Audio Tidbits

When non-blind people think about being blind, they start from their personal perspective. The easy conclusion is that they couldn't do much on their own. When blind people think about being blind, they too think about it from their personal perspective. For me as a blind person, my conclusion is that being blind is a nuisance but does not stop me from doing most anything I want to do or need to do.

As you can tell from the title, I'm rambling again. I do have a new air fryer and I do have a gadget that tells me when the mail carrier delivers my mail. Also, we are going to have a new President and today is Veterans' Day. All true. Even so, I do tend to ramble.

I got in early to order my new iPhone 12 mini that is coming next Friday. Why a new iPhone? Does "reading the mail" surprise you? Add that to a cracked bucket for Oliver's water and a cleaner house and you have most of what's new for me.

Today's discussion includes the election, how nice it is to have children and grandchildren who care and the simple fact that, if it's ok today, that's about as good as it can be or ever gets.

I find myself in a new city, in a new house, by myself, blind and just me and Oliver -- my guide dog. Getting back behind the mic is an option that hasn't changed. I'll be podcasting more often and plan to talk about how to get along blind when experience does not serve very well. I know how to live blind but know little to nothing about doing it by myself. It is an unexpected adventure, but an adventure nonetheless. Perhaps you will want to stop by now and then to take the journey with me.

If Kevin doesn't tickle your happy spot with this one, you may just not have one. Please press play and test yourself.

Crisis feeling is a different dimension of communication than crisis color.  Crisis color relates to the mood or tone when responding to crisis.  Crisis feeling relates to the messages we receive.  Each message has both a content and feeling associated with it.  The message has an objective or factual meaning, while the individual has specific feelings about those facts.  In addition to understanding the fact or objective reality, crisis communication directs us to recognize and understand the feeling as well.  The process of understanding and responding to the feeling and content of the message is message clarification.  In the course of crisis communication, it is necessary to understand and clarify both the content and feeling of the messages from individuals in crisis.  When we are able to do this in an effective way, we are reaching a point of honest, informed empathy with the individual.  This level of empathy lets him know that we hear him, we understand, and we care.

Please press play to listen.

The development of this interaction model of crisis communication shows content and crisis feeling as separate but interrelated aspects of the communication loop.  In actual crisis situations however, it may be helpful to think about content and feeling as parts of a message clarification process.  The individual has ideas and feelings that he wants to communicate to us.  He somehow puts these into verbal and nonverbal messages that we have to interpret.  How do we go about decoding or interpreting his messages?  We want to know what he means and how he feels.  As we begin to communicate with him then, we might deal with each message by first clarifying the meaning and feelings.  We could say to him, I hear you saying that things happened this way.  We then restate what we understood him to have said.  Having done that, we say, If that is what you meant, it seems like you feel this way about it, and tell him how we think he feels.  He has given us a message, and we have responded by telling him what we understood him to have meant and how we think he feels about it.  This helps him think about what he meant and what was involved in the situation as well as getting him to focus specifically on his feelings.  If we have accurately understood and read his feelings, he will go on to give us another message.  If not, he will clarify his meaning or feeling.  With each message, we can go through this process of restating the meaning and feeling, letting him clarify and restate if we were wrong, and continuing back and forth until we really do understand.  More importantly, this process lets him know that we understand.  To push the point one step farther, we can see that the process of message clarification helps him think more clearly about what is going on and helps him clarify his own feelings.  He has used our skill and ability to enhance his own ability to understand and think through his thoughts and feelings.  To summarize the idea of message clarification, we want to be sure that we understand both the meaning and feeling dimensions of each message.  We accomplish this by restating the message in our own words and asking the individual if we have accurately caught his meaning.  In addition, we reflect back to him our understanding of his feelings about the particular incident, person, situation, and so on.  This gives him an opportunity to see if we really do understand how he feels.  If we have misread his feelings, he can clarify them for us.  We will continue the process of restating and reflecting the meaning and feeling of the message until the individual agrees that we really do understand what he meant and how he feels.  We will not go on to another subject or question until we are sure that we really do understand what is being said now.  I hear you saying…, and you seem to feel….  I hear you saying…, but I’m not sure how you feel about it.  You seem to feel…, but I’m not sure what you think about it.  If we continue the process of message clarification until we understand both the meaning and the feeling of the message, we have reached a point of honest, informed empathy.  This level of understanding and empathy is the major goal of crisis communication. …

Please press play to continue.

As we become involved in the communication loop with the individual and especially as we focus on communication content, it is extremely important that we understand both the meaning and feeling of each message.

As we try to understand the meaning and feeling dimensions of each message, we need to be sure we do not assume that the individual feels this way or that way about it.  In the case of the teenager who thought her boyfriend was going out with another girl, we may have assumed that the teenage girl would be angry with her boyfriend.  We would have been wrong.  She was, in fact, angry with the other girl but not with her boyfriend.  Had we assumed that she was angry with her boyfriend without checking that out with her, we would have been very much on the wrong track in working with her.

Mrs. N says, I really didn’t have any interest.  It just doesn’t turn me on for him to come home and say, ‘Well, do you want to do it tonight?’  I said No because that really doesn’t do anything for me—I mean, you just can’t say, Well, okay.  If I’d say No, he’d say, ‘Well, okay.’  The next time he was alone, he would take out his sexual frustrations on himself rather than bother me about it.  [You ask: Do you think the masturbation part is bad?  What do you think about it?]  I don’t think that’s really wrong, but it makes me feel inadequate.  I feel like I’m not satisfying him or something.  But when he feels so guilty about it, that’s what really bothers me.  If he could feel like its okay and there’s nothing wrong with it, I wouldn’t worry about it at all.  We get along fine most of the time, but it’s just when he walks in and says, ‘Let’s do it,’ that upsets me. …

Please press play to continue.

Crisis color tells us something about the individual as a whole person in the present situation.  Communication feeling has to do with the specific messages conveyed back and forth between you and the individual in crisis.  As we looked at the content within the communication loop, we saw that each message has a factual or objective meaning.  Each message also comes with its own specific feeling.  For example, an individual may be very angry—his crisis may be red.  However, this does not necessarily mean that he is angry about everything and everyone.  In fact, there may be some people, events, or situations involved in his crisis that make him feel good, smile, or feel pleased.  A small child who is very upset or angry with one parent may have good and loving feelings toward the other.  A teenager who is very upset and apprehensive as a result of her boyfriend’s going out with another girl may be furious with the girl but still have loving, caring feelings toward the boyfriend.  Even though the individual’s mood may be predominantly anxious, afraid, angry, or depressed, it is not necessarily or usually true that he is upset about everything and everyone.  Similarly, some things may be making him feel fearful while others make him feel guilty; some things may make him feel angry while others make him feel apprehensive. …

Please press play to continue.