You can help!

Cash App Me

cashapp link
   

Misc

Communication

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People - Communication - Talking and Listening Habits

Wow! As I was reading a very good book based on making, or should I say helping, individuals on achieving more effective relationships through certain habits, I came across something I try to practice faithfully and preach constantly… the art of communication.

And since the author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People seems much more articulate than I, I will thus use his words and interject them with some of mine in an attempt to further such a message, cool?

Right now you are reading this essay I’ve written, right?

Well, reading and writing are both forms of communication.

So are speaking and listening.

In fact, these are the four basic types of communication.

Now think of all the hours we spend doing at least one of them.

The ability to do them well is absolutely critical to being effective in communicating and influencing others, for the better, of course.

Communication is the most important skill in life.

We spend most of our waking hours communicating.

But let’s consider the following: we’ve spent years learning how to read and write, years learning how to speak properly.

But what about listening?

What training or education have we had that enables us to listen so that we really understand another human being from his/her own frame of reference of perspective?

I’ve dealt with lots of very well-educated individuals, yet their listening skills are incredibly poor and, at times, non-existent.

If we really want to interact effectively with someone, to influence them, you spouse, co-worker, supervisor, friend… we must first understand them or at least make the attempt.

But we cannot do so by just speaking. Most people, if they sense you’re just using some kind of speaking technique, will sense duplicity, manipulation, or what I term verbal jujitsu.

They will wonder why you’re doing it, what are your motives, and will not feel safe enough to open up to you.

The real key to influence others for the better is through our example, our actual conduct. The example flows naturally out of our character or the kind of person we truly are. And to do this, we must understand the individual we seek to influence. And to do so, we must first listen, then understand them, and subsequently make ourselves understood and have the intent we seek to impart.

Most of us do not listen with the intent to understand, we listen with the sole intent to reply and have the spotlight shining on us. We are either speaking or preparing to speak. We’re filtering everything through our own model, reading our opinion to others.

If we have a problem with someone, a family member, an authority figure, a co-worker, the attitude is, “that person just doesn’t understand.”

That’s the case with so many of us. We’re filled with our own rightness and pride. We want to be understood and our conversations tend to become effective monologues, and we never really understand what’s going on with the other person.

When another person speaks, we’re usually listening at one of four levels. We may be ignoring the person, not listening at all. We may practice pretending, “yeah, uh-huh., right.”

We may act like selective listeners hearing only certain parts of the conversation. Or we may even practice attentive listening, paying attention and focusing on the words being said. But very few of us practice the fifth level, emphatic (from empathy) listening.

When I say emphatic listening, I’m not referring to the techniques of active or reflective listening, which basically involves mimicking what another person says. That kind of listening is skill based, truncated from character and relationships, and often insults those listened to in such way.

Again, when I say emphatic listening, I mean listening with the intent to understand. Seeking first to understand, to truly understand. It is an entirely different mental shift. Emphatic listening gets inside another person’s frame of reference. You look out through it. You see the world the way they see it. You understand how they feel and what they may be going through.

Emphatic listening involves much more than registering, reflecting, or even understanding the words that are being said. Communications experts estimate, in fact, that only 10 percent of our communication is represented by the words we say. Another 30 percent is by our sounds, and 60 percent by our body language.

In emphatic listening, you listen with your ears, but also, and more importantly, listen with your eyes and your heart. You listen for feeling, for meaning. You listen for behavior. You sense, you intuit, you feel. It is powerful because it gives you accurate data to consider.

When you listen with empathy to another person, you give that person psychological respect. And after that vital need is met, you can then focus on influencing or problems solving.

Therefore, beloved comrades, that psychological respect, which is the fruit of truly listening, impacts communication in ways you cannot imagine in every area of life… let’s give it a try, deal?

Ernesto Cole

Bad Day – Mother’s Day

What it's really like for prison wives on Mother's Day, and any bad day. The powerless life of a prison wife when it hurts.

Greetings, gentlemen and women all around the world. As Mothers’ Day approaches and the thought of my precious mother along with the thought of my lovely with and beautiful mothers of my children, I could not help but to dedicate a heartfelt essay from an Expository writing I’ve had with me for many years, yet never disposed of it because of its very dear and extremely profound meaning.


Additionally, after witnessing via the phone and visitation many of my co-recluses disrespect and demean their women, I beg of you to take this exposition into dear account and give your women the true value and respect they truly deserve.

And, for those of you who have refused to do the aforementioned, keep up the good work because you will be rewarded in due time, if not already, deal?

Today is a bad day.

I wish I could say that I’ve never had one before, but bad days consume my life.

I have no escape from them.


Today is a day I wonder.

Where is the support for us sisters in the struggle? What a man asks a woman to wait for him while he’s in prison, does he realize what an incredible emotional sacrifice that is? Does he realize that, yes, we’re in the struggle too?


When I made this choice to do this bid with my man, I didn’t know that it would mean to consciously hand over the control and happiness of my life, not to my man, but to an institution. From the very beginning, my man told me I had the Power in the relationship? That I should take the lead because I was the one who was free.


How am I free?

What power do I have?

I buy my clothes according to what is acceptable for visits. At any time I can go where my heart desires, but my heart’s desire is trapped within that prison compound.

So where am I going?

I stalk the mailman and won’t leave the house until he comes; waiting for a white envelope with familiar handwriting that has taken the place of hugs and kisses. I check the phone several times a day to make sure it’s working, waiting to hear it ring and see unavailable appear on the caller ID, a sight that has taken the place of the sound of my doorbell or his car horn. I set my watch to the clocks in prison. I schedule my bedtime around COUNT.

No, I don’t have any power.

The phone company has the power. The mailman has the power. Corrlinks has the power. Father Time has the power. The prison and the guards, they have all the power. Today I feel helpless and out of control. Today is surely a bad day and yes, I am struggling too…


Today, like most bad days that pass, I see a little bit of my life that has slipped away; another memory not made, another dream that hasn’t come true.

One more day my family is separated.

One more day I am without a real home. I am so often standing in the line between sanity and insanity.

I have to keep telling myself, “he’s real, this is real, our love is real, and the end will come.”

Today when he called I had to fight the urge to beg him to come home.

“Please come home, if you really loved me, you would find a way.”

Today I blame him for keeping us apart.

Today I am so very angry with him.

Today is definitely a bad day and yes, I am struggling too…

A good day can turn bad in the blink of an eye, a tick of the clock, or a beat of my heart. I am on an emotional roller coaster that changes its course without warning or consideration for my mental state.

It never asks my permission… attacks of depression, despair, confusion and frustrations hit me and consume me from the bottom of my feet to the top of my head and every crevice of my body in between. Some days I just want to curl up in bed and sleep. Sleep the years away. Some bad days I can’t even sleep or even eat.


Sometimes I even have to make my heart beat and lungs take in oxygen. Suicide is never a thought, but dying of loneliness is always, a possibility. Today I have no answers that make sense for the thousands of questions running through my head. My mind is cluttered with doubts and confusion and this makes my heart heavy with guilt and shame.

How can I question the only real joy in my life? There are so many people who are lonely, without love and passion in their lives, so as difficult as this ordeal is; I know that what he and I share is the most precious of all gifts.


But today I can’t remember all the unconditional love, support, and non-judgment that my man has bestowed upon me. Today I can’t remember all that. My man is the only one who truly understands and accepts me, the good and the bad…

Today, I can’t remember all the passion that my man has brought out of me. Today I can’t remember that the sound of his voice can bring me to orgasm. Today I can’t remember that he plays no games, tells no lies, and wears our love like a badge of honor.

Today is obviously a bad day and yes, I am struggling too… while I wouldn’t change one second, erase one tear, or forget one heartache, I can truly understand why any woman would choose not to wait. The reality is that I am in prison too… I am also doing this time and the only thing I am guilty of is loving my man.

For ever one of us that stands by our men, that can endure the bad days and savor the good, there are many that can’t.

Many just don’t even try. To the men whose women choose to move on, I feel your pain but, you must always remember that there are always two sides to every story.

Your women might not always tell what’s in their hearts, but if you listen hard enough you can hear them. You can hear their confusion and fear pleading with you to understand, to forgive, to accept and to remember…

Not every woman is strong enough to endure the bad days the struggle brings!


To all of you men who know, have, or has had a woman in your life, please communicate with them and wish them a Happy and Blessed Mothers’ Day for eternity and beyond, deal?


Thank you dearly and many, many blessings.

Ernesto Cole

I Have a Dream – Martin Luther King Jr

Learning diversity and respect for others from Martin Luther King Jr

After reading “I Have A Dream” by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., I must admit that he has my true respect and honor to the point where I can truly say that he has been and still is one of my dear heroes.

I say so because as a child born in another country, in a small community, and in a racially mixed family (my mother being of Indian, white, and African descent, married and having children with a white Hispanic with Indian trace as well, then re-marrying and birthing me with a man of African descent), I had no idea what racial discrimination or separation was.

In the early 70s, I was brought by my father to live in Boston, Mass. at the age of approximately eight or nine, and the racism I experienced shocked me tremendously, since I was “forced” to attend all white schools by my father, supposedly for a better education.

During that hectic time for me, a book titled Root by Alex Haley was published and I was also forced by my father to read it.

In hindsight, I thanked my father dearly because through that book I became aware of the injustices committed against Africans and people of color and their descent here in America.

Additionally, that book made me much more aware of my history and what I was considered and viewed as here in this country, and the world as well.

Either way, the reason I consider Dr. King my hero from the first time I heard the “I Have A Dream” speech, is because I already knew of the injustices, trials, tribulations, conspiracies, and even death-threats against him and his entire family.

Yet and despite it all and knowing he was a marked man, he never wavered, faltered, or backed down and relented (which by many would have been the expected thing to do).

Amazingly, he never even resorted to violence in actions nor words, which is so evident in his speeches.

On the contrary, he urged his followers not to condescend to wrongful deeds or drink from the cup of bitterness and hatred.

So yes, even though Dr. King was later assassinated, his words are prophetic:

“I am happy to join with you today in what will go down as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of this nation.”

His legacy is unsurpassed, and his impact in the fight against racial equality unrivaled.


Therefore, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., I, posthumously extend to you my total/true admiration, love, and respect.

May God bless you and keep you forever in His glory!

Ernesto Cole

Love Yourself and Love

Love and accept yourself before you can love anyone else.

Do you want to help?

Help yourself first.

Only the loved ones love.

Only the free liberate.

Only the ones that are at peace with themselves are a fountain of peace.

Those who suffer, make others suffer.

Those who are failures need to see others fail.

Those who are hurt show violence.

Those with conflicts create conflicts around them.

Ernesto Cole

Today I Promise

Today what do you decide to do? What kind of friend are you going to be today?

To be strong, that nothing or no one could disturb the peace of my spirit.

To speak of health, progress, and happiness to everyone I meet.

To make my friends feel that there’s something great in them.

To see everything on the noble and beautiful side, making my optimism sincere.

To think of the best and hope only for the best.

To have as much enthusiasm for the success of others as for mine.

To forget the errors of the past and fight for the greater realizations of the future.

To always carry a happy face and have a smile for everyone.

To employ so much time in my improvement that I will not have time to criticize others.

To be big in grief, noble in anger, and strong towards fear, so that my happiness will not be afraid to the presence of pain.

Ernesto Cole

I Asked God – Prayer

Prayer - Asking God for things and receiving what you need.

I asked for strength and God gave me difficulties to make me strong.

I asked for wisdom and God gave me problems to solve.

I asked for prosperity and God gave me brawn and brain to work.

I asked for courage and God gave me dangers to overcome.

I asked for patience and God placed me in situations where I was forced to wait.

I asked for love and God gave me troubled people to help.

I asked for favors and God gave me opportunities.

I received nothing I wanted — I received everything I needed.

My prayer has been answered.

I asked God for a flower — He gave me a bouquet.

I asked God for a minute — He gave me a day.

I asked God for true love — He gave me that too.

I asked God for and angel — and He gave me you.

I asked God for strength that I might achieve.

I was made weak that I might learn humbly to obey.

I asked for health that I might do greater things.

I was given infirmity that I might do better things.

I asked for riches that I might be happy.

I was given poverty that I might be wise.

I asked for power that I might have the praise of men.

I was given weakness that I might feel the need of God.

I asked for all things that I need that I might enjoy life.

I was given life that I might enjoy all things.

I got nothing that I asked for, but everything I hoped for. Almost despite myself, my unspoken prayers were answered. I am, among all men, most richly blessed.

The Prayer of an Unknown Confederate Soldier

Ernesto Cole

Peace

True inner peace - is it around you?

Peace — it does not mean to be in a place where there is no noise, trouble, or hard work.

It means to be in the midst of those things and still be calm in your heart.

Ernesto Cole

Life

May your life be full of enthusiasm and you be eager, strong, and happy.

May your life be full of:

Enthusiasm so you may see ahead.

Happiness to keep you joyful.

Problems to keep you strong.

Grief to keep you human.

Hope to keep you happy.

Failures to keep you humble.

Triumph to keep you eager.

Wealth to satisfy your needs.

Faith to banish depression.

Decision to make every day better than yesterday!

Ernesto Cole

Life is Too Short

Life is too short to hold onto things that don't make you happy - relationships, grudges, past - be happy and let go.

Life is too short to wake up with regrets. So love the people who treat you right. Forget about the ones who don’t. Believe everything happens for a reason. If you get a second chance, grab it with both hands.

If it changes your life, let it.

Nobody said it would be easy, they just promised it would be worth it.

Friends are like balloons — once you let them go, you might not get them back. Sometimes we get so busy with our own lives and problems that we may not even notice that we’ve let them fly away. Sometimes we are so caught up in who’s right and who’s wrong that we forget what’s right and what’s wrong. Sometimes we just don’t realize what real friendship means until it’s too late.

I don’t want to let that happen, so I’m going to tie you to my heart, so I never lose you.

One thing you can give and still keep… is your word.

The happiness of your life depends on the quality of your thoughts.

Ernesto Cole

Love Is

What is true love in a relationship? What brings happiness, prosperity, and success? How can a relationship thrive?

Being happy for the other person when they are happy,
Being sad for the other person when they are sad.

Being together in good times and being together in bad times.

Love is the source of strength.

Being honest with yourself at all times,
Being honest with the other person at all times.

Telling, listening, respecting the truth and never pretending.

Love is the source of reality.

An understanding that is so complete that you feel as if you are a part of the other person.

Accepting the other person the way they are,
Not trying to change them to be someone else.

Love is a source of unity.
The freedom to pursue your own desires while sharing your experiences with the other person.

The growth of one individual alongside of, and together with the growth of another individual.

Love is the source of success.

The excitement of planning things together,
The excitement of doing things together.

Love is the source of the future.

Giving and taking in a daily situation,
Being patient with each other’s needs and desires.

Love is the source of sharing.

Ernesto Cole

Please show your support!

Cash App Me

cashapp link