- By Connie Brannan
 

Today's topic is unconscious communication. We all know about language. Words. TALKING. It's part of how we "get our message across" when we're communicating with someone. But it's a very, very small part. There is so much more going on, information being sent, received, exchanged between minds on an unconscious level. Today I'll present you with a quick method for enhancing unconscious communication, called "The Unconscious Hello." It's a powerful tool to build instant rapport and connection and good feelings with another person, both in you and in them. So easily! And that could be useful for making friends and influencing people, could it not?

First, you may ask: What IS the conscious mind? The unconscious mind? Picture a large, very dark room, like a warehouse. You have a flashlight in your hand which you turn on, and it creates a narrow beam and a small circle of light on the far wall. Everything else remains pitch dark. That bit of light is your conscious mind. It's what you are aware of, what you can see now at this moment, and focus on. Everything else in the room is dark and unknown, that's how much information your unconscious mind is processing at that moment.

Your conscious mind is the critical part of your mind, your thinking mind. It's your aware and awake mind, analytical, logical, and sequential. It has a very limited focus. It's deliberate. It directs outcomes. It can only handle 7 +/-2 bits of information at a time before it gets overwhelmed and goes "heeeelllp me!"

Your unconscious mind (or subconscious, as it's also called) is unlimited, expansive. It's active while sleeping and dreaming. It involves feeling, and intuition, and imagination. It's responsible for involuntary movements and keeping your body alive, like your heart beating, your breathing, blood circulation, your immune system, healing, your growth, and so much more! It takes in billions of pieces of information at any given moment. Science estimates that it houses about 90% of your brain power.

Your unconscious mind, during a communication, picks up so much more information than you can consciously perceive. And that's a large part of how we understand each other. Some of those unconscious communications include "body language," hand gestures, body gestures such as shrugging, foot tapping, facial expressions such as a smile or frown, tone of voice, movement of the eyes, level of eye dilation and changes, tilt of the head, lift of an eyebrow, speed of speech, breathing patterns, volume of speech... As you can see, there's a lot more than just words going on in the communication. Take a simple utterance such as "I believe you." Depending on all the unconscious variables, it could mean anything from "I believe you" to "liar."

In the "unconscious hello," here's what happens. When you first meet or notice another human being for the first time, whether it's face to face or across a crowded room, you unconsciously and automatically communicate and acknowledge that noticing. Something happens, something is communicated. It may be a smile or a nod. It may be a word or two. It may be a wave, or up close, a handshake. Your unconscious picks up every nuance, every drop of meaning of which your conscious mind may be blithely unaware. You just know, "Hey, I LIKE this person." "She looks nice." "I wonder what his problem is." And so on. You have garnered meaning from the communication which filters into your consciousness.

By consciously acting on this "unconscious hello" communication, you can direct the outcome, the meaning of your communication, the feeling the other person gets from you in a positive way for yourself. Good feelings, friendly feelings, warmth and rapport. It's a two way street, you feel it, too. And it's so simple to do. Here's how!

In that moment of first noticing another person, you observe how they notice YOU first, and then you feed it back to them. If they nod and smile, you nod and smile in precisely the same way. If they say "hello," you say "hello" in precisely the same tone of voice and volume. If they tilt their head while speaking, you tilt your head to the same angle. You match whatever it is that they present to you. THEN, on an unconscious level, they feel a positive connection with you. "This person really understands me." "This person seems like MY kind of people." "I like this person." "You are like me." The implications for the dating world, or the sales world, or any interpersonal setting are powerful! You're WAYYY more likely to close the deal or make the sale or get the girl's phone number if she feels this rapport with you. Or, as a friend of mine likes to apply this, a free cup of coffee from the Starbuck's barista! Magically, you also feel the connection, as well.

Here's another tip. If you can observe the person saying hello to someone else first, take those noticings of voice and face and body and etc. and feed them upon greeting to the person even before they acknowledge you. Try it! Discover for yourself the power of the "unconscious hello!" to generate positive feelings of connection. And that's what life is all about, is it not?