The one person who actually has to understand you
Eventually, we all want to be understood, right? Yet, I think that the communication within us, or let it be: making ourselves understand our feelings and desires, is the hardest step of all.
Many years ago I read a short story, in which the disharmony among family members was traced back to a simple communication problem: a daughter brings home a young man to their family dinner, whom the family makes fun of after he is gone: “terribly fat for his age”, is what the mother says, “disgusting”, the sister, and “anxious, so anxious” the father. The laugher grows into dehumanisation, until the daughter reveals that she is going to marry that man. To feel less uncomfortable in this situation, she herself starts laughing about him and makes fun of the decision she took. However, her parents‘ attitude then shifted. With thin voices, they started to commit that–after all–he might actually be a decent guy.
Ever since analysing this short story in middle school, in which my german teacher managed to break the bizarre situations down to: ‘the family has a communication problem‘, I like to think of miscommunication as the main reason for almost any conflicts I encounter.
That was, however, many years before I studied the science of communication and learned that communication–in its‘ very nature–is somewhat unlikely to succeed. Niklas Lumann for instance categorises communication as a problem, thus identifying it as something that fails by default (Luhmann 1981: 26).
But: if communication is so unlikely to succeed, perhaps we use the wrong parameter to measure its‘ success.
I thought a lot about success within communication lately, and how to operationalise it. And I grew an idea, in which successful communication is not about persuading people or implementing my exact thought into their minds, but rather about the strength that we grow out of this exercise.
Let me tell you about some other moments when being in middle school: moments, in which I was frustrated because I didn’t felt understood. That were arguments I was having with my parents for instance, in which I wasn’t able to express my feelings or defend my position because I couldn’t find the right words to do so. I then felt as if I had ‘lost‘ the argument or wasn‘t successful with the way I articulated myself.
Ironically, it was often only a few minutes later, that the perfect sentence to counter the argument appeared in my head. It came out of nothing, but suddenly, I knew how to phrase my feelings. I guess that only then, did I fully understand them too.
That was, how I got into the habit of journaling. Because writing, I became to understand, is a form of articulating myself that aligns to the pace in which I am thinking.
My mum taught me to also write letters to people who misunderstood me. However, the moment had passed and the letters often didn’t achieve the same recognition that a spoken word would have achieved. Still, I was grateful and satisfied for being able to grasp and understand the emotions I felt.
And I learned that my inner strength is the most valuable achievement of any dispute.
Eventually, successful communication starts within you: by empathising with yourself and being grounded. Bit by bit, will you then strengthen your identity and learn to anticipate and express the emotions you feel.