Mature communication is a fundamental building block of society, as it helps us to function effectively. In order to address conflict in society, the late Dr Marshal Rosenberg, an American psychologist, wrote a book called Nonviolent Communication – A Language of Life. Dr Rosenberg believed that human beings are, at their core, empathetic and compassionate. A mature, non-judgemental, non-violent reaction to hurtful situations is a choice we make and can be learnt at any time.

Conflict is a part of our daily lives. It could be because of irrational learnt beliefs and prejudices, negative emotions, misunderstandings, or lack of concern for others. Today, cutthroat competition is lauded by the media and influencers. This constant quest for being ‘first’ results in conflict when our needs are unmet. Living on the edge brings unhappiness, destroys human relationships and results in various psychosomatic sicknesses. For instance, a gossip is impinging on the rights of others by spreading canards. Some communicate through criticism, bullying, aggression and sarcasm.

Irrational Culturally Learnt Beliefs and Prejudices: “As the head of this family, my daughter must be married off early. A woman’s place is in the house. What does she need an education for?” Prejudice colours a person’s thinking, and he will defend a lie.

Negative Emotions: A person feels worthless, perhaps due to mental and physical abuse during his/her early days. Consequently, the person is aggressive in communicating with others.

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There are some people who manage to pack a lot in a twenty-four hour day. They are trailblazers who inspire us with their achievements. One such person is sixteen-year-old, now world-famous mountaineer Kaamya Karthikeyan.

Kaamya is the daughter of Western Navy Cdr. S. Karthikeyan and his wife Lavanya, an educator. Her father has a passion for mountaineering which he inculcated in Kaamya from an early age. This standard 12 girl has a lot of firsts to her credit. On 20 May 2024, she conquered Mount Everest (height: 8,849 metres) with her father, making her the youngest Indian and the world’s second youngest person to climb the formidable mountain. The Indian Navy congratulated her on her “immense courage and fortitude”.

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I recently watched an interesting video about the narratives we constantly make up in our minds about individuals and occurrences. These narratives or stories are coloured by our experiences and how we perceive these experiences. Our prejudices also have a part to play.

Imagine a scenario where you have been hospitalised and missed out on school work. When your best friend does not share her notes with you, you give her a lot of leeway. You mentally excuse her: “She is acting out of character. Must be her bad day, after all.” But when another classmate refuses to share her notes, you think: “Selfish girl! What more can you expect from her type?” You have attributed two different reasons for the same behaviour.

We tend to use a single narrative thought process. We use it even for ourselves. I am absent-minded and often misplace things. My daughter, Minal, asked me to buy her a kurta and suggested I keep the bill in case she wanted to exchange it. After my purchase, I focused and kept the bill in the carry bag. Minal wanted to exchange it, and said it was not in the carry bag with the garment. Being aware of my absent-mindedness, I emptied my purse, but there was no bill. I once again looked into the carry bag and found it.

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Wikipedia defines gaslighting as “a form of psychological manipulation in which a person or group covertly sow seeds of doubt in a targeted individual or group, making them question their memory, perception or judgment.” Narcissists resort to gaslighting as they crave to be the centre of attention. Also, those with low self-esteem resort to this manipulation so that they may appear superior in comparison to their victim.

What are the different forms of gaslighting you should guard yourself against?

Minimizing Your Feelings: The manipulator makes remarks like, “Don’t be a drama queen!”, “You are being hypersensitive and making a mountain out of a molehill.”, “Big boys don’t cry.” This results in you being ashamed of your feelings and bottling them up. What may seem a trivial occurrence to one person is not so for another.

Minimizing Your Achievements: When an individual feels intimidated by the achievements of someone else, he or she may resort to this method of bringing down the ego of the victim.

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Have you ever done something thrilling, and sometimes dangerous, like riding on a roller coaster or bungee jumping? You feel the adrenaline rushing through your veins. It’s exhilarating and exciting. You feel adventurous. Similarly, it’s exciting to participate in a competitive sport. Drinking, substance abuse, binge-eating, sex, gambling and other pleasure-seeking activities all release a hormone-like chemical in your body called dopamine.

The right amount of dopamine is good for one’s body as one feels pleasure. One is alert, focused, enthusiastic and motivated to succeed. A person lacking in dopamine and other feel-good chemicals could suffer from depression and anxiety.

The problem of dopamine, however, is that one craves the “dopamine reward”. But the effect of dopamine is temporary; it wears off after a while and results in addiction. We should be careful not to equate temporary, selfish pleasure with happiness. A dopamine detox is a long, lonely and painful procedure.

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The French philosopher Rene Girard coined the term ‘Mimetic Desire’. He said, “Man is the creature who does not know what to desire, and turns to others in order to make up his mind. We desire what others desire because we imitate their desires.”

Many of our desires are not our own but fake, illogical desires borrowed from others. Hence, we are not focussed on obtaining either worthwhile objects or experiences. For instance, Vinod buys a bigger house, even though he will have to work to the bone paying EMIs, only because his friend has a large house. Tina became a teacher not because she likes to teach but because her mother is a teacher.

A simple example would be two siblings playing happily with toys; when one shouts out to his brother, “Hey, Amit! See what I have. My toy is better than yours.” This results in Amit punching his brother in order to get what he now thinks is a better toy. I remember a neighbour dressing his three small daughters in identical clothes. When I asked why, he said that otherwise each child thinks her siblings have prettier outfits. 

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We often blame God for sicknesses, not realizing that we bring them on ourselves. I am thankful to my daughter, Minal, who brought to my attention the hidden cost of cosmetics and beauty aids. Minal and I have switched to soaps and shampoos made by cottage industries. It is back to nature for us.

According to azchemistry.com, the highly toxic chemical mercury is found in some skin-whitening creams and mascara. It causes allergies and damages the nervous system. Beauty isn’t skin deep, especially when cosmetics contain laboratory-made chemicals slowly and steadily go through the pores of the skin and attack our vital organs. Imagine a stone placed beneath a tap that keeps on dripping one drop at a time. The water is slowly but surely wearing away the stone until there is a dent in the stone.

Talc used in eye shadows, blush, deodorants and soaps is carcinogenic. It is a mineral often found along with the deadly carcinogenic chemical asbestos. Hence, talcum powder is sometimes contaminated with asbestos. Talcum powder and foundation also block the pores of the skin, thereby accelerating aging. Aluminium found in some cosmetics could cause breast cancer and Alzheimer’s.

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“Say ‘Hi’ to that girl in the yellow dress and smile at her. You can do it,” I said to myself on the local train we took to reach our college. This was the third morning I was pushing myself to make a new friend and I succeeded. My main issue was shyness, an overpowering feeling of low self-worth that prevented me from using my talents and from making friends. My father was posted in districts where life was uncomplicated and slow-paced. But when he was transferred to Mumbai, I was a country bumpkin thrust into the hustle and bustle of a city. My low self-esteem resulted in self-inflicted social isolation. Regrettably my parents were so busy with their own lives that they failed to realise the issues I was facing.

Apart from shyness, there were other manifestations of low self-esteem such as craving for others’ approval. Shaila talks loudly, overdoes her make-up, wears flashy clothes, and throws money around in order to garner compliments. Shaila possibly did not get much love and encouragement from her family. She overcompensates by showing off.

Vineet asks, “Do you like my painting? I have the talent, you know.” He is crestfallen if you criticise his work of art. Vineet is constantly measuring his talents against the real or perceived talents of others.

Some individuals are never content and are envious of others. They are gossip-mongers who enjoy shredding the reputation of others. They suffer from low self-esteem.

Parental bias is another cause of low self-esteem. Two kids brought up in the same family are treated differently. Partiality may be shown by parents and grandparents according to various qualities of the child such as gender, colour of skin, intelligence, height and so on. Repeated parental messages such as “Shobha, your brother is much smarter than you”, are the root cause of an inferiority complex.

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“God loves a cheerful giver,” writes St Paul in The Bible. A few years ago, a Gallup poll was conducted across 136 countries with 2,00,000 respondents, to correlate happiness with donating. It was found that as many as 90% respondents found happiness in donating.

Another study saw that donating to charity left the same effect in terms of happiness as doubling of one’s household income. For instance, if you earned Rs 25,000 and donated part of it to charity, you would be as happy as someone who earned Rs 50,000 and did not donate. Even giving anonymously makes us happy. Prof. Raj Ragunathan talks of two-year-old kids who were given goldfish crackers. A toy monkey was placed near these children. Most of them tried to give one cracker to the monkey. He concluded that human beings are hardwired to kindness.

Why does giving make us happy? The Dalai Lama wisely said, “It takes giving to be happy”. One reason is that we want to make a difference.

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It is unfortunate that with the advent of messaging via different media platforms, we are losing the art of listening to each other. The only listening we excel in is that of music on our ear phones! Listening is an essential part of communication as we get to hear the other person’s point of view and in turn, they hear ours. Just like any other skill, we need to hone and practise our listening skills.

Active listening plays an important part in resolving conflicts and in counselling. A conscientious judge listens to both the defense and the prosecution. A psychiatrist listens to the patient and does not let his mind wander. It is important to maintain eye contact with the speaker as this indicates that you are paying attention. The listener should maintain an open, relaxed posture with one’s legs and hands uncrossed. Do not interrupt the speaker but do nod at times to indicate that you are listening. Your voice and tone when interacting with the speaker should be modulated. A good listener picks up the body language of the speaker. Repeat what he/she says after a pause in order not to create a misunderstanding. One should avoid talking too fast as if one is in a hurry to catch a train.

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