Communicating-To-Be-Understood

From what I’ve noticed, there are two kinds of communication: communication-to-be-heard and communication-to-be-understood.

 

Let me try and explain what I think’s the difference:

 

Have you ever been really upset? And you lash out?

 

Maybe you say ‘shut up’ or you say ‘bleep you’ or you push someone, or want to hurt them with your words?

 

Or maybe you lie because you don’t want to disappoint anyone by not meeting an expectation?

 

Or you brag because it seems no ever notices your accomplishments?

 

These are examples of communication-to-be-heard.

 

From what I’ve noticed, we do this in moments where we feel threatened. Maybe because of a dangerous situation, but more often, I think it happens when we’re triggered by someone who did something that upset us. Or when we’re trying to avoid getting triggered by someone who might do something to upset us.

 

Most people are pretty familiar with communication-to-be-heard, though I don’t know anyone who likes to be on the receiving end of it.

 

Communication-to-be-understood, on the other hand, is less common. It might start out sounding something like:

 

“I’m upset that you’re accusing me of something. I hear you’re upset too. But I think we’re misunderstanding each other. Can we talk about what happened?

 

Or, “I see you want me to do that right now. But I’m right in the middle of something that’s really important to me. Can you give me 15 more minutes?”

 

Or, “I don’t have the energy to handle your concern and mine both at the same time right now. Can we gather our thoughts and talk about this after dinner?”

 

The trouble is, even though I think the majority of people really want to connect and be understood, many of us don’t have the skills to communicate-to-be-understood. And I think one reason for this is because not many people are role-modeling communication-to-be-understood. Probably because we’re all too busy communicating-to-be-heard.

 

Communicating-to-be-heard is very contagious.

 

Because what do we want to do when someone lashes out at us? We want to lash back.

 

If someone says some variety of ‘shut up’, it’s very hard not to say some variety of, ‘No, YOU shut up.’

 

Or for those more mild mannered people:

If someone says some variety of, ‘I don’t like your behavior.’

Then I might say, ‘Well, now you know how I felt three days ago, when YOU had that same behavior.’

 

It’s a game of offense/defense that can only end when someone has the skills to step into another way of being with a different intention: to understand instead of win.

 

Consider the game of offense/defense like a tennis match going left and right, and stepping forward—the direction out of the game, and into a new way of being.

 

But how can anyone step forward when we don’t even know that direction exists?

 

Communication-to-be-heard begins in childhood.

 

Let’s say a little kid tries to express themselves to get their needs met and they have no skills to communicate-to-be-understood. Which is always the case with little children. We all start out as balls of reactions.

 

So the little kid screams, and the adult more than likely runs over to the little kid to meet their needs, and the little kid stops screaming.

 

But then what happens as we get older?

 

Well, in an ideal world, I’d imagine we’d be taught by our parents the skill of communicating-to-be-understood.

 

And I’d imagine our parents would teach us this skill by role-modeling it themselves, by being empathetic and curious about our upset behavior, and reflecting back to us what they think we might be feeling, until we’re calm enough to communicate-to-be-understood, to share more information about our experience.

Like, “Wow. What just happened made you really upset! I’m so sorry you’re suffering. Can you help me understand more about why that upset you so much? So I can support you?”

 

After children experience what it’s like to be reflected enough times, I’d imagine they’d practice the skill themselves, until it became second nature, and then carry that skill into their adulthood.

 

But what if we have parents who never learned how to communicate-to-be-understood? What if our parents never had role models who reflected their upsets?

 

When this is the case, what we have is a bunch of people in bodies both big and small, filled to the brim with way too many unreflected upsets, still communicating-to-be-heard.

 

But the problem is, as we get a little older and a little bigger, and we’re still communicating-to-be-heard, instead of the adults running toward us to meet our needs, they’re much more likely to run in the opposite direction.



And the sad part about this is, as much as parents love their children, when parents don’t have access to the skills that would help reflect their kids’ feelings underneath their behavior, their kids’ problems don’t get solved.



In fact their problems can get worse, because of what many parents learned from their own parents: That when someone is communicating-to-be-heard, it’s their responsibility, and their right, to stop the behavior.

 

One method some parents use to stop big behaviors is by deflecting. By saying to their child what their parents said to them.

Things like:

Calm down.

Or, If you don’t stop, I’ll take something away that you love.

Or, What are you so upset about? I was only kidding.

Or, Lighten up. You’re too emotional.

Or, There’s something wrong with you.

Or, You’re never going to amount to anything if you behave that way.

Or whatever they can think of to stop the kid from expressing their upset the only way they know how.

 

And, if the kid continues to communicate-to-be-heard, some adults might go from deflection to protection, and even yell at their kid or hurt their kid to get them to stop, because their kid’s communicating-to-be-heard is so difficult for them to be with.

 

But here’s what I’ve noticed with those old fashioned strategies:

Deflecting instead of reflecting creates disconnection instead of connection.

 

And when people go from deflection into protection it gets even worse.

 

When people disconnect from their feelings and from each other, in protection mode, people tend to explode—by getting really loud and scary—or they implode, by shutting down and becoming completely unavailable.

 

And when kids and parents get stuck in the cycle of communicating-to-be-heard together, everyone winds up stressed out. Which in turn causes everyone to continue communicating-to-be-heard. Can you see what a messy cycle this is?

 

And then the people in this stressful cycle go out into the world and what do you think they do when they cross paths with other upset people? Do you think they’re going to be available to reflect and connect?

 

My guess is not so much, because their brains are so wired to deflect and disconnect. So then what happens, is even more people get left feeling dismissed.

 

There’s a whole lot of people walking around with upset feelings they don’t know what to do with.

 

We so badly want to be understood and reflected, but so many of us don’t know how to get this to happen. And we’re left isolated, secretly traumatized, and full of various amounts of shame.

 

Next, enter school.

 

So we’ve got a bunch of stressed out kids and adults and we’ve also got all of these wonderful school buildings in every town so that kids can go inside and learn something to help them have a bright future.

 

But how much time do schools devote to teaching kids the skills to communicate-to-be-understood?

 

Thankfully, some of them devote at least some time for this. But more often than not, at least from what I’ve seen, kids are being taught to communicate-to-understand math or communicate-to-understand someone else’s perspective, that may or may not have anything to do with their own.

 

And though there are plenty of kids who do fine meeting these expectations, these other kids, who are so stressed out, can’t cope at all with meeting these expectations.

 

And when these stressed-out kids are sitting at their desks being asked to figure out math problems instead of getting help figuring out the problems that make it so uncomfortable to be inside their skin, they are likely going to start communicating-to-be-heard simply because they don’t know what else to do... and more trouble begins.

 

And why does more trouble begin? Because many teachers aren’t trained to reflect their students’ upsets underneath their behavior. For all we know, they’ve never even had their own feelings reflected.

 

So instead of reflecting the upset, and offering support to help make meeting expectations easier and more of an opportunity, some teachers, even the ones who care so much for their students, feel obligated to stop the behavior using that old fashioned strategy called communicating-to-be-heard.

 

So maybe they label the kid as an interruption or they give the kid a bad grade or they send the kid to the principal’s office.

 

And what does this accomplish? Yet more shame and disconnection.

 

When kids fail to meet expectations at home and also at school, and are not taught what to do with all their unexpressed concerns, thoughts, and ideas—over time, I’d say it’s likely they’re going to assume their concerns, thoughts, and ideas just don’t matter. And at some point they may even decide THEY don’t matter.

 

And if kids feel they don’t matter, what does anyone expect will happen?

 

These kids who have no one to turn to, to be reflected and understood, will begin turning to the only coping mechanisms available to them.

 

Maybe they find other stressed out kids and avoid their pain together by engaging in reckless behavior that feels so much more free and stimulating than the endless cycle of being misunderstood and dismissed.

 

Maybe some stressed out kids inflict pain onto themselves because at least it’s pain they know for sure they’re feeling, and no one can deflect it.

 

Maybe some stressed out kids become bullies and pick on the most vulnerable kids because they can’t bear to see anyone showing emotions without making sure those emotions get dismissed.

 

Or maybe some stressed out kids bully themselves into complying with expectations because they don’t want their own difficulties to make them seem less-than.

 

So how do we stop this big mess? How do we learn to communicate-to-be-understood when next to no one is teaching these skills?

 

Well, you probably already figured out the answer. You, have to be the one to teach yourself how to communicate-to-be-understood.

 

You, have to choose to stop the volleying back and forth and step forward into a new direction, into a new way of being.

 

That means even if you have no one in your life who has the skills to reflect your upsets—the stuff underneath your behavior—then YOU are going to have to practice reflecting yourself.

 

And that’s where writing comes in.

 

Writing, at least in my experience, is a wonderful way to reflect one’s own concerns. And I don’t mean handwriting if that doesn’t work for you. Keyboarding, voice-to-text, a journal entry, a song, a poem... Anything to get your experience out of your body and into the room your body is in.

 

Don’t know where to begin?

 

Pick an upset.

 

Write about the specifics of what happened and why it upset you. Remember, you have a right to every one of your feelings.

 

Your upset doesn’t have to be huge. Many of us are taught that something has to be literally on fire to count as upsetting. But as far as I’m concerned, anytime you’re feeling dismissed or deflected or you feel like you don’t matter, it’s upsetting.

 

So write the scene of what happened according to how YOU experienced it.

 

Make sure to describe the behavior you had in the moment of your upset, behavior that was either out-loud or in private, and then ask yourself what was underneath that behavior that you didn’t have the skills to communicate.

 

Was it something from the past that triggered you? Was it a concern in that moment that triggered you? Something about the environment you were in, that stressed you out?

 

Remember that underneath every communication-to-be-heard is the desire to be understood and gotten.

 

Continue for a few moments getting in touch with all of your thoughts and concerns, until you feel understood and gotten by yourself.

 

You’ll know when this happens because you’ll feel love for yourself or at least care a whole lot about what you’ve been through. That’s what’s meant by reflection. Telling yourself, “That was an awful experience and I can understand why.”

 

Next, write what you wish would have happened.

 

How would you like people to treat you?

How would you like to connect with people?

How would you like them to connect with you?

How would you like to be known?

What’s important to you when it comes to connecting and communicating with other people?

What’s important to you in your life?

 

As you write, you‘ll be discovering your own perspective. Which really means—how you see and understand life through your eyeballs, through YOUR experiences.

 

Next, think about the behavior of the person who upset you. Try to imagine what was underneath THEIR behavior.

 

Remember, many of us come from generations of people who’ve been left disconnected instead of reflected.

 

What do you think the other person would want to communicate if THEY had the skills to communicate-to-be-understood?

 

What would you say to that person if they were able to share this kind of communication with you?

 

You might find a bit of empathy not only for yourself, but for all these other people who communicate-to-be-heard, because you’ll realize they’re coming from a place of feeling dismissed. And for all we know, maybe they’ve never been reflected by anyone in their entire life.

 

As you continue to practice communicating-to-be-understood with yourself, you may just discover that you’re actually proud of your perspective. And once this happens, you can begin using your voice to practice sending your perspective further out of your room and into your world.

 

Because once you realize that you matter and your perspective matters, you will start coming up with a lot of wonderful ideas. And because you no longer need to invest so much of your energy into communicating-to-be-heard, you will be able to use your energy to turn your wonderful ideas into reality. And as you begin to share what you’re creating, you will begin to realize that your ideas and your perspective make a big difference to the people in your community.

 

And that’s what’s meant by communicating-to-be-understood.

 

Communicating-to-be-understood is a very new kind of communication for many of us, so even as you share your perspective and create more fulfilling connections with the people in your life, don’t be disappointed if some people are less receptive and don’t yet speak your language.

 

Communicating-to-be-understood doesn’t mean other people won’t frustrate or trigger you. It just means that when someone isn’t able to or willing to connect with you the way you’d like, you can remind yourself that their behavior is absolutely not a reflection of who you are.

 

It’s a reflection of what might be in the way of the other person’s listening. Even if it’s the people in your own family who aren’t understanding you the way you’d like them to.

 

And regardless of who is or isn’t receptive to your communication-to-be-understood, you have the ability and the privilege to connect with yourself. And knowing that you matter, connecting with yourself will never feel like a punishment.

 

When we give up the volley of offense/defense through communicating-to-be-heard, we create the space to communicate-to-be-understood.

 

It takes practice to get used to communicating-to-be-understood. In fact, I still have to practice every time I share myself with the people in my life and every time I write one of these episodes.

 

But if we stay strong. And committed. And most of all, true to our perspectives, we can step forward and into this new way of being together, knowing that even when we’re having trouble connecting, the majority of us really are doing the best we can in the moments we’re in.

 

The End.

—JLK