Excerpted from: Transformational Life Coaching, and written by:
Cherie Carter-Scott, Ph.D. and Lynn U. Stewart
To be an effective communicator, you need to be aware of the five levels of communication. If you are listening closely, you will be able to discern the level of communication in the conversation. The five levels are:
1. Clichéd conversation. The first level of communication doesn’t require any investment or involvement from you. It is the most superficial level and consists of a greeting, a salutation, or a clichéd comment that doesn’t require any interaction.
2. Reporting the facts. Examples of the second level of communication are the newspaper, TV news and weather, or a report describing some happening, such as a sale or an upcoming event.
3. Judgments. At the third level of communication, you expose a part of yourself. This level involves judgments, which requires taking a stand on something.
4. Feelings. All feelings require you to expose part of your internal world. Feelings are more vulnerable than judgments, and at the fourth level you reveal your emotional connection to the subject matter.
5. Peak communication. This is the fifth and the most connected level. Peak communication happens between soul mates, twins, those with past-life connections, some siblings, some parents and children, some spouses, dharmic lovers, and other people who are deeply in love. Peak communication means that you are so connected that you rarely need words. You can complete each other’s sentences, and when one of you thinks something, the other says it.
Since setting the expectation of peak communication in every coaching session would be unrealistic, we set the fourth level as the goal. You may have sessions that reach the fifth level, but you will address those feelings in every coaching session that you do.
