There’s a common wish that has threaded human desires together since our humblest beginnings, even without realising it:
To be understood.
When we have this feeling, whether it is in an unintentionally deep conversation at a party with a random person we’ve only just met or simply the tired smile of someone you don’t know on the bus that says ‘I understand’, the feeling of being understood no matter who allows us to feel this way can stay with us forever.
But what happens when the people we want to be most understood by, simply don’t seem to give us the room for that understanding? And what happens when it’s a particularly emotive situation, where we really feel we need to be understood to get over the hurt?
We’ve been told through books and in films, by Instagram psychologists and the friend who always gives us relationship advice over another “I need your advice” cup of coffee (or a few shots of tequila depending on how intense the situation is) that communication is key.
We want to communicate after all because we want to be heard and understood.
“There’s nothing more intimate in life than simply being understood and simply understanding someone else,” novelist Brad Meltzer once mused.
Often, we allocate this space of being understood through conversations that haven’t actually happened. “What if we had just talked about it?” “what if we one day do?” “what if I had said this instead of that?” Indeed these exist in the clustered web of possibilities that keep us awake staring at the ceiling.
But here’s the thing, writes Cape {town} Etc’s Ashleigh Nefdt, even if we did get the opportunity to talk things out, what happens if someone is bent on not understanding us? On sticking to their own narrative?
I saw some advice that made me rethink everything I thought I wanted from communication, and I will openly confess that I did a double-take and spat out my orange juice as it changed the way I think substantially.
“Communication isn’t always key – comprehension is.”
I encourage you to read that again.
What does this mean?
As Medium wrote in an article : “communication is one of the cornerstones of any relationship.” However, there becomes little point in talking for hours if someone is not willing to comprehend what you’re saying.
Comprehension refers to truly taking something in, marinading on it, and most importantly having the intention of seeing someone else’s perspective.
Okay, so how do we level up on comprehending?
To this question, the experts will point you in the direction of a friend called ‘active listening.
Active listening is a technique that requires concentration, understanding, response and memory. According to the publication Positive Psychology, there are ways to navigate these waters, even for even the most seemingly unchartered explorers. Here are a few pointers.
1. Nonverbal involvement
Nodding in understanding, making eye contact, observing body language and the like are all ways that we listen without our ears. This ticket is all about being attentive – telling your body to pay attention using other senses.
2. Listen to the person and not your own thoughts.
How many times are we guilty of waiting in a conversation instead of listening? We wait for the other party to finish so that we can add what we want to say, but communication requires really hearing over simply listening.
3. Practice non-judgement.
If you arrive at a conversation with judgement, I have some bad news for you – it’s probably going to result in further heat. However, if you try your best to look at things like Switzerland, in terms of neutrality, you might find that you hear things completely differently.
4. Tolerate silence
Silence doesn’t always need to be filled, despite the extrovert’s urge to populate emptiness with chatter. Sometimes we need silence as a much-needed break to process.
5. Paraphrase
By putting a remix on sentences that have been addressed in our own way, we formulate our own understanding. “So you’re saying…” is a pretty effective way to lead as it leans into how you have interpreted the communication. An added bonus of this pointer is that any miscommunications is vocalised.
6. Ask questions
Communication isn’t a test in which you have to get all the answers right. We ask questions so we can iron out misunderstandings, and more often than not, asking instead of assuming goes a very long way.
Slow down tiger, that’s not all there is to it.
Active listening is only one baby in this bathtub. If you really want to give your all when it comes to comprehension, there’s another friend to invite to the party – ’empathetic listening’.
Empathetic listening is what happens when you deliberately slow things down and seek to understand others’ inner worlds, as Ximena Vengoechea expressed in a brilliant article on the subject.
What happens if I try all of this and it doesn’t work out?
I’m not going to end this writing here, simply wish you the best and promise that everything will be rainbows and sunshine. These pointers are exactly that – pointers, not a full-proof plan. There’s a shining chance that they might work, but there’s also the sigh of cynicism that they might not. In the case of the latter, I’ll take up just a few more sentences of this page.
First of all – if one party isn’t willing to really try, or is committed to misunderstanding you, you’re probably wasting your breath. If you both try and things still can’t be ironed out, then what happens next is accepting that this mountain can’t be moved, and this is the reality in the present.
Maybe there are reasons for this too – humans are complicated being after all.
Sometimes we have to understand that some people aren’t ready to have the conversations that we are. Maybe they’ve got a little too much hurt, and you’ve got a little too much frustration, or too many ‘last straws’ in your heart to see things from their side.
If resolution doesn’t blossom, or if someone reverts back to not wanting to understand due to their own inner world, understand that you can’t control that.
Of course, it can feel frustrating when we can’t get that closure through understanding that we’ve been seeking.
However, life has a funny way of giving us what we need, just not always in the way we might think. Perhaps you may never have that conversation with the person who hurt you or whom you hurt, but you may find those words you’ve always wanted to hear or say somewhere else entirely – in your own heart, a stranger’s writing, or a phone call from a version of that same person you simply haven’t met yet.
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