From The Daily Dialogue
From The Daily Dialogue
Broadcast of 1/3/98
Subject: [DailyDialogue #3] Acknowledgement
You make sense to me because ... - Harville Hendrix I've noticed that Eddy often speaks for awhile, exploring her thoughts out loud. After a paragraph or two she stops and asks, "Am I making any sense?" I recognize this as her expression of the universal hunger to be understood and acknowledged.
I best satisfy her hunger when I can earnestly say something like, "you are saying you're upset. Your frustration this evening makes sense to me because I know you wanted to complete your newsletter today. Leaving your latest draft on the computer at home means you couldn't. It's frustrating when time is wasted because of a mistake and forgetting something that is needed."
Such an acknowledgement recognizes both her feelings (frustration) and thoughts (wasted time, poor planning). Acknowledgement is an essential feature of dialogue, because acknowledgement provides verification that we have apprehended a genuine understanding of the other.
Experiment: Ask your partner to share one frustration about their work. When your partner seems to have completely expressed their frustration, fully describe and acknowledge your understanding of your partner's frustration without trying to change it in any way.
Affirmation: I enjoy the challenge of fully understanding my partner and acknowledging how her different-ness makes sense to me.
The Daily Dialogue is published each day of 1998 by e-mail. Copyright 1998, Eddy Brame and Marty Crouch, All rights reserved.
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