Coded Messages, and Decoding Them

It is not enough to hear what you said, I must hear the essence of what you message is, the underlying intent. If I stop at parroting or rephrasing, then I will nearly always miss the true meaning, and you will not truly feel heard. You may think that I have heard what you said, but you will not feel that you have really been understood.

Decoding your message does of course start with ensuring that I have heard what you said. However, to get the underlying message, I must allow you to go deeper. This means that even when I am reflecting back your words, I am doing it in such a way that helps you get in touch with your true meaning. In involves helping you stay in your heart, or moving to your heart.

The way is to focus all my attention and energy in you and the heart of your message, without allowing my head to disagree or my child-self to feel blamed. One way to do this is make sure that I only use the word "you" and never "I," "we," or "us." This serves to keep the focus on you and your message and not on me. That the standard active listening template "I hear you say that..." works against this principle. It directs your attention to what I have "heard" you you say, and not on whether what you are getting back from me does indeed match what your intent is. It moves you towards your head, since you need to analyze whether or not I "heard you say" what you said.

Another reason to move beyond the "what did you say" part is the fact that what you said may have little to do with the real message. Why you said it is even an more important component of your "real" message. For example, a couple is getting dressed to go out, and the wife says "You going to wear that shirt?" The "what" of what she said is an observation about which shirt he chose to wear, but the real message is between the lines. What she is really saying is more like "That shirt looks awful and I want you to change it."

It is not until your message is fully "decoded," understood by me, and understood (and verified) by you that I understand that it becomes "my turn" to speak. Often we go through the motions of "active listening" because we are silently just waiting for our turn to speak. This of course is not listening, and certainly not enhancing to the relationship. It signals that my need to speak is more important than my desire to hear what you have to say.