Importance of Listening

Listening is one of the most important skill that you can have. How well you listen has a major impact on your relationship with other persons. There are many reasons to listen other people. Sometimes we listen to get information, sometimes we listen to understand what other person says, somestimes we listen for fun or we listen to learn. There are many ways of listening. One of them is active listening. In active listening, listener should give feedback what he or she hears from the speaker. The listener can give feedback by praphrasing the speech or confirm about what he or she heard.Active listening can be developed by practice. To be an active listener, signs of active listening is essential. One of them is smile. Smile can be helpful to show that the listener is paying attention to what is being said. Eye contact is also very important for active listening. Eye contact can give confidence to the speaker. Praphrasing is also very effective method for connecting with the speaker. The extent of the praphrasing can change from person to person. But in general praphrasing is very effective method for active listening. Facial expressions can also be effective. It can encourage the speaker to continue speech.

Nonviolent Communication Method

Last class we talked about observation, feelings and needs.Therefore I am going to talk only three of them. Actually all these are the elemements of nonviolent communication method. I think this method could save our personal and professional relationships. In fact the basis of the method is that When something happens that you don't like, explain the situation(observation), let them know what you felt(feelings), and talk about your needs(needs). The reason of why people are using this method is find a way to tell themselves without the practice of shame, blame, guilt or threats.Therefore this method is very helpful for solving conflicts between people. If look at the components of the non-violent communication method in a more detailed way; Observation simply means that what is happening in a situation of disagreement and conflict without judgements and evaluations .For example, it's 4:00 am and I hear your mobile phone alarm, that is a completely observable thing. However feeling is about how you feel about the observations that you experienced like being happy or sad.The need is the reason of that feeling. For example, I see you watching TV while I am talking with you so I am feeling uncomfortable because I need to talk with you face to face. In this example talking face to face is a need for that person. I think I will try this method in my real life.

Movie Critic

Last week I watched a movie which is called The Planet of Apes. I am not going to tell all movie here but I want to emphasize how the movie points out certain issues about humankind. If you watch the film, it is very easy for you to understand that the story of Planet of Apes is not all about Apes, but completely is about humankind. The film starts with a short prologue of the main character Taylor that he explains his concerns about humanity. As story goes on, there is one scene where Taylor is thrown into cage with other native humans. In that scene in which apes treats humans like animals is a good demonstration of dark side of humanity and helps to place viewers to put themselves into animals' position. In those scenes, humans are caged, used for experiments and even a one female native woman who will be later called Nova, is given to Taylor to be able to observe their reactions when they are together in the same cage.Thus these all action that apes do on humans reveals the ethical problem about humankind; do people act to their environment as like they want to be treated themselves. If you ask me, I don't think so. Also these scenes show how humans treat and dominate other species. At the end of the movie we see one of the most iconic scenes and images of cinematic history. As Taylor rides off with Nova into the Forbidden Zone, he realizes that the Statue of Liberty decaying on the sands.The recognition that the Planet of Apes is in fact his own planet makes us realize that how humans find a way to destroy their world because of their actions to other species. I think Planet of Apes is an excellent movie for sci-fi fans who wants to use their brain for a change, needs to see

Needs and Wants

Last week we talked about needs and wants in our class. Needs are things that necessary for our survival like food, shelter, water, sleep. However wants are things that we desire but not necessary in order to survive like mobile phones, clothes. We can classify needs as biological, mental, relational and social. Biological needs are physical needs that are essential in order to live like air, water,warmth. Mental needs are psychological needs like awareness, self-expression, creativity and effectiveness. Relational needs are the emotional needs like acceptance, affection, appreciation, belonging, empathy or consistency. And the final one is social needs. Social needs are personal needs that are related with beauty, equality or inspiration. Here is the picture of Maslow's Hierarchy of needs pyramid. The pyramid consists of five stages. Maslow pointed out that human needs are organized in a hierarchical way.

   

Positive Psychology- Martin Seligman

Today I am going to talk about positive psychology and Martin Seligman's TED conference. Firstly, positive psychology focuses on human well-being and happiness. Instead of other majors of psychology which are focus on dysfunction and abnormal behaviors of human, it focuses on to make people happy. Martin Seligman is an American psychologist and he classifies life in three ways as a pleasant life, a good life and a meaningful life. I will share a video about Martin Seligman talk in TED conference. In the conference, he talks about new era of positive psychology.                                                                  

I really liked how Martin Seligman explained happiness and in the conference he basically says that money isn't everything to become happy and happiest people are usually tend to be more social. Also he argues that depression is a genetic and if people go into depression, they can never completely cured until medical treatment. I think this talk is very enlightening for me and his way of explaining the topics is clear and I will investigate more about positive psychology.

The power of words

"The Power of Words" 

Today we watched a very touching video in our first class. Actually I've seen the short movie before but every time it makes me cry. I think the main message of the short movie was that with only couple of words, we can make a difference and can change everything. Also it is a good example of how perspective shift can affect people's decisions and attitudes and I think the movie's message at this point is that we can change the perspective with different words, I mean if you use true words that touching the hearts of those you communicate with, you can enable for them to feel another people's pain and to put themselves in another's place.Therefore sometimes how you say is more important than what you say.I want to also share another touching short movie in here. The movie's name is "What is that".The movie is short but I think it conveys its message very well, I hope you like it.