How to Share Your Feelings and Be Heard

“The most precious gift we can offer anyone is our attention. When mindfulness embraces those we love, they will bloom like flowers.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh

Not so long ago, a dear friend of mine approached me wishing to be heard for some overwhelming grief and anger she was carrying.

I gave her my full ear and attention, but as I listened to her, I noticed a worry begin to stir inside me—a worry surfacing around a great deal of violent intent I heard in her words. Could she really want to hurt someone I believed she loved?

After another twenty minutes of listening, I decided to authentically voice my worry to her until I felt fully heard around it, and together that evening we came to a place of deeper understanding and care.

You may be thinking, “Wow! Your friend sure took it well despite being so angry. You must have been pretty careful in how you worded it, though.”

But what if I told you that I managed to voice my truth without stimulating further anger or a sense of disconnect in her precisely because I did not try to be careful about what I said?

Most of us, in first learning greater compassion and becoming aware of our needs and inherent worth, are not unlikely to come off sometimes as careless in how we express ourselves to others. We’re finally finding our voice, after all, and in standing up for our precious needs, such “carelessness” is no too high a price to pay for it.

Our desire for authenticity at this stage outweighs our tact, you might say.

As we become more adept to compassion over time, however, our awareness extends and reinforces the importance of other people’s needs, as well as our own. And thus, another phenomenon occurs: We transition from being careless to being careful compassionate speakers.

But therein lies a tragedy.

For while we may have genuine intentions to recognize others’ needs and feelings—knowing that our feelings and needs are not the only ones in the room—exercising careful consideration of our words in that respect can easily pose a whole new barrier to our ability to authentically communicate with others.

We can end up, as they say, throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

How does this happen? How do we regain the fuller authenticity we finally became able to express without seeming careless to otherswith our words?

Well, first, it happens for the simple reason that withholding the honesty of our experience from others in a careful way too often tends to stem from a fear of the consequences (that might either befall us or bring further pain to someone else) in voicing ourselves.

So what other resort do we have?

What I’m recommending here is neither the obnoxiousness of careless honesty, nor the caution of careful consideration at the expense of sharing our whole truth, but the mindful awareness of everyone’s needs and the potential effect of our words—a mindfulness that incorporates the best parts of the former two.

Returning to the case of my friend, I took my time to be sure that there was a deep sense of connection between the two of us, and a ground of empathy around her pain for me to stand on, before I expressed my concern around her intentions—holding nothing back.

But before even expressing that concern, I conveyed to her what makes the crucial practical difference in what I’m talking about: the depth of my care for her, and the worry I felt in how she could potentially receive my words in a way other than as caring.

You see, through mindful awareness, all needs—both yours and mine—can be given full consideration while one of us expresses their two-fold truth.

It’s two-fold because we’re not only sharing the truth of our pain or problem, but also the care that we feel for the other person around how hearing our concern could land in them. When I told the friend my concern, I honestly expressed the worry rather than making the decision to speak honestly or not based on the worry.

Let me give you four basic steps for compassionately sharing that, for me, allow for the fullness of our painful truth while also speaking to the fullness of our care:

1. Be sure you’ve self-empathized before sharing.

Sharing either our pain or our care without being in a place of empathic understanding could indeed result in “careless” self-expression. Sometimes such clarity doesn’t come easily, but if you can practice waiting for it before committing to expressing yourself, you’re way ahead of the gang.

2. Be sure as well that you’ve empathized and connected with the other person.

This is as much for our sake as theirs. If I listen to someone but then choose to share my truth while still holding a grudge or judgment against them, then it may be the case that I don’t actually care that much how it lands in them at this time. It could save you loads of unintended ordeals to realize this now than later.

That said, I also highly recommend not empathizing with someone for the purpose of getting heard for your truth. “Empathy with an agenda” isn’t really empathy, nor does it effectively open us up to a space of acceptance and true listening around what’s happening for either of us.

3. Share the truth of your care.

By letting someone know you have something important to share and that you really care how it will be received, you give yourself an amazing opportunity for vulnerability to open between you. It will also quickly tell you whether the other person is even in a place to hear you or not.

Knowing that allows you the choice and power to decide to maybe empathize with them more before sharing, or to process together what could be making it difficult for them to really hear you.

4. Share the truth of your pain or problem, fully and authentically.

Having conveyed your care to someone, you now have the opportunity to deepen into even greater vulnerability—and deeper sharing of your experience—thanks to the more open understanding facilitated by the depth of the care you expressed.

To be sure, none of this guarantees that your truth won’t be difficult to hear.

However, you do stand a far greater chance of being heard and held. I myself discovered that sharing in this way offers an amazing gift to those I love, as my willingness to be vulnerable also expresses to them the extent of my trust in them to receive it, whether either of us handle the dialogue gracefully or not.

Compassion-based speaking and listening, done skillfully over time, has cultivated greater intimacy and deeper care with those dearest to me. At the end of the day, the degree of love and intimacy between you can only stand to be increased with the ability to authentically share your experiences with mindful awareness and care.

So rather than be careful, why not be “care-full”? Let mindfully aware communication be your guide, and watch the natural love and connection grow!

Photo by Garry Knight

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