June 2, 2016

June 2, 2016

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader,

Once it has been pointed out to you and once you have experimented a little bit with it and once you have taken some steps to explore and verify it, the distinction between Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) and Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) becomes increasingly more apparent to you. You will have to pay more attention to how you sound while you speak in order to be able to determine what constitutes SVB and NVB for you. 

You can have SVB all by yourself and you will feel completely at ease with yourself when you achieve it. During NVB, however, you will only experience negative emotions. You discover that the speaker who has SVB is not trying to make the listener feel this or that way. The SVB speaker is neither intimidating the listener, nor is he or she trying to make the listener feel good.

The SVB speaker is not emotionally manipulating the listener. In NVB, on the other hand, the speaker is yanking the listener around. He or she is trying to butter you up and placate you or trying to threaten, overwhelm or distract you. When you are by yourself and explore your self-listening, you can hear if you are trying to make yourself feel a particular way or not. It is like finding your favorite station on the radio; you keep changing the dial until you have found it. 

Once you have stopped trying to make yourself feel a particular way, you will have SVB. It is effortless, relaxing and comforting and you will know when you have it. As long as you feel uncertain about whether you have it or not, you are not having it. Under such circumstances you produce NVB and your voice expresses anxiety, stress or frustration. You can hear when you sound pretentious, defensive, emphatic, confused, lost or angry. When you listen to how you sound, you hear that you sound negative and once your assessment is accurate, you notice an immediate shift in how you sound. You will produce SVB once accept your NVB.