Interpreting silences is not easy. They don’t always make sense, and when they have it, discovering it requires security in itself and knowledge of the other, so it’s actually a real art that tests our insecurities, our complexes and our desires, explicit or implicit.
Let’s start with the idea that not everything can be said, there are feelings or experiences that go beyond words, do not find a form of expression and therefore become a kind of?Full of content. It is not that kind of silence that we are going to address, because they simply correspond to the impossibility of communicating everything.
- The kind of silence we are going to talk about is deliberate.
- That silence in which one person asks for an answer to another and does not get it.
- Interpreting the silences of those who do not want to speak becomes something else.
- A way of saying without speaking.
- The problem is: say what?Let’s take a closer look.
“Silence is the loudest noise, perhaps the loudest of all noises. “- Miles Davis-
To know the art of interpreting silences, the first thing we want to highlight is that they give rise to an asymmetrical situation, at one end of communication there is someone who demands an expression, a response or a word, at the other pole, there are those who remain silent and have the power to respond to this expectation. This, of course, gives the latter power over the other.
However, the intention of silence is sometimes positive and sometimes not positive when silence is a way to take a moment to think or when you want to avoid an embarrassing situation, for example, and it is not when the intention is to ignore it. the needs of the other or enjoy the part of power that it produces, or even hide something.
For those who expect communication, it is never easy to interpret silences, in such cases it is very easy for fears, insecurities and dissatisfied desires to emerge, who fears rejection, for example, can interpret silence as a sign of rejection.
Those who long to be loved may think that this silence contains a strange way to respond to their affections, it is easy to get confused when the other shuts up.
Many times what silence expresses is confusion, you need an answer or a word that the other does not have, the other does not know how to respond and therefore prevents his words from compromising him on something that may not be exactly what he wants. Middle.
In this case, what prevails is insecurity and doubt in the other, it is not uncommon that this is a way of not “presenting”, of not being responsible for the actions themselves. For those who shut up, there are dualities to prevent people from building a coherent message that they can communicate.
There are also those silences that have a rejection component, what expresses silence in these cases is that one party does not want to maintain communication with the other, does not respond because it has no interest in maintaining a communicative chain with those who ask it. the answer or expression.
This usually happens when someone wants to engage in or maintain a romantic relationship with another person who does not want the same thing, so silence is a way of breaking that line of communication that leads to a loving encounter, this also happens in all cases where it exists is a demand that the other cannot satisfy.
The interpretation of silences becomes a double-edged sword when we let these silences fill with ghosts. To do it properly, we need empathy. Looking at the other in their own context, being able to put themselves in place and approaching what they want to express when they are silent, we will never have an exact answer, but it is possible to understand the general idea.
Everyone has the right to speak or remain silent if they prefer, it is important to understand. But it is also important to know that talking is always healthy, especially in situations that involve a seed of conflict.
Faced with problematic situations, it is much more valuable to search and find the words that best express what we feel and think, take positions as clearly as possible and communicate them. If we don’t have an answer for each other, the healthiest thing is to say we don’t have it.