindfolded. Then I have to exit the bathroom, work my way down the hall to my coffee pot.
While I was thinking about this, one of the things that that I used to because I’m sleepy, is when I close the lid three blue lights light up which tells me which size brew that I’m going to get it going to be small, medium or large.
So if I were blindfolded, I would have to literally feel my way down to the bottom button and then work my way back up. In order to press the right button.
Sure, it would be no problem, maybe, and then I have to turn around and walk blindly or blindfolded to the refrigerator. Open the refrigerator door. Find out almond milk, and go back to the Keurig.
One of the things I want you to pay attention to is what other senses would be activated? If you couldn’t see your sense of smell, your sense of touch, proprioception (which is a kinesthetic thing of you moving through the air, your feet on the floor).
Once you’ve done that, and you’ve noticed what you’ve done with that. Imagine that in addition to being blindfolded, that you have noise-canceling headphones on. Okay, I’m not going to be able to hear the coffee pot, as it begins to brew. I’m going to have to put my hand on top of the Keurig and feel it make a complete cycle until it stops.
What if you don’t drink coffee?
Imagine doing the same thing of taking a shower or getting dressed for work or whatever. Pick one activity that you would normally do and go through this process. Just think about all of the experiences that we aren’t noticing that because we have had this one channel operating. Our eyes that we have all of these other things that are muted, or not pay attention to, at all.
Try this
I want you to try this and you’re going to listen to this again.
The short instructions are:
1.Imagine or go through the steps.
2. And then imagine, or go through the steps with a blindfold.
I’ve recommended that people eat meals blindfolded so that they can actually taste their food.
Or imagine, or actually go through the process of being blindfolded and having noise-canceling ear muffs on your head as you do a simple task.
Level Expert
Your expert level process for this (I thought would be fun) is you are at home.
Explore the fantasy with a partner. It could be holding hands it could be dancing in your kitchen. It could be making love. How do you normally do, that sort of thing? The lights on lights off. Where do you begin? Are you the initiator or are you the receiver? Think about that or actually try this with a blindfold. It could be just here. It could be just them. It could be both of you.
Obviously, Amazon’s gonna make money off of me with those noise-canceling your must but wouldn’t it be interesting for you to have the experience of having your eyes or having your ears, or both, completely shut down so that you are now forced to pay attention to your sensations to that feeling of touch?
What does their skin feel like? What does your skin feel like? What, smells, or tastes do are you now aware of that you aren’t normally aware of? Did you just have a big dinner with garlic bread? It’s gonna show up when you close those other channels.
So I wanted you to think about this, we don’t know how long we’re gonna be shut down. But if we get better at communicating. If we get better at communicating with ourselves. If we get better at communicating with people that we care about, maybe we’ll get better at communicating and connecting with other people that we don’t know.
One of the things that you might want to consider is, you know, we do a lot of texting. Nowadays instead of talking or, meeting people face to face.
How would you let someone know that you were interested in how would you let them know that you wanted to talk, or to kiss, or to make love or to interact with them in some kind of way?
Next installment
The next video is going to be a step up, but I really want you to practice these skills, at least once, with yourself, go ahead and, you know, prepare to be surprised by somebody
Remember if you don’t feel foolish while you’re doing this you’re probably doing it wrong. I’m planning on doing a meditation blindfolded. I’m planning on doing a yoga session blindfolded. I want to experience what this is going to be like because I’m extremely visual and I’m very reliant on my eyes and my ears.
And I’m really interested to know what this could be like so. Please, you know, put your comments in the comments section. This will be on YouTube, as well as on my website, but I’m really interested in knowing your feedback when you try this.
What your experience was like? I think that this is a great way to experience being playful and getting really really curious about how we do what we do, not just why?
How do we do it when do we do that, where do we do that, and for how long? Most importantly, starting to pay attention to how you respond? How do you know if this feels good?
Does your partner or does your friend, enjoy whatever it is that you’re doing? Because if it doesn’t feel good to you, my guess is that it’s not feeling good to other people. Shat may feel good to you may or may not feel good to somebody else?
Have a great day.