What is "cogental©" communication?

Always be willing to give credit to ideas that can be attributed to another. I heard a sermon which included a profound and probing question. I do not recall the pastor mentioning the author, but perhaps because I was so deeply moved, I likely just missed it. The question comes from Andy Stanley's (son of Internationally known, Charles Stanley) book, The Best Question Ever ...

In light of your past experiences, your present circumstances, and your future hopes and dreams, what is the wise thing for you to do?

tug-o-war

Communications with those we are both familiar with and less familiar with, can sometimes feel like we are engaged in an aggressive tug of war. It isn't so much that we are communicating "to win" as much as it feels like our messages are not quite understood.

CAN YOU RELATE?

Wants and Needs

In light of our future hopes and dreams ... have you wondered why you want something? Our desires, which can best be described as cravings and longings, arise out of past experiences. Since you have never experienced "the future" (unless you are Marty McFly), every moment preceding the current moment (present) has created remnants of memories, accumulations of responses, physiological patterns and a microbial footprint. This massive accumulation impacts your present state and desires for future experiences. For example, after meeting someone - you find yourself thinking about them, wanting and hoping to interact with them again. It's typical, short of obsessing, that imagine how the encounter might start - progress - and conclude. The cognitive rehearsal in the present moment directs you to pursuing a future reality.

Taking Action

What is the best thing for me to do? Successful, happy and thriving people share one common behavioral pattern. They all act with intention. Choose to plan, choose to think about pleasant memories, and choose to make a difference in the world. When you fail to plan, you plan to fail. This idiom is true in every aspect of your life. You can go through haphazardly making choices, and frequently fall prey to those around you who want to hurt, manipulate or otherwise use you. OR, you find a time each day to imagine how you want YOUR life to be.

Emotions

The use of the words emotions only begins to reflect the complexities of your present reality, which would be more accurately described as physiology. Specifically, based upon the environmental (internal/external) landscape, how is my body reacting, recording, encoding and emoting. Humans are amazing animals and their ability to store thousands of bits of information without consciously processing them all in order to create an image or memory is beyond what most of us can even comprehend. A movie is nothing more than intentionally recorded frames of images, paired with related sound bits and displayed in rapid succession. Typically, a movie is shown at a rate of 60 frames per second. Imagine that your memory is recording 1000 frames per second. All of that data is being recorded, stored, and interpreted in order to help you satisfy your wants and needs. Isn't that amazing?

Memories

The phrase "in light of our past experiences" captures the reality that your own memories form the essential basis of your history. Perception is a complicated phenomenon. Using your sensory resources, you can encode both internal and external stimuli. What that means is, your understanding of any situation is impacted by the type, quantity, and complexity of your encountered experience. If you have your eyes closed, the amount of visual detail you can see will be restricted. I prefer to avoid saying positively or negatively impacted, since all experience is always influenced by the characteristics identified through sensory sources (seeing, hearing, feeling, touching, tasting).