236. Improve Your Relationships & Upgrade Your Communication Skills with Lauren Reitsema & Joneen Mackenzie
Dec 05, 2021Today, our expert guests are Lauren Reitsema and Joneen Mackenzie. Lauren serves on the executive leadership team at The Center for Relationship Education and is the author of In Their Shoes. She’s well-known for her keynote presentations across all audiences, engaging with youth, adults, and corporate teams.
The Center for Relationship Education was founded by Joneen Mackenzie, registered nurse and former first lieutenant in the US Air Force Nurse Corps. She founded CRE, which has certified over 15,000 educators in REAL Essentials curriculum, and she participates in national public health standards policy.
At the beginning of her journey, Joneen was shocked to learn that literature and established research on successful relationships even existed. After twenty years and four children, her marriage had fallen apart. If she had known these skills, she believes she could have prevented such a massive disruption to her family.
Her daughter took that experience to college and entered into an interpersonal communications class, freshman year. She realized, then and there, that her life goal was not going to be tied to what she did with her life, but how she changed the legacy of relational health.
Some of the most common relationship advice you hear is to communicate better, but talking isn’t enough. Communication is complex. Joneen and Lauren have developed the “Three C’s” to check that you are communicating effectively:
- Content: Truly understand the message you want to convey.
- Context: The setting you’re in impacts the communication.
- Connection: If you’re not connecting, you are failing at communicating.
Relationships can be challenging. We shouldn’t be expected to get it right without tools, practice, and knowledge. Those tools are out there, it’s up to us to use them.
The Biggest Helping: Today’s Most Important Takeaway
“The key to health and happiness is the quality of your relationships.”
“We’re all in this together. Every one of us has seasons of relationships that are fantastic, and the very next minute you’re in a rut and wondering, How did I get here? If you have the right tools then when things go south, you just go get the tools and you fix it. Nothing’s going to happen magically without getting your hands on those tools.”
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There is incredible potential that lies within each and every one of us to create positive change in our lives (and the lives of others) while achieving our dreams.
This is the Power of You!
