Covering our limitations creates chaos

One Christmas, my grandmother and I went shopping in a large, bustling mall. It was loud and sounds felt doubly confusing because of the echo. We ran into one of her friends who greeted us with warm hugs and sad news. “Perhaps you did not get the news, but my mother passed away yesterday.”


My grandmother laughed. My grandmother’s hearing issues embarrassed her but she was stubbornly resistant to admitting she often could not hear accurately. Instead of fessing up, she covered her embarrassment with a big smile and hearty chuckle. This did not serve her well. It created awkward moments and even some hurt feelings. My grandmother’s problem was one of encoding. But accurate listening requires us to also decode. We have to decode what the speaker means.


Tomorrow we talk about the danger of decoding without humility.


CHALLENGE: Are there any issues that you are avoiding acknowledging as a problem? Are you stressed out but don’t want to bother anyone? Maybe your tendency to watch too much tv or sleep all the time is because you feel depressed, unwell, or anxious but since you do not admit that, your partner, family and friends may be receiving the wrong message that you are not interested in them. What is going on with you that you might need to share with others?

Learn to send messages that can be received

Let’s assume that my husband is communicating exactly what he means when he says, “How much did that sofa cost?” He is asking for a dollar amount. Period.


I could then try really hard, maybe dig the receipt out of my bag and respond, “$928.32.”


But this is not how our money conversations go.


If he asks “how much,” I hear: “Why did you buy that? You spend too much money. Take it back.”


So I reply, “$50.00.” Because, duh, who can complain about a $50 sofa?


To create a good relationship, the listener needs to accurately hear what is communicated. Historically, both a speaker and a listener have a track record for communication. As we discussed in yesterday’s blog we sometimes teach others that what we say is not what we mean. But the listener also has a responsibility to hear what is said. If we are inattentive, distracted, hearing impaired, or triggered - we may respond inappropriately.


CHALLENGE: Which issues do you struggle with most? Are you an unclear or confusing communicator? Do you sometimes struggle to listen carefully and ask for clarification often to make sure you are truly hearing what the speaker is saying?

Your communication is never as subtle as you think

Before we communicate, we have an internal meaning that may seem clear to us but is unknown to others. I never communicate without first having thoughts and feelings. Connecting with people goes wrong when we do not say what we mean. Or, we say what we mean in a thoughtless manner. This harkens back to that saying that we love to kick around on Facebook about “finding our voice.” I guarantee you. Your voice is not silent. It may be nonverbal. It is possibly unclear. But it is not lost, especially on the people you are communicating with!!

I have this friend on Facebook who is posting, shall we say, a particular theme of meme humor on his page every day. People comment on it AS IF it is actually about the meme. It is not. It is really about his rage and hurt and betrayal over his wife’s affair. At home he is giving her the silent treatment; in the therapist’s office he is speaking of his feelings of victimhood. But on Facebook? Wowser, he is letting his fury fly. He tells me that he has lost his voice in his marriage. I tell him that his shouting on Facebook is communicating way more to his wife then perhaps is wise.

I ask him. “Are you trying to hurt her as much as she hurt you?”


“No! I love my wife! I would NEVER do to her what she has done to me!”


Well, that is sort of true. She had an affair that no one knows about and she is trying to make amends. Since his meme flurry, now everyone is giving her the side eye and wondering, “Is he talking about YOU?”


CHALLENGE: Do loved ones ever seem confused by your meaning? Do you ever feel as if people don’t “get you”? Do your insides and outsides match? Could these miscommunications be related to your confusing messaging?

Conversations are bids for connection (no matter how "small")

I over-share impulsively - and this can be a problem. Inclined to give me some grace? My impulsive over-sharing could be considered a bid for connection.


Most conversations are bids for connection. The quality of the bid matters but the truth is people make bids all the time.


I am not a big fan of the popular phrase, “Find your voice.” Very few of us are mute. The real issue is not if we have a voice but how we use the voice we have. Now, before you push back, it is also true that there is another problem in loving well - listening. We will get on with the work of learning more about listening tomorrow, but for today, let’s challenge ourselves to ALSO think about our talking.


Are we using our voice most effectively?


CHALLENGE: If you have fallen victim to this popular notion that you have no voice, challenge that assumption. Instead, think about how you communicate: verbally, nonverbally, passively, too aggressively? And ask yourself: have I identified the real problem? What if the real issue is that I am not effectively using my voice OR I am not acknowledging that some folks just do not have the desire or capacity to connect with me at the level I desire? Do we, perhaps, have too high expectations of others?

Empathy is NOT about sharing someone's feelings...

Empathy is NOT about sharing someone’s feelings, it’s about appreciating someone’s point of view.

Although listening skills are terrific to learn and we will explore them, there is another foundational piece to building satisfying relationships that is a prerequisite. Accurate empathic understanding.


This is different from having a feeling. It’s not sympathy - a condition of feeling pity for another. Sympathy can actually cause a distance between us. It can be one of those “Whew! I am glad it is not me going through this!” moments. It is way different than connecting. We do not need to have a similar experience and feel as if we can relate. Identifying with another’s suffering can actually interfere with empathy. My feelings about an incident may be completely different from yours.


Empathy involves not only paying attention to a person, but actively trying to understand what they are experiencing. As hard as we try, we may find it practically impossible to accurately empathize - but we try!

[Empathy] is one of the most delicate and powerful
ways we have of using ourselves. In spite of all that
has been said and written on this topic, it is a way of
Being that is rarely seen in full bloom in a relationship.
* Carl Rogers, “Empathic: An Unappreciated Way of Being”

CHALLENGE: Have you confused sympathy with empathy? Have you over-identified with others and in so doing, made it more about your experience than theirs?