Facial Expressions, Communication and Love...

Just last week while we were in Greece for Dana’s vacation (more on this later), Dana and I were watching TV together flipping through the channels trying to find something in English, when we happened across a documentary all about facial expressions and the huge part they play in communication. It was absolutely fascinating.

They explained that we all use facial expressions unconsciously all the time. We can ‘speak’ our happiness, frustration, love, surprise or any other emotion with something like 7000 distinct expressions. Our facial muscles are incredible. We can use our expressions to communicate our feelings, or to mask them. But making and reading facial expressions is picked up by the brain completely unconsciously. In fact, certain expressions such as surprise, happiness, anger and fear even trigger direct reactions in the brain which then controls certain reactions in the body. Similarly, when we make facial expressions, whether real or faked, we trigger a change in our bodies. A person’s body can’t tell the difference between a fake smile and a real one – both are good for our health.

The show was very helpful in giving me an answer to this problem that I’ve noticed especially since getting married. Sometimes the smallest and most insignificant difference, or miscommunication between Dana and I can turn into a huge argument. We may be arguing about how to make sandwiches or something stupid like that when it all suddenly gets blown completely out of proportion leaving both of us angry, frustrated, and hurt. I’ve often wondered at this, and why this happens for no apparent reason about the stupidest things. Watching this documentary gave me a very good answer.

They did studies with married couples and found that spouses reacted to the facial expressions of their partner much more than to the words spoken. So that when one spouse might show signs of frustration or anger, it triggers an unconscious reaction in the other spouse.
Also, even though expressions are so important for communication, we very easily misread them, and miscommunication can easily happen when strong emotions are involved. People get hurt easily and without need.
The whole show was very helpful because, knowing the problem is the first step to being able to deal with it properly.

Problems arise too with the growth of technology such as emails. Because so much is communicated by expressions (as well as tone of voice), when we are emailing or blogging, the subtle yet important information about how someone is feeling and reacting about what is being said becomes lost. (Which is perhaps why we like to use smiley faces. :-)

I began to think about our blog here. Dana and I, always try to strike a balance between writing personal communication for our friends and family while we are so far away, and expressing ourselves in what we are excited or passionate about. But I have to recognise that this can be dangerous. At times we have written about spiritual or political issues which can be very controversial and divisive. Even though we are passionate about these issues, we’ve tried to write in a way that will show humility – that we don’t know it all – and to show that we value relationships (especially with people who have a different point of view) more than our own ideas. Unfortunately, we may have failed a bit in this.

Yesterday I began flipping through the book ‘Blue Like Jazz’ which is an excellent book about Christian spirituality in which the writer Donald Miller shares his personal experiences in a very open and honest way. So while reading yesterday, I came across a passage which is what got me thinking about all this in the first place. After talking about how he learned to appreciate and become friends with a person who he had once disliked immensely, Miller writes:

“Here is something very simple about relationships that Spencer helped me discover: Nobody will listen to you unless they sense that you like them.
If a person senses that you do not like them, that you do not approve of their existence, then your religion and your political ideas will all seem wrong to them. If they sense that you like them, then they are open to what you have to say…

…When I am talking to somebody there are always two conversations going on. The first is on the surface; it is a about politics or music or whatever it is that our mouths are saying. The other is beneath the surface, on the level of the heart, and my heart is either communicating that I like the person I’m talking to or I don’t. God wants both conversations to be true. That is, we are supposed to speak the truth in love. If both conversations are not true, God is not involved in the exchange, we are on our own, and on our own, we will lead people astray. The Bible says that if you talk to somebody with your mouth, and your heart does not love them, that you are like a person standing there smashing two cymbals together. You are only annoying everybody around you.”

Speak the truth in love. It’s so true. The truth can be hard. Many times I find myself rejecting criticism because of how the person says it – especially if it’s true. I like to think of myself as a good person, and I don’t want to recognize that sometimes I’m a jerk, selfish, lazy, or whatever. I think this is how we all tend to react at every level of relationship - from close personal relationships like marriage and friendships, to the international level of nations interacting with other nations. Nobody likes criticism - especially destructive criticism. If people feel that we dislike them, that we do not approve of them, and that they are not lovely, then they will resist us. They will hate us. Returning dislike or contempt for what they receive from us. So often, when there’s a problem, we want others to mould themselves to our way – ‘it’s my way or the highway’ – but this is exactly what breaks down relationships and turns people against each other.

Earlier in the chapter, Donald Miller had been explaining a realization he’d had about love. A communications professor was talking about the metaphors that are used to describe cancer: “…we battle cancer, we fight cancer, we are rebuilding our white blood cells, things like that.” All from a war metaphor. The professor talked about how even though cancer is not nearly the most deadly disease, people feel they have been thrust into a deadly war. Apparently ‘Science has shown that the way people think about cancer affects their ability to deal with the disease, thus affecting overall health.’

In a similar way metaphors are damaging to relationships. “We value people…we invest in people…relationships could be bankrupt…people are priceless… All economic metaphor.” It doesn’t sound that bad but it is. The dangerous part is that we tend to use love as if it were money.

“If somebody is doing something for us, offering us something, be it gifts, time, popularity, or what have you, we feel that they have value, we feel they are worth something to us, and, perhaps we feel they are priceless. I could see it so clearly, and I could feel it in the pages of my life…I used love like money… With love, we withheld affirmation from the people who did not agree with us, but we lavishly financed the ones who did.”

Love is not meant to be used this way, and when we do we only alienate people. Of course the natural human reaction is to repay good with good and evil with evil. But this is exactly where we’ve got it all upside down. We don’t stop to consider what it would be like to be in the other person’s shoes. That’s the brilliance of the ‘Do to others what you would want them to do to you’ ethic. If only we all could empathize with other people, and think about our own actions from their point of view, the world would be a much better place.

Shanti, शांति