Marriage Actually - An honest look at marriage

He Said - She Said

by Bald Man on August 19th, 2007

More from “If the Buddha Married,” by Charlotte Kasl. This time, lets talk about an essential to communication… recognizing our “interpretive filters.”

We had a running joke in the family growing. It’s a monologue that goes something like this: “I think I thought I heard what you think you said, but I’m not so sure you said what I think you thought you were saying.” Confused?

It’s meant to be confusing. It invariably comes up where one person says something, and the other just doesn’t get it. Most of the time it’s no big deal. The miscommunication is identified and addressed by rephrasing or such.

But sometimes, miscommunication is a big deal, usually because the participants are unaware that the miscommunication has occurred. The speaker leaves the conversation thinking she has successfully expressed herself, and the listener leaves equally sure that he has successfully heard the message. Unfortunately, the message sent and the message received aren’t the same message at all.

Well, what can you do? Speaking to the listener, it is important that you listen… and not that “yeah, uh huh, I heard you,” kind of listening that some of us are so good at. (It continues to infuriate Kerri that I am in many cases able to recite back her words verbatim even when it has been plainly obvious to the most casual observer that I haven’t been listening at all. :| ) No, no… that won’t do at all. In order to communicate successfully, we must listen actively. We must engage our spouse, so that he or she feels and recognizes that we are listening.

Also - and this far more difficult - we must strive to hear from our spouse’s perspective. Too often our brains hear what they want to hear. In order to reduce internal stress, they reconfigure the message so that it becomes consistent with beliefs and opinions already believed to be true. Kasl expresses it this way: “We need to realize it is our own filters that create our interpretations of what is taking place around us.”

The challenge, therefore is to step out from behind our own filters and attempt to hear the message being sent with fresh ears. If we can do that, then we are far more likely to hear what they really said… and not what we think we thought they said… i think.

image: phone | eye | lolcat

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POSTED IN: Communication