“You are home,” Kevin said quietly.

It was the night before our scheduled visit to the vet to put down Shasta, my beloved dog of 14 years. As I sat in our newly-rented dream apartment, all I wanted to do was go back to my parent’s house.

In the past three months my dad had a stroke, I suffered a miscarriage, my assistant Val -whom I adore- told me she is leaving, and now this.

There’s a reason people live with their parents until they’re 40. We had lived with mine for seven months in an effort to save money to move downtown, something we’ve dreamed of doing for years. Now, however, I didn’t want any part of it. I had fallen into a deep depression after my miscarriage in May and it was safe there. Someone else would make dinner if I wasn’t up to it. I could crawl into bed, pull the covers over my head and not worry about bills, work or other adult concerns. I wanted to go back to mom and dad’s. I wanted my dog.

We had been struggling with whether to take her to the new place. At 14, she was declining. She had debilitating arthritis for years, and it got to where she would need help getting up off the floor and often fell when walking. “But she’s fine!” I would wail. “She’s not fine, we’re pumping her full of meds,” Kevin replied. I pointed to my dad who was sitting at the counter as we debated. “We’re pumping him full of meds too! What, should we put him down?”

I knew I had to let her go.

I can barely count on one hand the people who have known me since I was 24 years old. Shasta saw me through a major depression, a divorce, a miscarriage and so much more. She was the one constant in my life- always waiting for me when I arrived home, never angry when I accidentally stepped on her tail getting out of bed in the morning, always up for a car ride. She had a snout that inexplicably smelled like maple syrup and a smile that could charm the perm off a poodle. I’ve owned three dogs in my life, and Shasta was just…special.

The morning of the appointment I woke up and finally admitted that I’ve been stagnating for the past several months.  Ever since the miscarriage, Kevin and I had been circling each other, afraid to get too close again. We would both pour our love into Shasta and withhold it from each other. In all honesty, I was afraid that we wouldn’t be able to take care of each other if we were on our own again. Somewhere along the way I’d lost myself and we’d almost lost each other. It was time to let Shasta go, but it was also time to get back into the game of life.

I couldn’t stand to watch her last moments so Kevin took her to the vet. He gave her a pig’s ear, and cried all the way to the vet as she hung her head out of the window, panting happily. She was taken to a room that had a metal examining table covered with a fluffy blanket. Kevin held her as they secured the IV, petted her and whispered that we loved her, and she slipped quietly away.

Later, as we drove downtown, I saw families with strollers and couples walking their dogs. “Great!” I quipped, “now seeing babies AND dogs is going to send me over the edge. It can’t get any worse.”

“You could see a baby walking a dog,” Kevin replied.

I laughed for the first time in a long time. And I started to focus on what’s ahead. I meet with a publisher next month. A new group dynamics training is in the works. I’m even optimistic about a new admin, as much as I hate to lose Val. I’m seeing a naturopath who assures me I won’t have any trouble getting pregnant again.

So last night, after looking through pictures of Shasta and bawling my head off, I poured myself a glass of wine, sat on my balcony, and enjoyed the amazing view of downtown. I turned to Kevin and said, “I’m glad we’re here.”

And I’m glad we are.

Receiving the news, my first thought was: my dad doesn’t have strokes. This is the same man who, after watching me complete a marathon, said, “that doesn’t look so hard” and started training at the age of 65, having never run before. He went on to complete not one, but three marathons. He is always working on something -installing new flooring in his living room, re-tiling the fireplace, fixing the roof- this wasn’t a man who had health problems, much less strokes.

Except that he did. And so I cancelled a keynote, immediately got on a plane and flew to his bedside.

My dad, -my superman, really- was now lying in a hospital bed, his face contorted and paralyzed, his speech and motor skills impaired. As I watched him struggle to put on his eyeglasses, or speak, or do any of the things that a few days before had come so naturally, I felt incredibly helpless. My sister and I took turns crying in the bathroom so he wouldn’t see our grief.

Because there isn’t a lot to do while sitting in a hospital room, I watched the nurses interact with my dad. Most were terrific, a few were ok, and luckily we didn’t have any who were horrible. The best nurses, though, were those who were able to blend their position and their person.

We all want nurses who know what they’re doing, since they administer the majority of care to our loved ones. And yet we also want them to be warm and encouraging. When you’re in a hospital you are incredibly vulnerable- nurses who maintain the dignity of the patient and treat them like people instead of invalids make all the difference in the world. Our trust in the nurses comes from their ability to demonstrate their competence, or position, while at the same time demonstrating their concern, or person.

This balance of position and person is just as important to all of us as it is to those in the nursing profession. There are times when it is appropriate to come from our position -when our credibility must be demonstrated- and other times it is more appropriate to come from our person -when we need to show we care. Charismatic people are a blend of both, and bring out what’s appropriate depending on the needs of the situation.

My dad made a speedy recovery -so speedy in fact, that he is already home, walking up and down the stairs, lifting weights, joking around. He can do everything he did before, albeit a little slower, and we like to tease him that when he talks he sounds a little drunk. When I asked if he ever asks “why me?” he said, “Sure. But then I think, why not me? It happens.”

Thank goodness that when it does, there are nurses like those who attended my dad.

*A big thank you to the nurses and therapists at Presbyterian Intercommunity Hospital in Whittier, CA.

I’m not a good traveler in general; I get irritable and cranky with the long lines and delays, and since I’ve usually had to get up at some horrific time like 4 a.m. the lack of sleep doesn’t help. Nor does the lack of healthy food. Or good reading material. Basically, having to travel for work lacks a lot of things.

What it doesn’t lack is interesting experiences.

Like last month when I travelled to Dallas. I stepped off the plane and headed to the nearest restroom and entered a stall. There, floating in the toilet was a crisp -well I wouldn’t say crisp exactly- twenty dollar bill.

The toilet was, um, material-free, so-to-speak, meaning there was nothing, um, else in there, but ewww. I didn’t feel right about flushing it, but may I again say, ewww?

I stood there pondering what to do for a few minutes. I eventually decided to fish it out, figuring the minute I did people with TV cameras were going to jump out and tell me I was part of a reality TV show. They had probably been hiding in the next stall before I walked in, carefully planning this entire scenario.

“We’ve secretly put a $20 bill in the toilet. Let’s see what happens…”

Later Kevin and I discussed whether we would have fished it out had there been something, um, in the toilet, to which he said he’d go in regardless, to which I replied, “I don’t think I can be married to you anymore.”

……………………………………………………………………

Other interesting experiences include arriving in Southern California while it was raining. Yes, raining. This, if you haven’t heard, is a VERY BIG DEAL.

Being from Portland I didn’t quite get what the problem was until I got in my rental car and realized everyone was driving like there was ice on the road instead of….water.

I arrived at the location of the training, and was met with shocked exclamations of, “I can’t believe you made it!” They had been wondering if they should cancel. Because of rain. I was sure I had misunderstood something so I asked what the big deal was. “It’s RAINING!” they exclaimed as they ran from the room.

So the next time I sit in the Long Beach airport -which can only be described as a string of sad little dilapidated mobile homes- and watch my fellow travelers descend upon the bar like a pack of refugees fighting to grab supplies that have just been dropped overhead from a plane, I’ll curse my plight because travel sucks.

But at least it’s always interesting.

I guess predicting the weather is a pretty complicated business.

I was thinking about that this week and how similar it is to the ability to read someone’s nonverbals.

In both cases you can have sophisticated equipment -radar and satellite in the case of weather predicting, machines that monitor heart rate, sweating and other physiological responses in the case of predicting if someone is lying- and in both cases you can be wrong.

TV shows like Lie to Me or The Mentalist rarely show the times a “read” is wrong, and so we continue to get the impression that if we just knew what to look for, we could predict how someone might act or what they might say based on their nonverbal behavior.

It reminds me of the first time I met two graduate teaching assistants I would be teaching a year-long class with at Portland State University. One exhibited closed nonverbals. She rarely offered her thoughts up in the classes we had together, she didn’t often smile, she looked down as you passed her in the hall. The other was friendly, participated in class, and smiled a lot. I immediately assumed it would be difficult to start a friendship with the first but a breeze with the second. Over the year the three of us forged a solid friendship, and I found that in the first case my fellow graduate teaching assistant was merely shy. Once you got to know her, she was friendly, chatty, and warm. The second graduate teaching assistant was friendly and outgoing, but took much longer to warm up to people. I made incorrect assumptions based on their nonverbals and first impressions.

Which really teaches us two things: 1) how powerful first impressions really are and 2) reading nonverbals in an attempt to interpret someone’s thoughts or feelings is a slippery slope.

Nonverbal communication does assist us in reading what other people need so we can better accommodate them. I’ve spent so much time warning you about the pitfalls of reading the nonverbal communication of others, you might be wondering if there’s any reason to read other people at all. A future post will focus on how to sensitively interpret what others are sending us nonverbally and what to do with that information. It’s when we pigeon-hole people based on their nonverbal behavior that we get into trouble.

For example, when lawyers hire me to assist them during jury selection, I always give the caveat that I can provide a nonverbal read of prospective jurors, but to compare it with all the other information they have. If it bolsters the case for or against a juror, great. If all information points the other way, then throw it out. More importantly, I focus on working with the lawyer. We have the most control over our own communication, and focusing there will create the biggest impact.

So the next time I hear it’s going to snow (or not snow) I’m going to take it with a grain of salt. Just like when I meet someone new. I’ll take in what they are communicating nonverbally but keep an open mind, just in case I miss something.

The woman interrupted her and said, “Oh, so you manipulate people.”

Sigh.

I can’t say I’m surprised, although I’d love to start a workshop sometime without having to explain that what we do is nothing close to what people think we do. No, we can’t read your mind by watching your nonverbal behavior. No, we don’t train people in how to tell if someone is lying. And no, we don’t show you how to manipulate others by using secret, wildly influential nonverbal “tricks.”

If you’ve been following my blog, you know I can’t stand being called a body language expert, and you also know that I still struggle with explaining just exactly what it is that we do.

But I’m getting better.

A little over a year ago I was asked to speak for Portland Female Executives. I attended an event prior to my speaking engagement to check out the venue. The speaker spoke about passion, and at one point asked us to turn to our neighbor and share our passion. The woman I was seated next to asked me if I was passionate about nonverbal communication. Imagine my surprise when I realized my answer was…no. I left behind my career in music to devote myself full-time to nonverbal communication. How on earth could I not be passionate about it?

When I attended my first nonverbal communication workshop years ago I was surprised -just like many of my attendees now- that the information wasn’t anything like what I expected. Instead of learning isolated nonverbal cues and what they mean, we learned how nonverbal communication assists us in creating high-quality relationships. Relationships are the key to success both in the personal and professional realm, and clear, effective communication is essential for attracting, establishing and preserving relationships.

There are several ways to ensure clear communication occurs, but most programs work only with the verbal level- ignoring the nonverbal. This is unfortunate, because although it’s important to know what to say, research shows that how we say it makes a much bigger impact.

More importantly, nonverbal communication gives us insight into how others wish to be treated. Once we have that information, we can adapt our approach and meet people where they are. One of our greatest needs as humans is to be understood. Striving to understand others and communicate clearly is respectful and considerate, not manipulative.

So forgive me if my feathers get a bit ruffled when people assume we manipulate people. What we do is the exact opposite. Helping people create strong, quality relationships is what I am really passionate about. Nonverbal communication is how I choose to get there.

I really shouldn’t call it hate-mail. It wasn’t “hateful” really, and it was an email, not the type of letter you think of when you think of hate-mail: cut-out letters from magazines pasted onto a piece of paper. It’s also pretty difficult to get offended by someone who can’t put together a well-constructed sentence. But ever since receiving it Val and I have been affectionately calling it the “hate-mail.”

Basically the writer expressed amazement that someone would be so “simplistic” to “try and reduce human non-verbal behavior to that of a cat or dog.” He or she (there wasn’t a signature) is referencing -I can only guess- my recent interview with Willamette Week, in which I discuss the cats and dogs analogy I use in my work.

Receiving the email made me realize two things: 1) what I’m doing is getting attention, and that’s cool no matter how you slice it, and 2) what I do is not easily explained in a one-page article or even a three-minute television interview.

I’m still trying to find a way to talk about what I do in a way that makes sense to people. Just this morning the receptionist at my chiropractor’s office asked what I did. I said I was a nonverbal communications consultant which resulted in a blank stare, and the more I tried to explain, the more confused she became.

Yesterday I presented an all-day workshop in which at least a half-dozen participants said, “I was not looking forward to coming to this workshop, but I’m so glad I came. It wasn’t what I expected at all.” This isn’t unusual. And although I am delighted that people find my work useful and practical, there has to be a better way of explaining it.

For now I’ll just keep plugging along knowing that the media attention is nice but I can’t expect it to sell my services. All of my work up until this point has come from word of mouth. We’ve never purchased advertising and I don’t have a publicist. People who attend workshops tell other people and that’s why Nonverbal Solutions is here and thriving, even after a recession.

So to my clients and supporters out there, thank you. And to my anonymous email writer: thank you as well. You can’t know how fun it was to feel famous.

I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous, specifically about how to camouflage my arms- the camera adds 10 pounds they say- but besides the inevitable television bloat, I’m nervous about the angle.

I’ve made it very clear, through my assistant Val, that I am not a body language expert. This, I think, is disappointing to some people. Like the reporter who interviewed me a few months back and never ran the story. She seemed very interested in the mainstream “body language” stuff- “what am I communicating now?” she asked at one point, leaning forward, freezing her body, as if she were expecting me to pull a rabbit out of a hat. I explained that our work really centers more around becoming systematic with our own nonverbals- and well, the story never ran.

So it will be interesting to see what type of questions I get. My hope is that I’m able to convey how important nonverbal intelligence really is. Although it may be fun to look at body language and guess at the person’s meaning, we are much more successful when we tune into our own nonverbal communication.

Watch KOIN’s Keep It Local next Thursday, November 19th at 4 p.m. to see if I’m successful getting that across. And after watching, feel free to email me your comments, specifically about how thin my arms looked.