Words Can Change Your Brain (18 page)

If our personal, relational, and business values are not aligned with those of the person we are involved with, trouble is unavoidable. This suggests that we should ask others about their inner values as soon as we possibly can. But there’s a catch: sociopaths are very good at reading other people’s minds, and they can tell you, with great accuracy, what you hope to hear. They can also mask the nonverbal cues of deceit, so they’re very hard to spot.
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However, when people become angry they act a little crazy. Like the sociopath, they become emotionally unpredictable, which makes it difficult to have a constructive dialogue. How do you communicate compassionately with angry people, staying true to your own inner values? It’s difficult but not impossible. You have to identify, and then speak to, their underlying suffering and pain. You have to look
beyond
the anger. When you do this, as highly empathetic people can do, it will become easier to generate a compassionate smile that will help to defuse the anger being expressed by the other person.
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Ideally, when anger erupts a time-out should be called. But sometimes you can’t do this. In such situations, it may help to focus on this question: what do I value most about this person? Then speak to those qualities. If you feel like you’re about to lose your own patience or temper, then consider extricating yourself from the interaction as quickly as possible. Let the person know that you’ll be happy to reengage when everything calms down.

Even if you enter a conversation with calmness, the other person’s negativity may have more power because the primitive parts of your brain will kick into defensive and aggressive survival mode. They’ll suck you in, and your positivity will vanish. Then what? Research says that you can deliberately suppress these negative reactions and arbitrarily impose a series of positive thoughts—on yourself and on the other person. This technique has been proven to be more effective than most of the other strategies that are used in anger-management training.
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Remember that verbal interaction often presupposes a goal-directed intention by the speaker.
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To make a conversation balanced and fair, both parties need to be clear and up front, about values, intentions, and goals. Sharing these will make the communication process more efficient.

Step 6: Access a Pleasant Memory

It’s best to enter a conversation with an inviting expression that conveys kindness, compassion, and interest. But as we explained in the previous chapter, this facial expression cannot be faked. It can be elicited by tapping into a pleasant memory, particularly one that involves people you deeply love and respect. This memory softens the muscles around your eyes and evokes a gentle half smile on your face.

When another person sees this expression, it stimulates a feeling of trust in their brain. The recollection of pleasant memories will also release pleasure chemicals throughout your own body and brain, and this will take you into an even deeper state of relaxation. When you look directly into the other person’s eyes as you maintain this loving memory, they will
want
to engage you in a dialogue. Their facial expression will resonate with yours, and this will deepen the sense of contentment and satisfaction in both of you. As researchers at Loyola University Chicago demonstrated, contentment gives rise to mutually benevolent engagements.
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Why not just keep your face relaxed? Well, it turns out that a very relaxed face looks somber, which is why people in old photographs from the 1800s looked so unhappy. Back then, it took several minutes for an image to become fixed on the photographic plate, so a state of deep relaxation was the best way to keep a person’s face still. In the early 1900s, when shutter speeds were faster, photographers were capable of capturing fleeting expressions of contentment.

Now you are ready to engage another person in a meaningful conversation, and it only takes about four minutes of preparation: a minute to stretch, relax, and yawn; another thirty seconds to bring yourself into the present moment; a moment to observe your inner speech and suppress it so that you can enjoy a few seconds of silence; another minute to fill your mind with positivity as you focus on your deepest values and goals; and finally the recollection of a memory that fills you with pleasure and joy.

With a little bit of practice, you’ll be able to enter that exquisite state of heightened awareness in less than a minute or two.

Step 7: Observe Nonverbal Cues

“Keep your eyes on the ball.” It’s an expression used in sports and often applied to business, but when it comes to interpersonal relationships, it’s essential to keep your eyes on the individual you are conversing with in order to discern the many nonverbal messages we constantly send to others. However, this does not mean that you should gaze unceasingly at the other person—that could feel invasive—but if you maintain softness in your eyes, generated by a pleasant memory, the other person won’t want to take their eyes off you!

Eye contact stimulates the social-network circuits in your brain.
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It decreases the stress chemical cortisol, and it increases oxytocin, a neurochemical that enhances empathy, social cooperation, and positive communication.
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Most people can recognize the seven basic facial expressions—anger, fear, sadness, disgust, surprise, contempt, and happiness—even though they remain on a person’s face for just a few seconds. But as Ekman explains, you need to stay completely focused, making sure that you aren’t distracted by your inner thoughts.
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If a person wants to conceal a feeling—out of embarrassment, discomfort, or the desire to deceive—the true expression might only appear for a quarter of a second. Reading micro-expressions is not essential for effective communication; it simply gives you an edge. Nor will your impressions necessarily be accurate. You’ll have to look for additional clues, and then ask the person if you are correct. But there’s a problem: when you do this, the other person can feel violated. It’s very disturbing when you discover that someone can read your mind.

Micro-expressions can only tell you that a true emotion is hidden, but it won’t tell you why. Nor will it tell you whether the person is consciously or unconsciously concealing it. To ferret out these important bits of information, you’ll have to talk more deeply with your partner.

When you learn how to read micro-expressions, says Ekman, “it gives you an edge in business because it allows you to communicate more effectively with business partners.” We suggest that you visit Ekman’s website (www.paulekman.com) to see how well you can detect micro-expressions using the micro-expression training tool. Ekman is currently using his research on facial expressions to help people cultivate emotional balance.

Step 8: Express Appreciation

The first words you speak will set the tone for the entire conversation, and a single compliment may be all you need to enhance cooperation and trust. Yet few people begin their conversations on a positive note. In fact, we’re more inclined to speak out when we are bothered by something, not realizing that complaints immediately create a defensive reaction in the listener. So we have to train ourselves to bring as many expressions of appreciation into the conversation as possible. Every appreciative comment is a powerful form of affirmation and can reduce the negative mood of the recipient.
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Of course the compliment must be genuine, extending beyond the mere formality of a polite comment. As the staff at the Mayo Clinic emphasizes, “Relationships need nurturing. Build up your emotional account with kind words and actions. Be careful and gracious with critique. Let people know that you appreciate what they do for you or even just that you’re glad they’re part of your life.”
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Our suggestion is to begin each conversation with a compliment but make sure that you end it with another compliment that conveys a deep sense of appreciation for the person and the dialogue you just had. Research shows that people respond better to compliments received at the end of an interaction than those given at the beginning of a dialogue.
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To make sure your compliments and statements of appreciation are genuine, we suggest you ask yourself this question: what do I really value
about this person? As you contemplate that question, write down everything that comes to mind, and then ask yourself which, of all those attributes, you respect the most. Keep your answer in mind as you talk, and listen for an opportunity to share it. If such a moment doesn’t occur, consider sending the person a note. An unexpected note of appreciation will rarely be perceived as a ploy.

Whenever I, Mark, turned in a manuscript to Jeremy Tarcher, my former publisher and personal friend, he always complimented it before suggesting how to make it better. The compliments always felt so genuine that I would fully embrace his suggestions. One day I asked him, “Do you really mean it when you compliment my writing, or are you just saying it because it’s what an anxious writer needs to hear?” His response startled me: “Mark, I really don’t know!” The moral of this story: when you make a habit of showing constant appreciation, even if it begins as a courtesy or subtle manipulation, your own mind comes to believe it’s true.

Step 9: Speak Warmly

We cannot overemphasize the importance of speaking warmly—of conveying your compassion and sensitivity—but little research has been conducted on this element of communication. We know that different tones are registered and responded to by different language centers in the brain, but we’re only beginning to identify which kinds of sounds reflect specific emotions and feelings.

In 2003 researchers doubted that we could map the human voice the way Ekman did with the face,
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but now they feel more confident that emotions can be ascertained from nonverbal sounds. These “affect vocalizations,” as they are called, may even be superior to facial expressions when it comes to telegraphing anger, contempt, disgust, fear, sadness, and surprise. However, facial expressions seem to be more accurate expressions of joy, pride, and embarrassment.
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Today we can identify many of the characteristics of vocal sound that express emotions and correlate them with the speaker’s facial expressions.
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By looking for discrepancies between the face and the voice, we can come closer to identifying a speaker’s truthfulness, sincerity, and trustworthiness, but we still do not have a documented way to train people to recognize many of the basic emotions concealed in tone of voice.
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However, we can take some clues from actors, who have often been used in the research mentioned above. When actors need to project a warm demeanor, they do it by recalling a compassionate dialogue from their past.

If you drop the pitch of your voice and talk more slowly, the listener will hear and respond with greater trust. This strategy was developed and tested in 2011 at the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders at the University of Houston, and it has been used to help oncologists present bad news to patients in the most supportive way possible. When the doctors reduced their speaking rate and pitch, the listeners perceived them “as more caring and sympathetic.”
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Ted Kaptchuk, of the Harvard Medical School, also discovered that using a warm voice would double the healing power of a therapeutic treatment.
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Kaptchuk actually uses many of the strategies of Compassionate Communication to improve the health of his patients, and these, he states, are the key elements of success: “A warm, friendly manner; active listening . . . ; empathy . . . ; twenty seconds of thoughtful silence . . . ; and communication of confidence and positive expectation.”

We use our words to express our wounds, and we use our words to heal. Thus it makes great sense that we train our voices to speak warmly, with confidence, empathy, and hope. Organizational psychologists at the University of Amsterdam concur: A strong, harsh, or dominant voice may impel others to comply with our wishes, but it will generate resentment that leads to weaker performance. A warm supportive voice is the sign of transformational leadership and will generate more satisfaction, commitment, and cooperation between members of a team.
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The Power of Emotional Speech

Study of the neural circuits associated with emotional speech gives us helpful information about strategies for speaking more empathetically.
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For example, if you want to express joy, your voice needs to become increasingly melodic, whereas sadness will be conveyed by a flat and monotonic voice. When we are angry, excited, or frightened, we raise the pitch and intensity of our voices, and there’s a lot of variability in both the speed and the tone.

However, if the vocal emotion is incongruent with the words you are using, it will create confusion for the listener.
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You can test this by saying “I am angry” with a warm tone of voice and a sweet expression on your face. It creates a distinct pattern of neural dissonance. The same would be true if you heard “I love you” said in a loud, harsh tone of voice. At first the message would be confusing, but because the power of a negative word or sound trumps the power of a positive expression, the harshness would cause reactions of anger or fear in both you and the listener.
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