We might start by asking the question: Besides learning better communication through formulated skills, how can we make deep-seated spiritual changes in our immediate response behavior? Most importantly, we need to have knowledge of the underlying reasons for our defense-coping mechanisms, which have been in place and have served us for a long time. Without the willingness to investigate their source, our emotions will keep those mechanisms active and interfere with establishing healthier patterns of response. There are various methods to help us investigate, and following are some fairly recent approaches.

A new derivation from traditional Cognitive psychology is called Schema Therapy. It describes our emotional make-up as one that is being propelled unconsciously by thought constructs called Schemas. These thought constructs were formulated in childhood, and they essentially consist of feeling-based reactions to disturbing situations. Therefore, we have the same emotional reactions to painful circumstances in our lives that remind us of past traumatic events as we did then. Schemas are memory-based feelings stored in the mind as specific groups of distorted truths that we believed when we were young, dictated by whatever painful circumstances caused us to feel "wrong," powerless, or inadequate in the first instances of our lives. In this way, they are very primal and strong in our psyches.

In her book, Emotional Alchemy (2001) Tara Bennett-Goleman declares that Schemas are most likely activated in times of communication difficulties. She writes, "When we experience an intensely disturbing feeling, there is a surge of messages from the amygdala, a center deep in the emotional brain that drives the prefrontal areas." The area corresponding to the amygdala lies next to the hippocampus, which is a part of the brain associated with memory and helps us to remember what we have learned about any situation, including appropriate responses. When we are faced with a stimulus that triggers strong emotions, our immediate and habitual responses are really memory-based feelings of what is "right" or "wrong" in the situation seeming to mirror the past. In normal brain function the hippocampus works in conjunction with the amygdala, where our emotional memories scan all that we experience, but the responses coming from the amygdala are purely habitual and limited to what has been learned through repetition. In addition, Bennett-Goleman notes that the amygdala "reaches its conclusions much, much faster in brain time than do the more rational circuits in the thinking brain."

The healing component of Schema Therapy is to learn to compassionately investigate our feelings when they arise through external triggers. This process helps us fully remember the events of the past, and to begin re-framing the distortions from a different perspective. But we are often confused with the rapidity with which we experience turbulent feelings. We don't have time to slow down enough to sort out our emotions, much less focus on them, unless we practice mindfulness. In her book mentioned above, Bennett-Goleman describes mindfulness as "distraction-resistant, sustained attention to the movements of the mind itself." Through continued practice, this can become a habitual way of steadily observing our feelings right at the time that they are erupting. Mindfulness allows a deeper investigation of the moment than ordinary attention, and encourages the emergence of clarity. In addition, by this sensitive and careful attention to the feelings, we engage in the use of the prefrontal lobes, which neurologically helps us to diminish the intensity of the feelings. In this process, further memories of emotional events can be allowed to surface for in-depth exploration at the spiritual, mental and emotional levels.

A form of specialized interpersonal communication that uses some of the concepts from Schema Therapy has been practiced by the author of this paper, and it is known informally as Congruent Communication. This method was experienced predominantly in process-oriented, spiritual community-building groups that were recently living together in urban housing locales. As a form, it demonstrates how something like mindfulness can be elicited, even though it is not labeled as such. The basis for communicating in this way is by sustaining the focus on relating to one another in a truly authentic manner, and it is regarded as a valuable component of community.

In Congruent Communication, the psychological space is created as a deliberate arena for dialogue between people. This may mean that an optimal time for dialogue is chosen, free from distractions. Two or more persons having an interpersonal conflict can participate, but it is agreed upon ahead of time to engage the type of attention that has been described above regarding mindfulness. This essentially means that free expression of feelings, as well as the opportunity to trace them to their origins, is encouraged for all involved. Ideally, equal time is allotted to do this. (In practice, when dialoguing in this manner is not producing betterment, there can be a gathering of others in the larger community to create a ‘Forum.' In this way, the input of empathetic but emotionally uninvolved people has the potential to bring about resolution).

Since Congruent Communication allows each participant to express their feelings in depth with ample time for disclosure, one of the ground rules is to become as ‘transparent' as possible, trusting that it is safe to do so. As past traumas surface, questions are asked about feelings from those times and how they might relate to the present. In this way, the goal is for participants to break through their defense mechanisms under the open invitation of others. The main difficulty is that people under stress may not be able to create a perfect atmosphere of trust and emotional safety, or have the skill necessary to facilitate the deeper, repressed feelings of anger that may surface. However, this form of communication is a step forward in acknowledging deeper aspects of the self in the process of learning to communicate.

Many have rightly observed and experienced that the risk of disclosing ourselves to others makes us vulnerable, which we resist. Although our coping defense mechanisms may keep us from better communication, we tend to hold on to them if they seem useful in keeping us "psychologically intact." Yet, our challenge is to determine what behaviors no longer serve us because the outcome is not what we ultimately desire. At the spiritual level, holding on to old behaviors that no longer serve us is synonymous with spiritual stagnation. The discovery of distorted truths and their origins may come as a surprising revelation when we investigate feelings; however, the process of uncovering them does not necessarily mean we can successfully re-frame the truth at that particular time. More than likely, these associations will be painful enough to necessitate much self-compassion and taking the time to work through them.