How to Communicate Better Using Dialogue

Aware­ness and pres­ence are the core of all dia­logue. Dia­logues are spe­cial, most­ly because so few of us ever have one. Most­ly we engage in sequen­tial or simul­ta­ne­ous monologues.

There are only two pur­pos­es for dia­logue. One is to solve a prob­lem. The oth­er is to share infor­ma­tion about the only thing I can share infor­ma­tion about—myself.

The oppo­site of dia­logue is fight­ing. The dif­fer­ence between a dia­logue and a fight is the “intent.”

There are one-sided fights and two-sided fights. A one-sided fight hap­pens when one per­son end­less­ly cor­rects and lec­tures and “per­suades,” while the oth­er per­son says, “Yes, dear.” It’s a “fight” because the recip­i­ent has no inten­tion of doing what (s)he has agreed to. You might think of it as bul­ly­ing and placating.

A two-per­son fight is always about “who is right.” Which is odd, because, as we’ve not­ed, there are only per­son­al opin­ions, wants and desires. It’s like that famous scene in the movie “Annie Hall,” split screen, Woody Allen on one side, Diane Keaton on the oth­er, each talk­ing to their shrink. Woody: “She nev­er wants sex—only 3 times a week.” Diane: “He always wants sex—3 times a week!”

Such dis­cus­sions are unsolv­able, of course, because there is no “right” num­ber of sex­u­al encoun­ters per week. There’s just what’s hap­pen­ing and how I inter­pret it. Sim­i­lar­ly, there is no “right” way to raise a child—there’s just what works. There is no “right” way to communicate—just ways that work and ways that don’t.

Let’s be clear here: a dia­logue about an issue and a fight about who is “right” about the issue is not the same thing.

Good dia­logue requires the will­ing­ness to be direct. Direct com­munication can be blunt com­mu­ni­ca­tion. It is always sim­ple com­mu­ni­ca­tion, notice­ably devoid of sub-plots or out­side opin­ions. “Every­one knows…” is not direct. “I think…” is.

Peo­ple who teach com­mu­ni­ca­tion at The Haven often use the words “open, hon­est and vul­ner­a­ble” to describe good com­mu­ni­ca­tion or dia­logue. They inter­re­late in sev­er­al ways, not the least of which is this: I can only be as hon­est about me as my open­ness and vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty allow.

I’m amazed by how many peo­ple think that hon­esty is a bad thing. It’s some­times put as a pow­er state­ment: “I would feel pres­sured if I had to tell him every­thing.” Oth­er times, it’s a pri­va­cy issue: “I have a right to my secrets.” Or an embar­rassment issue: “Well, I couldn’t tell any­one that!” Or, tit-for-tat: “I’m not going to be hon­est unless she is.” End­less and amaz­ing are the excus­es for lying.

Dar­bel­la and I have only one “line in the sand” (a stan­dard which, if bro­ken, would mean the end of our rela­tion­ship) and that is, total hon­esty. We decid­ed, when we first start­ed dat­ing, and have reit­erated with each oth­er since, that hon­esty is not only the best pol­i­cy, it’s the only policy.

We want to remind our­selves of the point I made in the sec­tion “The Poignan­cy of the Now.” Our com­mitment is to total honesty—and I can only be total­ly hon­est about what I know today. Thus, I agree with Gand­hi, who once said some­thing like, “I promised you the truth (as I know it today), not consistency.”

I hope you begin to see how “truth” can only play out in hon­est, open, vul­ner­a­ble dia­logue. And the only “truth” I know is the truth of me, in this moment. That truth is total­ly encap­su­lat­ed in the sto­ries I tell myself, in the feel­ings I gen­er­ate in myself, and in the thoughts I dri­ve myself with. None of this “has to be.” All of this is as I cre­ate it.

Open­ness is the will­ing­ness to shine a light on me. If I am open, I am will­ing to be clear about all aspects of myself. Vul­nerability adds to this: I am even will­ing to admit to the scary, strange, weird, nasty, manip­u­la­tive parts. I am will­ing to tell you how I hurt myself. I am will­ing to risk it because this is what true dia­logue, com­mu­ni­ca­tion and rela­tion­ship require.

Of course, I get to choose who I am in true dia­logue with. Many peo­ple come back from one of our Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Work­shops or from The Haven with the idea that they are sup­posed to be open, hon­est, and vul­ner­a­ble, say, with the gro­cery clerk. This is sim­ply not so. I might choose to be clear and hon­est with pret­ty much ev­eryone, but that won’t include shar­ing my inner the­atre with them.

I choose open, hon­est vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty with peo­ple I trust to be so with me.

Dia­logue is a tool that allows me to pay atten­tion to myself and to share what I dis­cov­er with a small and select group of friends. The real rea­son for the dia­logue is so that some­one else is wit­nessing what I am doing and think­ing and inter­pret­ing. Then, when I get off track and lose clar­i­ty with myself, my friend(s) can call me on it, typ­i­cal­ly by ask­ing me why I am mak­ing the choice I am mak­ing. And I can do the same for them.

Left to our own devices, we pret­ty much tell our­selves what we want to hear. We can get so wrapped up in the sto­ry that we miss what’s “real­ly” going on. Reg­u­lar, fo­cused dia­logue is a dis­ci­pline designed to com­mit me to being much more open about the details—the “why” in “why are you telling your­self that story?”

The mean­ing­ful­ness of what is dis­cussed shifts and changes; the mean­ing of the dia­logue itself remains con­stant. It is this: in dia­logue, I find, lis­ten to and reveal myself. Not for approval or vali­dation. Only I can do that for myself. Dia­logue is a way of learn­ing ever again that I am safe being me. I am OK being me.

In the com­pa­ny of friends, dia­logue frees us from the bur­den of being alone. There is, by agree­ment, accep­tance as opposed to “right and wrong,” manip­u­la­tion and blame. Because, of course, there is no one to blame. There is just this moment and the next, and the sto­ry I tell. And if per­chance I sad­den myself with the sto­ry, I can re­member Gand­hi, and sim­ply tell myself (and my friends) anoth­er one. Each equal­ly valid. Each equal­ly “true.”

Because the only mark of the worth of a sto­ry, you see, is the result.