How We Communicate... or Lessons in Vulnerability

    I've been thinking about what we communicate without intending to do so... what we say with our words, our tones, our facial expressions that leave people with impressions other than what we'd hoped or planned.  

    I see the difficulty in communicating that happens between other people all the time.  Most of the time when people are offended or upset, it is usually a misunderstanding of what the other has said: there has been a miscommunication.  To say it another way, what was intended to be communicated was not what was actually communicated.  This is why one of the counseling tools I've often used when couples come into my office is just to ask each person to tell the other what they have heard the other say.  Most of the time, it is not what the first person was trying to communicate.  This is more true when people are having conflict.  What you hear when you are already upset tends to be skewed in the direction of your upset.  We give each other more grace when we are happy in a relationship of any kind and therefore if we aren't sure what the other is communicating, we are more likely to ask.  We are also more likely to assume the best intentions of the other when things are going well.  

    But lately as I've thought about this, I've been taking it to a more personal place.  What I mean is that it can be difficult to see what it is we are communicating.  And if others aren't clear with us about what they are seeing or hearing, we often don't realize what we are communicating that was unintentional or even the opposite of what we are trying to say.

    Recently I was told that there is a disconnect between the way I write and the way I present myself at my job.  If I understood the person correctly, in my job I come across as competent and capable, but in my writing I come across as broken and hurting. I have to be honest and say this was surprising to me: VERY surprising to me. I write about what I have experienced as a way to connect life lessons to real stories.  I write about what I am experiencing as a way to connect with others' stories and experiences so that we can all grow together.  I always end my posts with hope, with lessons, with the gifts of each day.  But that is not what is coming across.    

    So, let me be clear: I am not "hurting" or "broken" except in the ways that all humans are.  We all have challenges or traumas we work on, deal with, and grow from. And while I have been choosing to share those, it is from a place of strength that I can be vulnerable and open in my sharing. I have lived through many things that have been incredibly difficult.  Whatever I experience now cannot possibly compare to those things, and I came through those times with strength and courage.  I do the same now: I am resilient and I know how to take care of myself.  I also know where there are resources if I need more help and I'm not afraid to ask for help.  Again I share my own journey as a way to help others learn the lessons and find the hope that I find.  I am not, ever, asking to be fixed.  Nor am I asking for sympathy or pity.  I am certainly not wanting people to be concerned or to feel they have to walk on eggshells around me. 

    Henri Nouwen talks about there being, in general, two kinds of pastors.  The traditional pastor is distant, removed, and appears, as apparently I do in person, as competent and capable.  The other is a "wounded healer": someone who shows their vulnerability and wounds as a way to be more accessible, but also as a way of communicating that they, too, are human and understand the pain that those around us experience. I have always tried to be transparent because I cannot relate to the distant traditional pastor and therefore have never wanted to be that. 

    Nonetheless, I learned early in my ministry not to use my personal stories in sermons unless they were resolved.  I use stories of past injury or past struggle as a way to present that honest but human "wounded healer."  I learned early on that I cannot share current stories or people will feel they need to step in, to fix me, to "help" me.  That's not an appropriate role for parishioners, so I don't share current struggles in sermons unless, again, they are resolved.  But I felt that, if I could make it clear in my blog that I was not asking for help and that I found hope and goodness and lessons for the journey in the daily struggles, that I could be more current in my writing, present a more authentic "wounded healer" who is on the journey of life as you all are.  

    I realize now though, that I can't, though I feel very sad about this.  Like the lesson I learned early on about not preaching current struggles since they would be misunderstood and distracting, I hear now that there are parishioners who read my blog in this public place and when they are about my current challenges, that my words are, again, often misunderstood and distracting for people; causing worry rather than inviting people to reflect on their own lives and to see both the lessons and the hopes that their own circumstances and situations share in common with my own life walk.  

    I am writing about this here for two reasons: first, to say that I will work to omit current challenges from my blog.  But secondly, I would like to challenge those who read my blog, have read it, continue to read it, to do two things.  First, I encourage you to read more closely.  Again, my intention is to share in a way that we all understand we walk this journey called "life" together, that there are lessons we all learn on the way, and there are experiences we can relate to our own lives in ways that help us to reflect and grow as well.  And that leads me to my second request: rather than focusing on me when you read my writings, I invite you to take it into a place of self-reflection to see where you, too, have similar experiences and how my own words might touch your own lives.  Most of the feedback or comments I receive on my blog have been from those who do exactly that.  And for that I am grateful.  

    As I always do, then, I choose to end this blog with the lessons learned and the hope I carry forward.  The lesson for me is one of paying more attention to the needs of those with whom I interact: in this case, the needs of my parishioners who read my blog.  The lesson for my readers, I hope, is also one of paying more attention: reading more carefully for the lessons, the gifts and the hopes in what they read, and applying it to their own lives.  The hope, then, is that we can grow together, as the hope for me always is.  That we can learn a way to be, even in this blog space, that is not upsetting or hurtful, but is still honest and vulnerable.  For again, the greatest strength is not found in protective walls, but rather in honest vulnerability.