interaction with them. When you are speaking do they feel safe or judged? Loved or attacked? Accepted or rejected? Respected or put down? Does the other person feel like your equal or your inferior? You can deliver precisely the same words and, depending upon what the other person feels in your presence, you will be communicating radically different things. Furthermore, what roles do you cast yourself in while speaking? Do you become a know-it-all? Are you more enlightened and psychologically astute than they? Do you become the boss? An expert? A school teacher? A critic? A whiner? An orator?

Lastly regardless of the words you are using, what is the real emotion which lies behind them? For example, are you desperately trying to sound strong when you are actually scared? Or, one I know all too well with my own children, are you trying to present yourself as calm and controlled while feeling angry, even furious underneath? At those times what am I really communicating to them? I’m communicating anger, not calmness and control. At a deeper level still, and one that is harder for me to look at, I am communicating that anger is bad, that I am bad for having it and that it has to be covered up by the pretense of calmness and control. Yikes! May they have unlimited forgiveness for me!

Communication is that which is being received. It is not necessarily what you think, hope, want, believe or intend to communicate. With every single interaction. be it with loved ones or, for that matter, with all of the people in your life, we leave a trail behind. With every single interaction the prospects for relationship and real connection expand or contract.

What are you leaving behind? What does your fruit bowl look like to others?