Compassionate Conversation Toolkit: Artful Reflection
During a conversation when someone is sharing their suffering with you, and you are heartfully listening, how do you truly signal that you’re fully present to, and with, them?
Being fully present with another human being in their suffering is not the same as “I get it”, because I don’t believe anyone can truly “get” another person’s suffering. Though there may be similarities, suffering is fundamentally, an intimately private affair. Even assuming that you can walk in their shoes, it remains that both your feet are different. If you buy into that premise, logically then “I understand …” becomes an improbability. For that reason, phrases I avoid: “I understand …”, “It must be …”, “I get it …”
Instead, the reflection sentence is comprised of 3 components.
Step 1: Tentative guessing
First, I begin with “sounds like …” or “seems like …” or “I can imagine …” in a tentative tone. Tentative in the sense of guessing, because I can only ever guess and it gives the speaker an opportunity to say “no, that’s not what I meant …” This correction is NOT about me getting it wrong, because I may have fully…
