I remember hearing somewhere that when you get pulled over by the police you can talk yourself in or out of a ticket within the first 30 seconds by your tone, your demeanour and your response to the officer who approaches your car ... I am not necessarily proud of it, but I have gotten out of tickets that I had rightfully earned by acknowledging my misdeeds and taking a somewhat sheepish attitude to the uniformed officer who is standing outside my vehicle ...My usual reply to "DO you know why I pulled you over?" is to acknowledge my offense and say, "Yup, I was in the wrong ..."
The truth of this concept though extends beyond a road side encounter with a Police Officer ... it is true of every relationship we find ourselves involved in ... the tone of voice in the first syllables offered creates the context of what follows ...
I was sitting with a friend recently, and he expressed concerns about his current intimate relationship. As he described his own reply to his partner's statement I asked - "how was it received?" He answered, "she was pissed." I leaned forward and said - "you know, the tone of your voice right now made ME want to slap you, and you were just describing something I had no involvement in ..."
A look of shock passed over his face ...
Sometimes, it's THAT simple ... how we say it ... the tone and force of our voice ... the stance of our body ... the expression on our face ... the volume ... all of these factors roll together to determine, even before a single syllable is uttered, how our words will be received, understood and responded to ...
Words do not always have to be spoken ... the response to our words, is often determined before the words themselves are spoken ... the tone of our voice may create a fight when the words being offered are expressing love and affection ...
Perhaps that's why the ancient sages suggested a pause and a breath before we speak ... taking a moment to consider our words, our body, our voice may allow our words to express what is really being said, rather than feeding erroneous assumptions and fueling conflict ...
.
2 comments:
I breathe in an out multiple times before speaking....however, my facial expression always speaks before I do.
It just shows that others are rreally a mirror of ourselves. Theat them as if they were us.
Post a Comment