Compound Emotion
Weekly essays on money, time, energy, and the choices that shape our lives.
My daughter can become upset about something that seems small to me. She wants to keep playing when it’s time to leave, and telling her why we need to go doesn’t make her any less disappointed. My instinct is often to explain: we have to go, it’s getting late, you can play again tomorrow.
The explanation may be perfectly reasonable, but it arrives at the wrong time.
I’ve been learning a simple parenting technique: name the feeling before trying to explain or solve it. Instead of immediately telling her why we have to leave, I might start with, “You’re disappointed because you wanted to keep playing.”
At first, that felt almost too simple. I wasn’t solving anything, and the answer was still no. But the more I practiced it with my daughter, the more I started noticing how often I make the same mistake with adults.
Acknowledging a feeling isn’t the same as agreeing with it.
The same mistake shows up everywhere
A colleague raises a concern about a decision, and because I’ve already thought through the issue, my instinct is to explain the reasoning behind it. From my perspective, I’m providing useful context. From theirs, I may be answering a question they haven’t asked yet.
The same thing happens in relationships. Someone tells us something bothered them, and we respond by explaining what we intended. We may be factually right and still miss what the other person was trying to tell us.
I’ve caught myself doing this many times. If I think I understand the problem, I want to move toward the solution. If I believe there’s been a misunderstanding, I want to clarify it. But sometimes we’re answering the factual question while the other person is asking a different one: Do you understand why this bothered me?
Facts and feelings aren’t competing versions of the same thing. Explaining why something happened doesn’t necessarily show that we understand how someone experienced it.
Sometimes we get the facts right but respond poorly to the person.
Understanding doesn’t mean agreeing
I think this distinction matters because “validation” can sound like agreement. It isn’t. I can tell my daughter, “I know you’re disappointed that we have to leave,” and still leave. I can tell a colleague, “I understand why that frustrated you,” without agreeing with every part of their interpretation.
Understanding doesn’t require agreement. Empathy doesn’t require surrendering the boundary.
In some ways, that makes listening harder. It’s relatively easy to understand someone when we already share their view. The more difficult skill is understanding how something looks from their side while still reaching a different conclusion.
This matters at home, at work, and during disagreements. We often rush toward the part where we explain what we think. Sometimes the conversation would go differently if we spent a little longer making sure we understood what the other person was actually saying.
The order matters
I’ve spent much of my professional life solving problems: finding the issue, understanding the facts, evaluating the alternatives, and deciding what to do. That instinct is useful at work, but I’ve learned that conversations sometimes require a different sequence. Before solving the problem, I may need to understand the person’s experience of it.
Someone who doesn’t feel heard may experience another explanation as another attempt to dismiss what they’re saying. So we explain more carefully, they become more frustrated, and we wonder why better reasoning isn’t helping.
Sometimes the reasoning isn’t the problem. We’re trying to be heard before we’ve shown that we were listening.
That doesn’t mean every feeling is accurate or every reaction is reasonable. It doesn’t mean avoiding difficult conversations, changing a decision, or giving someone what they want. It simply means recognizing that being understood and getting our way are two different things.
I’m still learning this, and parenting gives me plenty of opportunities to get it wrong. My instinct is still to explain too quickly, especially when the answer seems obvious to me. But I’m beginning to notice that the explanation often works better after I’ve shown that I understand what came before it.
Maybe good communication isn’t only about saying the right thing. Sometimes it’s about making sure the other person feels heard before asking them to hear us.
P.S. Do you tend to listen first, or find yourself explaining and solving too quickly? Just hit reply. I’d be interested to hear what you’ve noticed in your own conversations.
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See you next Tuesday.
Bill