Happy January, folks! Haven’t written in a moment but wanted to share a bit more on communication as this is a common discussion lately for me and a very necessary skill to ward off feelings of loneliness and increase sense of belonging.
If you haven’t met with me or read past posts, I’ll reiterate four of the most important needs in order to feel secure, connected to the ones we loved and important: to be heard, understood, valued and loved. See? There are two separate needs that focus on communication, to be heard AND understood. So let’s get to how to act on these!
First is the concept of feeling heard. My favorite communication strategy comes with many names: “speaker-listener,” “mirroring,” “paraphrasing,” “summarizing,” the list goes on. They all umbrella under the category of active listening skills. How you act on this skill is to take what the speaker is saying and paraphrase it and repeat it back to the sender. Why this is necessary is because to truly convey meaning and information can be confusing or multiple messages may be underlying the statement. This is done until the sender confirms what they said is accurate. It is repeated until it is understood, with the sender clarifying as needed.
Here is a link with further examples and explanations, if needed.
Secondly, to feel understood. There are 2 additional components I’d like to share – validation and empathy. When the person you are speaking to shares heartfelt information or anything for that matter (my belief is that when people talk, it has value to that person and people are inherently valuable so they want to be listened and responded to), they want to know that the person on the receiving end cares at least a little bit. Oftentimes, they also want to be agreed with, too. However, this is not necessary to always agree with a person and what can be done instead is to validate and accept what they are saying, even if you disagree or would not respond in the same way. To validate looks like: “I can see why you would do that,” “that makes a lot of sense given how you felt,” “you felt ___ because of ___,” or “I can understand that.” This allows the person speaking to feel accepted as they are and not “bad” or “wrong”. A basic human desire is to belong (hi, survival skills) and if we don’t receive the validation, then we feel alone.
Empathy: the ability to sense another person’s emotions and understand that individual’s experience including their thoughts and feelings.
To empathize is to paraphrase and input additional feelings or deeper meaning behind the message, often times starting with the word “because,” or “when.” Example: Someone tells you they lost their keys. You can probably relate to that frustration or pressure (especially if you were in a rush) and if you get more info from the person, you learn they were on their way to a medical appointment that took several weeks to finally be seen. To add all 3 components of paraphrasing, validating and empathizing: “You felt stressed because you lost your keys and were very worried because you’ve been waiting for so long to have this appointment. That must’ve been very relieving when you found them.” Or another scenario given they didn’t find their keys: “That must’ve been devastating/infuriating to miss your appointment because you couldn’t find your keys. I would feel the same way.”
If you don’t quite know what the meaning or feeling is, keep asking questions or gain more information about the discussion. Take a risk and predict the feeling even if you don’t know it (within reason). It’s okay if you are wrong! As long as you are showing compassion and attempts at understanding the speaker’s message, there will be some leeway and ability to clarify. And if you are unfamiliar or uncomfortable with feelings, also OK. To help get more acquainted with feeling words here is a useful PDF. One more thing! To ask “is there more that I didn’t get?” to enhance the complete story of the sender can bring the utmost sense of value, care and love.
“To understand and be understood, these are among life’s greatest gifts, and every interaction is an opportunity to exchange them.”
Maria Popova
Healthy Minds Therapy & Wellness 