An Introvert on Conversation and Communication
I used to be enthusiastic when it came to conversation — I loved talking to people and could go on and on about any and everything as the hours trotted by.
I’d like to pinpoint losing this passion to when I was in my early teens mostly because that’s when a majority of the most important aspects in my life plummeted south.
For years after, I grew to dislike and distrust others; conversation became dull and distasteful.
I recently became more aware of my tone and word choices in conversation — sharp, blunt, and oftentimes vague — and it was only then that I desired to dissect my own weapon of a tongue.
I began to look at the conversations I had on a daily basis — the people I was surrounded by spoke in a constant of condescension, profound judgment, and from a closed mind.
Whenever I proposed my ideas and thoughts, I was ceaselessly challenged by one who held a need to be right, attempting to overpower me with their own.
Now, these were people who I’ve spent my whole life with, so my theory is that overtime, these habitual conversations shrunk my confidence and desire to speak up since I could merely expect to be shut down each time.
Genuine conversation became synonymous with competition.
Which soon taught me to always be on my toes in conversation, ready to attack, fighting to be the one on top.
I first learned more of competitive communication in Life Unscripted by Dan O’Connor and Jeff Katzman.
Competitive dialogue is where both parties involved don’t truly listen to one another, they more so try to one-up each other in an attempt to be heard.
When I read Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents by Lindsay C. Gibson, however, this endless cycle of being unheard made much more sense.
Though, even when I branched out, seeking lighter conversation with others outside of who I was surrounded by, I could not find a care in the world for communication — it took much more energy for me to have a conversation with someone than to not.
I peered at the world through a grey lens, seeing that an immensely rare amount of people ever had anything interesting or worth engaging with to say (I recently realized that this was my own fear of not having anything worth being heard that was being projected).
I soon learned to speak abruptly as my entire goal in conversation became get out of this as soon as possible.
And then I read Celeste Headlee’s book, We Need to Talk.
Celeste Headlee dissects conversation in such a profound way that completely sparked this blinding twinkle of inspiration and motivation in me.
Since then, I’ve had a chaotically written paragraph of notes accumulating on my experience with re-finding my passion for conversation and communication; it’s so overwhelming that I’d always quickly scroll passed it every time I sought a topic to write of.
I’ll be honest, my communion skills are still on the level of introvert.
Though, I have found the courage to open up more, not just to conversation, but in general as well, and I can’t wait to (finally) share (and talk about) this experience of mine with you over the next few weeks!
