S5 Ep9: Sometimes Finding the Words for Your Thoughts and Feelings Is Hard

What do you do when you can’t find the words?

Sometimes you just don’t know what to say or write. It’s never just the words you use. Even the written word can convey a degree of tone, intent, and attitude.

Communication is a complex mechanism of expression employed to convey ideas. It’s how you and I can share notions, agree and disagree, and expand (or, frankly, shrink) our overall knowledge base.

Communication can be both internal and external.

Communication within and without

Whole people are made up of 4 specific elements. One is tangible, the physical. The other three are intangible, the mental, emotional, and spiritual. Everyone has these four elements to themselves, yet how developed each is varies wildly.

The intangible elements have a rather intense impact on how communication works. This is why it’s more than words. Words are physical. That means there is still a mental, emotional, and spiritual element to all communications.

Most of these are incredibly subtle. That’s because of the intangible nature of the mental, emotional, and spiritual. This is also where miscommunication is frequently born.

Words and body language go hand-in-hand when it comes to in-person conversations. Looks, how you stand, sighs, what you do with your hands, coupled with the words you speak convey an almost surreal amount of information.

Communication is never just words

You can be with a person, in the same space, and still misspeak, misinterpret information, and misunderstand. You think you’re expressing yourself, you think you’re reading another’s cues, and then learn you utterly failed to communicate with one another properly, and now there’s hurt.

Even the unintentional hurt caused by miscommunication feels bad both given and received.

What do you do when you can’t find the words? For me, the answer is to keep searching. Maybe they’re not here now, but they always come when called.

Become more consciously aware and mindful of your own nonverbal, wordless communication styles. I’ve had a real eye-opener into how what I do and don’t do, without words, can create an incredible degree of misunderstanding, which in turn leads to hurt feelings. That sucks.

I can choose to learn a lesson from it, and by recognizing, acknowledging, and being accountable for my failed communication beyond words, I can grow and learn. You can do this, too.

This week’s Applied Guidance for Mindfulness Tool:

Before you say anything to anyone, or send a DM or email, no matter what the topic is, pause. Consider your words, what they are, and what they will convey. Think about nonverbal elements that might go into it. Then act from there.

It might not seem like much, but sometimes pausing and considering before acting can avoid confusion, miscommunication, misunderstanding, and other issues before they might even occur.

Be mindful of what words and nonverbal communication you put out into the world.

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