Being Understood Feels Like Magic

Is this your feeling?

A few weeks ago, I bought a book about how to play the drums. Then I sat down and actually did the exercises in the book. After an hour, I could tell I was better at drums. I was energized by the progress, but I was also kind of stunned, in a bad way, by the realization that you can simply practice anything and get good at it. Why haven’t I been doing this my whole life?

A few days later, I shared this experience with my brother. I said I wish I’d realized the power of practice sooner. He brought up how we both probably spent at least a thousand hours of our adolescence playing videos games. I told him I was mad that we hadn’t put that time into something more useful, like making art or learning Spanish.

He responded by reflecting back the feeling I expressed, “So you’re frustrated because you feel like you could’ve achieved so much more if you’d been productive with your time growing up?”

That was exactly what I was feeling. 

Then he said, “And you think you’d accept yourself currently if you had achieved more in the past?”

When he said this, I was stunned, like this guy watching David Blaine do a card trick:

Every time we have a feeling, it is caused by a need either being met or not being met.¹ I didn’t realize that I had an unmet need (self-acceptance) that was underlying my feeling (frustration). My brother recognized this need, pulled it out of me, and then presented it back to me. Being on the receiving end of this felt like watching a magic trick. I wanted him to say, “Is this your card?”

Often, when we try listen with empathy, we get ahead of ourselves. We say things like, “What you’re feeling is totally valid.” But if we say this, we’re doing two things that might make someone feel unheard: (1) we’re assuming that we’ve correctly identified what they’re feeling and (2) we’re making a judgement about that feeling (by declaring that it is valid). Sometimes, people tell me my feelings are valid before I even have words to describe those feelings. They declare my feelings as valid, and I want to respond, “Wait, which feelings?”

Before we try to make judgements, give advice, tell stories, etc., our main goal in listening is just to make people feel heard. One way to make people feel heard is to provide proof that we know what they’re feeling. We do this by reflecting their feelings back to them. 

To achieve this, guessing at what someone is feeling (e.g. Are you feeling frustrated?) is effective because: (1) it demonstrates that we’re curious about their feelings and (2) it helps them put a label on what they’re feeling. Even if we’re slightly off, the recipient of the guess can correct us, and we’ve helped them get closer to a feeling label that resonates.

My brother’s guess helped me realize that my frustration was coming from a subconscious belief that achieving more would help me accept myself more. Any burnt-out formerly gifted kid can tell us that more achievement doesn’t lead to more self-acceptance. And since my frustration was based on this incorrect cause-and-effect relationship, I’d say my feelings were actually not valid. I realized I was just falling for the old mirage of acceptance-through-achievement. When I realized that, I was no longer frustrated.

When someone helps us understand our feelings (and the needs that underlie those feelings), they often don’t need to bother validating them. And that’s the real reason why being understood can feel like a magic trick: it makes unhelpful feelings disappear.

1. This idea is taken directly from Nonviolent Communication (NVC).