It can be most refreshing to have a discussion allowing to uncover the unsaid.

It’s also a discussion a lot of us prefer to avoid.

While people might understand the benefit of such an exchange, emotionally the risks it brings are much more present. That’s the problem. It’s where people start to tell themselves stories about all the “bad” things which could happen. And as people know themselves much better then the other it’s also where interpretation starts.

We’ve been taught body language.

We’ve been taught communication patterns.

We’ve been taught to be empathic.

We’ve been taught to do active listening.

All excellent.

All tools and methods which are there to help us to see the other person from a different angle. To learn to see that they can be different than us. To see that they have their own way of seeing the world.

If we stop there, they only work as far as we can think and find meaning.

It means that we use our way of sense-making, our perception.

A bit as if we’d assume that others are different from us but have the same inner world.

It’s still interpretation.

We need to ask and learn from the other.

They are the only ones who can help us see what they mean and look for.

That’s straight talk.