The One Essential Thing You Can Do to Make Yourself Heard

One thing that has become clear to me in my 44 years of psychotherapy practice is that we all want to be heard. There is no greater joy than creating rich, deep, meaningful connections. Communicating skillfully makes a huge difference in creating these connections and improving our quality of life.

Many of us carry the scars of not being heard as children. We didn’t feel emotionally safe to share our feelings of vulnerability and deepest concerns with our caregivers or friends. Well-meaning parents may have been too busy or preoccupied to give them loving attention. Assuming we won’t be heard has perhaps become a familiar experience.

When we deeply believe that people are unwilling or unable to hear our feelings and needs, we may keep a lot inside and be reluctant to speak up. Or we go to the other extreme: improve our way of speaking by speaking quickly or with a touch of anger or irritability. We could talk to people when they want to be heard.

Therefore, there is not much communication, not much connection. Depression and anxiety can stem from a lack of healthy, secure attachments.

Unfortunately, the repeated experience of not feeling connected can frustrate us, confirming our belief that people are not interested in hearing and understanding us. However, have you realized that there are certain things you can do that might help you be heard? Here’s a superpower you can harness to help make a difference.

The power of the pause

It may seem trivial, but pausing during a conversation can be a powerful way to attract people to us. As noted in a previous article, people have a limited attention span these days. Too many words can overwhelm the listener. They may be inundated, bored, or saturated as we continue talking, deaf to the way they space out.

Getting into the habit of pausing gives the listener a chance to absorb what we are saying. This gives them a chance to catch their breath, and maybe ask a question or share what’s happening to them as we speak. It also gives us the opportunity to clarify what we actually mean. This includes discovering deeper feelings that might elude us.

Communication involves content and process. We often focus on content without sharing how we feel about what we say. You may be talking about a recent family visit or a problem at work. People are more likely to maintain interest if you share not only what happened, but also how you feel about this.

Taking a break gives you the opportunity to notice and share these feelings. Was the family visit pleasant, upsetting, or perhaps both? Was the conversation with your boss or colleague meaningful, scary, or uplifting? Noticing and sharing such feelings attracts the listener. This keeps the connection alive.

Pausing Can Deepen Connection

If you express your dissatisfaction with your partner or friend, it is especially important to take a break. This gives you an opportunity to notice whether you are expressing your feelings or judgments.

Very often when I work with couples, they believe they are sharing their feelings, when in reality they are shaming the other person with comments that have a hurtful subtext: “What not going to your house? or “You are not a good person.” Taking a break gives you the opportunity to replace demeaning and disrespectful comments that rob people of their dignity (and evoke defensiveness) with a courageously vulnerable expression of your inner world. “When you said or did XYZ, I felt sad (or hurt, ashamed, or angry).”

Psychotherapy research by Eugene Gendlin found that clients who made the most progress in therapy paused and connected with their felt experience, rather than talking from their heads. He developed concentration to help people discover and speak from their feelings (a term coined by Gendlin).

A lot of my work has been focusing on relationships. As people pause long enough to connect with their inner feelings, and then share those feelings, a safer emotional climate is created. Love and intimacy flourish in a climate of security and mutual listening. Pausing allows us to slow down and speak from our authentic hearts, rather than spewing criticisms, interpretations, or biased viewpoints, which push away the connections we want.

Pausing allows us to connect to something deeper than our preconceived opinions and judgments. As we take time to discover the quieter feelings that need our attention, we are better positioned to speak from a tender, soulful place.

Registration

The break allows us to check how we are received. Rather than overwhelming our listener, we can check to see if they stay with us. Here are some questions that assure the listener that the connection to them is more important than your story or content.

• “Am I talking too much? I don’t want to overwhelm you.”
• “Would you like to respond to everything I said before we continue?” »
• “Are you with me or am I losing you?”
• “How come what I say lands with you?”

Such check-ins show sensitivity to how you are received. You are signaling that you are more interested in staying connected than making your point and that you are willing to make adjustments so you don’t lose connection. Balancing self-expression with awareness of how your words land with the other person creates a climate for love and intimacy to flourish.

We have no ultimate control over whether a person will hear and understand us. But cultivating the habit of pausing and chatting with your listener can increase your chances of being heard and feeling connected.

© John Amodeo