Exercise Twenty-Seven - Practice Communicating at Different Levels of Intensity

I have sometimes been told I’m intense. Richard Green (psychiatrist) once shouted ‘It’s the valence!’ at me mid-argument. I can’t remember how the row ended.

Anyway, in recent years I’ve tried to lighten up a bit, and mix some humour into how I relate.

The intensity exercise is -

“Practice Communicating at Different Levels of Intensity”

and because the main thing I care about right now is an open window, I’m going to use this as my training example.

The thinking behind the exercise is to -

“Practice expressing yourself at varying levels of intensity. Many people struggle to communicate across the full range of emotions: the goal here is to broaden your repertoire so that you aren’t limited to just a few levels of intensity!”

Here goes –

1)”Choose a recent on ongoing interpersonal situation that brings up unwanted emotions.” Okay, I have one. Asking for a window to be opened, and getting a variety of negative answers.

2) “Consider what you want from the other person (your objective) in this situation.” Just an open window for a bit, or an option on an open window should I need it. Or for an open window to stay that way for more than a minute and a half.

 3) “Using the table (see below, practice expressing what you want at each of the levels of intensity. Practice each level of intensity out loud, so you can actually hear your own voice at each one.”

Here is the Table of Varying Intensity –

So, here is me, communicating at different levels of intensity about open windows –

So this is roughly how it’s done. Luckily our authors advise not worrying if our wishes and requests are unrealistic. It’s the practice that counts. So, windows may still remain closed to me, but I’m getting to finesse how to be assertive, but not aggressive.

There’s another exercise after this one – Determine the Effective Level of Intensity – but I’m going to leave this for now. The aim of the exercise, though, is to match intensity appropriately to any situation. As usual, Wise Mind is brought into play to help us decide how intensely, or not, to ask for what we want.