“Say what you mean; mean what you say; but don’t say it mean.”
After taking NLX 101 participants through the only investment strategy for life that really works concerning their time,energy, and money, it is time to go a bit deeper into interactive communication in relationships. This is obviously a central element to offer one’s body as a living sacrifice unto the Lord by way of verbal and nonverbal communication with others.
The truth is that how we interact with one another is the most profound challenge in faith-driven Christ-centered recovery. Inside-out transformative recovery is most evident in what comes out when we open our mouths. Communication, however, is not restricted to what we say. We communicate with our entire body. We communicate with our eyes and facial expressions, our hands and arms, our legs and feet, our posture… This, of course, is not a secret. Even an infant seconds old can communicate most effectively. So much of who and what we are is measured in what we communicate. What we communicate is an accurate reflection of what resides in the heart.
“A good person produces good things from the treasury of a good heart, and an evil person produces evil things from the treasury of an evil heart. What you say flows from what is in your heart.” Luke 4:45 (NLT)
Jesus spoke powerful and profound truth concerning this matter of how we communicate with one another. He is very clear stating that what is happening inwardly will be expressed outwardly.
“A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of.” Luke 4:45 (NIV)
When we are truly committed to faith-driven Christ-centered recovery in the experience of an empowered transformed life, we cannot help but communicate through verbal and non-verbal expression what God is changing in our life. We are in our person a reflection of what God is doing in us from the inside out. When we are in a committed relationship with Jesus Christ, it is within our new nature to express outwardly the fruit of God’s Spirit alive in us: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
This NLX 101 lesson includes discussion questions and activities geared toward illustrating the impact of what God will change in us as we willingly empty ourselves through repentance of the junk inside, and allow God to fill us up with His goodness so that we can express love more freely.
PAC Interaction & Communication
In the 1950s, Dr. Eric Berne began developing a theory concerning communication that he referred to as Transactional Analysis. By the early 1960s, Dr. Berne published a couple of books regarding his theory, including the rather famous “Games People Play” in 1964 that serves as the handbook for Transactional Analysis. Dr. Berne suggests that adults communicate from alter ego states, or personas, he called Parent, Adult, and Child.
NLX 101 directs participants to examine communication patterns in their relationships. The objective is to learn how to express empathy, even in the heat of the moment through the LUV strategy—Listen, Understand, Validate—for effective and productive communication. The activities in this lesson will provide participants with the necessary tools to interact with sincere empathy in relationships as a reflection of the work of God in their life committed to recovery God’s way.
“Confrontation without love is hostility.” —Tony Evans