Making Sense Of Your Communication Style

When you are developing your intuition and listening skills, a good place to start is understanding what the main way that you communicate is.

Lots of misunderstandings could be avoided if we listened in a different way. Listening requires you to concentrate and use your other senses in addition to simply hearing the words spoken.

I often find it difficult if people go into too much detail and drone on in a communication style that doesn’t match mine. This is when my journal or pen and paper is my best friend. I can scribble and create mindmaps to capture the key points.

I, for example, am highly visual, followed by auditory and kinesthetic. That means I see things and receive information in images. When I get messages (from spirit) they are often in songs and I also get strong feelings.

The same goes for learning. Everyone has an optimum way of learning new information. A person’s learning style is a combination of how they perceive, then organise and process information. When you’re familiar with your learning and communication style, you can take important steps to help yourself learn faster and more easily. Plus, learning how to decipher the learning and communication styles of others — like your colleagues, clients, family and friends — can help you strengthen your rapport and influence with them.

I also use this when I am writing books. I’m not rigid, but I am aware if I use too many visual words. This is something you can do at the edit stage.

What is your preferred communication style?

Each of us has a preferred communication style (visual, auditory, kinesthetic or auditory digital). There are two more which are gustatory and olfactory. There’s also your intuitive communication style but well talk about that another day.

Despite having one preferred system you may combine two. E.g. you may be listening to a piece of music which sparks your imagination and you see pictures in your mind, or you may see a picture of a cake and begin to imagine what it tastes like. Yum… I think I might do this too…

People use language based mainly on their 5 senses. By matching their sensory words, you can establish a deep level of trust and rapport. We also listen and make sense in the same way.

Understanding these will help you to frame or ask questions in a more relevant way and of course, help you to understand your preferences and why you may find it difficult communicating or working with others who do not communicate in the same way as you.

One style is not better than another, it is simply your preferred way. However, if you can develop your language so that you can cover each, you will find it more effective when working and being with others.

Communication Style — Visual

• Your thinking process involves creating pictures in your mind.
• You understand things best when you can ‘get the picture’ in your mind’s eye.
• You represent ideas and memories as mental images so you learn best when there are diagrams that represent ideas.
• Your note-taking can be made more effective by using colours and shapes
• Mind-mapping can be helpful in organising your thoughts.
• You talk rather fast and because you’ve got the picture in your head of what you’re talking about,
• You may skim over the details.
• Other people may notice your tendency to use your hands a lot when talking; that’s your way of describing the pictures in your mind.

Example of language to use

You have shown me of a way to proceed that looks good and I would like to see more of it

Thinking Points

• You pay attention to how you, your surroundings and others look.
• You need space to see your internal pictures — you can interrupt your thinking by being in your “picture place”.
• You can also find it difficult to concentrate on lots of visual activity.
• You talk quickly, breathe higher and often develop upper body tension. There is a lot more information in a picture than a verbal description.
• You use visual information for planning, remembering and decision-making.
• Need to see a picture of what you are saying.
• You are better at remembering faces than names.
• You prefer to meet you to see your facial reactions rather than use the phone to understand what you are saying.

Communication Style -Auditory

• You process your thinking with sounds.
• You learn best when you can talk things over with someone or listen to what someone has to say.
• You may be more aware of the sound of a person’s voice, than what they are saying.
• You can be convinced more by what someone says to you than by what you read in a book.

Example of language to use

You have told me of a way to proceed that sounds good and I would like to hear more about it

Thinking Points

• You pay attention to the tone of the conversation rather than the actual words.
• You have a resonance to your voice and talk at a medium pace.
• You breathe more deeply in your diaphragm.
• You like to talk out problems, ask many questions.
• You enjoy listening to music, talking, and quiet.
• Noise distracts you.
• You sometimes don’t notice what is going on around you visually.
• You prefer to talk on the phone rather than face to face.
• To you, thinking is talking things over in your head.
• Words and your meanings are important to you.
• Words mean so much to you that language will tend to form a filter between you and real experience.
• You will ‘live in your head’ rather than living in the real world.
• Because you listen more to the voice in your head than to what others are saying, you may miss out on what others are saying to you.
• You may also miss the meanings people convey in your voice tone, which can make relationships difficult.
• You have a preference for analysing logically rather than responding emotionally.

Communication Style — Auditory Digital

• Thinking is talking things over in your head.
• Words and their meanings are important to you.
• Words mean so much to you that language will tend to form a filter between you and real experience.
• You will ‘live in your head’ rather than living in the real world.
• Because you listen more to the voice in your head than to what others are saying, you may miss out on what others are saying to you.
• You may also miss the meanings people convey in their voice tone, which can make relationships difficult.
• You have a preference for analysing logically rather than responding emotionally.

Example of language to use

You have made me aware of a way to which you could proceed with that makes sense and give me more details.

Thinking points

• You talk to yourself a lot, as you make sense of your worlds with internal dialogue. You can tell you are doing this by your eye patterns and sometimes mouth movements
• You often seem to be debating something inside your head — your head will tilt slightly one way and then the other.
• You like to talk things out with others or use you as a sounding board for your ideas.
• You find it difficult to stay focused on what is going on around you, as you will want to go inside your head to process.
• You ten, to be critical of self and others.
• You like to think, plan and analyse.
• You need to “make sense” of things.
• You have a strong secondary communication style or even have some aspects of all styles — remember this is a second layer for some other sensory processing.
• You are good at categorising and summarising.
• You are fond of lists, flow charts and writing things down.
• You can be very logical — this does not necessarily mean you think in sequential, step-by-step ways.

Communication Style — Kinaesthetic

• You process your thinking through bodily sensations.
• You learn best when you can be in touch with the physical world around you.
• This may either be by involving yourself in taking lots of notes, or by moving around.
• You also represent thoughts as feelings and use your intuitive sense to check whether things are correct or incorrect.
• You talk and breathe deeply.
• It may seem to you that you need a longer time than other people to think of what you want to say.
• It may also take you longer to understand things.

Example of language to use

You have touched on a way to proceed that feels good and I would like to get a better grasp for it

Thinking Points

• You pay attention to your bodies and feelings.
• You learn by doing, and so have difficulty with traditional learning methods.
• You like to touch things and people.
• You will want to wear comfortable clothes and shoes rather than what looks good.
• You tend to speak more slowly. Feelings take a lot more time to process than pictures.
• You will make decisions based on how you feel.

So which are you?

It’s fascinating, isn’t it? I know when I first learned this and learned how to flex my communication style so much changed.

Now that you have read through the types, which do you think you are? If you are a mixture what is your mix? Also think about where you get stuck, with who and when. What do you learn from this and what can you do differently.

You will find that the more aware you become and willing to flex your style the better listener and communicator you will become.

This also works for your intuitive style. If you work with spirit, angels or other guides, are they communicating with you in the same style as your main communication style?

Try this

Pay attention to how you communicate in both writing and speaking as you go about your day. Also pay attention to others, especially those who you feel a bit stuck with…

• How do you think you can flex your style?
• How would you build rapport someone who is opposite to you?

If this resonates and you want to work with an intuitive coach who will help you to traverse the heady world of being human through the chakras and journaling, please book a call.

Originally published at https://daledarley.com on December 8, 2020.