In the Gap Between Meaning and Hearing

We often speak with clarity but are still misunderstood. We listen with intent and still miss the point. Because communication — in life, in love, and within the self — is rarely about just words. It’s about all the invisible scaffolding around them.

We speak with our beliefs, our bruises, our upbringing.
We hear through our fears, our assumptions, our need to be right.
And often, we forget to pause long enough to explain not just what we’re saying, but why it matters — and where it comes from.

That’s how conversations slip.
Two people can walk away from the same exchange thinking they’re in sync, when they’ve just nodded at different meanings.
Sometimes, we think we’ve reached understanding.
But really, we’ve just reached our conclusion.

—

For me, the sting is never about not being agreed with. I don’t care about being right. I care about being understood.
And when I’m not — especially by someone I love — it doesn’t just frustrate me. It makes me question the relationship.

Because if you misunderstood my words, fine. But if you misunderstood me — my values, my intention, my nature — then what are we really doing here?

That might sound unfair. But it’s the truth I’m sitting with.

I’ve realised I tend to overexplain, overcontextualise, overedit — all in the name of avoiding that space where my words can be twisted into something I didn’t mean.
But even that becomes heavy.
Even that creates distance.

What I want — and what I’m learning to practise — is saying less but meaning more.
To choose five words instead of ten.
To trust that clarity doesn’t need decoration.
And yet — to also know when to reverse that.

Because with my husband, I sometimes offer five words when what’s needed is ten. I assume he should know what I mean. That we’re on the same page, because we love each other. But love isn’t telepathy. It’s translation — over and over again.

—

And when I turn inward — when the conversation is with myself — it’s a different kind of effort.
Not refinement, but permission.

In a world that doesn’t allow for many quiet moments, I find myself rushing even through my own thoughts.
Filtering.
Correcting.
Trying to land on the perfect articulation instead of simply being with what I feel.

But the truth is, refining only works if it follows revealing.
If I don’t say the messy, unfiltered things to myself first, I never reach the elegant truths underneath.
And that’s the difference I’m learning:

Withholding is fear.
Refining is freedom.

The first hides.
The second distills.
And the path from one to the other is honest listening.

—

The best conversations I’ve had — the ones that left me grounded and seen — weren’t ones where I was agreed with.
They were ones where someone listened with their full being.
They asked questions to understand, not to win.
They didn’t bring prejudice into the room.
They didn’t try to trap me in contradiction or catch me out.

They came to connect.
And that made me feel safe enough to reveal.

—

I think if we all gave ourselves the same open-hearted listening we extend to others, we’d walk through life more stable. More sure of our voice.
Not because we’re always certain,
But because we’re grounded in the truth of where our words come from.

That’s the heart of it, I think.