Someone brought this question to a recent satsang: if people receive my intended clarity as rejection.. is it on me to adjust?
I would say, not as in it's your fault or the blame is on you. There is no blame. It's just, if I'm communicating something to someone or a group of people and it doesn't get across.. my communication isn't received the way I want it to be received.. obviously there's two sides to it. But I think one telling thing can be if that happens consistently. More than one time, in different scenarios, with different people who are maybe not even related.. but somehow there's a common thread. That to me is a clue that perhaps there's something for me to have a look at.
But I think either way, I don't have control of the other person. What I have control of is me. And in this case, my communication. So rather than making it an issue, I try to look at it as, okay.. one, what can I learn from this? And two, what can I adjust, or do differently?
If it's happening in different places, and these people don't even know each other, but the consistent thing is people don't really understand what I'm saying.. that's feedback without the verbal feedback. People didn't come to me and say "you're not being clear." But they're kind of saying it without saying it, because it's not quite landing.
A good chunk of clarity is: how can I take what I want to say and say it in the simplest way possible? And this happens to native English speakers too. We say things in very flowery and complex ways sometimes, or we say it in a long way when actually it can be simplified.
I think one thing that teaching yoga has taught me is to get clearer and clearer. It's not something I'm done yet.. I'm still learning myself. But I'm always exploring: I'm saying the same thing in a yoga class, how can I say the same thing in a way that is digestible? So they can take the information, digest it, and ideally do something with it.
If the message doesn't quite land, I look at how I can say it in a way that maybe a five-year-old or a ten-year-old could understand. And that's not looking down on the person. It's not just about saying less.. it's about saying the right amount of stuff. Not too much, not too little. Just the right amount for it to actually land. And if it doesn't land, looking at ways of saying the same thing again in a different way. Sometimes that's using stories.. sharing a real experience, a true story that's actually happening, if that's relevant to the conversation.
We're also so spoiled these days, with technology and good things happening around us, that we don't actually want to think. We're used to scrolling, and if we don't get the message, we just scroll to the next thing. We're trained to be lazy in our brains.. we don't want to do work. So when a message is too long-winded and it takes effort to work out what the hell someone is talking about, some part of the brain just switches off. And then it looks like they don't care. It might not be because they don't care.. they probably do care. But their brain is trained to switch off when it's too much.
And we're not just speaking with words. Words is just part of it. It's also nonverbal.. our body language, actually paying attention, being a really good listener. Listening twice as much as we speak. Expressing the emotion, not just the words. Here in the UK, people are very good at saying the words.. "oh, you're so wonderful".. but there's no emotion in the face. So making sure there's a congruence between my words, my body language, and my actions. When my words say something, my body language says something else, and my actions are doing something else.. the other person feels that something is off, even if they can't name it. These are all ways of bringing clarity.. an alignment between all the parts of my communication.
And on the rejection part itself.. I would be curious how you know it was received as a rejection. In this case, she actually said so. And that matters, because if someone tells you, there is some level of openness there for them to communicate back with you. So if there's that closeness, I would just ask for more feedback.. what made it feel like a rejection? Was it the thing I said, or how I said it? Sometimes it's as simple as a facial expression. Your words are saying one thing, your face is saying something else.
Most people are not going to risk it though. They want to be nice, so they'll just say "oh yeah, no, it's fine, it's fine".. but they're not actually saying the truth. Very few people in our lives will take the risk to say how it is. I think that's one of the powerful and beautiful things about our community.. there's a level of honesty balanced with compassion. It takes a lot for someone to actually be honest and just say the thing. And sometimes what's said needs to be balanced with a softness too. It might be that something was communicated with a certain directness or intensity that wasn't how it was intended.. and it can be balanced with a softness brought to it.
And if you've been trying to improve and it's still not landing.. it's normal to feel like giving up. That's with anything, not just communication. But when something doesn't work, that's feedback: okay, what can I adjust? I don't think we ever stop learning to communicate better. There are so many different people, with different lives, different ways their brain is wired, their own map of the world. Almost every person needs their own unique way of being communicated to. So I think it comes from being really interested and curious about the other person. Seek to understand before you seek to be understood, as the saying goes.
And communicating at the level of intensity and energy and expression that matches. When it's too jarring, it just feels like there's a disconnect.. you're there and I'm here, and we're not connected. Part of it as well is that there's something within us that just wants a certain level of similarity, familiarity, so that our nervous system can relax and feel.. okay, I feel safe. I can trust you, and I'm willing to hear what you have to say in the way that you're saying it.
Watch the full satsang above.
If you'd like to explore this live, I hold a free satsang every Friday at 6:30pm inside the Elevate Community.. come join us if you'd like to be in the room. And if you'd like a structured way in, the free 7-Day Inner Work Challenge is a gentle place to start.
Big love, Dylan