Photo Credit: Courtesy Of Round Lake Area Park District
As park and recreation professionals, we communicate with many different types of people on any given day: co-workers, parents, children, individuals with special needs, senior citizens, elected officials, etc. By using mindful communication, we can craft each message to fit the needs of the individual audience and ensure each message is heard correctly.
Being Mindful
I bet that mindfulness is not a new term to many people, given how popular mindfulness meditation has become in recent years. But it doesn’t just apply to meditation; one can mindfully walk the dog, eat mindfully, or go for a mindful walk. What does it mean to be “mindful”? Being mindful means being fully present in the moment, without judgment of any thoughts or feelings. In mindfulness meditation, the focus is solely on the breath, and bringing the focus back to the breath whenever the mind wanders. Becoming a good mindful meditator takes practice; the same goes for being a good mindful communicator.
[AUTHOR RECCOMMENDS Communication Model Image HERE]
[Image caption:] The transactional communication model illustrates the process of one person (sender) encoding the message, sending it to the receiver, who then decodes the message and sends feedback. All the while, external noise interacts with their communication.