2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43
Communication as it occurs between most people today is exhausting and dysfunctional.
We say one thing, mean another - hence the interest in manipulators and manipulations to tame the manipulators.
One critical skill that builds on mutually enriching, mutually caring, constructive communication is the ability to hear your cues through the ears of the person to whom they were sent.
Let me ask you - but honestly, honestly: what do you do when you listen? The answer is not as obvious ("I am listening"), no matter how one would like to expect it. Most of us are busy thinking about our own line. This mental pastime is easily read by us on an intuitive level. More consciously - by empaths or those who are non-verbal savvy. This behavior is understandable and justified: the desire to evoke respect, approval, to establish one's point of view and to be perceived by the interlocutor in a way that is beneficial for us is fundamentally important for ensuring the survival of individual consciousness in society.
Today, our subconscious and “uncomfortable” baggage, which consists in exclusive concern for our own person and the impression that it makes, inherent in one way or another - healthy or unhealthy - to each person, has been collectively shifted onto the shoulders of people whom we call narcissists. In a person we clearly diagnose as a narcissist, the exclusive emphasis on self is only slightly more heightened than in those of us who are more likely to behave as a victim, a rescuer, or other roles defined by modern psychology.
If we dig into the behavior of any of us, we will find that the need to be liked, to be approved, not to offend, to attract attention, and any other attempt to satisfy some of our important psychological need through a relationship with another person is at the heart of human interactions. Instead of demonizing such a need, it would be wiser to define and recognize the level of unconsciousness with which we satisfy this need.
Specifically … Imagine that you got a job as a consultant in the bank's contact center. To advise clients effectively, you need to understand and study a lot: internal policies, current offers, packages offered by the bank, categories of the population that our bank serves. For this purpose, you study the theoretical information provided for you by the training department for two weeks.
And now comes the moment of certification. I am an assessor, a young woman of 35 years old. I decide whether you will pass the exam or not, and on the basis of this I will make a decision whether you will work in our structure or not. My experience in this bank is 5 years. I went through all the levels of work from A to Z: I started, like you, as a consultant, and my diligent work brought me professional regalia. I am going to evaluate you and give you a verdict based on your exam results. However, imagine that I am completely unable to see the exam with your eyes. And why should I? A good employee should be able to grasp on the fly - I believe. For me, all questions are insipid and understandable, and I do not want to waste time on useless grumbling "for fools". From the very beginning, I ask you a question that requires critical reflection (* completely ignoring the fact that I myself needed practical, direct experience in the profession to resolve it). And when you start to mumble, stammering, on this question, I get annoyed and send you to retake. What am I forgetting as a person in power? I forget to look at the exam with your eyes - the eyes of a young test subject. I don’t want to bother adjusting to you - and I don’t see the need for that. From my point of view, where the mechanism of work is natural and understandable for me, it's hard for me to try on the shoes of a beginner again. Assignment: Scan the above situation with your mind's eye. Emotionally, as an actor, probe both roles. Become aware of the subconscious needs ignored by both parties in this situation (yes, BOTH - although in our today's society the role of the victim is heroized, the victim is often unable to abstractly trace his own unfulfilled needs, the resolution of which contributes to the resolution of the conflict).
When and why do we feel misunderstood?
As soon as we make a conscious choice to look at our behavior from the point of view of another person and hear ourselves with the ears of this person, we will immediately find that the message that we send him is often indirect, fragmented and difficult to perceive.
When we call on another person to “look at reality”, “look at the situation objectively,” we are actually asking this person to look at the situation with their own eyes, because the very objectivity and reality to which we so actively appeal is nothing else, as our perception and interpretation of reality.
If you feel a conflict is brewing and you feel discounted or misunderstood, ask yourself next set of questions:
1. If I could observe my speech from the outside, what words of mine could potentially sound incomprehensible to another person?
2. If my words contained an important emotional need that I cannot communicate directly to him / her, what need would it be?
3. What do I REALLY want to tell this person?
4. What meaning can another person put into my words based on what I am saying now, given his life experience?
5. How can the meaning that I put into my words differ from the meaning that another person can put into them?
Follow-up work should be to satisfy your unmet need in a healthy way: for example, by informing the other person about it. Openness and a willingness to be vulnerable instantly creates an atmosphere of trust.
Trying to distance yourself from your own point of view and look at the conversation from the perspective of an alien, an outside observer, or a spectator in the auditorium is the first step towards real, true Objectivity.
Lilia Cardenas, integral psychologist, psychotherapist
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