Happy Sunday,

It’s been a very busy week. I’m so glad Mindy get’s really practical this week with a reframing of conversation and listening and a simple technique to try that’s worked so well for us.

Since most of you won’t be at the SLC Pride kickoff this weekend, I’m going to share a few photos of Mindy giving Free Mom Hugs. There were a couple of groups, including Dragon Dads, giving out free hugs. They all showed up beautifully. Unlike everyone standing there being friendly Mindy reached her arms out to everyone who passed and asked, “Hug?” So hundreds of people took her up on the hug, and Mindy couldn’t be happier than showing up this way.

I’m really grateful to get to share life with this beautifully kind and inviting human!

— David/Gonzo

This week, I wanted to share one of the best tools David and I have learned to improve our communication. It’s telling that we only learned it last fall, and we’ve been married nearly 23 years. We still have a lot of room for growth, but employing this strategy has honestly been a game changer. 

The strategy is this: after Person A shares their feelings about whatever issue or concern has come up, Person B reiterates what has been said, using such language as “I heard you say…” Person B refrains from interpreting the contents or adding any commentary and ends by asking, “Did I miss anything?” Then, Person A can supply any details that were left out, or they can clarify a point that was unclear. Person B repeats the process, then asks, “Did I get that right?” At this point, the process can repeat, or Person A can nod or say, “Yes, that sounds right.” 

This will go a lot smoother if, while Person A is sharing their feelings, they can stick to their own actual feelings and refrain from blaming or shifting attention to what they think about them. (This may sound familiar from what we’ve shared about Non-Violent Communication in past issues of this newsletter. Here’s a link to a printable feelings list for reference.)

This honestly can feel tedious and even a little ridiculous while you’re in the middle of it. But after having employed this strategy many, many times over the past months, I can assure you it is worth dealing with those feelings. And one day I was struck with a metaphor that I think helps explain why. Unfortunately for you, I think this metaphor is helped by a little drawing, and my skills in that area leave a lot to be desired. (If a picture is worth 1000 words, my pictures are maybe worth 75.)

When we have feelings, they can be MASSIVE. They can seem to occupy the entirety of our inner space and depending on their intensity, even seem to spill out into our surroundings. Even with the many words we have to describe feelings (see list), many of us are unfamiliar with emotional language and also unfamiliar with our own emotional landscape. It’s like going to the Amazon rainforest and trying to describe what you see, but you’re limited to the most basic of nouns like bird, tree, insect, etc. So this rich, enormous, complex emotional experience comes through a tremendously limited reducing valve on its way to your partner. I see this as similar to being asked, “What was the Amazon like?” and only being able to say, “There were trees and birds there.” To the best of our ability, we express what’s going on inside of us, and it comes out this little pile of words, obviously inadequate to convey even the smallest fraction of what is really alive within us. So when our partner reflects back to us what we’ve said, they are honoring the magnitude of what we’ve shared by creating a larger space for it to occupy. They take our pile of words and kind of shape it, like a ball of clay, into something that has a bit more form. Contrast this with the usual experience: Person A shares their feelings, Person B becomes distracted by their own feelings and thoughts, while Person A shares and may even cut off Person A to share their own stuff. Person A’s little pile of feelings gets trampled and scattered, and nobody feels understood or cared for. 

It is tremendously vulnerable to share our feelings with others. Most of us employ various strategies to avoid feeling or engaging too much with our feelings. Often, it's gotta be a BIG deal to get us to overcome the protective parts of ourselves that tell us not to bother sharing feelings in the first place. Understanding the challenges and limits of translating emotions into words and then conveying those words effectively to another can help us see the value in receiving another’s voiced feelings as a gift, even when those feelings can be hard to hear. We can make a safe and soft landing for them and use this process of reflective listening to show how important that sharing is. I see it as carving out space for something so important to someone important to us, and I imagine it as metaphorically (but also kind of literally) creating some sort of container in space-time for the sacred treasure that is to be entrusted with the feelings of someone so important to us. 

If this metaphor-within-metaphor approach was not your cup of tea, maybe you will find more resonance with David’s breakdown of this approach in last week’s newsletter.  By writing my thoughts up this way, I hope to give more space to this tool that we’ve found so helpful, trusting that it will benefit others. Emotions are beautiful but also challenging. Learning to sail their waters skillfully is the key to a beautiful, rich life. 

—Mindy

NEAT!

Stuff we think is neat enough to share! (David⚡️ & Mindy✨)

• Our friend Miriam is researching psychedelic facilitation as part of her Ph.D. work at the University Of Utah. ⚡️

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That’s all for this week! If you’re into this, share this newsletter with all your friends. Connecting with new subscribers is magical! 🧚🏻‍♀️

DISCLAIMER: This newsletter is for educational and informational purposes only and is not intended as a substitute for professional medical advice.