The New Crop: Issue #35
candy prank + the illusion of communication + shame spirals (and how to get out of them)
What’s in this issue:
💭 Thought: The illusion of communication
📚 Read: A Surprising but Effective Way to Get Out of A Shame Spiral
😆 Today’s Laugh
Since Halloween just happened, this feels appropriate:
💭 Today’s Thought
The single biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has taken place.
- George Bernard Shaw
A lot of what happens in dialogue between people actually takes place inside our own brains and hearts.
We can observe someone else’s actions, words, body language, and tone. What we can’t often observe is their personal intention or motivation.
And yet, our brains are so good at making meaning and assumptions about someone’s intention based off of what we can observe, filtered through the ever-biased lens of our own lived experiences and beliefs.
This is just what we do as humans, and is why it takes constant work and practice to interrupt this pattern and truly communicate.
As leaders, our charge is to take responsibility not only for our intended impact, but also for our unintended impact, including miscommunications.
Each day, in your various conversations, how might you:
Spend an extra minute or two double-checking that you’ve understood someone correctly, or that they’ve understood you?
Get curious (and brave!) and ask a question when there’s something you don’t understand or can’t observe?
Slow down a conversation, if it feels like things or people are getting missed/lost?
Where might slowing down now help you speed up later?
📚 Today’s Read
A Surprising but Effective Way to Get Out of A Shame Spiral
In this article, Hailey Magee, a Codependency Recovery Coach, writes about her experiences with shame and the counterintuitive antidote to a “shame spiral” that led her to discover “self-compassion, acceptance, and self-forgiveness”. Click here to read.
See you next week!
xo,
Anne