3 Things You Need to Know about Trauma and Communication
I was recently traveling (domestically, of course) to teach a workshop on leadership and communication. My audience of participants were professional women from a range of backgrounds, including banking, education, and women’s empowerment.
As usual, my content was all interactive. One of the modules was on verbal and non-verbal communication. The group split into teams and practiced scenarios, after which I demonstrated some postural and verbal tips. Then they practiced again.
Most of the women struggled with keeping their body posture open – they kept clasping their hands. Their eyes wandered around the room when they practiced speaking to a supervisor, even in our simulated setting. They looked outside themselves for validation even when the scenario stipulated that they were the most experienced person for the task at hand. A lack of confidence was visible and powerfully influencing all the women in the room. As someone who facilitates workshops for women on empowered communication, I find this is not uncommon…
What we learned together was striking, and here are three important points to consider for your own journey to empowered communication:
- Unresolved trauma is present every time we communicate. It can be seen in our posture and eye contact, heard in our tone, and observed in our overall comfort and confidence level.
- Deep work is necessary to remove trauma. One workshop was enough to expose the trauma and to impart some tips on how to address them, but long term coaching and healing work is needed to uproot deeply embedded trauma patterns and influences.
- Embodied cognition helps. To use the body as a vehicle for cognitive change is one way to address mental limitations we face in our communication. Keeping the body posture open, spine straight, and holding steady eye contact are important. Practicing power poses before we go into important meetings is also critical.
Notice the next time you stand up to speak in any situation – a lecture, a pitch, or a difficult conversation with a family member. Observe your posture and what your body is holding on to from the past. Removing trauma so we can communicate authentically is one of the most important things we can do.
