Want a New Superpower?
By Fran Gallaher
This one’s good. It’s real good. It works outside you, in your outer world, positively affecting the people around you. It works inside you, in your inner world, changing every moment of your experience. It is a skill that is based on emotional intelligence, that category of smarts that shows that you get it, that you are genuine, that you relate, and you care. What is it?
Before I tell you, promise me that you won’t stop reading because it is simple. Which doesn’t begin to tell you that, while simple, it is also very, very powerful.
Promise?
Okay.
It is acknowledgement.
When someone speaks to you and shares anything that directly conveys information about their emotional state, or, by inference, shares something that might convey emotion, such as, “I didn’t sleep very well last night,” or “My partner/child/mom/dad/dog is sick,” or, “My Grandma has COVID,” stop. Before you say the equivalent of that-happened-to-me-last-Thursday, acknowledge what they said to you. Acknowledge the emotion or the situation that can be supposed to be producing emotion, as in, “Wow. That’s rough. Is something going on?” Or, “I’m sorry. How are you doing?” Or, “Oh, I’m sorry. How is she?” Or, if their words or their facial expression or their body language seems to warrant it, you might say, “I’ve got time later. Do you want to meet and talk about it?”
Listen to those around you
Okay, maybe it feels awkward. Maybe you read this and you find that you’re not implementing this skill. I get it. I didn’t implement it right away, either. What I did do was listen to the people around me.
I’m an entrepreneur. I’ve gone to a lot of networking meetings—a lot—I bet you have, too, and I hear statements like the ones I shared above and then I hear—nothing. Nothing that matters. Nothing that meets and matches the other person’s words with anything like the gravity of what they shared, nothing that creates connection or conveys regard. The first person shares something that has meaning for them and the second person—well, they may as well have turned on their heel and walked away.
Keep listening
As you listen, you’re going to notice a couple of common responses:
· That happened to me, or, you’re never gonna believe this but… that happened to me!
· An awkward pause and then, “Wow, well, I hope everything turns out okay!”
· Or (to me the worst): Bummer.
I think of these comments as the equivalent of small children who have not yet learned to play together. Instead, they play side-by-side in what psychologists call parallel play. These types of comments aren’t about relating to someone. Instead, they are like one set of spoken words that get lined up after another set of words. Or like you make a sound while you push your dump truck in the sandbox so I make a sound while I push my dump truck in the sandbox. The noise is cool. It fills in the silence. That’s all those words are good for.
Reflect the emotion
Instead, imagine that an emotion just jumped out at you: pain, fear, loss, disappointment, anger, confusion. Reflect it—maybe not directly, not at this stage, when the person just shared a moment with you, but, as I said, above, say something like, “That sounds rough. I’m sorry.” Maybe the person who spoke to you, who shared their situation with you, will end it right then. That’s fine. Most of us have no idea what to do if someone shows emotional intelligence because, well, it’s not exactly the norm. Maybe they will thank you or maybe they will indicate, by offering a little more information, that they want to talk about it. Maybe they will indicate that they are ready to move on. Just know that you did your part by offering them acknowledgement.
At this point, it will be easier for you. You had to have some awareness to avid the pitfall of parallel play, meaningless words offered with little understanding. Instead, again, now that you’re aware, you may find yourself naturally asking a few questions, following the other person’s lead, matching them in whatever pace they choose to share information with you.
Because you listened
When we start listening, start being aware, it’s much easier to pause before we jump in with our experience. Of course, I still do sometimes preempt my more reflective, acknowledging remark, and say, “The same thing happened to me!” But I hear myself—and I stop and acknowledge their loss or difficulty.
The inner world
So that was the way acknowledgement works in the outer world. What about the inner world?
Once we learn to stop and acknowledge others, we can more easily learn to stop and acknowledge our own thoughts and feelings? Jealous? Feel it, acknowledge it, and move on. You will be much less likely to act on it when you are aware of it. Angry? Same thing: feel it, acknowledge it, and move on.
How about fear? I find it harder to acknowledge my fear because I have a habit of pushing through the fear and doing whatever it is, anyway. That works, I have found, as long as—you guessed it—I acknowledge the fear first—and make sure I continue to be aware of it, whether it becomes more insistent or faces into the background.
Intuition
What about those little moments of knowing, those moments of intuition? I try to do the same thing—be aware of them, acknowledge them.
Recently I did an energy clearing on a client who had lately had repeated—and unwelcome—dreams of a former romantic partner. When I cleared my client for the former partner, the dreams, the current tie, seemed somehow linked to my client’s parent who often seems to send not-so-nice energies to my client: energies spawned from jealousy, blame, and resentment. This made no sense to me. What did one relationship have to do with another one? But I acknowledged the tie without understanding it, and brought it up later with my client. Oh, my client said, that’s easy: it was the former romantic partner who had urged my client to end a years-long relational cut-off, begin talking to the parent, and even begin caring for the parent. Which ended in—you guessed it—jealousy, blame, and resentment on the part of the parent.
Simply acknowledging the intuition, without understanding it, allowed me to remember it, bring it up later with my client, and discover the link between the intuition and the unwanted dreams.
Acknowledgement is a skill
Acknowledgement is a skill. It is really about becoming aware. As you practice acknowledgement, whether toward the words of others or toward your own thoughts, feelings, and intuitions, you are developing a powerful skill—a superpower—that will increase your emotional intelligence, allow you to show up as a more relatable and authentic person, provide you with the ability to navigate your own emotional winds, and be more in touch with the intuitive whispers that emanate from your inner world.
Simple? Yes. Powerful? Very. Give acknowledgement a try!