Age extenders: feeling better

AGE EXTENDERS: FEELING BETTER

In order to establish meaningful contact with other humans, you have to learn how to talk-openly. Learn how to communicate in ways that let others hear you better. A key, says Dr. Ornish, is to practice expressing feelings rather than thoughts. Feelings connect; thoughts-particularly judgmental ones-isolate us, he says. Here are some of Dr. Ornish's communication tips.

• Express a thought-"I think you're wrong," for instance-and your listener may feel attacked and argumentative. Express a feeling, though-"I feel sad about what you said," for instance-and the listener is more likely to hear you, Dr. Ornish says.
• Express feelings and you make indisputably true statements. No one can argue about how you feel. How you feel is how you feel.
• Express feelings and you exhibit a bit of vulnerability that people generally recognize and respond to in kind, raising the level of the communication.
• Feelings-that is, emotions-are more effective than thoughts in influencing people.

It is just as important to express negative feelings as positive ones, Dr. Ornish says. Just learn to express them as feelings, not as judgments or attacks. Add the words I feel to your vocabulary. One caution, though: Dr. Ornish says that if you add the word that after an I feel, you probably are not truly expressing a feeling but, rather, a thought.
One way to encourage more expressions of feelings rather than thoughts is to rid your language of the phrases "You should," "I think," "You ought," "You never," and "You always." Instead, add the phrase, "I want."
We communicate more intimately when we acknowledge what we hear other people saying to us, making it clear that we really listened and really heard what they said and making sure that we understand their meaning, Dr. Ornish notes. Try it and you'll see that people warm to you as they feel more understood. And you will warm to them, too, because you will be focusing on their feelings and expressions, rather than paying more attention to what you're going to say next.

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GENERAL HEALTH
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