Metaphor Of Inhaling Summary

Steward (2012) used the breathing metaphor of inhaling and exhaling to explain the receptive and expressive parts of communication.The metaphoric illustration of communication with the breathing process is helpful to understand the construction of communication and to picture the communication process. Understanding the structure of communication process and enhancing our ‘inhaling and exhaling’ skills aid us to develop better interpersonal communication and to make our conversation most effective and productive with others. In this breathing metaphor, inhaling refers to perception and exhaling refers to expressing and disclosing. Inhaling combines the two active, interpretive process of perceiving and listening. Steward

163). According to Steward (2012), our perception is shaped by the perceiving person's experience and understanding of his or her place in the world (p. 164). In communication, we actively engage in three essential perception subprocesses: selecting, organizing, and inferring and interpret everything that we counter with these three moves. First, we select uses to attend to or prioritize, based not only on what’s available but also on past judgments, expectations and a variety of cultural cues. Second, we organize the cues we’ve selected into a whole that makes sense. And finally, we go beyond the cues to infer what they mean (p. 162). Stewart (2012) explains that our perceptual sensitivity plays a significant role shaping inhaling part of communicating more effectively and the message could be misinterpreted in inhaling information if perceptions are wrong or generalized. These processes impression formation(p.170), attribution (p. 171), stereotyping (p. 172) influences our interpretation. Making fast thinking, avoiding overload, the entertainment factor (p. 174),

Exhaling is the second half of process, sending information (exhaling) is just as crucial as receiving information (inhaling), so it is the vital component of the communication process. The conversation becomes successful when all who are involved in communication express themselves with clarity. So clarity in communicating motives, preferences, ideas, and thoughts should be the goal of conversation than eloquence in dialogue. According to Stewart (2012), “Self-disclosure is revealing to another how you perceive and are reacting to the present situation and giving any information about yourself and your past that is relevant to an understanding of your perceptions and reactions to the present (p. 211). Stewart (2012), further states self-disclose is to be open with others and to be open with another person we must "(a)be aware of who you are, (b) accept yourself, and (c) take the risk of trusting the other person to be accepting you. Openness thus can be described as being dependant on self-awareness(s), self-acceptance and