Emotional mirroring is when you attempt to resolve the conflict by way of interpreting the other person’s emotions and reflecting them back to them as a way of showing understanding on a deeper level. It’s a matter of empathy; reflecting their emotional state by truly feeling it in your own subconscious mind. It takes a great deal of practice as it requires removing personal agendas and motivations and truly adopting a compassionate stance of deep, empathic engagement. It isn’t something that can be achieved without habitual practice.

The disomfort and stumbling are a sort of self-consciousness where you are focused more on the response from the other person that hasn’t even been provided yet. Try absolving this fear first by recognizing it (which you have done) and then committing to listening as openly and objectively as possible without formulating a response while you listen. Many of us are guilty of this; thinking of what we would like to say while another person is speaking or exploring our own emotional response. This is what you should try to avoid. Focus on the words the other person is using, what those words signify to them, engage in the conversation by more than just allowing the other person to speak but by inviting them to extrapolate and broaden their ideas with your words and gestures. Use your role in the conversation only to provoke the other person to build on what they are saying. Use this as a tool to break down your ego and your self-conscious fear of their response as it is your ego that is enforcing this fear, your self-preservational instinct that desires to ‘fit it’ and be accepted.

Take some time to explore the notion that rejection or dismissal by another person is far from a negative moment; it is an opportunity to learn. To learn about others, self and the society in which we live. These moments are where the truest form of opportunity reveals itself by revealing our character to our self. You are poised to test what it is you are truly made of. This is a lot of the cause of the fear you feel in these moments; the looming challenge of observing self and being placed in a position to grow. As we grow older and our conditioning galvanizes, being put in a position outside of our comfort zone invokes fear, maybe even panic. Know this; fear is only a response to danger and/or the unknown. It is NOT a real, tangible element of our world but a construct of our mind and a primative construct at that. When you feel fear, know that it is only a chemical response over which you have control. Allow the emotion of fear to transfer into a motivation to change. Eventually this process will become fluid and graceful. It’s all about being consciously aware and choosing to see the opportunity in each trouble, the potential in every crisis and the growth available in what may seem like failure or rejection.