Tone Deaf

What did you do?

This is just a question which when read prepares your mind to answer. Every time you start to read this blog, the answer keeps varying. The question remains the same, but the answer is dependent on the tone of your mind. When I did my course in counselling, my mentor told the class to write our name in the subject line of the email anytime we want to share something with him. He told, the name helps him recall our face and similar to how they show in movies, the face appears in the letter and it reads for them, the same trick works for him too. We smiled at his imagination but I followed his instructions and even now when I email him, I write my name as the subject line. I don’t know if he remembers my face, but it helps me save time in thinking what can the subject line be 😊.

A thought behind this story is what made me write this. When you read a letter, email or any personal whats app message, the tone of the message is what you have imagined about the person writing to you. You reply with that mindset and the person receiving it reads from his perspective of what image he has created about you in his mind. Written communication has an advantage of time. You can read, wait, re-read, analyze, may be even discuss about the same with someone and then respond. Still the tone of the message is not communicated. When I leave the house after an argument with my parents, even a “hi” from them over whats app will trigger multiple thoughts. When I spend fun time with friends and return back home, the same “hi” from friends brings a smile on my face. What changed? The message is the same, its me who changed or rather I can call it my mindset changed when I saw “hi” from two different person. When we are going through a tough phase in life, either financially, emotionally, physically or socially, we start imagining and noticing things which otherwise will be ignored. If at workplace someone asked for an update(a routine process), we tend to think they are trying to judge me, pinpoint my mistakes, disregard my effort or  anything else which leans towards negative path. If the same situation happens when you are happy, then you tend to share everything they need and may be much more. Its we who create situations pleasant or unpleasant around us and not the other person always. But I also agree that when two people are involved in any situation, not always the control of how things evolve lie in our hands, but what we want to carry with us is definitely under our control.

All this is with written communication where the tone is not of the writer but of the reader. Now lets come to oral communication. What happens when we talk? Do we usually answer the question or do we answer to the tone alone ignoring the question completely? I grew up in an environment where I had a very strict father and an over protective mother. One statement I have always heard from my father is: “answer to what I ask”. This is because even if my father asked me “what happened?”, my mother came to my rescue with the entire story behind that question. By the time she reached the actual answer, my father’s patience was out of that room. This might be the case with most of us. When my husband asks me: “what’s for dinner?”, I usually end up replying with a question back to him: “didn’t you like what you had for lunch?” This is how we are programmed. We overthink everything and most of the time complicate situations only by focusing on the tone rather than the words.

Fear is a major contributor to our behavior. We tend to focus on tone not because we did not listen to the content, it is because we try to protect ourselves from what might happen next. When a kid falls and hurts himself, the first thing as parents or adults we say, “I told you not to do that”. So the hurt might hurt less than the fear of disobeying. The reason for fear doesn’t end at obedience since that statement is not an end to the situation but beginning of many more unwanted scenarios. We are so good at remembering what went wrong that we always leave very less space in our memory for the good. This statement: “I told you so” always makes us ignore what is spoken after that and we become tone hypersensitive.

Assumption is the second factor after fear where we become tone hypersensitive. I asked my husband, “are you free this weekend?”, his response was: “what have you planned now?” When we hear a loud noise from kids room, even before we ask them, they end up saying: “I did not break anything”. When I ask my daughter: “did you finish studying science?” her response will be: “I was doing math”.  When a husband asked his wife: “Is lunch ready?” somedays the response might be: “cant you see I have been in kitchen whole day and have not even sat for a minute”. The list can go on. Today after you read this blog, pay keen attention to your responses when something is asked. I am sure you will relate a lot to what I am trying to say 😊.  Assumptions come from past experiences or to avoid future unpleasant conversations which we imagine.

Fear and assumption make us hypersensitive to tone and deaf to words we actually hear but choose to ignore. Relationships blossom when we become deaf to tone and sensitive to what our loved ones speak to us.

When we become tone deaf:
                        we indulge in conversation rather than argument.
                        we end up listening and responding rather than ignoring and reacting.
                        we sense care and concern much more than the words we speak and much louder than the tone could ever make us deaf.

People say Love is blind, but I say if you are tone deaf then, Love can see everything.

Let your love feel your life…….